The elephant in the room ~ no unity without equality

Commentary by Gabriel Tarriba

As my Malaysian summer comes to an end, I decided to take stock of what I have learned during two eventful months of research, writing and travel in the country. I came to Malaysia knowing very little about the country: my original intention was to try to understand why this young multi-ethnic country has been so successful in developing economically over five decades.

Malaysia is today an example for many developing and emerging economies and I believe that all Malaysians should be proud of how much has been achieved in so little time. The country definitely offers many lessons for my own country, Mexico, which was spectacularly overtaken by Malaysia in economic and social development recently.

And yet, in spite of my admiration for the country’s economic trajectory, I must admit that on the political level there is something about Malaysia that I find frankly disturbing and incompatible with its image as a modern country.

It is the country’s original sin, a moral blemish so blatant and deep that even fifty years of sustained economic growth and a state machinery of censorship and intimidation have not been able to erase. It is the elephant in the room, the one element that sets Malaysia apart from the group of advanced countries that it wants to resemble.

It is also the source of national disunity and ethnic tensions, and it is intimately linked to the current political upheavals.

I am talking about the rejection of the principle of equality of all citizens contained in the Malaysian constitution. This legal anomaly underpins one of the largest systems of institutional racism of the modern world (if you prefer euphemisms you may call it ‘race-based affirmative action’. It is also the legal foundation of the New Economic Policy and all other policies that benefit one racial group over the others.

Like all forms of injustice, this inherently racist system is only viable if people are not able to discuss it; lacking any ethical and logical justification, the Malaysian original sin is underpinned by intimidation, censorship and repression. Racism stands no chance when reason is allowed to prevail.

Abdullah Zaik Abdul Rahman, president of the
fundamentalist Malaysian Muslim Solidarity NGO

In defence of the Malaysian racist regime, I must say that at least it is very blatant and visible. The Malaysian constitution contains its own version of the Orwellian dictum that ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’.

Article 8 of the Malaysian Constitution says that “all persons are equal before the law” but then the second point reads: Except as expressly authorized by this Constitution, there shall be no discrimination against citizens on the ground only of religion, race, descent or place of birth in any law relating to the acquisition, holding or disposition of property or the establishing or carrying on of any trade, business, profession, vocation or employment.

The first seven words of the previous sentence open up the door to legal discrimination. Article 153 then clarifies what forms of discrimination are expressly authorised (hint: a lot) on the basis of the ‘special position’ of the Malays and natives of East Malaysia).

A peculiar ‘social contract’

How did this system come into being? The short answer is that the Malays managed to coerce the Chinese and Indian minorities to accept a peculiar ‘social contract’ at the time of independence, through which they would become citizens, but without the same right as the Malays. The latter never recognised the Chinese and Indian as legitimate migrants, because most of them had settled in the Malacca peninsula in British colonial times.

These migrants, or rather descendants of migrants, could either accept this raw deal or face deportation and possibly statelessness. This makes the validity of the Malaysian ‘social contract’ highly questionable, just like any contract or confession obtained through coercion is void in a court.

Leaving aside the circumstances under which the ‘social contract’ was crafted, it is worth pondering the logic for which it stands. In a nutshell, the idea is that ethnic Malays, plus the native populations of East Malaysia, are the rightful owners of Malaysia because their ancestors arrived there earlier.

It doesn’t take a genius to realise how arbitrary, unjust and impractical this reasoning is. The distribution of human groups on the territories of this planet is the result of tens of thousands of years of migrations, conquests, forced displacements and the subjugation of one group by another. There is nothing fair or civilised about it.

The ethnic Malay, Chinese, Indian, Orang Asli, and all other groups that live in modern-day Malaysia arrived on these lands at different points in time. It is absurd to qualify their right to be here on the basis of their belonging to a certain group that was politically and militarily dominant at a specific point in time.

That is why modern countries don’t try to make such distinctions: they have only one class of citizens and they all have the same rights and obligations, regardless of where their ancestors come from.

Equality is the only way to achieve national unity. You can’t tell people to unite and live in harmony when you are the first one to discriminate and divide people by race when it comes to rights and opportunities. You can’t tell people that there is ‘1Malaysia’, when all the time you promote racism, segregation, resentment and envy.

If you are serious about national unity, harmony and a constructing a common identity, you have to accept that all Malaysians have as much of a right to be here as you do, and that you are not entitled to more than anyone else.

History shows us that all systems based on racial discrimination are unsustainable in the long run, because they can only survive while reason, ethics and empathy are repressed. As Malaysia’s political system becomes more democratic and participative, the issue of equality will start to be discussed openly and without fear.

Eventually, the absurdity of the system of discrimination will become apparent to everyone and equality will be embraced as an ethical imperative but also as the missing element to propel the country into a prosperous, democratic future.

GABRIEL TARRIBA is a Master’s candidate in Public Policy at the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin. Published 2 September 2015 in Malaysiakini

[First posted 2 September 2015]

An email to Tania (from my 2017 archive)...

Over the many decades I have been researching the esoteric (no less than 60 years) I have encountered and temporarily adopted many different stories - about how Existence came to be, how the Universe began, the age of our Solar System, whether life on earth spontaneously appeared as an anomaly, or we as a species evolved from the primates or were genetically modified by technologically advanced time or space traveling races. Interestingly, the more I learn, the less I know!

All I know for sure is that everything is a story. Our lives are stories and "history" has been a feeble attempt to document the briefest span of time (no more than 13,000 terrestrial years or so) from the male perspective - that's why it's called "his story" - which mostly revolves around invasion (penetration), domination (might-as-right) & colonization (impregnation), hence the supremacy of warlord bloodlines on this planet and the ridiculous amount of energy and resources squandered on unnecessary, mutually destructive conflict.

