Salam Eidul Fitri!

Sebulan ku mencari rahmatMu,
ku tak pasti samada bertemu,
hanya Kau yang maha mengetahui,
isi hatiku yang meratapi,
yang mendambakan kurniaan,
yang mencari keikhlasan.

Hidupku, matiku hanya untukMu.

SOON!

A cold cool breeze,
clearing stagnant air,
bringing change,
bringing hope,
but maybe,
a start of a storm,
or even a bedlam of a hurricane,
destroying long held beliefs,
unshackling shackles,
whatever it is,
an altered vista approaches.

Condo Unit in Kelana D'Putera for Rent!

I'm moving out! Looking for tenant.

Description:

High Floor, Facing pool, Nice View, Well Maintained With a Fresh Coat of Paint, High Security with Friendly Neighbours.

1257 sq ft. with 3 Bedrooms, 2 Bathrooms, 2 air cond unit, 1 water heater unit, built in kitchen cabinet, and semi furnished.

Newly weds/ working couple preferred. Unit available in November 2008.

Failed Nation? by Rustam A. Sani

Today I had the pleasure of reading a book entitled "Failed Nation? Concerns of a Malaysian Nationalist" by the late Rustam A. Sani. For those who is not familiar with Rustam A. Sani, he was the son of one of our great freedom fighter, Abdullah Sani@Ahmad Boestaman. More than that, he was a great thinker and academician, a prolific writer, a literary master and most importantly a good soul. He passed away on 23 April 2008.

Anyway, I have been trying to get the book since it was first launch 26 April 2008. It's a collection of his writings that spans roughly 2 decades. In it you can take a peek into the mind of a great sociologist looking at the development of Malaysia as a full fledged nation-state and the creation of "Bangsa Malaysia", not only as a detached observer but also as an active participant of the process.

As you go along the pages, you can almost feel the sadness and sometimes the bitterness that the writer feel when evaluating our progress as a nation. On our confident existence as a nation during the 49th Merdeka Day, he had this to say, "Needless to say, there was certainly no convincing expression of confidence for our future".

In the same article, you can feel the losing hope of the writer on nation building through the last paragraph of the article,"It is high time that the highly articulate, theoretically-informed, social science promoter of the notion of nation-building that I have always wanted to be should also take a retirement just like the rest of me."

But of course not only on his pathos that I am interested in but also the weight of his arguments and his insights on nation-building and nationalism that is highly thought provoking. His statement that,"...Malaysia is just a state without nation - or at least, a state with several competing nations." forces us to look at this country we call Malaysia and re-evaluate our sense of nationhood. Can we look at our fellow Malaysian, without first identifying his race/religion/language/tradition and identify him only as our brother in this nation?

I have yet to finish reading the whole book, but from what I've read it inspires me to share a bit of the content, such a great thinker that was Rustam A. Sani. The only bad thing I can say about the book is that, his articles is too short for me. A more lengthy arguments would only bring greater elucidation to the reader and thus the better.

The Calm Before The Storm

There's this calm before the storm.
An impending chaos that I can feel.
The future is wrought with dangers.
But therein lies redemption.

There's this calm before the storm.





Happy Malaysia Day!

The Breaking Down of Society

Slowly but ever so assuredly, our society is breaking down. It is not something that is tangible, this break down. It is more of ubiquitous feelings of the masses. Highest on the list of such feeling is that of fear. Fear of losing power, fear of being proven wrong, fear of being expose, fear of the truth.

With the arrest of RPK and Teresa Kok, the arrest and subsequent release of Tan, shows the world or at least the small minority of people with interest in this nation, how we as society fears the truth. Or maybe a better word to replace society is the government.

The reports filed by JAKIM and several other government bodies against RPK is a clear indication of how immature those in the government departments tackle such an issue. What RPK did was write his opinion on what he thinks is the 'rightous' Muslim. The key word here is his 'opinion', his view, his understanding of the matter. It was an opportunity for Jakim (Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia) to give their 'official' definition of what is rightous and what is not. All they have to do is prove it using all the Quranic words, all the Hadiths, all the Ijtihads, all the Fatwas, that prove RPK wrong. But alas, they miss this opportunity.

They miss an opportunity to gain public support, and most importantly public understanding on the issue at hand. They failed miserably in their duty to preach in wisdom, to preach the truth, to preach in patience.

On the arrest of Teresa Kok, I would believe that most 'reasonable' people will come to a conclusion that this was a political act. Why arrest her in the first place? Why not arrest the person(s) that spread the story? Teresa Kok already denied it in public, if there's any such truth to the claims then why not the aggrieved party bring it to court or report it to the police and let due process takes place?

Why not let truths be guiding light of our society? Why such fear of the truth? All of these are symptoms. Symptoms of a dying society, or of that of a failed government. A government that cannot bear the truth, because the truth of the matter is that the government is a dying beast. And unfortunately it will take us down with it.

Project Malaysia

There's a new initiative started by Malik Imtiaz called Project Malaysia. It is a 'nation building experiment' where a particular 'theme' shall be discuss each month. It will run for 12 months. At the end of it, it is hope that a 'formula' on nation building can be found.

This is indeed an interesting and most worthy endeavor to try and look at this nation in a more objective and reasonable manner. Hopefully it will be a success. I look forward in reading the thoughts of invited writers and understand their perspectives. I also added the link in my Other Writings.

Al-Fatiha: A. Samad Ismail

From Allah we come. To Allah we go.

Malaysia today lost a great son, a great journalist, a great soul. Let us pray to Allah that his soul will be amongst the faithful. Amin.

Karaoke: What have we done!?

Edited 2: Added final video clip

Edited: Added more photos.

Original posting:

And so it goes, that we went to the Kotak Merah to beautifully destroy some songs. I was designated cameraman. FYI, I'm still editing the video, the lighting were terrible, so don't have clear shots but here are some still shots of the session. And a clip of the session as a teaser.

The newly weds

The not so newly weds

The Boyband

The GIRLZ!

The Mamat Jiwang

The Future Youtube Sensation

The Cameraman

The Horror!