Amina Describes Her Ordeal (Reprise)

On 8 November 2006 The Star headlines read: "Bone fragments of model found on hill." Eleven years down the line the key figures behind the gruesome murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu have yet to be investigated for their complicity in this high-profile crime of mind-boggling proportions, involving billions of ringgit worth of military spending and kickbacks - and implicating those now enthroned in the highest positions. Not only is the Malaysian government guilty of a massive cover-up, so also are all of us who choose to ignore the rotting elephant carcass in our living rooms....

[From a statutory declaration dated 1 July 2008, signed by Balasubramaniam a/l Perumal, private investigator...]

On Oct 19, 2006, I arrived at Abdul Razak Baginda’s house in Damansara Heights to begin my night duty. I had parked my car outside as usual. I saw a yellow Proton Perdana taxi pass by with three ladies inside, one of whom was Amina. The taxi did a U-turn and stopped in front of the house where these ladies rolled down the window and wished me ‘Happy Deepavali.’ The taxi then left.

About 20 minutes later the taxi returned with only Amina in it. She got out of the taxi and walked towards me and started talking to me. I sent an SMS to Abdul Razak Baginda informing him “Amina was here.” I received an SMS from Razak instructing me “to delay her until my man comes.”

Whist I was talking to Amina, she informed me of the following:

i) That she met Abdul Razak Baginda in Singapore with Najib Razak.

ii) That she had also met Abdul Razak Baginda and Najib Razak at a dinner in Paris.

iii) That she was promised a sum of US$500,000.00 as commission for assisting in a submarine deal in Paris.

iv) That Abdul Razak Baginda had bought her a house in Mongolia but her brother had refinanced it and she needed money to redeem it.

v) That her mother was ill and she needed money to pay for her treatment.

vi) That Abdul Razak Baginda had married her in Korea as her mother is Korean whilst her father was a Mongolian/Chinese mix.

vii) That if I wouldn’t allow her to see Abdul Razak Baginda, would I be able to arrange for her to see Najib Razak.

After talking to Amina for about 15 minutes, a red Proton Aeroback arrived with a woman and two men. I now know the woman to be lance corporal Rohaniza and the men, Azilah Hadri and Sirul Azahar. They were all in plainclothes. Azilah walked towards me while the other two stayed in the car.

Azilah asked me whether the woman was Amina and I said “Yes”. He then walked off and made a few calls on his handphone. After 10 minutes another vehicle, a blue Proton Saga, driven by a Malay man, passed by slowly. The driver's window had been wound down and the driver was looking at us.

Azilah then informed me they would be taking Amina away. I informed Amina they were arresting her. The other two persons then got out of the red Proton and exchanged seats so that lance corporal Rohaniza and Amina were in the back while the two men were in the front. They drove off and that is the last I ever saw of Amina.

I don't know where they are taking me. At first I thought they would take me to the police station and question me, but we seem to be going away from the city. Maybe they are taking me to the airport and throwing me out of the country. More than half an hour later the car enters a gated driveway leading to a double-storey bungalow in a big garden. It's a very quiet area and I have no idea where I am. I feel very worried about the situation, but I try my best to look calm.

One of the men tells the lady something in Malay and she nods and returns to the car. The men then push me inside the house and force me to go upstairs. I am beginning to feel frightened, because this is definitely not a police station. What will they do to me?

One man opens a bedroom door and the other pushes me inside. I fear they may try to rape me as we appear to be alone in this big house. The men ask me for my handbag and they take away my watch, cellphone and jewelry. Then they push me inside a big empty wardrobe and shut the door. It is very dark and musty inside and I hear a key turning in the wardrobe door. I hear the men's voices discussing something, then they leave the room, and I am alone in the total darkness. I can hear my heart pounding very loudly. The sound of traffic from a great distance tells me we are quite far from the city.

I have no sense of time. I may have dozed off after an hour, I can't be sure. My stomach is growling, so it must be long after dinner time. I feel stiff and uncomfortable and my bladder is ready to burst. Amy must be wondering why I am not back at the hotel yet. I hope she will call Ang to enquire about me at the police station. That Razak is a coward. He dare not face me. Instead he has asked the police to kidnap me....

There are voices in the room and a key turns. The wardrobe door opens and I see several figures as my eyes adjust to the light. They are wearing black hoods and I can see only their eyes - but two of them are women. I am dragged out roughly and pushed to the floor. Now I am really scared. These people are dangerous, they are not behaving like police officers at all, more like members of a secret society.

While one of the hooded men lifts me off the floor, the large woman is shouting angrily at me, calling me all kinds of names. Suddenly she steps forward and slaps me very hard across the face - again and again and again - while my arms are held tight by the men. Tears sting my raw cheeks and I tell her stop but she keeps hitting me and spitting in my face.

She calls me a dirty prostitute and says I deserve to die. I don't know who this woman is but she is totally crazy, like a demon. Sometimes she shouts at me in English and then she says something in Malay. The other woman steps forward and tears the front of my dress with great force. She pulls off my bra and gags me with it, and then she yanks down my panties, so they are around my ankles.

The men push me to the floor and take turns raping me. One tries to sodomize me but gives up and forces himself into my mouth instead. I bite him and he screams in pain and hits my head very hard, till I almost lose consciousness. This is a horrible nightmare. It can't be happening to me! Who are these insane people? They can't be policemen! They are monsters! I can hear the large woman laughing like a witch...

Suddenly I am looking at the scene from somewhere above. My body is badly bruised and almost numb with shock. It's a strange feeling, to feel so detached from my body. I feel no anger. Only sadness and pity for my attackers who are so depraved they are no longer human. I know I will never see my family and friends again, because these people intend to kill me.