In effect, once we acknowledge that it's all just stories, we can begin to reclaim our inner authority as creators of our own stories - and our freedom to rewrite, edit and modify those stories. So as one who by nature prefers Happy Endings, I am in the process of rewriting my own story, and as I expand my sense of Self to include and incorporate the entire Cosmos, I am also rewriting the Story of Life.

And I can attest that I am 100% convinced that all religions and priesthoods serve only one purpose - that is to shock and awe the innocent, gullible human psyche into an inherited fear of invisible and almighty forces or powers, so humans will never gain enough self-mastery to rebel against established external authority, i.e., God, Government and Gurus.

In short, I totally reject all scriptures - especially the so-called Book Religions or Abrahamic Agenda - as puerile nonsense nobody in their right mind needs to waste their time taking seriously.

My personal credo can be summed up thus: the only true god/goddess is the one you see in the mirror. All other representations of "divinity" must be questioned - but you may take for granted that All Life Is Sacred, as it is generated from a Supersentient Galactic Matrix - or what some might call the Sacred Feminine or Aeonic Creator known to the Gnostics as Sophia - better known today as Gaia-Sophia.

My blessings & love to you all!

Antares

~^@^~

18 July 2017

[First posted 16 December 2017. Reposted 3 December 2022]

The "Security" Charade ~ by Robert Bowman (repost)

Robert Bowman flew 101 combat missions in Vietnam.
He was bishop of the United Catholic Church in Melbourne Beach, Florida.

If deceptions about terrorism go unchallenged, then the threat will continue until it destroys us.

The truth is that none of our thousands of nuclear weapons can protect us from these threats. No Star Wars system no matter how technically advanced, no matter how many trillions of dollars are poured into it, can protect us from a nuclear weapon delivered in a sailboat or a Cessna or a suitcase or a Ryder rental truck. Not one weapon in our vast arsenal, not a penny of the $270 billion a year we spend on so-called defense can defend against a terrorist bomb. That is a military fact. 

As a retired lieutenant colonel and a frequent lecturer on national security issues, I have often quoted Psalm 33: "A king is not saved by his mighty army. A warrior is not saved by his great strength." The obvious reaction is, "Then what can we do?" Is there nothing we can do to provide security for our people?" 

There is. But to understand it requires that we know the truth about the threat. President Clinton did not tell the American people the truth about why we are the targets of terrorism when he explained why we bombed Afghanistan and Sudan. He said that we are a target because we stand for democracy, freedom, and human rights in the world. Nonsense! 

We are the target of terrorists because, in much of the world, our government stands for dictatorship, bondage, and human exploitation. We are the target of terrorists because we are hated. And we are hated because our government has done hateful things. 

In how many countries have agents of our government deposed popularly elected leaders and replaced them with puppet military dictators who were willing to sell out their own people to American multinational corporations? 

We did it in Iran when the US Marines and the CIA deposed Mossadegh because he wanted to nationalize the oil industry. We replaced him with the Shah and armed, trained, and paid his hated Savak National Guard, which enslaved and brutalized the people of Iran, all to protect the financial interests of our oil companies. Is it any wonder that there are people in Iran who hate us? 

We did it in Chile. We did it in Vietnam. More recently, we tried to do it in Iraq. And, of course, how many times have we done it in Nicaragua and all the other banana republics of Latin America? Time after time we have ousted popular leaders who wanted the riches of the land to be shared by the people who worked it. We replaced them with murderous tyrants who would sell out their own people so the wealth of the land could be taken out by the likes of Domino Sugar, Folgers, and Chiquita Banana. 

In country after country, our government has thwarted democracy, stifled freedom, and trampled human rights. That's why it is hated around the world. And that's why we're the target of terrorists. 

People in Canada enjoy democracy, freedom, and human rights. So do the people of Norway and Sweden. Have you heard of Canadian embassies being bombed? Or Norwegian, or Swedish? 

We are not hated because we practice democracy, value freedom, or uphold human rights. We are hated because our government denies these things to people in Third World countries whose resources are coveted by our multinational corporations. That hatred we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism and in the future, nuclear terrorism. 

Once the truth about why the threat exists is understood, the solution becomes obvious. We must change our ways. Getting rid of our nuclear weapons unilaterally if necessary will enhance our security. Drastically altering our foreign policy will ensure it.

Instead of sending our sons and daughters around the world to kill Arabs so we can have the oil under their sand, we should send them to rebuild their infrastructure, supply clean water, and feed starving children. Instead of continuing to kill hundreds of Iraqi children every day with our sanctions, we should help Iraqis rebuild their electric power plants, their water treatment facilities, their hospitals, and all the things we have destroyed and prevented them from rebuilding. 

Instead of training terrorists and death squads, we should close the School of the Americas [Ft. Benning, GA.]. Instead of supporting insurrection, destabilization, assassination, and terror around the world, we should abolish the CIA and give money to relief agencies.

In short, we should do good instead of evil. Who would try to stop us? Who would hate us? Who would want to bomb us? That is the truth the American people need to hear.

[Originally published in The National Catholic Reporter, 2 October 1998. First posted 29 November 2016, reposted 29 November 2022]

CAN WE BEFRIEND THE ELEMENTS? (reprise)

THOSE EIGHT WORDS struck me like a sledgehammer when I first encountered them while reading a rather ponderous and nebulous work by the well-known astrologer, shamanic oracle and publisher, Barbara Hand Clow, who says her Cherokee grandfather taught her to listen to the elements and attune her psyche to the earth. After his death the young Barbara was subject to the severe traumas of growing up in a dysfunctional American family and experienced recurring contact with what she later identified as Pleiadian entities. At university Barbara majored in Jungian psychology and began delving into astrology and cosmomythology. In 1974 she married Gerald Cudahy Clow and together they established Bear & Company as a highly successful publishing house for cutting-edge, "New Age" authors.

