Democratic Fervor

In Malaysia, voting during the General Elections is NOT something that is mandatory. Hence as an extension of this then it makes sense that automatic registration of voters is also not ON.

Shouldn’t it though?

It is one thing to be registered, and another to actually vote. For one, you have to be - theoretically, at least, what’s with allegations of Hantu voters popping up every time the election comes – physically present to do the latter.

Apparently, there is an estimated 3.6 million people who are still unregistered as voters.

Huge concern thus. HUGE.

Thus, looking at the response so far from the Barisan Nasional, urm, fellas (EC deputy chairman Wan Ahmad Wan Omar, excluded, of course) to the Selangor State government’s “SelangorkuBersih” campaign, you’d be forgiven to scratch your head and go: Huh?

The campaign aims to verify the voters listed and, can along the way help to persuade those who haven't registered to do so.

After all, why wouldn’t the Selangor State Government want to help out in registering the still unregistered 600k or so other Selangorians?

If these 600K non registered ones want to, that is.

Since neither voting nor registering as a voter is mandatory, it is really their choice, no?

But if they do wish to do so; and just don’t have neither the opportunity nor the means or the time to put pen to registration papers, then the “Selangorku Bersih” campaign is just plain haven sent.

 As Selangor has the highest number of unregistered voters, surely the EC will relish all the help it can get, shouldn’t it?

Saves the EC to concentrate its efforts on the other 3 million unregistered ones.

Out of curiosity, how does the EC verify the voters’ particulars and voting constituencies?

Take me, for instance.

I registered God knows how long ago as a voter in the Pandan Parliamentary constituency and except for the 2004 General Election, I have not had the opportunity to vote due to work and locality constraints.

Was I ever, urm, verified throughout the three General Elections including those in 1999 and 2008?

Until but recently when I changed my voting particulars, I was still very much a voter in Pandan.

It does seem that the verification of a voter's particulars is very much up to the individual voter’s own efforts, with the EC, urm, facilitating the data entry.

So, how would the EC verify something like this highlighted instance in suspicion arousing duplicating facts?

After all, outside of the particular locality's locals, how will one know who’s who? Asking for someone’s identity papers is just plain criminal for anyone other than  the authorities.

It could well be a sheer stroke of pure coincidence of which the door to door, house to house, “Selangorku Bersih” campaign could help prove and, without a doubt, VERIFY.

Or not, since the voters – any voter for that matter - could also say: “No, I will not allow myself to be verified”.

Something which the “SelangorkuBersih” campaign detractors seem to be pushing for.

Or not. Perhaps it’s nothing more than the fervor of DEMOCRATIC IDEALS.

Yep. That’s probably IT. 

Clearly Loud

Electoral Fairness and Impartiality.

One Person One Vote.

Or is a proportional system the answer?

Any which, surely they can hear the LOUD voice for changes.

But listening?

Barricading Faith

“It is not about God belonging to you, rather YOU belong to God.”

“Yang membezakan akidah Islam dan selainnya bukanlah pada sebutan, atau rebutan nama Allah, sebaliknya pada ketulusan tauhid dan penafian segala unsur syirik.”

Two quotes from personalities you may well label as liberal Muslims (if you must insist on labels, that is) on the furor over the recent decision by the High Court on the right to use the word “Allah”

On Dec 31, Justice Datuk Lau Bee Lan ruled that pursuant to Articles 11 and 12 of the Federal Constitution, the Herald had the constitutional right to use the word in respect of instruction and education of the congregation in the Christian religion.

(The above is taken lock, stock and barrel from The Star.)

I must say that I was – let’s say – “concerned” when I first read the decision.

Subtle machinations to propagate another's faith on Muslims, I thought.

As always, in came politics. Potshots taken by one Muslim "leader" against another. Statements along party lines.

I think we can come to a conclusion that Muslims are now ironically turning very much like a certain perennial “foe” (Go on, take a wild guess..) in having a “besieged” mindset.

Sadly even in a land where Muslims are supposed to be the leading community, we are so often the ones seen backtracking and on the defensive.

Marina (Mahathir) asked if our faith is so fragile that we can be confused so easily.

The answer to that seems to be an unfortunate “YES” if you look at the way we have responded to the issue above.

We are however not unique in being on unsteady grounds.

In Acheh and elsewhere, our fairer counterparts are subjected to harassment based on the way they dress.

Instead of the softer approach of coaxing and guiding on supposed deviations, those professing to know it all where Islam is concerned decided to wield the whip.

Let’s not even go to Pakistan or Afghanistan, or Somalia; nations where shameful acts in the name of Islam are being acted out against those embracing the very same faith.

The worst enemies of Muslims are very much WITHIN in this community of billions.

It is perhaps unfortunate that faith is something so intangible.

Otherwise, everyone can then see how strong each other’s faith is or is not.

I used to have a friend who smokes, drinks, womanize, who doesn’t give a hoot about the daily prayers, bla bla.

Muslim still?

We are back to labels, aren’t we? Good, bad, practicing, liberal, et cetera…

BUT a more pertinent question should be:

What kind of a Muslim was I for letting him continue along the same route of self destruction I so believe to be wrong and the path to damnation?

If his faith was weak, so too, it seems, mine to not have done a single thing to coax, guide, advice, lead.

Weak. Confused.

Why Now?

(Myopia : A visual defect in which distant objects appear blurred because their images are focused in front of the retina rather than on it; nearsightedness.)

