Archive for October 1st, 2008
Eidul Fitri in Prison
Posted by Kit in Farish Noor on Wednesday, 1 October 2008
By Farish A. Noor
This week marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadhan and the celebration of Eid’ul Fitri the world over. For more than a billion Muslims all over the planet the month of Ramadhan has been a time of personal reflection, contemplation and deliberation over their deeds and achievements over the year; a time of restraint and introspection; a time of reckoning. One only hopes that the leaders of the Muslim world have also taken this time off to do some serious soul-searching as well, and in particular to reflect on their deeds and misdeeds in the course of running the respective countries they have been elected to govern. (That is assuming that they were elected in the first place, for the quaint peculiarity of the Muslim world today is that quite a number of Muslim leaders have never been elected, and many of them regard the position of high office as if it was a God-given right to them and their families.)
During this month of Ramadhan quite a number of peculiar events have taken place all over the Muslim world. In Malaysia, the fasting month began with a right-wing leader of the conservative UMNO party making some rather repugnant remarks about the Malaysian Chinese community, referring to them as foreigners who can go back to China if they dont like things as they are in the country. Odd that such a remark could mark the start of the month of Ramadhan, when Muslims are meant to be controlling their emotions rather than letting them run riot in public. Odder still that a leader of the UMNO party can even make such a historically inaccurate and unqualified remark, oblivious to the simple fact that not only have the Chinese in Malaysia – and the rest of Southeast Asia – been in the region for more than five hundred years, it was also thanks to the missionary efforts of Chinese Muslim scholars that Islam came to some parts of the region like Java for instance.
The month of Ramadhan also witnessed a string of rather uncharitable actions being performed in the glare of the public eye: Teresa Kok, a member of Parliament and one of the leaders of the Democratic Action Party (DAP) of Malaysia, was arrested and detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) on the grounds that she had made some inflammatory remarks concerning the volume of the azan, or call to prayer, emanating from the mosques in her constituency. Read the rest of this entry »
Plot to make Teresa anti-Malay & anti-Islam bogey
Posted by Kit in Islam, Religion, Teresa Kok, UMNO on Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Teresa Kok Is Still On Their Target, But For a Different Reason Now
From Malaysia Wave
The powers that be has failed. They attempt to use Teresa Kok as the bogeyman for Malays has failed. Their attempt to create feeling of anger and dissatisfaction among the Malays against DAP has failed.
What’s more important, the Malay dissatisfaction they fail to create has also resulted in their failure to convince PAS members that Barisan Nasional is the answer to the security and the future of Islam in Malaysia. THIS IS THEIR BIGGEST FAILURE.
Teresa Kok has successfully fend off all attempts to paint her as Anti Islam and Anti Malay. She issued a statement denying her involvement in the “azan” controversy long before she was arrested under ISA. Her Press Secretary writes very good Bahasa Malaysia too, so her statement was well understood and accurate.
After Teresa’s release, she attended a Buka Puasa while wearing a skirt on the compound of the Masjid. Suddenly all hell broke loose. Her skirt was suddenly painted as an abomination and Teresa was painted as someone with complete disrespect to Islam for entering a mosque compound wearing a skirt. Read the rest of this entry »
RPK from Kamunting cell
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, ISA, Raja Petra Kamaruddin on Wednesday, 1 October 2008
GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH
I was perturbed when I read YB Teresa Kok’s statement that the food under ISA detention is equivalent or slightly better than dog food. It costs RM8 to feed a dog, according to the Malay Mail survey and only RM4.50 to feed on ISA detainees.
I feed my cats and fish premium food such as science diet and would never dream of feeding my pets the food that we are fed here. I actually stopped eating the food here after the first couple of days because it gave me diarrhea.
A couple of nights ago I vomited after eating the food and now I cannot even stand the sight or smell of the trays that they send to our cell twice a day.
I now survive on dates and plain water and I suppose if that is good enough for camels to survive in the Arabian Desert, it should be good enough for me. Read the rest of this entry »
What do we do with our “Churchills”?
(Good Hari Raya read and food for thought)
Was I really inferior to straight-A students?
The Electric Paper
September 27, 2008
By Ng Tze Yong
HE has walked the same cobblestones as JRR Tolkien, Margaret Thatcher, Steve Forbes and Bill Clinton.
Mr Lim Wah Guan, 28, belongs to a rare breed of Singaporeans to have studied at two of the world’s most prestigious universities – Oxford and Princeton.
Last year, Mr Lim, a happy-go-lucky chap with a hoot of a laugh, completed his master’s degree at Oxford in the UK. He is now a PhD student at Princeton in the US.
However, he did not take the usual Singaporean route to the hallowed hallways of these premier institutions.
He does not hold a prestigious scholarship. He is not a ‘GEPer’ (someone from the Gifted Education Programme). He does not even, well, come from a top junior college.
Mr Lim is, in his own words, an ‘NUS reject’. Read the rest of this entry »
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