But coming back to those eight words that had so much impact on me. Let's deconstruct and decompress that "Isaiah" quote:

Monotheism is the defining feature of the Abrahamic religions which are at most 4,000 years old (since the patriarch Abraham supposedly lived in the era between 2,000 and 1,500 BCE). Hindus believe the Kali yuga or Age of Darkness began at midnight on 23 January 3,102 BCE. In effect, the advent of the Abrahamic era (dare I say error?) occurred approximately a thousand years into the Age of Darkness when all divine revelations were subject to severe distortion and refraction. Interestingly, scholars of the Mayan calendar report that in 3,113 BCE the Earth began traversing a 5,000-year beam of density emanating from the Galactic Core, during which humans would become more individualized and egocentric. This densification and dimming of human consciousness is supposed to terminate between 28 October 2011 and 21 December 2012.


Most astronomers concur that the Solar System is approximately 4.6 billion years old, as estimated by the radiometric dating of meteorites. The Earth, according to consensus scientific opinion, was probably formed shortly afterwards. Some point at the figure 4.56 billion years as the age of our planet. Paleoanthropologists can't quite agree as to exactly when Homo sapiens may have begun to appear on Earth, but the general time frame ranges between 400,000 to 160,000 years. Let's say Homo faber (tool-using hominids) began multiplying around 250,000 years ago. Though the concept of a single Almighty Creator God has been around for approximately 4,000 years, the word "monotheism" was introduced into the English language by the Neoplatonist philosopher, Henry More, only in 1660 - less than 350 years ago.


What does anthropocentrism mean? It is the belief that humans must be considered at the center of, and above any other aspect of, reality. Monotheistic religions posit that God granted Man "dominion over Nature" - in other words, human considerations take precedence over the rest of the ecosystem. Ultimately, this leads to the dangerous viewpoint that making money is the single most important human activity on earth and that hills exist just so wealthy folks may build luxury apartments from which to gaze upon the urban sprawl below. We have seen the catastrophic results of such egotistical and myopic thinking. Stringent legislation and stricter enforcement won't solve the problem in the long run - but a radical shift in consciousness and perspective most certainly will.


Alchemy (from the Arabic Al-kimia) postulates that the Matter Universe consists of four elements - Fire, Earth, Air, and Water - and that these elements are present on the micro- as well as the macrocosmic levels. Indeed, our physical bodies are a blend of these very elements. Fire represents vitality, spirit, intellect; Earth the mineral compounds that constitute our blood and bones and fleshly tissue; Air the breath that cleanses our lifeblood, inspiring thought and conveying ideas; and Water (which forms 60-80 per cent of our bodies), symbolizing our emotional tides, influenced by the electromagnetic interaction of the Moon's gravitational field with that of the Earth.


When I relocated from Kuala Lumpur in early 1992 to the verdant hills of Pertak, Ulu Selangor, I soon became acutely aware of the close proximity of all four elements in my ecstatically beautiful riverine environment. Just sitting on a 500-million-year-old granite rock aglitter with embedded quartzite, feeling the hot sun on my skin, the fragrant breeze in my hair, soothed by the neverending riversong of crystalline life-sustaining waters - I felt for the first time in my life completely and absolutely at home.


It's exquisitely therapeutic to find your analytical mind suddenly and spontaneously falling silent while all your senses come alive. You begin to grasp the notion of Zen, of being totally in the here and now. In this serene state of receptivity, your body begins to pick up impressions long forgotten or usually unnoticed in the hurly-burly of urban existence. The rock you're resting on begins to tell you stories in its own distinctive mineral voice. And you begin to perceive the holographic, fractal nature of form itself - wherein the rock you're connected with in turn connects you with the entire spectrum of mineral consciousness.


Gradually, it dawns on you that the compressed experience of spacetime imposed on us by routinely accepted constraints of modern living is no more than an ephemeral veneer of insensitivity, of a societally sanctioned sensory shutdown. Our natural state is to be in constant awe and wonderment at the glorious epiphanies that abound all around us.

Henner Wenkhausen

When indigenous cultures connect with the elements through their shamans, they do so in a spirit of friendly cooperation. The very idea of combating the forces of nature would strike them as foolish and futile. How can one possibly defeat the wind or vanquish the ocean waves? On the other hand, by understanding these majestic forces and respectfully working with them, one is able to harness their might for one's own purposes. Wind and wave and solar power could free us forever from the stranglehold of voracious corporations that trade in toxic fossil fuels. Do we truly believe we can suck dry the oil reserves with impunity? Have we never considered the possibility that these subterranean and suboceanic pockets of petroleum actually serve as hydraulic shock absorbers, preventing the tectonic plates from scraping together with results disastrous to dwellers on the earth's surface?


The element Air embodies the idea of interconnectivity, communication, communion. When we consciously share breath with another, we synchronize our heartbeats and merge our energy fields. We experience a melding on the soul level, a fusion of destinies. Interesting how in our figures of speech, air features prominently as a metaphor. For instance, Malays speak of khabar angin (gossip, rumors) just as Italians call gossipers venticelli (little winds). Those with noble hearts are considered "fragrant" (wangi in Malay) while others with malicious intent are described as "stinkers" (busuk). The nose obviously knows better then the brain!


