Category: Society

Categories
Society

[2855] Improvement TnG must make to create better train commuting experience

The use of Touch ‘n Go (TnG) payment system as the sole cashless payment option for KL trains, specifically those operated by RapidKL, in my opinion has been unnecessary. TnG is inferior to the native cashless system that RapidKL had previously.

Prior to the full migration, the trains accepted multiple payment options, but the superior method to me was the native cashless payment. Topping-up was easy and free. It was hassle-free relative to having to use TnG cards. In case of any problem with the native payment system, the station attendant would be able to help out the users almost immediately. Even the problem would be solved quickly on the spot. In contrast, trouble with TnG cards would require users to put in extra effort to reach out to TnG and their vendors, and their customer service takes time to respond to you.

Unfortunately in July-August 2017, the superior option was phased out in favor of the TnG cashless payment method. The official reason for the migration is most mind-boggling. The whole RapidKL network— the monorail, the LRT, the MRT and the buses — needs to phase out the native cashless system because after billions of public money spent on the MRT, the new MRT line has troubles processing the native cashless system.

But hey, it could process TnG system just okay. Why is that?

Instead of making the MRT line integrated into the existing widely usely system, the whole train network has to be integrated into underused MRT’s line and with weak payment method.

I have yet to come across the explanation the MRT payment method is that bad, and how that was possible. It feels like somebody overlooked the payments side. Just saying the MRT could not accept the native cashless payment and so, the migration had to happen is not enough. There has to be an explanation why the MRT payment method is that bad. It is either somebody overlooked it, or the system has been captured by special interest.

But the train has moved on and missed a station.

So, rather than moving back to the old system and possibly incur additional migration cost (I do not know whether the TnG system is cheaper than the native cashless system for RapidKL to operate; this is something to watch out for), I think the better way now is to improve the current system.

Here is a list of things I would want to see happening soon in order to improve train commuting experience for everybody, except for Najib Razak:

  1. Place TnG reloading machines at all train stations. At the moment, most stations do not have the machines, which offer free top-up services. This forces users to go to other places to reload and incur top-up charges (imagine, being forced to use TnG and then having to pay fees to top-up). In contrast, all stations have many machines that could process the native cashless payments (and even so, places like KLCC had trouble keeping the lines short: imagine the situation with TnG now). Furthermore, all those native machines have now been rendered unnecessarily obsolete by the full TnG migration. How much money has been wasted? Sounds like a job for the Auditor General.
  2. Have more than one machine at all stations. One would have thought for such a high volume traffic network, TnG would place a lot of machines for train users. But no. Even at KL Sentral, the hub of the city’s transportation, I could spot only 2 or 3 TnG reloading machines. The limited availability of the machines, which forces users to top-up at other places like 7-Eleven and incur top-up fee, makes me suspect this is intentional. It feels like a classic rent-seeking exercise, which possibly a case Malaysian Competition Commission should look into (I am toying filing a complaint. I have read the submission guidelines and it is not that hard to digest).
  3. Upgrade the reloading machines to process commands faster. Right now, it takes several minutes to complete a transaction. It is slower compared to RapidKL’s machines, which by the way, are now underutilized and processing cash payments only. One would operate the old native machines for cashless transactions like this: you touch the screen, insert cash and go. It is possible to do this under one minute unlike the so-called Touch ‘n Go machines, which require the patience one would reserve for a dead turtle.
  4. Upgrade the reloading machines to enable it to give refund at point of sale. The slow inadequate TnG machines could only receive cash. There is simply no slot to spit out cash. In case of failed transaction, no refund is possible. For refund, users would have to contact TnG customer service over the phone and such response does not happen immediately. I have been waiting for nearly three hours to get a refund. I complained to the station attendant, who redirected me to TnG’s external vendor. I have also complained to TnG and demanded my refund, which they later redirected me to the same external vendor. The vendor has yet to reply to my request. In contrast, the whole refund process would happen immediately under the old system, because refunding is possible at the point of sale. Transformation indeed.
  5. Until these suggested improvements have been made, TnG must suspend top-up fee charged at other top-up locations. Top-up should be free from the time being.

