Goodbye Facebook

I flirted with facebook for a while; for a very short while, which is to say about 3 weeks. Most of the postings were a bit too frivolous for me, not that that's not ok. If I had a lot more time to waste that is.. Maybe I could revisit it later, since I have that singular choice of not being able to divorce myself completely from it. I can only deactivate my account.

Before I go any further, here is a belated " Happy Eid" to every body.

I am happy that some people I have hoped would go to the sacred land have at last found the time to go. I have suspected for sometime that he was not so keen on going there for fear of instant retribution from the Almighty for all his sins. It turned out that this was exactly the reason why he has not found the courage to go. There are other people I know who think the same way, no thanks to people who like to spread the false notion that the moment one sets foot in Mecca one will immediately pay for one's sins. This negative selling of Mecca is silly and not doing the religion any good.

All Human Persons are Equal

The St. Petersburg Declaration

April 5, 2007

We are secular Muslims, and secular persons of Muslim societies. We are believers, doubters, and unbelievers, brought together by a great struggle, not between the West and Islam, but between the free and the unfree.

We affirm the inviolable freedom of the individual conscience. We believe in the equality of all human persons.

We insist upon the separation of religion from state and the observance of universal human rights.

We find traditions of liberty, rationality, and tolerance in the rich histories of pre-Islamic and Islamic societies. These values do not belong to the West or the East; they are the common moral heritage of humankind.

We see no colonialism, racism, or so-called "Islamaphobia" in submitting Islamic practices to criticism or condemnation when they violate human reason or rights.

We call on the governments of the world to

• reject Sharia law, fatwa courts, clerical rule, and state-sanctioned religion in all their forms; oppose all penalties for blasphemy and apostasy, in accordance with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights;
• eliminate practices, such as female circumcision, honor killing, forced veiling, and forced marriage, that further the oppression of women;
• protect sexual and gender minorities from persecution and violence;
• reform sectarian education that teaches intolerance and bigotry towards non-Muslims;
• and foster an open public sphere in which all matters may be discussed without coercion or intimidation.

We demand the release of Islam from its captivity to the totalitarian ambitions of power-hungry men and the rigid strictures of orthodoxy.

We enjoin academics and thinkers everywhere to embark on a fearless examination of the origins and sources of Islam, and to promulgate the ideals of free scientific and spiritual inquiry through cross-cultural translation, publishing, and the mass media.

We say to Muslim believers: there is a noble future for Islam as a personal faith, not a political doctrine;

to Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Baha'is, and all members of non-Muslim faith communities: we stand with you as free and equal citizens;

and to nonbelievers: we defend your unqualified liberty to question and dissent.

Before any of us is a member of the Umma, the Body of Christ, or the Chosen People, we are all members of the community of conscience, the people who must choose for themselves.

Endorsed by:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Magdi Allam, Mithal Al-Alusi, Shaker Al-Nabulsi, Nonie Darwish, Afshin Ellian, Tawfik Hamid, Shahriar, Kabir, Hasan Mahmud, Wafa Sultan, Amir Taheri, Ibn Warraq
Manda Zand Ervin, Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi,

(Note: St Petersburg is in Florida, USA The Secular Islam Summit was held by practicing, and non-practicing, Muslims. Participants voiced their concerns about Islam. )

POWER STATION FOR SABAH

IS IT ON OR IS IT OFF?

The ongoing debate on the setting up of a coal-fired power station in Sandakan would probably be further stoked by the stirring revelation that the the company appointed to build the plant is owned by two SESB personnel (2 Datuks, residents of KL, it seems. Read page 19 of The Daily Express: "Bakun Supply Can If There Is a Will) Could this be clouding their thinking?

I am for tapping the excess capacity of Bakun. But listen to what Minister Peter Chin has to say:

"Already the Cabinet has decided to bring power from Bakun Dam to the Peninsular through undersea cable, if we can do that, I am very confident we can bring power to Sabah, this is for beyond 2020," he said. (Daily Express, May 16,2009)

Of course if it can be done beyond 2020, it can easily be done now, or should we ask permission from the 2 datuks first?.

Kartika

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarnor was caught drinking beer in Cherating Pahang 2 years ago by Islamic enforcement officers. She has pleaded guilty to the charge in a syariah court in Kuantan, Pahang on 21 July 2009. She was fined RM5,000 and handed a sentence of 6 lashes of the cane. Is she the first person in Malaysia to be caned for a drinking offence? Probably.

My problem is not with the notion of the syariah enforcment authorities wielding the big stick but why punishments are discriminate. A male muslim offender in another state was only sentenced to 30 days imprisonment. Many has expressed outrage, among them being Dr Siti Zubaidah Ismail, a criminal law expert at UM's epartment of Syariah and Law.