Where integrity reigns and people are naturally inclined to speaking truthfully, atmospheric pollution is a virtual impossibility. If you live in an asphyxiating hellhole where pedestrians scurry around wearing gasmasks, car windows are constantly closed with the aircon going full blast, while outside the air is almost unbreathable from carbon monoxide fumes - it's a clear sign that lying has become a national pastime.


When 100-million-year-old hardwood forests are clearfelled and set on fire by oil palm companies, you can be sure that a great many untruths are being circulated about the sustainability of monoculture cash crop plantations and the illusory profits to be made from a nearsighted biofuel campaign. Indeed, some of the biggest logging concerns and oil palm corporations have ministers as major shareholders - and that explains why the annually recurring haze just won't go away. How does it feel to choke and gag on your own lies?


Water is the Vital Essence of Life, it's chi or prana in liquid form. Moistness is an indication of fertility, sensual ripeness, warmth of feeling; and dryness suggests sterility, barrenness, humorlessness, sexual apathy. In effect, water is the element that signifies our emotional flux. The tragic situation in Malaysia wherein anxiety about water shortages is used to justify the construction of unnecessary dams even as flash floods recur with debilitating frequency reveals the unhealthy state of the nation's emotional life. Floodwaters are murky, polluted and often accompanied by waterborne diseases. What does this indicate about the kind of emotions we are expressing... or not? Are we being governed through fear rather than love?


Monotheism and the Abrahamic religions are patriarchal by definition, since these belief systems involve worship of a male deity, a Heavenly Father or Lord. A bit of research into the early history of the monotheistic religions associated with Yahweh reveals that there was a systematic excision of pre-existing Goddess emblems by a misogynistic male priesthood.


Why was the Sacred Feminine suppressed? Look at your left and right brains. The left is regarded as the logical, male brain where abstract symbols are linearly processed into alphanumeric codes - in effect, language. The right is usually associated with intuitive functions such as spatial and temporal navigation and the processing of non-verbal sensory data - in short, the "female" brain. Male children are trained to suppress their emotions while females can cry since they are "the weaker sex." Patriarchal societies are largely warlike and male children are required as cannon fodder for military campaigns. We can't be sending sissies to the battlefield, can we?


Progress is measured in physical terms, never metaphysical. Development is infrastructural, rarely cultural. Science and technology are to be encouraged; arts and humanities are best suited to girls... and effeminate boys (would you like to see your only son become a ballet dancer and move around with the arty-farty gay crowd?) Homophobic, testosteronally propelled national aspirations will neither tolerate the ambiguity of poetry nor the nature mystic's recognition of the aliveness of the elements...


But, alas, only the poet, the mystic, and the true lover in each of us can access and befriend the elements, and restore balance and harmony to the land. Legislative measures and political rhetoric demanding a scientific and technological solution is, at best, the band-aid approach to serious environmental injury. How can we avoid wholesale eco-apocalypse - if we're too goddamn arrogant to apologize to Mother Nature for constantly trying to make a quick buck by flogging off her vital organs as commodities in the marketplace? If you were a magnificent old-growth rainforest, would you appreciate being gangbanged and chainsaw-massacred by loudmouthed louts who call you ugly names like "merchantable biomass"?

[First posted 7 November 2009, reposted 28 October 2020 & 27 September 2024]

Ideas about the Nature of God... (repost)

Well, ideas is all most of us have about the Nature of God - and the word "God" itself is pretty loaded with all sorts of false notions (that God is male, has an only begotten son, disapproves of human sexuality, hates alcohol, spurns the flesh of pigs, the list goes on...).

Let's say that some ideas about God resonate on many levels - from the cellular to the cosmic - while others are just plain ridiculous.

It's really a question of maturity.

God of Nature

When a 2-year-old says something silly, a sensible adult response would be to laugh with the kid, not at the kid. However, when it comes to institutionalized religion, we often find rabid septuagenarians ranting and raving in an utterly stupid manner - and because they have Ayatollah/Cardinal powers and can order your head chopped off or worse, people tend to keep quiet and avoid arguing with them.

The good news is: even if you believe the most preposterous things about God, it doesn't disqualify you from being as lovable as anyone else in the eyes of God.

How so? Simply because God isn't caught up in semantics and exists not just as a bunch of ideas - but, indeed, as the nuclear intelligence within every atom and also as the totality of all existence itself. Whatever anyone thinks of God... God is most certainly never petty.

Is the truth the same for everyone? Definitely not! 

Our human apprehension of "truth" constantly evolves as we acquire experience and expand our vocabulary.

A 9-year-old girl would look upon truth quite differently than a 90-year-old great-grandpa. And we're still talking about the realm of human experience and understanding - what about non-human or more-than-human consciousness?

It's not healthy to get addicted to anthropocentrism when dealing with the nature of God.

The Original and Ultimate Essence of Being caters to amoebae as well as nebulae - elemental, mineral, vegetable, animal, human, angelic, archangelic, deific and so on - it's All-Inclusive and All-Embracing.

Truth is just another way of valuing one's Integrity. Only those with a wholesome attitude can know the Whole and be mindful of being an integral aspect of the All-in-One and the One-in-All.

As you achieve Integrity or become an Integer (instead of a Cipher) you will experience Existence as a holographic construct, and your Core Self as a perfect fractal of God.

Celebrate that!

Mother Nature by Father God

[First posted 16 September 2010, reposted 27 June 2012, 19 November 2017

& 22 November 2020]

Behold the faceless corporate fascism of Facebook!

The Facebook Inquisition (source unknown)

Just as the calendar rolled into December 1st, 2017, I found myself locked out of Facebook (again!) for posting a link to a book review which happened to contain a slightly ribald but perfectly harmless image - actually very amusing and hardly as objectionable as the many hideously gory images I have seen on my newsfeed.

