Category: Liberty

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Activism Liberty Society

[1949] Of MP Khalid Samad at Northeast Malaysia Forum 2009

Knowing that this might be my last opportunity to attend an edition of the Northeast Malaysia Forum in Kuala Lumpur, I decided to be there. Although the KL site was not be as big as main site — as true for two previous editions organized in 2005 and 2008 — I saw great improvement this time around for KL compared.

Unlike previous editions, the KL site was hosted in a proper studio this year. On top of that, the site accommodated audience. There were probably more or less 20 people there, including the studio crew, volunteers, panelists and audience. That was not possible in the past.

This edition was larger in its reach too. Apart from Yale and KL, there were a host of following from other cities, namely Chicago, Singapore, London and Sydney. This is a proof that the alumni of Malaysia Forum are spreading their wing wider.

Now, the most interesting statement that came out from the KL site to me is the one from MP Khalid Samad.

He was touching about freedom of religion. In response to a question relating to Lina Joy, he said that if God had willed it, he would have made everybody a Muslim. But God does not do that and that says a lot about the freedom of religion that Islam grants.

I am not quite sure if he is saying simply because the audience was primarily a liberal group but given his track record, I am willing to give him the benefit of doubt. He is after all one of the more reasonable PAS members, probably in the same vein of the PAS MP from Kuala Selangor, Dr. Dzulkifli Ahmad. When I said reasonable, that definitely means better than a majority of BN MPs.

While appealing to freedom of religion, it is unclear what he thinks of Muslims having the same liberty. He did say in the same evening in front of the same audience that Muslims have their own laws and their should abide to it.

For further material on what was discussed by Khalid Samad, as well as MP Yusmadi Yusoff, friend Yeoh Chen Chow did a good job at summarizing it.[1] You may evaluate Khalid Samad’s words yourself there.

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

[1] — [Live Blogging of NMF – YB Yusmadi Yusoff & YB Khalid Samad. Yeoh Chen Chow. April 11 2009]

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

p/s — MP Yusmadi Yusoff, just before leaving the premise, invites members of Northeast Malaysia Forum to visit the Parliament during one of the sittings over the summer. All the more reason why YOU PEOPLE should come back.

He is also looking for individuals to participate in the Asian Renaissance Conference to be held in Manila, the Philippines later in December 2009. What is that? I leave their website to do the explaining.

Interested?

Contact him. Or contact me (I have nothing to do with the Conference. Just doing him a favor).

Categories
Humor Liberty

[1944] Of Cao Ni Ma!

Though old, I cannot get the rhythm out of my mind.

[youtube]wKx1aenJK08[/youtube]

Context is of course important:

The Grass Mud Horse — Cao Ni Ma — is a Chinese Internet meme widely used as symbolic defiance of the widespread Internet censorship in China. It is one of the 10 mythical creatures, and since an article about it was created on Baidu Baike, it has become a cult phenomenon on the internet in China through chat, forums. Videos, cartoons and merchandise of this animal, which apparently resembles the alpaca, and has since received world-wide press attention. [Grass Mud Horse. Wikipedia. Assessed April 6 2009]

Categories
Liberty Politics & government

[1941] Of Dear No. 6…

Dear Sir,

I pray that this letter finds you in good health. With that good health, I do hope you will find in your good self some appetite and some time to read these words of mine.

On the last day of UMNO General Assembly held recently, I was in the Merdeka Hall listening to your speech as the new President of your party. Though perhaps I was the least enthusiastic and probably the most skeptical among the members of the floor, I did pay attention to what you said from behind a rostrum on a podium.

Save a black cat crossing your path, there are enough indications that you will be the next Prime Minister of Malaysia. Nothing is certain in this world, of course, but I would like to take the risk of congratulating your early. Congratulations, sir, on assuming the greatest office of this land.

It is the greatest office for no small reason. With that office, it is not too much to say that you will probably have more power than any other Malaysian has to affect the fate of our home, for better or for worse. I pray that it is for the better and I pray that you will have the strength to do so.

I am sure in the past months and even more so in the previous weeks, you have read and listened to aspirations of many Malaysians from all over. I am also sure many of these aspirations do not coincide with each other and some even contradict with each other. I appreciate this fact and I can imagine your exasperation of the word better amid a sea of competing ideals. Everybody has his or her own context when using that superlative that if it is to stand on its own, it will be ultimately vague.

Perhaps you do understand why there are contradictory dreams. But if you do not, this is the reason of why I am writing this humble letter to you. I would like to assure you that those contradictions are not signs of confusion or a sign of danger. Rather, very positively, it is only a sign of how diverse our society is.

