Sajakkini

Just as I don’t know exactly what it means to be a Malay, or whether I really prefer dogs or cats, I also don’t know what it takes to be a man, much less a REAL MAN. There. You can go back to whatever you were doing before this now. Or were the metrosexuals among you somehow hoping that I’d share some godforsaken secret that would help you redeem your self-esteem? You must think my surname is Spice, mate.

If you’re that interested to know more, well, all right, then. I shall tell you. But I warn you: I grew up without having any usable father figure type to model my behaviour after. (That’s why I’ve always had a problem with authority, but we’ll talk about that another time, I think.) So whatever tips you might find below, I’ve made it all up.

If you’re busy and stumped for time, here’s all you need to know about being a REAL MAN: stop wearing women’s accessories in your hair. Or anything that was designed for women, for that matter. In case you feel compelled to protest, let me ask you this: do women look good in a bushy mustache? There you go. Same dynamics apply. So kindly refrain from whupping my ass with your man-bags, please. (more…)

Democracy is a nice concept on paper, but unfortunately it doesn’t work. And quite frankly, I don’t see how it can ever work in the real world. Because for democracy to work, we need thinking masses. And that, as history has shown us time and again, ain’t gonna happen.

The brutal truth is that the mainstream will always be blinkered with prejudices. If it’s not about religion, race, gender or social class, you can bet your freezing grandmother’s last hot water bottle that they will think of something else as a way to exclude people. That alone defeats the lofty ambitions of democracy - people simply cannot be trusted to vote for what is good for everyone involved.

And - snrkkk - liberty and equality for all? They forgot to say, “Only if you can afford it, brader”. Frankly, it’s ridiculous - what kind of fair system calls for you to be a multi-millionaire before you can even have a shot at wresting the reins of power?

(US Democratic Senator Howard Dean was, and still is, lauded by some as the best hope America never had. Unfortunately for the world, the Senator had to pull out mid-way through the political race: he didn’t have enough money. In the so-called modern democratic system, you need about US$100 million just to count a serious campaign. To keep things in perspective: amount spent by USAID to buy food for the entire country of Liberia last year? US$35 million.) (more…)

Pity the people who have to portray others as inferior savants in order to feel good about themselves. What must that say about their sense of worth and self-esteem, we may wonder.

And this is a sword that cuts in all directions, mind you. It applies equally to the Muslims content to live under their coconut shells while swiping away at the invisible Jewish conspiracy, as it does to those white colonial types still dreaming of the glory of empire.

It applies just as much to the Malays who clutch their precious lands so tightly to their chests while railing against phantoms wanting to steal everything away from them, as it does to those Chinese who call for parity and a rescaling of the NEP even as they continue to consciously employ methods of excluding other races from gaining access to their jealously guarded distribution networks. (more…)

“Here, you guys must read this,” his message said. An e-mail I’d just got from a friend, with a Word file attached. It’s rather long, the message went on, but you really should read it. “It’s very well written and it makes a lot of sense.”

So I opened it. And recognised the first sentence right away. It was an article I had written, what, must be two years ago now. Posted into the ether and forgotten about, like all the others. It was like getting a postcard from the past.

Funny how things come back to bite you in the arse like that. And funny how good that can feel. Apparently, it’s been making the rounds anonymously, like so many attachments. Which has always been how it’s supposed to work. But - heh - doesn’t hurt to gloat once in a while, eh. Flattery, even when it’s unintended, does add a certain spring in your step. (more…)

So who is Sheikh Omar Bakri, anyway? He has been called a “firebrand cleric” (is there a cleric who isn’t these days, I wonder), and who has a penchant for pissing off moderate British Muslims, apparently.

The guy heads an organisation called the Al-Muhajirun (huge red flag there), and doesn’t have much good to say about the West, so it would seem.

Which makes it odd that he chose to live in London, don’t you think?

I mean, correct me if I am wrong here, but London, as every Malaysian schoolkid knows, is the capital of the United Kingdom. This London, which happens to be in Europe, is nowhere near the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, or the Islamic Republic of Iran, or the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It is about 1,500 kilometres on the wrong side of Makkah. (more…)

Do you use a Mac or a PC? Frankly, I can’t be bothered, and I am so freakin’ tired of listening to people whining about either Mac or PC. It’s just a damned computer, so choose one and shut the F up. If one doesn’t work for you then choose the other. How hard could that be?