Suggestion 1-4 are investments TnG should have made when it knows it would be the sole payment option for the high-volume traffic train network. TnG clearly has underinvested in its infrastructure, happy to take in revenue it does not deserve.

Categories
Personal Society

[2852] Two policemen and a migrant worker

Some time back in 2015, I walked down to the train station after having a late meal in Bangsar. It was almost an hour to midnight and I did not want to miss the last train home. It usually takes about 15 to 20 minutes to get to the Bangsar train station from Jalan Telawi by foot, and the train stops running close to midnight.

I remember jaywalking across Jalan Maarof and then strolling down to near the bottom of the street, before turning into the slip road into a smaller and less busy Lorong Maarof.

It was there where I saw two officers, one standing and another sitting on his motorcycle, interrogating what seemed to be a migrant worker by the road. The worker was of South Asian origin, I think.

It was somewhat dark in the area. The road was lit with orange light, making the night felt quiet and lonely. There is something about orange light emitted from fluorescent lamp. It makes a street feels mysterious, if not sinister. The sound of cars zooming by, speeding beyond the speed limits, made the atmosphere all the more isolating. Nobody on the main road would care or notice anything if something happened.

I walked closer toward the three men while wishing I was already in my bed. I had to walk pass them to get to the train station. It was the shortest distance available to me.

I was tired, but my eyes were fixed on the three. But the fact that there were two police officers and a migrant worker there did not quite register in my mind. I observed with my senses, but my mind saw nothing. My mind was that absent security officer snoozing at night in front of the countless screens in the central CCTV room. The cameras were recording, but nobody was watching.

The officers did not notice me, until I was right next to them. They were startled by the sound of my footsteps. There was almost fear in their eyes, in contrast to the South Asian person’s blank expression.

I did not comprehend what was going on but I noticed an officer was forcing his hand into the Bangladeshi’s pants pocket, taking out a wallet. I had a sense that that was inappropriate.

I understand everything now in retrospection. If you asked me what was the expression on the Bangladeshi’s face, I now would be tempted to claim that it was an expression of resignation. It was an expression that said, tonight, I was being unlucky.

I looked at the officers, but I walked on as my mind slipped further into some of kind delirium. I was a zombie, for all I care. I was both aware and unaware at the same time.

That was until the bright white light at the train station jolted my mind out of its slumbering state. Already used to the low energy orange light, the eyes screamed in pain while adjusting to the high-frequency, high-energy LED white light. The announcement blaring through the PA system made a good alarm clock, even as apart of me felt that I wanted to disobey its instruction.

By the time I boarded the train and was zooming across Kuala Lumpur, I was fully awake. White light filled the largely empty two-car carriage. I wish they had dimmed the lights.

The train runs on a viaduct from Bangsar to just after the Central Market in downtown Kuala Lumpur. Then it dives into a long dark tunnel, making repetitive whooshing sound as the train compresses the air against the concrete wall of the tube. It was at that moment, as train rushed underneath the city that I began to consider things that I saw.

It did not take long for me to suspect that the two officers were extorting the migrant workers for money. I have no proof of it happening, except for my memory and suspicion.

I am telling this story today because yesterday, the Deputy Prime Minister, who is also the Home Minister in charge of the police, said that “Amalan mengutip ‘duit pau’ untuk perlindungan dalam kalangan agensi penguat kuasa sudah lama berlalu.” In Malay, in short, the police does not do extortion, anymore.[1]

Anymore, he said. Should I believe him?

Back in the train, I was filled with regrets, asking myself what if I had stopped and asked questions to the officers. I asked, if I had realized it earlier there and then, what would I do? Would I do what was right? I remember wondering, the degree of corruption in our society.

The train emerged from the tunnel just before the Ampang Park station. The swooshing sound was replaced with a cool humming.

It was dark outside. It was midnight, and I was leaving the last train.