Those are voices of the common people, be they are supportive of you, unsupportive of you, have yet to decide where to stand or simply could not care less of what is happening in the country as long as they are happy. Those voices are your sounding board.

Their opinions are your barometer. When they are uncomfortable with the direction you are leading them, many of them will find the courage to rise up to speak up. Many will even have the audacity to say it to your face. It can be harsh and sometimes, it can be unfair.

Though some might seem rude, trust me, for many of them, for many of us, this is not done out of spite. In many cases, those are honest opinions that we hold. Those opinions are about our joys, our fears, our hope and our disappointment.

There is no need to fear the diversity of opinions even when those opinions challenge norms so openly. In these days when international borders are coming down slowly but surely, challenges will be aplenty. It is only through that diversity will we be able to overcome those challenges.

It is worth noting that this diversity can only be sustained if there is openness to discuss legacy issues bedeviling us all. As we move forward and I believe you can agree with me, a rethinking of Malaysia is inevitable.

If there are those who came up to you expressing their fear that that openness will erode what they consider as pillars of this country, then be mindful that nothing last forever. To survive, we must evolve even if that comes at the price of making those pillars irrelevant. Those that refuse to evolve will be pushed to the margin and suffer the fate of so many species that roam this fair Earth today no more.

Sir,

It will be a mistake to silent others who disagree with you or those that challenge norms. Do that, and you will soon find yourself with court jesters with dangerous grupthink affliction. They are incapable of adapting to new environments that always seemingly conspire to bring down tall towers for which we have built.

Many in UMNO, as I have discovered, frighteningly, wanted you to return to old ways. They want change but in their minds, they want a return to the past, thinking that they could roll back the clock as if time would roll back with the small and big hands of the clock.

Unfortunately for many in UMNO, as evident during your party’s recently concluded general assembly, they have yet to grasp the lesson. Indeed, they are in danger of learning the wrong lesson.

The answer is not in the past as Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, your former President, has made clear earlier. I kindly urge you to agree with the Prime Minister. He has made major mistakes along the way but at the end of the day, although it is too late for him, he finally recognizes the zeitgeist.

More importantly, it is not too late for you, sir. You have the opportunity to learn from his mistakes and make good out of it.

I am writing this not because I care for UMNO. The fate of UMNO or for any party for that matter is of little concern to me. If your party chooses extinction over survival, then it is extinction that your party will meet. What I am concerned with is the future of our country and ultimately, my future.

Selfish as I may seem to be, I believe deep in the heart of each and every one of us, the worry is the same. What will happen to me tomorrow?

I cannot get that question and many more out of my mind.

Be well aware, sir, that we can only find the answers if we continue to search for it. We can only find the answers if we do not shy away from asking tough questions even if these questions bring upon uncomfortable answers.

To ignore or suppress these questions is most unhelpful in prodding our country forward. To do so is to create a culture of fear in times when what we need is a kind of boldness to right our wrongs while rebuilding our foundation for new towers.

At risk here is more than the future of your political party. At risk here is the future of our country. A true statesman has the faculty to comprehend that implication and I trust that you are the statesman that you can be.

While you have possibly more power than any Malaysian to affect this country, you alone cannot move this country forward. This country can only move forward if all of us are engaged with each other. And in order for that engagement to happen, there has to be freedom.

So, I beg you to not take that liberty away. I plead to you not to take it away, even as others urge you to do so, so forcefully.

Thank you and congratulations, once again.

Sincerely,

A concerned citizen.

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

First published in The Malaysian Insider on April 1 2009.

Categories
Books, essays and others History & heritage Liberty Society

[1939] Of a major revolution in secularism

I now understand a step in the history of evolution of secularism. Though I think it is ultimately irrelevant to why I subscribe to secularism, it nevertheless enlightening to see how the school of thought evolved.

Ethics is the work that provided the energy for a quantum leap in the area.

Public domain

Baruch Spinoza completed Ethics in 1676 and it was published posthumously in 1677.

Reading these giants makes me feels small. Not only do they make me realized that I am not the first to hold whatever I hold, they had given thought to many other things which I have yet to think of independently.

I am not reading Ethics in Latin of course. Rather, I am still reading The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World by Matthew Stewart.

It is through Stewart and later Wikipedia and other sources that I learned that Spinoza considered that God and Nature are two of the same entity. As a result, God is everywhere while bounded to the law of physics. God bows to the law of Nature. With that as the premise, he elegantly went on to create a system to explain how everything is a manifestation of God.

The implication is that unlike religion — in this context the Abrahamic religions, specifically, Christianity — which assumes that God is an active participant of this world, Spinoza’s God is removed and irrelevant to the workings of the world.