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of people shoving prejudices at me. What really gets my goat, though - and you ought to do this when you want to piss me off - is when people ask me for my opinion about something, and then spend the next hour or so trying to convince me that I’m wrong. I mean, what’s that all about? Why you crapping your insecurities on me for, homes?

Why is it so hard for us to grow up and learn to be secure about our choices, anyway? Why the constant need for validation? What am I, your mother? (more…)

By all accounts, mine is a pretty safe life. Have never smoked, used to go to pubs for the music but have never drank, never done drugs except for what they’ve managed to hide in legalised medication. Been on rollercoasters once or twice but couldn’t figure out exactly how the adrenaline-thingy is supposed to be fun - if you have to practically put your life on the line to feel alive then what the hell is wrong with you?

Never had a one-night stand. Entering premature old age as I am, I’ve even come to consider recreational sex as being over-rated. Too much hassle for three minutes of pleasure, really. If it even gets to be that long.

I have discovered/invented other ways of having fun, but to the typical man they’d probably be about as exciting as putting on three condoms and a deepsea-diving suit when you’re with Monica Bellucci. My main cardinal sin is that I sleep too much. How much more boring can a person be? I’m so grey that if I stood next to a tombstone, drunks would ignore the grave markers and piss on me instead. (more…)

4.30 on a Friday afternoon. I’m supposed to be working on the artwork for an upcoming exhibition to be held soon but I find myself discovering increasingly innovative ways to procrastinate. It doesn’t help that I am sitting in my glorious home in the middle of a balmy afternoon when everyone else is hunched over their keyboards in the office, busily working and trying to ignore e-mails like this.

How much would you pay for this kind of freedom? In my case, it’s costing about two-thirds of my last-drawn salary. I’d be happier with half, but it’s only been six months. So give me another year before you start proposing to me, yeah. Unless you don’t mind your (I mean, our future) children going to school wrapped in old pieces of carpet and eating the tupperware in which their bekal (rations) is supposed to come in every now and then.

A friend of mine who has been freelancing for the past six years and consequently has a conjugal relationship with maggi mee thinks this is the kind of life humans are meant to lead. I agree with him in that the 9 to 5 routine is sometimes unnecessary, but in terms of it being artificial, I’d now have to wonder. The Quran plainly states that God created the day for working and the night for remembrance, so spending half your life in an office must be how it’s meant to be. (more…)

In the doldrums of mid-Sunday afternoons I would sit and gaze out over my balcony at the world beneath my feet, munching on buttered toast laced with blueberry jam, sipping on Japanese mocha (freeze-dried and instant, maybe, but handcrafted, ma’am; read the label and see). And then, upon finishing, I’d feed my ants.

It’s easy - I just leave my plate out overnight. By next morning it would have been stripped empty of crumbs, leaving the china pristine and white. This always give me great pleasure, knowing that my subjects have been well-fed for yet another week of mischief and leisure.

I am a benevolent dictator. A tyrant most kind, I give them the space to roam about, but other than that they have no say. Like every good genial monarch, I look upon them with condescending affection. Every morning I check my dry bathroom sink before I fill the basin with water lest I accidentally drown someone down it (and to his family that would surely be a bother). I tread carefully wherever I go for, like Solomon, I constantly hear their distress over children being trampled beneath the feet of yet another arrogant regress. (more…)

I live somewhere near Kampung Kerinci, I told him. He’d been so curious to know where I go home to at the end of each night. Oh, he said, your own place? Yes, I said. You live alone? Yes, I said. Wow, he said, so you can walk around naked in your apartment then, huh?

And this was a straight Melayu guy.

You know, I don’t get it. That’s the third guy - three of them in six months - who’s said the same thing. I kid you not - they were, at best, only half joking. (Actually, it would be even more damning if they really were joking: you know what they say about jesting and the truth.)

It’s enough to make me wonder: what the hell is it with Malay guys and this fantasy of walking around starkers in the privacy of their homes, anyway? What is going on?
(more…)

“Tepuklah dada, tanyalah selera.”

I really, truly, honestly have no idea what this thing means. Yet I come across people saying it all the time. It makes me seriously wonder about its etymology - what does the chest/breast have anything to do with sussing out what you desire?

