Category: Society

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Society

[1079] Of the Sunni-Shiite divide at Michigan

It is disheartening to see the Sunni-Shiite divide is occurring at a place where diversity is so highly cherished:

Last year, a Sunni student at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor sent a screed against Ashura to the Muslim Student Association’s e-mail message list. The document had been taken off SunniPath.com, one of many Web sites of Islamic teachings that Shiite students said regularly spread hate disguised as religious scholarship.

Azmat Khan, a 21-year-old senior and political science major, said that she, like other Shiites on campus, was sometimes asked whether she was a real Muslim.

“To some extent, the minute you identify yourself as a Shiite, it outs you,” Ms. Khan said. “You feel marginalized.”

I was never active in the association while I was an undergraduate at Michigan. I have always been disinterested in religious activities since I was a teenager and so, the active inactivity is easily comprehensible. In fact, I think I became a member through sheer accident.

The only time when I could be seen at the Muslim Students’ Association-organized event was during Ramadan, when the association organized fast-breaking event at the Wedge Room of West Quad. And from time to time, when classes or World of Warcraft started to demand the usual time slot for Friday prayer up north, or the cold and the wind was simply absolutely intolerable, I chose to do my Friday prayer together with MSA-organized congregation at Kuenzel Room, Michigan Union.

Through my limited experience with the MSA, I do not remember hearing the divide as pronounced as reported by the NYT.

Categories
Kitchen sink Society

[1070] Of Metroblogging Kuala Lumpur

When I left Kuala Lumpur for Ann Arbor years ago, I failed to appreciate the Malaysian capital as much as I do now.

To me, earlier, the city in the Klang Valley is so chaotic that it is hard to make sense out of it, especially if one is driving. As a freshman as Michigan, I was asked to write an essay about Kuala Lumpur. I wrote “it is easier for an ant to get through a plate of spaghetti than a person to survive the city”.

By the time I was a sophomore, I found myself walking the street of the world’s capital, New York. New York strengthens my perception of Kuala Lumpur — an unplanned city under the merciless sun. Place me anywhere in Manhattan and I will not lose my sense of direction. Place me anywhere in Kuala Lumpur and half the chance, I would probably seek direction from a stranger more often than a tourist would.

My travels, limited it may be, later told me that every city is unique; each city has its own appeals. San Francisco can never be Los Angeles and Los Angeles can never be New York. Or Singapore or Bangkok. Or Kuala Lumpur.

Kuala Lumpur is my home. I have probably spent almost 19 years here. Despite that, I do not dare to claim that I know every nook and cranny of the city. In some way, that is sad.

Sometimes, it is odd that while I love traveling, seeing and experiencing new places, I have yet to become familiar with my home city. For instance, I have been to the Yosemite National Park but I have yet to explore the Klang Gates Ridge that dominates the eastern frontier of Kuala Lumpur. I have been to many museums in the United States, including the famed Met but I cannot remember when was the last time I visited the National Museum in Kuala Lumpur. I have been to the top of the Empire State Building but I have yet to cross the skybridge of the Petronas Twin Towers.

While I was frolicking by the Dungun River almost a year ago, Patricia, an Englishwoman that has been in Malaysia longer than I have lived my life, told me something to the effect of “we usually take things that we often see for granted.” She is right. She is absolutely right.

Since then, I do think I have come to appreciate Kuala Lumpur more. And in effort to know more of Kuala Lumpur, I have approached the moderators of Metroblogging and am persuading them to create Metroblogging Kuala Lumpur.

Metroblogging is a city-specific blog. Or rather, a sort of a confederation of city-specific blogs. It has its own entry at Wikipedia if you need to know more about it. Or better, go to the about page at Metroblogging.

As a requirement to establish Metroblogging Kuala Lumpur, I need to find a minimum of 8 regular bloggers living in Kuala Lumpur to blog about the city. The topic of the posts at the blog could be anything. It could be art, history, places of interest, routine or even odd news about Kuala Lumpur. I already have two volunteers, including me, to support the Metroblogging Kuala Lumpur. I need another 6 people to join me. Each person will need to post at least once a week. The mod said thrice weekly but I think an update per day at an 8-person group blog should be great.

So, if you are interested in starting up Metroblogging Kuala Lumpur, leave me a message at the comment section or email me. I will get back to you.

C’mon. Let us do it. I find it insulting that Azeroth has its own Metblog but not Kuala Lumpur!

And yeah, Hari Wilayah is a little over 49 hours away.

Categories
Politics & government Society This blog WDYT

[1066] Of WDYT: BN in the next general election

I am testing two new plugins. So, let us begin!

In light of current development, if a general election is held in 2008, how many seats in term of percentage would Barisan Nasional control as the result of the election?

  • 80% or above (32%, 10 Votes)
  • Between 70% and 80% (19%, 6 Votes)
  • Anywhere from 60% to 70% (29%, 9 Votes)
  • Below 60% (19%, 6 Votes)

Total Voters: 31

Loading ... Loading ...