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

[4] Amalan mengutip ‘duit pau’ atau habuan untuk perlindungan dalam kalangan agensi penguat kuasa sudah lama berlalu, kata Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. Bagaimanapun, Timbalan Perdana Menteri berkata, gejala rasuah itu masih menular kononnya menanggung perbelanjaan ‘meraikan’ pegawai atasan yang turun melawat anggota bawahan, khususnya di peringkat daerah. “Ini alasan tidak cerdik kerana bercanggah dengan pendirian anggota penguat kuasa yang diberi amanah untuk memikul tanggungjawab melindungi negara dan masyarakat. “Tindakan pegawai atasan membuli anggota bawahan juga perlu dihentikan kerana amalan ini menjurus kepada perlakuan menghalalkan rasuah dalam kalangan unit beruniform. [Mohd Iskandar Ibrahim. Farah Mashita Abdul Patah. Luqman Arif Abdul Karim. Ahmad Suhael Adnan. Era polis ‘pau’ duit perlindungan sudah berlalu – Zahid. Berita Harian. May 21 2017]

Categories
Politics & government Society

[2847] We care because we are capable of empathy

It’s a big, big interconnected world out there. And that interconnectedness, ironically, makes the world smaller is a non-physical sense. Economically, socially and politically. Our lives are no longer affected purely by domestic matters. To some, the foreign affairs segment in the newspapers is an abstraction but for some others, the lines demarcating domestic and foreign concerns are blurry.

These remain the days of globalization still, however the Trumps, the Le Pens, the Farages and all those who long for a smaller world are trying to rewind the clock. They may yet be successful but for now they have a lot to undo. In the meantime, many have multiple homes and multiple affiliations with friends traversing national boundaries, opposing such undoing and rewinding.

For Malaysians, the war in Ukraine so far away across the Asian continent painfully proves the fact foreign affairs are home affairs too. Many Malaysians could not find the country on the map, but it still has an impact on the Malaysian psyche. And Malaysians did care for development in Bosnia during the Balkan War and in Kosovo. They do care about the conflicts in Palestine, in Syria and in Iraq. And to take a trivial example, there are Malaysians who care about the fate of foreign, English Premier League teams, despite not being English themselves.

The refugee crisis in Myanmar is also a Malaysian concern, because these oppressed men, women and children are coming to or passing by Malaysia. Whether we like it or not, we have to act in one way or another. Pretending the imaginary lines on a 2-dimensional map as an impregnable wall ensuring that is not our problem will not help by one bit. And to turn back the boats is not just an illiberal policy, it is heartless.

In the several years after the 9/11 attack, I became a victim of profiling at US airports, just because of my nationality and my Arab-sounding name. Security personnel would put me under extra security measures and screening. That discouraged me from leaving the US for home for the next four years for fear I would face immigration troubles upon reentry at the airports. I knew of other international students who needed to report to the Homeland Security office regularly, and I feared being subjected to the same requirement as an entry condition.

And so, I spent my entire time as a student in Michigan travelling throughout the US, reaching New York, DC, Miami, San Francisco, St Louis, Chicago, Sioux Falls and more. I remember how it felt like to drive the car through the Great Plains from the Great Lakes, or how peaceful it was staring into the night sky from the bottom of the Tuolumne Canyon just north of Yosemite in California. I learned to love America for the wonders it brought to my young mind.

Indeed, my political beliefs to a large degree were shaped in the US. However flawed the US is with all of its hypocrisies, it is still the greatest liberal democracy that the world has. It is the Athens, the Rome, the Baghdad, the Cordoba and the Delhi of our time. Just because of that, I looked up to it. Because of this and because I spent a significant portion of my early adult life there, if I had a second home, the US would be it.

When Trump and his followers do what they do, and among others equating the US to Russia, I feel that is an undoing of what the United States of America is supposed to be in my eyes, a foreigner, who looks kindly to the east across the Pacific. Trump is killing the US that I know, and by that, threatening the idea of liberal democracy all around the world (even in Malaysia where our democracy is becoming increasingly flawed and more authoritarian). That makes me angry.

The Trump’s ban, now challenged in the courts, adds further to the anger. My alma mater, the University of Michigan, is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year. And I am entertaining thoughts of returning to Ann Arbor to catch the festivities and walk down the memory lane. Trump’s ban, could potentially affect me. I still remember my experiences at various US airports during the Bush era. I thoroughly dislike the discrimination and I do not wish on others what I went through.

