Things I Wrote…

Things I Wrote…

I was asked to provide an editorial note for a students magazine. This is what i wrote…

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First of all, congratulations for the inaugural issue of ‘Proloqour’. This has been made possible, I believe, with hard work, determination and team effort of those who involved, of those who feel the greatest satisfaction with its successful publication. Let this issue marks the first step of a tradition to be adopted and nurtured by the students of the faculty. Let it be the first of more to come.

Enough of praises, reality check. Our faculty is relatively a new one, compared with other law faculties in this country. As we all should know, in its state of infancy the faculty is doing all that necessary to acquire the recognition of the LLB (Hons.) program by various bodies within the legal industry. To be recognized, a lot of things need to be done by all in order to develop the faculty’s reputation and achievement. These two things are the most important agenda for us now.

Law degrees are prized depending on its status of recognition. Thus it is imperative to make sure that degree holding graduates produced from this program to be recognized within the context of the Legal Profession Act 1976.  However, this is not an easy task. Not a walk in park. To acquire recognition, we need to be distinguished. To achieve that is an onus carried not only by the academics and administrative staffs of the faculty and university alone, but with whole concerted effort involving students as well.

The publication of Proloqour, apart from other recent co-curricular successes, I believe is one of the valiant efforts made by the students in fulfilling that onus. Now, your next onus is to ensure that the magazine reach readers outside the four walls of our institution. Let the public see that we are capable. Let the public see our love towards the law. Let the public see that we mean business. Res ipsa loquitur.

Proloqour should not be a ‘just-another’ students yearbook, full of chirpy pictures, nonintellectual writings and what not. Personally I expect more out of Proloqour, I expect that the magazine will be the stage and forum where students will be able to write, discuss and convey their opinion of the law with pride and intellect. Through the magazine, portray your academic and intellectual camaraderie rather than your varsity reminiscences… or at least the majority part of it.

To do the above, students should be able to take part actively in academic discourse with regard to matters relevant to this country and abroad. Students need to be eloquent with current issues. They need to be well verse with the law. They need to be able to articulate. With those abilities and together with all the right attitudes everything will be possible.

I hope that this magazine and its articles will express the true colours of our law school and the honoured hallmark of the legal profession… to uphold the law, without fear or favour.

Magnificent 20

Magnificent 20

SDAR’s on the list. Cool.

Congratulations for all… especially teachers who continuously stayed with the school till now since the time of ‘GQ’ trousers are still ‘in’ or the time when VGA screen computers are the state-of-the-art technology. All your sacrifices made for the school and students are not in vain.

During my stint in SDAR I personally labeled teachers. Call me judgmental but from my own eyes I can see and believe that some teachers deserve to be respected and adored while some are just plain teachers. Same as teachers anywhere, in any school.

Some are best remembered as sex icons (teenage boys have vivid imaginations), some sadist, some lazy, some gay so on so forth. However some stood out from the rest. Some become beacons of wisdom, source of inspirations (not the lewd ones), and respected.

Why do they differ from the rest?

It is because as teachers they are sincere. Fullstop.

Some teach because they can’t practice.

Some teach because their parents told them to, “Jadi cikgu je Mat, senang nanti kerja kerajaan ada pencen”.

Some teach because it is the only choice they have.

There are tons of reasons to choose from. Some good and some bad. Whatever wrong reason that caused a person to become a teacher is not that important. Fate guides us where we are suppose to be. As long as there is sincerity towards the profession, things will turn out in the positive.

The success and recognition acquired by those 20 schools are totally indebted towards those sincere teachers, whom I believe remain steadfast in their profession.

Terima kasih cikgu…

p/s: To Cikgu Sahak Ahmadun, you are in my ‘A’ book… always.

Still about the Internet

Note: Few hours after I posted this update, the blog as per the link attached on the picture below is no longer operational. The blog has been deleted.

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Still about the Internet

This post is continuation from my last one.

The story is like this. Somebody got too liberal and wrote bad things about our late Sultan of Johor. The news reported this incident and then those, so called ‘penderhaka’ blogs are swamped with visitors. Now, these visitors, trying imply subservience and respect to the royals wrote comments on those blogs. Thus starting a flamewar.