The censorship happened INSTANTLY (within two seconds of my clicking 'POST') and the psychological effect was akin to a heavily-armed balaclava-clad inquisitorial SWAT team breaking down your front door in the middle of the night (remember that classic Terry Gilliams movie Brazil?). It was a vivid reminder on so many levels of the crazy sci-fi timelines we are all navigating and have been, especially since the end of 2012, some transcendentally numinous and others starkly ominous.

In any case, for a few moments I contemplated the option of simply turning my back on Facebook and using this as an excuse to finally detach from this artificial sense of community we have grown so attached to over the years (it's true there are so many positive features of digital interconnectivity and being part of special-focus Facebook groups, not to mention the comforting sense of being virtually in touch with everyone even if close encounters have become more difficult to manifest).

Then I realized that in actual fact nothing at all had happened. I could simply take a badly needed 4-week vacation from the Facebook Universe or I could get back in with my wife Anoora's account (which I manage, so what if she doesn't have the massive network I enjoy as Antares). As my initial sense of outrage and intense annoyance subsided I became aware that I was in a very strange place - between nowhere and everywhere, between being fully immersed in the hurly-burly world and feeling completely indifferent to any or all outcomes. Sort of like watching a football game on the screen and not bothering which team wins because I have no loyalty to any football club.

21st Century Cyber-Emperor Marcus Zuckerbergus

This can be placed in the general context of my current perspective on everything: I'm tracking developments on many different levels - from energetically supporting the anchoring of the Totally New and Unknown (as is occurring in countless spiritually conscious communities and networks everywhere) to keeping a close eye on the factional warfare that has broken out among the old-school control freaks (whether you call them the Khazarian banksters or Yahwehists or the virus-infected Zombie Apocalypse and the covert agents that have hitherto served as foot-soldiers of the so-called Military-Industrial-Financial-Academic-Religious Complex).

Although essentially an eternal optimist - and all the positive signs are to be found in the growing number of rapidly awakening, self-governing humans I have become increasingly aware of since the advent of the internet - I realize at the same time that the rot may be already too deep for the gentle transition all of us have worked towards; that the sheer inertia of our entrenched habits could be setting up too much resistance for radical transmutation to happen smoothly and painlessly.

And we have witnessed in recent months how unpredictably aggressive the elements can be when unleashed upon puny human aspirations. Fire, Water, Air or Earth can so easily erase all our fondest dreams built upon countless lifetimes - within hours, even minutes. 

So as we enter the final months of 2025, all I can say is: "Phew! ... we made it through all the bumpy patches so far ... and each time we successfully navigate the wild weather and scary waves and emerge intact, we gain so much more experience, expertise and maturity as individuals and as a species. It's a good time to relax and not feel so driven, perhaps? Maybe it's true that getting there is what it's actually about, not arriving?

[First posted 3 December 2017, reposted 16 November 2019]

The One & Only Paul Ponnudorai (b. 20 November 1961 ~ d. 7 July 2012)

Too bad I missed Paul's 50th birthday gig at CJ's Pub & Restaurant on 20 November 2011

THE MUSICIAN’S MUSICIAN

By Christopher Toh

22 December 2007

Paul Ponnudorai has been called the ‘greatest musical interpreter of our time’, but who is he?

With his long hair and easy-going demeanor, it’s easy to dismiss singer-guitarist Paul Ponnudorai as just another musician playing in a pub. But one listen to him and you’ll know he’s definitely not just hired musical help.

His fans (many of them musicians themselves) know him as the guy who can turn a tune on its head and make it an extraordinary piece of art. They bandy superlative terms like "genius" or "musical phenomenon" when describing him.

When his name popped up in a feature article in Time magazine in May this year, wherein the writer called him "possibly the greatest musical interpreter of our time," they thought his time - no pun intended - had come.

But it hadn’t. Ponnudorai still plays Thursdays to Saturdays at Harry’s bar at the Esplanade - a gig he’s had for five years. In a straw poll we conducted, many didn’t even recognise the name and one actually asked if he was "the guy who started that famous shop in Little India." (FYI: That’s P Govindasamy Pillai.)

While failure to hit the big time despite a plug from Time magazine might bug younger musicians, Ponnudorai is nonplussed: "(The Time article) was certainly a nice compliment, but I don’t think of myself as a guitar hero. I’m known and, yet again, not. I play because I love to play and sing. It keeps me happy. And if I can touch people with it, even better. Because having something is no fun unless you share it."

Ponnudorai will be sharing the music on Saturday with local jazz legend Jeremy Monteiro and American greats Tuck and Patti at the Esplanade as part of Monteiro’s annual Christmas concert series - an event the jazz maestro started five years ago.

Rehearsing in Singapore with Jeremy Monteiro (keyboard) & Howard Levy (harp)

"When people see him, I’m sure they will be blown away by his ability and his singing," said Monteiro, 47. "Tuck and Patti have called him a ‘phenomenon’. The people who come to the show will come away with a better understanding of who Paul is."

Still, knowing how apathetic the Singapore audience can be, Monteiro is well aware critical acclaim is not necessarily followed by fame. "If you’re good, you should be famous," said Monteiro. "But it’s not always so. Like some musicians are famous, but are they good? Paul is definitely good - one of the best kept secrets of the music world."

The story of this secret started in Ipoh, Malaysia, where Ponnudorai grew up. He picked up the ukulele when he was four and the guitar at six. A left-hander, he taught himself to play right-handed and learned to keep time by playing to the creak of an old ceiling fan. His musical influences spanned from opera to country, courtesy of his father, who would play music at home.