So, I do care for things that if happening in the US. The world is interconnected enough that I have real attachments to the US. Needless to say, I have friends in the US too.

But one does not need to have personal ties to the US to be worried about development in the US. It is just like how some of us are concerned about the oppression in Xinjiang, or in Iran, or in Egypt, or in the Philippines or anywhere else without the need to have any personal connection.

Even if we cannot think of ways which a reclusive, protectionist US could affect Malaysia — it will by the way: HSBC economists think Malaysia will be one of the top four economies to be worst affected by a protectionist US — we can still care because we have empathy for other human beings. Injustice or discrimination anywhere is still wrong and we can take a position on the matter. We can make personal judging based on our values. We have enough room for empathy those near and far beyond our shores.

Because of our capacity of empathy and because of the interconnectedness of the world we live in, it is outrageous to think we have to choose between caring US-based or Malaysia-based issues. Both are causes for concerns. I care for the deplorable things happening in the US, and at the same time, I care about the 1MDB corruption scandal, or the blockade in Kelantan, along with other injustices in the Malaysian society I am living in.

Indeed, it is a false dichotomy having to choose the US or Malaysia. There is no reason why a Malaysian needs to choose between the two. We can be concerned for both, and more.

More importantly, there are liberal values and among them are that we all are created equal and all should have the same fundamental rights. This applies all around the world, not just in and around your small neighborhood.

In time when anti-liberal populists are turning national policies inward, it will be most disappointing to have liberals retreating to a small-world cocoon as well. Such inward retreat would be a betrayal of liberal belief, that liberal values are universal in nature and not provincial. We fight racism, discrimination and everything bad out there by staying true to our liberal values, not by abandoning it.

Categories
Conflict & disaster Society

[2839] Syrian refugees on Jalan Bukit Bintang

Part of Jalan Bukit Bintang has been transformed into a mini-Arab town over the past 5 or 10 years. It has been quite an intriguing trend.

Arab restaurants and tourists are not uncommon along the stretch between the Pavilion and beyond Jalan Raja Chulan. They like Malaysia for various reasons and it is easy to see that they are a wealthy bunch, fitting the general stereotype assigned by the locals to those originating from the Gulf quite nicely.

But in recent weeks, something extraordinary has been happening. I am beginning to spot Arab women and their children begging on the streets on Jalan Bukit Bintang.

The first time I noticed them, I found myself feeling incredulous, feeling that this must have had been some kind of a prank. Many beggars all around the city are linked to some kind of syndicates. Some are manipulating public sentiment for disagreeable personal gains while others are truly desperate in need of help. The prevalence of syndicate-related beggars and the second group of people make me suspicious of these Arab beggars.

But yesterday, I spotted a woman in her black purdah without a face veil sitting on the floor just outside the newly renovated Isetan store in Lot 10. He held a small placard, telling passerby that she was from Syria and she needed money.

I do not how true her claim is but my heart melted nonetheless.

 

Categories
Society

[2838] The cheapening of utopias, and failure of imagination

How would you imagine a utopia? What is that utopia?

These are hard questions to answer. It is hard because it requires deep reflection. It cannot be answered on the spot.

In this age when pessimism against liberal values grows day by day, to me, the need to imagine a utopia becomes greater than ever. It is either to criticize these ugly forces fueling Brexit and the Trump presidency (or Malaysian racism and corruption), or to convince the masses it is worth staying the course on the liberal project.

And so when I spotted an event called “Imagining Utopia” at the Kuala Lumpur Literary Festival earlier today, I decided to drop by hoping to find the seeds to my utopias. The liberal order is retreating and so I need my rally.

But as I sat in the front row listening to the panel members, I felt growing dissatisfaction against the majority’s view. Instead of a session imagining utopia, it was a discussion criticizing utopias for being out-of-touch/unconcerned with human nature, and then became a session praising dystopias.

I was mad at the direction of the discussion. In fact, when I took up the microphone to express my dissatisfaction, I sounded unreasonably confrontational, to which I had to apologize after.