In the face of it it seems that the pious judge has not taken into account all mitigating factors. And we will never know whether the sentence is fair or not because she has decided not to appeal. In the name of justice, she should appeal the sentence if only to prove to the world that the terms compassionate and merciful are closest to God's name.

English Proficiency is the KEY TO THE 21st CENTURY

The government has at last made the decision to scrap the teaching of maths and science in English. To boost the task of teaching English to our students, many more English teachers will be engaged, and English literature will be reintroduced. Core subjects will also be reduced from more than 10 at the moment to just six.

The aim of education should be to nurture thinking and creativity. This has been hardly addressed. The reason why English literature was taken out from the curriculum was that students no longer had sufficient command of the Engish language to make that subject teachable.

The big question however is whether we want to be leaders of industry and commerce of the 21st century, or merely followers. English language is key if we really are serious of going forward.

Korea started its economic rise at about the same time as us. Now they are the biggest ship builder, and a major force in the world in the fileds of telecommunications, electronics and automobiles. Perhaps we can get a glimpse of what makes Korea tick with a glance of one of their leading educational institutions.

The Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) was formed in 1971, and now aims to compete with MIT. It aims to be one of the worlds top 10 science and technology universities. In 2010 it will teach class exclusively in the English language. One of their goals is to produce graduates who can become global leaders in science and technology.

Why can't we have at least one local university, UMS for example, use English as the single medium of instruction?

MOI=EMI+MMI?

The UPSR result is out. Datuk Hisham says it has to be looked into carefully before we can say anything definite, but tentatively, he is giving the thumbs up for the teaching of math and science in English.

Now we are told, that the results are going to be further pored over by a host of experts. Meanwhile there is mounting pressure on him to revert to BM, to avoid the National Language being “sidelined”.

We wait with bated breath and hope that the decision will favour the future of our children. However, there is a bigger consideration, and that is we must act in favour of our country’s future.

Is our mind battling with our heart on this?

I say, our children are the future of this country, and we hold their future in our hands. And that perhaps is the singular merit of being parents.

Public education policy is a strategic vehicle to achieve social and cultural integration. It is politics-driven. That’s the reality of it. Eventually, the Minister will act on the best of intentions and advice, but on a quest this far-reaching , it is the imperative thing to ensure that there can be more than just one path to achieve our goals.

What actually are we aiming for? Is it to have a more educated population, or a population who can speak English? What I have read so far is that there is an overwhelming view that the idea is to achieve both, and some are using specious logic to assert that by teaching math and science in the English language we will have a more English-speaking population.

I think those two things are entirely separate, and that is the key to our discourse. Teaching math and science in primary school has more to do with cognition than with communications.

Basically, cognitive development, is about teaching our children to think, and in primary level especially, to develop their natural intelligence. This will only be possible if the child and teacher speak a common language.

To learn to speak English is about communicating with others, and this, all teachers will agree, needs a different set of approach altogether.

It will be a grave error on our part and a cruel injustice to our children, to bear the weight of an adult’s wishful thinking that they can accomplish both at the same time. It would give an ironic meaning to the proverb: to kill two birds with one stone.

Japan became a developed country long before it decided to have an English-speaking citizenry by embarking on an annual spending of USD322 million in 1987. (Look up their JET program).

Their education policy became a success an envy of many. Of course they have a conscious policy of training a cosmopolitan elite both as its buffer , and a conduit for assimilating and digesting foreign ideas to be recast and developed on their national mould. But more importantly, their system was pitched to the highest standards. The only Asian University in the Top 20 U’s in the world is Japanese.

Learning science and mathematics is an absolute must, but it remains of little benefit if it is not geared to achieve world class excellence. The worst thing we can do is to teach them in English to a child who is a total stranger to it.

There is a more tragic outcome of teaching math and science in English to a kid in say, Kampung Nasakot in Ranau, who has no TV or radio, and has never seen an orang putih, and that is creation of social stratification for his race, which we want so much to avoid. We can also later, chose to say, that they have a very low IQ in the first place. Whoever does that has a place in hell reserved for him.

What I am saying is that let us be more judicial in which place we have to introduce the policy of English to teach math and science to. If the child knows only Malay, let it be Malay, if it is Chinese let it be Chinese. If Dusun, let it be Dusun.

But I know, and I believe that Malay is an adequate language for that purpose, but I disagree if we must restrict ourselves to that language alone.

If we want so much to think forward of one day being able to teach math and science in English only, then there is no choice but to adopt it as the medium of instructions for all our schools.

Economic development is a function of other strategic policies and not dependent on language alone. Let us don’t deceive ourselves in believing that without English we cannot develop.