But Ponnudorai never thought he’d be a musician. It was his brother who invited him to play during happy hours at a piano bar in Kuala Lumpur. Said the bachelor: "And as the story goes, I walked into a bar and I never walked out."

Since then, Ponnudorai has led what many would call "a full life," although he’s only a youthful 46. He’s had to endure threats from jealous musicians wanting to cut his fingers off, and played to gun-toting gang members in nightclubs - where they made him play Wham!’s "Careless Whisper" 17 times non-stop once.

He’s also won the hearts of some of the greatest musicians, including trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, harmonica virtuoso Toots Thielemans, guitarist Tommy Emmanuel and vocalist Bobby McFerrin.

Ponnudorai's only album was released in 2005

He’s survived two car crashes, with the second in 1992 resulting in him having brain surgery. "I was worried, after the second accident, about the extent of damage," he explained. "I was afraid to pick up the guitar."

But a few months later, a musician friend of his asked him to come on stage and jam with him. "I said: ‘No, I haven’t played the guitar in months.’ And he said: ‘Look, you believe in God, don’t you? Have faith.’ So I did go up and I played - and I haven’t stopped playing since!"

And though he may have a few regrets, Ponnudorai says the music makes up for it. "I think if I could have afforded higher education I probably would have missed out on these experiences I have garnered over the years playing music. I would not have had the interaction with people, spanning a period of 28 years. I don’t think any amount of money could buy that experience or pleasure. You know they say it’s the journey that counts, not the destination. I believe that’s true. I’m enjoying the journey right now."

CREATIVE GENIUS: Ponnudorai deconstructs, reinvents and performs old songs with a singular passion

MUNSHI AHMED FOR TIME

10 May 2007

A man who is quite possibly the greatest musical interpreter of our time performs every weekend at Harry's - an ordinary bar in a Singaporean shopping mall. There, before a half-empty room, while soccer matches are screened and waitresses ferry beer and fries, Paul Ponnudorai sings with astounding virtuosity, accompanied only by his Spanish guitar. His voice swoops and growls with the range and soulfulness of mid-period Stevie Wonder, and his fluid, polyrhythmic style of guitar playing appears to have little precedent. But it is his choice of material, and the inventiveness with which he arranges it, that cloaks Ponnudorai in the aura of genius.

Ponnudorai's style is to deconstruct a hackneyed standard, reassemble the parts in startlingly creative ways, and then perform it with a passion that nobody has previously dared. Thus the campfire dirge Five Hundred Miles becomes a spine-tingling R&B ballad, dripping with anguish. The Beatles' chirpy Can't Buy Me Love is transformed into a complex jazz exercise, incorporating some of the Karnatakan rhythmic phrases of Ponnudorai's South Indian ancestry. The Cascades' saccharine Rhythm of the Rain metamorphoses into the purest Burt Bacharach, with unexpected chord changes and lush melodic lines.

Comparisons could be made with José Feliciano, the Puerto Rican singer-guitarist who had 1960s hits with stylish remakes of songs like California Dreamin' and Light My Fire. But Ponnudorai is better. His ability to dice songs up, look into their hearts and perceive the common veins connecting every genre has won the attention of top international players who go to Singapore on tour. Harmonica virtuoso Toots Thielemans, drummer Billy Cobham, guitarist Tommy Emmanuel and vocalist Bobby McFerrin have all been in the audience. In 2002, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis showed up at a performance and was so taken by it, he grabbed his instrument and leapt onstage to play alongside a startled Ponnudorai, who did not recognize him. "He told me 'Ever since I got off the plane I've been hearing about nothing but you,'" Ponnudorai recalls. The pair jammed together for the next two nights.

Photo by Jack Hoo

Marsalis was referring to the buzz Ponnudorai generates among local and overseas musicians. Among the public, it is another matter. If you watch Ponnudorai play, there will typically be a handful of fans near the stage. Everyone else will be at the other end of the room, noisily drinking and making a mockery of Singapore's reputation as a city at the forefront of smoking cessation. The kind of musician that the world produces only a few times in a generation is in the house, but the laity barely notice.

[Read the rest here.]

A TRIBUTE TO PAUL PONNUDORAI

[First posted 20 November 2013]

RELATIVITY IS NO THEORY (updated)

Almost everything is relative, isn’t it? Spent the better part of my life peeling off layers of middle-of-the-road, middle-class programming (my dad subscribed to Reader’s Digest and sometimes bought their mail-order compilations of bland music). Yup, I fancied myself some exotic species of Bohemian. But where I live now - in an Orang Asli resort village in the jungly heart of the peninsula – I’m certainly the most middle-class person around. How many other households here actually have peanut butter and toilet paper on their shopping lists? Indeed, nobody else in Pertak Village has even heard of a shopping list (although, 20 years down the line, quite a few now order stuff from Shopee).

I take a measure of pride, though, in the fact that ours is perhaps one of three houses without a TV aerial. My daughter did offer me Astro once but I didn’t want to pay a monthly fee only to get high blood pressure from watching the Bulldog Broadcasting Corporation and the Crap News Network and the icky ooze of putrid commercials. No doubt if highspeed broadband ever comes to the wilds of Ulu Selangor and I can actually stream Netflix, I might just relent and get hooked up - or simply get hooked. After all, I’ve already long relented on electronic word processing, the internet, cellular phones, emails and SMSes. In fact, I’m generally quite impressed by digital tech.