Utopias and human nature

As a libertarian, human nature is tried and tested line of argument I used against socialists and communists out there, and to defend the liberal market orthodoxy. Greed, self-interest and other darker sides of us are harnessed by the market to do something good as the argument goes. We have to acknowledge these darker sides of us before we can go on to do good, typically the defense goes. Communism does a bad job at incorporating human nature, as the knife strikes into the heart of the anti-market belief.

Unsophisticated to say the least, but hilariously hard to counter at entry-level discussions.

But yes, utopias have trouble dealing with human nature, as human nature is now, to a realist. Utopias ignore, reject or assume heavily modified human nature to create a paradise on earth in our head.

However, the link between utopias and human nature should not be an excuse to dismiss utopias in the first place. Yet, the majority on the panel refused to imagine any utopia, dismissed the roles of utopia without assessing it and then hastily worshiped dystopias instead.

Roles of utopias and dystopias

The majority view is more interested in dystopias. Dystopias to them are of more value than utopias. Why? Because dystopias readily deal with current human nature. Boo!

Utopias and dystopias have their values in criticizing reality. Brazil, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Fahrenheit 451, The Wanting Seed and other dystopias take a development in the author’s reality and then project it forward to show what is wrong with that reality. Showing what is wrong with our (or somebody else’s) current society is one of the major functions of dystopias.

What the majority view fails to realize is the function — or as Zedeck Siew, the only one defending utopias on the panel, puts it, the utility — of utopias with respect to human nature.

The function of utopias is to imagine a different world where we can do better. Be it communist, liberal, religious, materialistic or whatever adjective there is out there to describe whatever philosophy, it is the imagining of a better world, a better way of organizing society or perhaps more importantly, a better or even different human nature. Indeed, it is a criticism of human nature, as it is, itself.

An example involves Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward. It is a 1897 communist utopia that I disagreed with and an overly optimistic views of human nature. Nevertheless, it is a powerful criticism of capitalism and together with other experiences, transformed capitalism for the better especially after the 1930s Great Depression. It made us look at our reality clearer whereas before, we took it for granted. Really, the latest technology from computing to logistics risks making central planning more efficient than the free market, just as written in Bellamy’s utopia. This is a challenge to all modern libertarian thoughts.

I feel this is why such majoritarian dismissal of utopias based on our current human nature is highly unsatisfactory. Utopias assess our human nature more comprehensively than dystopias because of utopias’ radical imagination. Yet, the majority dismisses utopias because of human nature.

Radical imagination versus mere extrapolation

Imagining utopias, unlike dystopias, are not merely about extrapolating existing trends. Imagining utopias are about jumping to another plane altogether and projecting from that. It is the imagining of our new and better nature.

The newness requirement is why it is harder to imagine a utopia than a dystopia and why it is wrong to cheapen the value of utopias to that of common fluffy trash. This is probably partly also why, there are more dystopia than utopia literature.

More importantly, going back to the point about pessimism against the liberal order, a creative utopia creates a goal. The path towards that utopia will be the integration between that goal and our current human nature.

That shifting of plane requires radical imagination and that plane will provide contrast to the control group that is our reality.

The impermanence of human nature

And finally, human nature can change. We humans and our society evolve. There are still vestiges of cavemen inside of us but those urges have been modified by our understanding of sciences. Hundreds of years of advancement in physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, economics, psychology, sociology, philosophy”¦ knowledge has changed our human nature and will continue to do so. I am not about ready to say Darwin, Wallace and others involved in a whole line of evolutionary thoughts from biology to economics are wrong just to defend the idea of the permanence of human nature.

And really, the modern us have been around for less than 100 years. For millions of years, we were savages. For thousands, we lived in ancient civilizations. For hundreds, in nation-states. For decades, the confused post-modern now. After the dramatic change in our lives in just decades, can we be confident that human nature is unchanging?

Victims of our reality

One of the panel members, in making a short digression, said many writings today are clichés because many authors produce derivatives. Well, dystopias are clichés. Indeed, it is a failure of imagination to hastily and prematurely dismiss utopias in favor of dystopias.

In fact, I think we are living in a dystopia. The praising of and the addiction to dystopias is us becoming the trapped victims of our reality.