Reading those comments makes me to ponder…. is this the Malaysian culture? Why are we now so insensitive, vulgar and barbaric?

In another decade what will Malaysians be?

Orcs?

No even orcs have manners, maybe trolls, cave trolls…

Perhaps so… Middle Earth opss… Middle Malaysia la katakan…

So who to blame?

Scapegoat needed.

Since I will not blame myself and to blame any other individual may amount to defamation. I choose to blame education. Yeah right. Education is the culprit. Our system of education has failed us. Has it?

Note to cybercops: Don’t cha wanna charge all these blokes under Section 233 Communications and Multimedia Act 1998? Nope? Why? Telus brother… telus…

Face(book) Off

Face(book) Off

Today’s news reported a student who got ‘booked’ by the police for writing statements that could cause trouble against public safety.

Hmm… it seems that the Authorities are now swarming the Net, eavesdropping of personal communications, looking at people’s facebook and friendster profiles, in order to catch the culprit of the church attacks. They prowl the internet for leads. Hoping to find someone reckless enough to implicate or impliedly implicate themselves with the arson. Today they charged one. Seriously an unlucky bloke.

He got charged because, I believe his facebook profile together with his IP address gave away to much information about his whereabouts.

My questions now are…

What about those who writes anonymously?

What about those IT whizz who are able to scramble the IPs?

What about those who are rich enough to hire IT whizz to do their bidding?

Will they get lucky?

Will they be caught?

Do you feel lucky… punk?

For the scrambling of IP part personally I don’t know. My IT knowledge stopped to expand with the coming of Windows XP. Perhaps our cyber-police force knows the answer. For the other parts let us together think and ponder.

For most of us Malaysians the net is a blessing. It ushered a new era of alternative views, news and pornography which, without the net, will never gain a setting in mass media. But the best thing about the net is… anonymity.

The net has always been a place where anonymity reigns. Anonymity enables net surfers to write about whatever they want, be it personal, political, fantasies – most of the time lewd ones, frustrations etc. Anonymity has also cause people to write bad things in the net. Things which are much worse than those written by that poor fellow charged today. They write in total disregard of other people’s feeling and sensitivity. However, they got away with it.

Why?

It’s easy. Justice nowadays is choosy. A lot of people got away except for few unlucky ones. A true realization of Kafka’s Before the Law. If justice is not choosy then I am sure our courts will be swamped with cases of IT misuse such as this. Read Section 233 of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 and you can see that most of us, including facebook operators are sinners against the section one way or the other.

For now we are lucky.

So the next time you log in into those social websites, all those profiles with pictures of sexy luscious girls with half their boobs hanging out their dress requesting to be your friend are most probably not so sexy cyber-policemen in their mid 40s. So enough of social websites anyone?

Face(book) Off…

Heartless Indeed

Read here for the son’s reply as reported by Harian Metro.

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Heartless Indeed

Take a look on the news above (The Star Online 14/01/2010). Read it and ask yourself whether that son is one heartless bastard or not.

Family is the nucleus of society.  In science, if I can still remember, nucleus forms the core of a cell. If something goes wrong with the nucleus, the cell will be cancerous effecting other cells and in the end killing the host.

Substituting nucleus with family, cells with society and host with country, I believe we can apply the above situation as a grim analogy of the outcome of what will happen to this country if all the saner person in this country do not take heed.

What are we becoming nowadays? Animals?

No. Perhaps far worse. Even animals value kinship.

So what can we do?

Write about it?

Condemning it?

Nobody nowadays gives a shit about what other people write anymore, unless the writing is outright scandalous in nature… which actress went nude, which politician became porn star, who sodomize who, so on and so forth. That is why I personally seldom write anymore. Nobody gives a shit… especially to shitty writings such as mine.

Condemning on the other hand, doesn’t work at all. Each time something bad happen, people tend to condemn full stop. No further action. It’s like the UN and OIC condemn Israel’s actions toward Palestinians. Nothing changes. Status-Quo.