Asking the people who like to utter it is no help. They don’t even realise how silly it sounds until you bring it up. (You know how, when you were young, you’d say a word againandagainandagain endlessly and suddenly it turns into something completely alien? Same stark effect here.)

Now, if the line had said, “Squeeze your breast and ask what you desire”, then maybe there is a semblance of… I dunno… sixth sense reasoning or something. And if it was a man doing the squeezing to a woman’s breast, well, now we’re actually getting somewhere. (more…)

At kakiseni.com.my, a ribut (storm) had been blowing over Amir Muhammad’s wicked review of Gerak Khas 3. It’s a fine return to form for Amir, as I’ve mentioned to him the other day, and may we see such wit in his NST columns to come.

The film itself is not what I wish to comment on; I think Amir has done a good job on that, so if you’re a purveyor of the quintessentially British sense of humour a-la Douglas Adams, you should go find the article and read it. (It’s in Malay, though.) What I am interested in is the response to it, as judged from the comments that people had left under the review.

The thing about this style of self-deprecating humour is that it is usually but a thin veil for truth, and that truth is often painful to hear or read for certain types of people.* (more…)

Somewhere in my subconscious I know I have always been an anarchist. And now I know that I am an Islamic anarchist and that I am not alone. I cannot begin to tell you how much of a relief that is.

Maybe it is the way the course had been set for the river of my life. Perhaps as a result of not having strong father-figure types to latch on to during my formative years (the core of character, it seems, is forged by the age of seven), I’ve always had respect yet disdain for authority.

Contradictory? I don’t think so. On one level I recognise that some form of authority is necessary for human society to function, yet it is always healthy to be wary of anyone in a position of authority.

How can you not be? I have met honest leaders in my short life, but the number of dishonest ones far, far outnumber these. And in the midst of a society caught in the throes of blind materialism? The verdict becomes a foregone conclusion: vampirism rules. (more…)

Sometimes when I’m driving God speaks to me.

No, I’m not talking about hearing voices in my head. What do you think I am, crazy? Besides, God knows me better than that. So when He speaks to me, He writes it down, naturally.

Just the other day, for instance, I was on another one of those 1-ringgit highways (I love the way they price our roads like little budget shops, it’s so cute I almost want to get down everytime and hug the toll-booth. Or the troll in the booth, if you prefer that sort of thing). You know, driving, just minding my own business and entertaining the thought of tailgating the usual Kancil driving at 40 in the 90kph lane, when - bam - God tells me to be courteous. (more…)

The Muslim grapevines are still buzzing over the victory of 16-year old Shabina Begum over her British school’s authorities. The Islamists, predictably, are crowing, forgetting that just mere months ago they were busily lambasting Western governments for tyranny against the Muslims.

France was evil because it banned the wearing of headscarves in public schools, and now Britain is saintly because it allowed one girl to wear what she likes to school. It’s nice to live in such a black and white world where things are so neatly ordered.

“People should not be barred from wearing what their religions demand,” they say, nodding to one another sagely (never mind, for now, the question of who
interprets those religious demands for us Muslims, and whether their interpretations are actually true to the spirit of the Quran).

They forget the sword swings both ways. God only knows what these Islamists would say should a Hindu suddenly demand that she be given the right to wear a saree to school in their strict Muslim countries, in line with her religious beliefs. (more…)

3.00 am. We are standing in an alley that snakes like a river of piss and honey, she and I, facing one another. She sucks on the cigarette like it’s mother’s milk, and holds on to it like it’s a branch hanging over a bottomless crevice. Three stubs lie around her like acorns, their poison still drifting into the steamy air.

Her fingers are trembling and she’s gnawing her thumb into a stump. Her left arm presses her bag into her breasts like it’s a child needing comforting, the hand absentmindedly caressing her neck. Her furtive eyes actively avoid mine. Every question is met with a nervous giggle and a vacant “Yeah”. She must be new at this.

Her black satin slip looks more like what you’d wear at bedtime if you’re feeling naughty and you’ve run out of undies. Her stocking has a tear just below the right knee and I idly muse if she’d gone Catholic on someone in a street somewhere. She’s got dark wavy hair that cascades past her shoulders, framing a face so fine you know she must have one of those flowing names that sound like someone farting slowly through a silk bedsheet. (more…)