In my early teens I thought my musical taste was pretty outré (that’s French for astonishing and bizarre). I was picking up records by Edgard Varèse, Conlon Nancarrow, Terry Riley, John Coltrane, and Sun Ra (pictured left). The Beatles made pop respectable for me, and I began to ease off on movie soundtrack albums and progressive jazz à la Dave Brubeck and Charlie Mingus after turning on, tuning in, and dropping out. When a brain-damaged sociopath stole my entire LP collection in 2000, I figured it was high time I updated myself on the contemporary music scene. However, try as I might, I just couldn’t get into hip-hop, rap, or techno – and death metal made me wish entire sections of the human race would die horribly, especially those generating the noise. Another sign of maturity, I sighed, acknowledging my thinning top and thickening middle in the mirror. But the truth was, I now qualified as a mainstream musical conservative – not unlike that snooty classical music reviewer who once dismissed as “fluff” everything written after 1856. Shockingly, in 2025, I find myself listening a lot to slick jazz-soul fusion groups like Incognito and Cory Wong & The Wongnotes!

Not long ago I ventured into a fashionable chill-out joint (more like a low-budget sauna it was) where the in-crowd let their hair down (and their deodorized sweat out) twitching to b&d (bass & drums) and brainless dj scratching and a whole slew of absolutely soulless post-industrial neo-existential yuppie punkfunk. Didn’t do a thing for me. Why can’t they play some really sexy Senegalese m’balax? Or some truly inspired millennial techno-rap like 1 Giant Leap? Could this possibly be the unfortunate result of being born in the 1980s and having to listen to the dumbest music in the history of the Universe? Or just a long-term side effect of chlorinating and fluoridating the water supply?

“De gustibus non est disputandum,” the goddamn Romans used to quip. Can you figure that out? That’s right. There’s no disputing taste. Perhaps not, if everything is relative after all. But I’m still convinced that after a couple of generations, humans who habitually ingest fast foods are bound to suffer acute tastebud damage.

I’ve often been accused of being an “intellectual.” Excuse me, that’s not at all an accurate description, even if I do have a penchant for polysyllables. But I now accept all labels, having learnt to peel them off before the glue dries. Now, the late dramaturge Krishen Jit - bless his huggable soul, may he relish his new job as Director of the Cosmic Theater of the Absurd – he was my definition of an intellectual. Somebody who can’t help conceptualizing reality. Yet, it sometimes occurs to me that if I had been living in China during the so-called Cultural Revolution, I’d probably have been frogmarched to a labor camp and forced to grow kumquats on stony ground, even though I don’t wear half-inch thick glasses (Look, Ma, no contacts either!).

One of my childhood heroes was the Russian-Armenian magician G.I. Gurdjieff (pictured right), who enjoyed calling humans “those two-legged, three-brained beings.” There were no microchips or computers in Gurdjieff’s day, and nobody had heard of nanotech, or he might have said “four-brained beings.” However, Gurdjieff pointed out that to be whole beings we must connect our thinking, feeling, and moving centers and keep them functioning in dynamic equilibrium. The thinking center is located in our brain and neural circuitry. The feeling center is our emotional core, the metaphorical heart, where we experience empathy and compassion. The moving center is combination of ego, libido, and animal instinct (the solar plexus, sacral, and root chakras, if you’re familiar with such concepts).

An overactive moving center makes us dangerously and mindlessly impulsive (shoot first, talk later). Isolating ourselves in the ivory tower of the thinking center makes us Hamlets, beard-stroking theoreticians. And being stuck in the feeling center makes us compulsive consumers of melodrama (condemned to Drama Minggu Ini week after week).

Yup, it’s all a question of relativity. And you have to go through a hellish amount of relativity - demonstrating Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle over and over again - before you arrive at that point of Absolute Certainty where latitude and longitude intersect. But, have no fear, we’ll all get there yet. Then, finally, we’ll be able to hang a sign on our front door that says: NO RELATIVES, ONLY ABSOLUTES!

[Originally published in the May 2005 issue of VIDA! 

First posted 8 January 2007, reposted 15 November 2017]

Sexual repression & guilt ~ the root of all patriarchal evils, especially in Malaysia! (repost)

When I was 19 I went through an intense and highly compressed ascetic phase. For about two weeks I lost interest in food, sex and sleep. My mind went into overdrive and kept me in a constant state of excitement. I was absolutely determined to figure out what the hell I was doing on this planet in a human body - and what I had been, if anything at all, before taking birth.

My days and nights were spent reading, writing, thinking, observing everything around me, and discussing my ideas and insights with a couple of close friends. I didn't require much solid food, sometimes drinking only a bowl of soup and nibbling on a Marmite sandwich. Meat didn't appeal to me; often I chewed on some vegetables just to get their essence; and I couldn't be bothered or didn't need to sleep, though I would sit in lotus position and recharge my cells from time to time.

Soon I found my testicles retracting and my penis shrinking to a ridiculous size. All I did was burst out laughing because I suddenly understood why Indian yogis have traditionally subjected themselves to long periods of fasting and abstinence.

It was to focus their minds like a laser in order to cut through the crap of mundane existence and begin to stepdown and receive data from an extended range of the electromagnetic spectrum.

I've written extensively about my early initiatory experiences elsewhere so I'll fast-forward to the moment when, unexpectedly, I experienced a resurgence of my libido. I was absorbing the Sun's energy one morning and suddenly found myself with the most incredible hard-on ever. The word virile  came alive for me as I felt the solar force course through my throbbing veins. I gazed in awe at my rampant manhood, luxuriating in electric ripples of unmitigated concupiscence.

Priapus, Greek God of Fertility

It was as though my libido had died and resurrected itself as a hitherto unknown species of sacred sexuality wherein my own innate divinity was being expressed as a manifestation of the Primordial Progenitor. The Father archetype and I literally became one.