The only thing that can work is law and enforcement. We have a ministry that concern with family matters. Why not instead of doing family-day program, coloring contest, and what not… make an effort to really ‘educate’ the public in the importance of family. Be aggressive. Make laws… situations such as above must be addressed, and then enforce it. If the public do not value family anymore then they must be ‘taught’ and ‘disciplined’ on that. No compromise.

Please do not let this country suffers a cancer which will destroy it. (Country have cancer ke?… Duhhh… refer analogy above)

Sigh… enough said… Family is important. . It is the main foundation of society, country, nation, bangsa and everything related you can think of.

Let us re-embrace family values…

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You don’t choose your family.  They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them. -Desmond Tutu-

Mahathir

History Channel

15 & 22 November 2009 @ 8 p.m.

A must watch for all right minded Malaysians.

 

 

A Guide to Bribery

Below is an interestingly funny video made under the 15Malaysia project with regards to our local corruption scenario.

Free Honeymoon

Free Honeymoon

Honeymoon is usually a traditional romantic getaway of newlyweds for the purpose of celebrating a relationship and seclusion (if you know what I mean…).

The cost for this getaway depends on how much extra money you willing to spend or on how much still left after the wedding. No matter what the cost, new couples should do this since marriage, god permits, is a once in a lifetime episode.

For those who did their honeymoon, surely it is one of the most memorable moments in life. For those who did not, do not despair… go to Terengganu and all will be sponsored. (Read it HERE)

There’s a catch of course… The couple must be on the verge of breakup and the couple must attend counseling.

It’s easy. Just fake the break up thing, make sure to attend counseling and tadaa… free honeymoon and some more the people’s money wasted.

Paying second honeymoon for troubled couples is not a good solution. At the point where a relationship is at the verge of breakup, there are too many issues left un-dealt by the couple. The dissatisfaction between the two has gone too far from the par of tolerance thus causing grievance on both sides. At this point it is common that there is no more room to tolerate or compromise. Thus the most prudent way to save a marriage is not to sponsor a hot, sexy and steamy romantic getaway but to address the issues, and settle the differences. Full stop.

Cartoon from Cartoon Stock.com

Travelogue Jakarta

Travelogue Jakarta

It has been quite some time since my visit to Indonesia and I have spent that same time period postponing writing about it. Until today of course…

The flight duration from KL to Jakarta is more or less 2 hours. Unlike other international travels, I felt less anxiety during my travel to Jakarta. Perhaps because subconsciously my mind interprets that the journey is like a journey visiting a long lost kampong, since my ancestors came from the islands which are now Indonesia.

Jakarta is a bustling city which populace numbers in the millions. The hustle and bustle in the city is far more hectic than Kuala Lumpur. The traffic horrendous, obviously not a place for a faint hearted foreign driver. Thankfully during our visit in Jakarta, we were chauffeured driven by Pak Lojo whose soft spoken demeanor contradict his aggressiveness in navigating the streets of Jakarta. His daring maneuvers often caused me breathless with fear of collision but nevertheless his NASCAR-esque driving skills often prevail. Salutation to Pak Lojo.

Based on my personal observation, Jakarta is a city where there is huge disparity between the upper and the lower class. The rich is disgustingly rich and the poor is harshly poor. The rich flaunt their wealth inconsiderably, driving high end luxury cars such as the Humvee, amidst a society where the majority is struggling to sustain a living.

However, rather than crippling them this struggle brings out the best in the lower class majority. Everywhere in Jakarta, especially at the trade district near Tenabang or Tanah Abang you can see them working hard in a zealous manner, men and women doing errands, carrying tremendous loads of goods on their backs, making business and trade with all things possible etc. Human determination at its best and simply a sight to behold.

There are many places of interest in Jakarta.

An absolute heaven for shoppers Jakarta offers goods at a much lower price than in Malaysia. The shopping experience is also different. If in Malaysia we are usually greeted by unfriendly salesperson with a kind of judgmental look on their faces, Jakarta offers the opposite.