English is an important communication tool. But let us first make our children smart, then whatever language they choose to speak in, their genius will shine through.

KK's New Art Gallery

(A letter to the Daily Express)

I read Richard Sokial’s piece (DE 10^th Nov, “Have A Contest..”) on the proposed new art gallery for KK and I agree that we need to think through a lot of things aside for its final design.

KK city is growing more beautiful by the day and the addition of a (beautiful, I hope) new art gallery  would be  a wonderful addition to that evolving beauty. But more than that, a new building is surely  the government’s indication of a new advocacy of enhancing the role of the arts in the life of our community.

The central role of an art gallery is the physical role as a temple of the arts. But  the value of a new gallery cannot be measured by the the amount of money put into it, but by the sum total of the civilizing values generated by what an art gallery should truly be.

Art is evolving in all its forms , and I agree with saudara Richard that the design must address all the needs of all the art forms. It cannot be just an empty space but must be accomodative of say, big formats, installations, multi media and other non-traditional art forms.

We have also to address the needs of the artist community, not just in its creative aspect but perhaps more importantly the commercial aspect, for artists also need to eat just like the rest of us, and they need both a conducive and a supportive environment to flourish. Paintings and the other art forms, I think, should eventually be sold, and this is where we should think of ways to encourage the presence of art dealers. It is a fact that paintings are mostly sold by networking and not through galleries.   Paintings and other media expressions get sold mostly by networking between dealers, artists and galleries.  

The imperative of a new building is that it should immediately be an address which will  attract artists from all over the world to come and exhibit their works. In developed countries, art galleries are important tourist destinations.  Because of this we need to design activities to cater to diverse needs of both the artists and the public.

Perhaps low  budget allocations are limiting the activities of our present  art gallery.  If that is so, we can rethink how our RM10 million can be better spent.  A purely static display gallery will not do much to attract viewers or tourists. We have to engage the public and encourage artists to think of new ways to reach more people.  We need to organise more art fairs in different locations. Perhaps we can also sponsor deserving  artists to participate  overseas like the Sydney Art Fair, to expose them to a wider audience  and as a learning experience.

Commercial or personal galleries are still very much nascent in Sabah, and the role of government is therefor even more important and crucial to give impetus to this important activity.

Because of the limited local market and  probably because of lack of capital, we have yet to see artists  reach out to more people by creating  cross breed venues, just like internet cafes, or have them in gift, furniture, antique or clothing shops. Interestingly, the present art gallery is described as  “temporarily housed in the Science Centre of the Sabah Museum”. (Look up the Sabah Art Gallery Homepage). We should call it the Art and Science Museum to celebrate the fact that scientists can appreciate art, or that some scientists are artists.

 Art does not belong in a separate compartment of a person’s life. Hopefully it should be an essential component of a civilized person’s way of life. A new art gallery for Kota Kinabalu is  very important. It should be the much needed soul of a thriving  city . In that respect, RM10 million seems to me a paltry sum.

GET THE BUFFALOES OFF THE ROAD

It is generally agreed that the meat of free-ranging chicken is very much healthier than that from the cooped-up variety.

The free ranging mode of rearing chicken is perhaps the easiest way since chicken, like pigeons, know how to find their way home. You just leave them on their own, even ranging further than they should, at the risk of life and limb. They will be home by nightfall, except those who have met their fate on the road.

You just have to be a little bit more observant to realize that all domesticated animals in Sabah share this same wayward spirit. Buffaloes, cows, horses, goats, sheep, dogs and cats. Every motorist, probably without exception, would have run over a chicken, a cat or a dog as soon as they get a license to drive a motor vehicle.

These animals don’t belong on our roads. The owners are inconsiderate, and the authorities must be guilty of dereliction of their duties to let this go on.

My late mother was seventy-five years old when she was hit by a cow which has strayed into our compound. She had to be confined in bed for a month, suffering from shock and physical pain. The cow is still out there, and no one is feeling guilty.

I know of a motorcyclist who hit a buffalo lying in the middle of the road. He was thrown off right in the direction of an oncoming car. His death roused the villagers to impose some controls on the roving cows and buffaloes. But now it is back to how it was previously. One death should be more than enough. Cows and buffaloes don’t belong on our roads.

My mother died of old age five years after the incident. What is painful is that she treated the incident with the cow as something natural. Having cows and buffaloes roaming all over the place is the accepted thing. Perhaps if we still had our herd of buffaloes, we would be like all the other inconsiderate owners.

There are already obvious reasons why we should be doing something about stray animals. For one their stinky shits are more than enough to turn tourists off. They disrupt traffic and they damage vegetation.

There is a Malay proverb that says that it is easier to take care of buffaloes, than taking care of people. Or is it the other way round?