Omphalos stone

Hajarul Aswad, a piece
of tektite embedded in the
eastern corner of the Kaaba

From that moment hence, I was liberated from a hundred thousand generations of hand-me-down sexual taboos. In a flash I understood the serpent symbolism underlying all pre-Abrahamic belief systems. The esoteric word kundalini  was unknown to me at the time, but when I later read about the phenomenon I knew it was what had spontaneously happened to me.

The electromagnetic basis of all existence in a bi-polar universe is grounded in the sacred union of shakta and shakti, male and female principles. This simply means that the ultimate goal of yoga - which means "union" in Sanskrit - is conscious fusion between polarities on all levels - from the biological (as in sexual conjugation) to the metaphysical (as in the alchemical marriage between our divine and human aspects).

Tantra teaches us that the ego-transcending act of sexual union is among the most powerful and direct methods of realizing our own inherent divinity - at least when performed as an act of worship by those who have cleansed themselves of negative emotions like guilt, fear and hypocrisy.

However, the erotophobic male priesthoods that sprouted in the wake of Abraham approximately 4,000 years ago have systematically perverted human sexuality with their erroneous doctrines of shame and false purity, wherein celibacy became promoted as a virtue unto itself.

Activation of the chakras above the navel was encouraged as a means to "get closer to God" - whereas activating the chakras below the navel was considered dangerous - even wrong - as it reinforced our animality and focused our senses on carnal pleasures.

Thus was sexual taboo entrenched in the Book Religions which gave rise to what I call the fig leaf syndrome. Humans became schizoid and a great divide separated their inner and outer personalities into private and public selves - with a hardwired conditioned reflex to cover up whatever was considered "private" and exaggerate or magnify everything regarded as "public."

This is why in patriarchal societies like Malaysia, issues of morality tend to revolve around sex. Corrupt and dishonest politicians are tolerated to the extent that they often get re-elected, but they must resign the moment they're caught with their pants down.

In effect, we're being given the message that it's okay to do just about anything - including abduct, extort, intimidate, torture, imprison and murder - so long as we keep our trousers on at all times.

By the same token, anything sexual is subject to strict censorship - no kissing, no nudity, no glimpses of genitalia. However, the worst forms of violence are acceptable: punching, stabbing, shooting, karate-chopping, beheading, crucifying, dropping bombs on crowded cities are all "okay."

Is it any wonder that our law enforcement agencies have attracted such a large number of sexual perverts and psychopaths? These are men who have been brought up to believe that their sexual nature is demonic  and must be suppressed or controlled through harsh laws. Burdened with chronic guilt feelings, these men harbor a subconscious fear of being assigned to hell after they die. And if you're going to hell for masturbating too often, you might as well go the whole hog and commit rape, murder, brutal torture, the works.

Have you ever wondered why on earth in the 21st century we still have statutes against oral and anal sex? Not only are these activities ominously classified as "acts against the order of nature" - they are also punishable with caning and imprisonment of up to 20 years! Each day that such nonsensical laws continue to exist in our legal statutes, they make a complete mockery of reason and sanity.

Only a perverted male priesthood could visualize a deity dressed like a stern-faced judge who can routinely sentence anyone to jail for up to 20 years simply for enjoying a bit of mildly kinky sex. How can you argue with such a twisted mindset? The keenest legal mind in the world cannot get you off the hook except by proving your innocence beyond doubt or providing a watertight alibi.

The ISA may be an extremely cruel and unjust law - but what about the laws against anal and oral sex? They are utterly insane and totally insufferable. If this Victorian era legislation were to be enthusiastically enforced, I'd venture that more than one-third of Malaysia's adult population would right now be serving time (free at last to enjoy as much anal and oral sex as they can handle, just as drug addicts can always find a regular supply if they befriend the right prison warders).

Infamous arsehole Saiful Bukhari Azlan with Khairil Anus Yusof,
special aide to Najib Razak

But do you think any lawmaker would even consider revoking these archaic laws so long as they can be ued against political adversaries?

The issue of sexual repression I have raised with this blogpost has a multitude of ramifications. Nature has designed our bodies in such a way that when we attain puberty, a psychedelic slew of hormones are secreted into our bloodstream which accelerate and enhance mental and spiritual growth. But if our early encounters with our own sexuality are fraught with guilt and shame and subterfuge, we shall find it much harder to attain mental and spiritual maturity.

This is precisely why patriarchies are invariably dead against sex, drugs and rock'n'roll - which may be considered evolutionary triggers in the context of modern living. Sexual freedom causes the young to mature more quickly. Drugs (specifically entheogenic substances like LSD, psilocybin and ayahuasca) - notwithstanding their potential negative side-effects - can facilitate neurological and sensory breakthroughs that provide otherwise unavailable glimpses of ordinarily inaccessible realities. And rock'n'roll  is essentially a code name for any innovative genre of music that serves to initiate young people into neo-tribal states of consciousness, often catalyzing new artistic and cultural forms into manifestation.


Going by the orc-like behavior of our policemen and security personnel, one can easily conclude that what we have in Malaysia is a sex-obsessed society of mental and spiritual retards. The more we attempt to suppress our sexual nature, the more obsessed we become with it. Four thousand years of religious erotophobia have produced only one significant result: the burgeoning of a multi-billion-dollar porn industry.

No sexually repressed society can ever produce great works of art. As long as our collective kundalini  is blocked or forced to express itself through "underground" routes, Malaysia will remain a mediocracy - where mediocrity rules unchallenged.

Think long and hard on this, people... and make sure your children do not grow up sexually repressed!

[Originally published on 20 April 2009 as part six of a series - Where Malaysia is headed. Reposted 11 February 2014, 2 April 2016, 20 July 2017, 27 March 2019 & 14 November 2020]