As for food enthusiast, the city offers a wide range of good foods that will pleasure our taste buds. The most memorable foods I have tasted in Jakarta are two. First the nasi padang of Natrabu at the Menteng district, now the area made popular with the Malaysian sweeping exercise and second the Sup Buntut (Ox tail soup) at Borobudur hotel. The foods there are of course expensive but they are compensated with its exquisiteness of taste.

As for sight seers, the city provides a lot of venues and monuments which able to tell visitors the history and evolution of this proud nation. The Monas for example, exemplify the determination of the country which never stops to awe its visitors with its pure gold summit. The huge national mosque exemplify their pride in devotion to Islam, the predominant religion of the populace.

The list can go on and on.

This long delayed travelogue is finally written due to the recent tension between Malaysia and Indonesia. Under the pretext of cultural and national fervor some group in Indonesia has declared war against Malaysia. Is there a need for such an aggression?

Obviously there is none. Indonesia and Malaysia both exist as states, independent and sovereign just merely decades ago. Before that these two neighboring nations share lots of things together, from geography, race, language, religion and custom. My late grandmother told me that in the old days, people are free to travel crisscross the Nusantara without nationality and boundary restriction. Even my great grandfather traded goods between Melaka, Sumatera and Java. It seems that during those days the Nusantara enjoys a much more globalised scenario that it is now.

We shared so much during the old days, we even fought and bled together against the European colonial powers. To quarrel over minor issues will only bring us apart which will cause more loss rather than gain. Let us embrace our similarities than our differences.

The Second Coming

11th October 2009 – Congratulations to Isa Samad for the landslide victory in Bagan Pinang N31.

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The Second Coming

The ‘second coming’ is often related with the messianic prophecy of the anticipated return of the Prophet Isa (Jesus), who, based on popular Islamic view, will descend to earth during the time when perversity and corruption are rife. It is said that he will lead the believers and the righteous in the final battle against evil.

So far, the prophecy has yet to occur.

However, in the current Malaysian politics, another ‘Isa’ is making a comeback or should I say a second coming. The second coming of ‘Isa Samad’.

The vacancy causa mortis of the Bagan Pinang ADUN seat causes another by-election for that constituency to be conducted by the Election Commission as required by law. As usual, as for the past few years, an election will be the usual face-off between two candidates, one from the BN and another from the yet to be lawfully registered Pakatan Rakyat. One to one, mano-a-mano.

As the nation has witnessed, a series of by-elections was conducted in this year alone, everything seems common for this another N31 by-election, so we thought.

This by-election starts to garner keen intention from the public when Tan Sri Isa Samad, a ‘fallen’ UMNO politician was named candidate for BN. All over the country, negative comments are made against this ‘second coming’. Even UMNO loyalist question the prudency of naming a politician whose name has been smeared with corruption and money politics, and a once UMNO leader who had been punished with the most severe punishment ever inflicted on a party member.

The naming of Isa as candidate is said to be an irrational decision made by the BN. Irrational because it conveys a message to the public that BN leaders are in total disregard of the people’s aspiration against corruption, that BN has no other new faces to field rather than second hand politician, that BN has not learn from the string of by-election losses and that BN simply wishes to make its downfall inevitable. The question that we should ask now is, are they really that stupid?

Stupid is as stupid does…

Nobody wills for political hara-kiri and the same goes to BN. I believe that the decision of naming Isa as a candidate was obviously made with extreme consideration given. Some wrote that Isa have all the right to make a comeback because he was victimized by political conspiracy. Be that as it may, conspiracies are usually stories based on circumstantial evidence which are volatile to be relied upon. We need tangible facts to support our conviction and trust me that there is no other worse support than stories of conspiracies.

For now the truth is that BN is facing its biggest challenge. A challenge that will decide the fate of the party and of the nation. Because of that BN members and supporters nationwide should consolidate their support to withstand this challenge but please do so ‘consciously’ as support should be given to those who deserve to be supported.

Meanwhile, let us observe whether this second coming of Isa will bring miracles or not. Cheers.