Utusan Malaysia carried this huge headline of “Bangkitlah Melayu” today.

It sounded like a battlecry and I was piqued to see just what it is that the newspaper wanted us Malays to wake up to.

It turns out to be a rhetoric from firebrand MP Ibrahim Ali, the gist of which, asking for a wholly Malay formed government.

Utusan did not however quote Ibrahim Ali verbatim (peculiar this..) but chose to instead paraphrase his words as such:

Katanya, jumlah kerusi terbanyak di Parlimen adalah milik Melayu dan ia cukup untuk membentuk sebuah kerajaan berasaskan wakil rakyat Melayu semata-mata di negara ini.

Katanya, justeru, dari segi politiknya kerajaan itu sepatutnya memenuhi apa sahaja yang menjadi kehendak Melayu kerana mereka adalah majoriti dan bukan asyik bertolak ansur dengan bukan Melayu.

Ah.

And there I thought Utusan Malaysia (Melayu?) wanted Malays to wake up to the fact that Malay household formed the biggest percentage of those earning RM1,000 and below at 301,000 from a total of 5.8 million household polled in 2007.

Or that Malay millionaires and billionaires represent a mere 7.9% in term of wealth accumulation for the country’s top 40 richest last year.

There are more that ails the community but the two mentioned above are pertinent to Ibrahim Ali’s wanting the Malays led government to fulfill the “kehendak Melayu”.

So what does Ibrahim Ali thinks that we Malays want really?

For the Malay-centric Umno and PAS to come together? Surely not, as two by-elections with the two combatants squaring dealt the losing hand to Umno.

A re-distribution of wealth, perhaps? Especially seeing how this is skewed in favor of non-Malays.

But this is a dangerous line of thought to pursue.

Perhaps we should concentrate in creating a much bigger cake; one that allows the participation of all communities and that raises the income level parity by doing away the "cheap labor is Malaysia" concept that had long depressed our labor market so effectively.

I seem to remember a once-great Statesman who pushed for the “enriching of thy neighbor” so that everyone would be able to reap the benefits.

In the course of the nation’s short life so far, we’ve managed to help enriched some, but not all.

But all throughout, it’s the same Malay majority government who was in administration.

So why does Melayu Perlu Bangkit now?

Bill Sienkiwicz's Elektra

The Bottomless Pit..

Fear is normal.

Letting your fears be a crutch is mildly abnormal to those without such fears.

Unless you’re in their shoes, when what’s feared assume a dangerous proposition in needing to make a choice: should I, do I…

Ever since my uncle startled me out of my wits whilst watching a lizard man going berserk in a suburban neighborhood a long, long time ago, I have always skip horror movies as they would inevitably give me nightmares.

Even mild ones for that matter.

There are some exceptions, though. I managed to get through The Exorcist (1973) – great movie, brilliant book, Candy Man (1992), The Thing (1982), Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and some silly ones which I often watched with friends as they are loaded with female actresses showing off their breasts and impromptu sex scenes before being rip to shred moments.

(Six Sense (1999) is not a horror movie, so that one doesn’t count.)

I am also proud to say that I managed to watch Candy Man alone – I was in London at the time - albeit at the price of three sleepless nights.

My wife says my phobia of horror movies is somewhat silly, but I am adamant about putting blissful sleeping hours over the minutes of being scarred silly as a priority of my life.

Her views also stem for my fondness in reading horror novels – I read The Exorcist before even seeing the movie, for that matter – and Stephen King is one of my favorite author of all time. Is there a difference in being frightened from reading something as opposed to watching it?

I don’t really know, but what I do know is that it’s a different kind of fear and the one I get from reading is tinge with a kind of (misplace? Perhaps..) pleasure that would always leave me wanting more unlike movies.

A really good author has this unique ability to fill you with dread of the approaching horrors while keeping you on track to meet it. There is no need for shock factor to (cliché alert!) scare you out of your wits where novels are concerned.

That said, I have not read a good horror novel for some while. Put it down to the 8am to 7pm lifestyle we are living these days when the hours needed to read through a good book is always wanting.

Back to my phobia of horror movies, a question I often ask myself is whether it would hold me back from anything? At 38, I am way passed the dating scene where horror movies give pubescent males the opportunity to be heroic and, who knows, a hug or two. :)

I don’t really miss not watching any of the movies anyway and, gauging from some trailers I managed to sneak peek, I am not really missing that much in terms of being scarred into having sleepless nights.

Last week, though, I felt the same kind of dread I get from a good horror novel as I watch an episode of Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Ghost Whisperer featuring the legend of Bloody Mary – a girl with mutilated, bleeding hands after being buried alive by her parents.

I knew somehow that I should stop watching as the burial scene came on. I knew I will be watching a most terrible tragedy unfold, but as morbidity is wont to do, I continued watching knowing full well that it would cost me at least a few hours of sleep.

It did that night, but different from when I watched Candy Man alone all those years ago. Instead my mind was buzzing with the tragic death of the young girl, and how the same was happening everywhere around the world where young children die needlessly; many victims of cruelty instead.

The young girl in the Bloody Mary legend had parents who thought she had died and wanted to give her a proper burial.

Some parents (I am using this word with a bitter taste in my mouth) in our community are burying their newborn babies alive so that the babies would die .

Now, that scares me more than anything else.

Where are we headed as a nation? A bottomless descent?