This survey is not as nearly as scientific at all. So, if there is any statistician wannabe out there, spare me the lecture.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

p/s — The Background is probably Third Eye Blind’s most underrated song.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

pp/s — this is a sticky post. I intend to keep the poll open until next Friday. And please vote only once. I have taken the necessary basic steps to ensure one vote per unique visitor but it is not too hard to circumvent the rules I (or rather, the author of the plugin) have set in place.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

ppp/s — I changed my mind. Until Thursday instead of Friday. I need to make Metblog KL as a sticky post.

Categories
Society

[1036] Of religion as panacea and naivety

Panacea is a noun that describes an idea of a cure-all. Panacea is also the goddess of cures and healing in the ancient Greek mythology. The etymology of the word is as clear as daylight. Though the myth has been well dismissed by rationality, she still has worshipers of her own; she lives on among the philosophies of many religious conservatives in the far right.

The far right religious conservatives — be it Christian conservatives in the US or the Muslim conservatives in Malaysia — believe that the woes of the world will end once the world returns to religion. They believe that religion is the panacea for the world.

In Malaysia, it is not rare to find a religious conservative expressing the idea fervently. As a nominal Muslim, Friday sermon is one of the places where I could find individuals that believe in the concept of religion as panacea. The local blogosphere is another place where local religious conservatives proudly display their panacea thinking. Wherever I spot the idea, I cannot help but smile in amusement, noting an irony in the thinking of the religious conservatives, hyperbolically speaking.

In the broadest sense, the ancient Greeks that practiced polytheism could be considered as pagans. At the same time, religious conservative Muslims have the most profound disgust for paganism. Now, if conservative Muslims believe in panacea, would not that make them as part of the pagans themselves?

Hyperbolic reasoning asides, it seems that the “religion as the panacea” idea comes together with another concept as a package. I am unsure whether it is a separate idea or part of it. Nevertheless, the idea that tags along with the panacea concept is a longing for the past. There is an implicit belief among conservatives that the past is better than today. On average, of course.

After all the progress humanity has achieved, I find it hard to believe the past is better than today, even with all the problems we are facing currently as a society and as an individual. We today are far richer than our ancestors. Not just in term of wealth but also in term of knowledge. With so much knowledge out there, I could only wonder why a person would want to live in an inferior age.

Yet, I do not mind if these religious conservatives prefer to live in the past. The only one thing that I ask is this: please do not drag me and others that disagree with religious conservatism along to the past. After centuries of progress and discoveries, I prefer to be here and now and strive for a better future rather than seek refuge in the ignorant past. I am a pessimist, yes. Within this context however, I am the optimist.

My optimism has its limit though. It does not include a trust for a cure-all solution. There are limitless problems out there and it is hopelessly naive to believe that all those problems could be solved by a panacea. Snake oil failed as a panacea. Why would religion be any better than snake oil?

Religion might have a role in this world but being a panacea is not it.

Categories
Economics Society

[1026] Of internet disruption and Adam Smith’s little finger

What lesson could we derive from the recent Taiwanese earthquake?

Adam Smith is right.

The earthquake caused massive communication disruption across East Asia. The local blogosphere blogs incessantly about the disruption and the frustration and inconvenience that it brings along.

I have yet to see a blog that talks about the victims of the earthquake though. Even the mass media, local and international, are concentrating on the repair effort of the damaged transmission cable, not on the direct victims, the ones that have lost relatives and friends.

In 1759, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith writes:

Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connexion with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment.

…And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquility, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befall himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night ; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own.

Or, paraphrased by Mel Brooks:

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.

While the first part is true, Smith continues:

Human nature startles with horror at the thought, and the world, in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it. But what makes this difference? When our passive feelings are almost always so sordid and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should often be so generous and so noble? When we are always so much more deeply affected by whatever concerns ourselves, than by whatever concerns other men; what is it which prompts the generous, upon all occasions, and the mean upon many, to sacrifice their own interests to the greater interests of others? It is not the soft power of humanity, it is not that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature has lighted up in the human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting the strongest impulses of self-love. It is a stronger power, a more forcible motive, which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct. It is he who, whenever we are about to act so as to affect the happiness of others, calls to us, with a voice capable of astonishing the most presumptuous of our passions, that we are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it; and that when we prefer ourselves so shamefully and so blindly to others, we become the proper objects of resentment, abhorrence, and execration. It is from him only that we learn the real littleness of ourselves, and of whatever relates to ourselves, and the natural misrepresentations of self-love can be corrected only by the eye of this impartial spectator. It is he who shows us the propriety of generosity and the deformity of injustice; the propriety of resigning the greatest interests of our own, for the yet greater interests of others, and the deformity of doing the smallest injury to another, in order to obtain the greatest benefit to ourselves. It is not the love of our neighbour, it is not the love of mankind, which upon many occasions prompts us to the practice of those divine virtues. It is a stronger love, a more powerful affection, which generally takes place upon such occasions; the love of what is honourable and noble, of the grandeur, and dignity, and superiority of our own characters.

Whether the second part of the “finger and earthquake scenario” would occur, that is yet to be seen. But we certainly will not see it coming from Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. After taking a short leave from holidaying abroad, he has gone back on vacation. This is amid warnings of a second wave of floods.