“In that event, what would be left for God to do?” Stewart wrote that in a different context but the same sentence is applicable to the implication of the idea that God is Nature.

I do not subscribe to Spinoza’s reasoning but how he arrived at the inevitable need to create a secular state is most ingenious. It nothing less than shocking to me when I began to comprehend the gravity of his ideas.

One may wonder why Spinoza considered God and Nature as one. I am still struggling to understand that at the moment.

Besides secularim, Spinoza holds an enlightening view on social contract. I believe, those that are all to eager to talk about the Malaysian social contract  — especially those who believe that a social contract is written in stone  — should give Spinoza a go.

Categories
Liberty Politics & government

[1931] Of change? Who am I kidding?

Will there be change in Barisan Nasional?

With Samy Vellu still manning the steering wheel of MIC,[1] it is not hard to present a case which BN would continue doing business as usual despite requirement for change along with internal almost Darwinian political rhetoric of change.

But with Najib Razak expected to assume the post of Prime Minister from Abdullah Ahmad Badawi soon, in the strictest sense, change will definitely happen. The composition of the Cabinet is likely to change too, if the signal that the current Deputy Prime Minister is giving out is to be believed in.[2]

The willingness of BN to pull a political coup in Perak too gives the air that there is more tolerance for — to put it politely — unorthodox maneuvers that are uncharacteristic of the current Prime Minister. That is change too, for better or for worse.

In that light, a more meaningful question to ask is whether there will be a change for the better?

That is harder to answer and I personally would like to be fair by giving Najib Razak a chance to prove himself. To pre-judge him maybe an unfair position to take.

Indeed, he is riddled with controversies but with cognizance of how unclean politics is, I am unwilling to believe those far too many accusations until it is proven. No doubt, some events related to the DPM and BN are curiously questionable but I am a skeptic in many ways. It is only right for me to keep to that tradition of mine.

Still, there are signs that changes which Najib Razak plans to introduce might be unpalatable to individuals like me. One clearest sign yet is the recent 3-month ban imposed on Harakah and Suara Keadilan as announced today by the Ministry of Home Affairs.[3]

On TV3 just now, the announcer stated that the reason for the ban is the seditious nature of both papers. In the same breathe, the announcer read what she was supposed to read: the Home Ministry has no intention of infringing free press but Harakah and Suara Keadilan have gone too far.

Give me a break. They actually still believe that kind of tricks work still.

As a libertarian, I find it tiring to present effective but template-like arguments against such reason. I feel like a broken record but the sad part is, those questions are still relevant. Too far to whom? Who is the judge?

The timing, as suggested by Mr. Teoh of The Malaysian Insider, further invites critical questions . The fact that the timing of the ban coincides with three by-elections to be held on April 7 is inescapable. Among many questions, the convenient date for BN highlights possible abuse of government machinery to forward an unkosher political agenda.

Then, there is a question of equal application of the law. If sedition is the benchmark, clearly with the untruth and inflammatory style, Utusan Malaysia deserves reprimand as heavy as Harakah and Suara Keadilan. Even the TV3 too if I may add.

Change?

Who am I kidding?

I need to remind myself that I am a skeptic. And I am applying my skepticism with equal pressure on all sides.

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

[1] — KUALA LUMPUR, March 22 (Bernama) — Former MIC vice-president Datuk M. Muthupalaniappan, who failed in his bid today to contest the party top post, has declared that democracy is dead in the MIC.

He said this was evident from the fact that he had many of his nominations disqualified.

Muthupalaniappan had submitted 53 nominations supporting him at the party presidential nomination at the MIC headquarters this morning. Forty-eight of the 53 nominations were rejected due to non-compliance with the MIC constitution and the presidential election by-laws.

At the end of the day, he only had five valid nominations as opposed to incumbent president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu’s 455. Samy Vellu was declared president of the party for the 11th consecutive term. [Muthupalaniappan Cries Foul, Says Democracy Dead In MIC. Bernama. March 22 2009]

[2] — PETALING JAYA: Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has listed out the qualities he is looking for in his new Cabinet line-up when he takes over as Umno president and Prime Minister.

He said those in his Cabinet must have ability, credibility and general public acceptance so that he could institute reforms in both the party and the Government. [Najib wants an able and credible Cabinet. The Star. March 23 2009]

[3] — KUALA LUMPUR, March 23 — In a move that appears to be geared towards handicapping the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) machinery ahead of the three by-elections on April 7, Suara Keadilan and Harakah have been banned for three months by the Home Ministry with immediate effect.

The party organs of Pas and PKR respectively were informed of the decision around 5pm this evening by fax with no reason given. [Harakah and Suara Keadilan banned. Shannon Teoh. The Malaysian Insider. March 23 2009]