I am back in my body and it hurts all over. The woman is mercilessly beating me with a cane and kicking me while the others stand back. She keeps whacking my genitals until I feel nothing... then I am thankfully out of my body again.

I watch my unconscious body being carried downstairs. They tape my mouth shut and tie my hands and feet tight with plastic rope. Then they throw me into the back of a 4-wheel-drive and slam the door shut. The vehicle drives off, followed by two other cars.

After a long time the 4-wheel-drive stops and a few people climb into it. The road is very bad and bumpy but I am hovering close to my body, observing everything that happens. There is no more sound of traffic. We must be in the jungle somewhere because all I can hear are insects chirping loudly, and heavy breathing as my body is placed on a stretcher and carried by two men along a jungle path.

When they finally stop and put down the stretcher I hear the woman's voice again. Cold water is thrown on my face and I return to my body with a jerk. Slowly I try to open my eyes but I can't focus on anything because it is very dark, except for the flashlights carried by a few of my abductors. The woman's voice is very close to my ear as she hisses: "So long, Amina. Lovely to meet you at last. Have a pleasant journey." She laughs grotesquely and rips off the tape covering my mouth. "I want to hear you scream. Do you have any last words... dear Amina?" She has removed her hood so I can see her face. It's a very cruel face indeed. The others are not wearing hoods but I don't know who they are. The large woman is obviously their boss.

Out of the corner of my eye I catch the metallic gleam of a gun near my face and I know this is the end of my story. I gather my strength and say as calmly and clearly as possible, so they will hear every word: "You are evil people. I curse you forever. You will never know peace again." I feel myself transforming into a mother wolf, ready to pounce in defence of her cubs...

Then I hear a click and there is blinding flash. I am floating ten feet above my twitching body. After a while I see someone attaching something to my now lifeless body. I cannot believe they intend to blow up my corpse with explosives, so nobody will ever find my bones!


I look up and see a beautiful blue sky. The sun shines brilliantly over the distant mountains. I can hear voices singing in overtones the ancient melodies of the great steppes where my ancestors hunted and fought their battles. Suddenly I am flying like an eagle over the rugged landscape that feels so familiar. I am free as a bird and I am home at last.

[First published 19 October 2008. Reposted 8 November 2011 & 19 October 2014]

ANWAR: A MAN OF EXTRAORDINARY DESTINY (updated & expanded)

It never ceases to amaze me when perfectly intelligent folk keep parroting unoriginal notions acquired from coffeeshop gossip and loose talk over a few beers. How many times have I been told by those supposedly in the know that “Anwar can’t be trusted. He’s a chameleon.”

Dammit… look at that bunch of utter nincompoops strutting around the corridors of power today: anal-retentive Umno stereotypes like Najib Razak, Zahid Hamidi, Nazri Abdul Aziz, Tengku Adnan, Hishammuddin Hussein, Noh Omar, Khairy Jamaluddin… DO YOU TRUST THESE CREATURES? They can’t even speak in public without sounding like robots or reading from scripts! Anwar is human and passionate and you can sense a burning intelligence in his eyes.

Okay, back in the mid-1970s when I first read about this hotheaded leader of ABIM (Muslim Youth Movement), I went ho-hum. Back then Anwar Ibrahim was your archetypal ethnocentric nationalist sporting the mujahideen goatee - but at least he was outspoken on issues affecting the rural poor, and that got him into jail. Seeing his leadership potential, Mahathir persuaded Anwar to join Umno and got him spewing forth the expected foam about bangsa and ugama. I confess that in 1989 I actually did a caricature of him and labeled it "Anal Ibrim" little suspecting that within a decade Anwar would be plagued by that very word. And I'm still troubled by a rumor I once heard, naming Anwar Ibrahim as the minister who came up with the wicked idea to convert the dysfunctional Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli (Orang Asli Affairs Department) into a tool for converting the Orang Asli to Islam and assimilating them into the Malay mainstream.

Well, I don't know if there's any truth to that accusation - but even if it were true, that was back in 1990, and the man has suffered six years in prison for that reprehensible gaffe. You could say Anwar has paid all his karmic dues. Let's delete Anwar's slightly murky past when he was Umno deputy president and Dr M's hand-picked protégé, and take a closer look at what happened around the time of the currency depreciation in mid-1997. A bunch of young Turks in Umno were pushing Anwar to the forefront as a potential heir to the throne, goading him to attack Mahathir on the corruption front, the old man's weak underbelly. The Mamak didn't like that one bit - and neither did his former finance minister, Daim Zainuddin. Anwar was given the option to hand in his resignation - or face extreme vilification and political damnation.

Anwar, unlike other DPMs, refused to yield to Mahathir’s awesome might and megalomaniacal ego. Anwar fought back when he could have cut his losses by taking up a diplomatic or academic post abroad, returning quietly to the Umno fold a few years later like Musa Hitam.

On September 2nd, 1998, Anwar Ibrahim underwent a radical transformation from Umno bigwig to political renegade - he literally took on the mantle of a messianic cult hero when Malaysia urgently required one. I’ve watched him closely since his sacking and subsequent arrest - and he has performed impeccably as a spiritual warrior and icon of righteous resistance. Over six years of incarceration Anwar maintained his dignity, focus, perseverance and humanity - and that’s when the beautiful, strong women in his life rose to the occasion.

No man who has seen his wife and daughter go through so much on his behalf would ever behave like a male chauvinist pig; he would have a healthy respect for the feminine principle. This is what I see in Anwar and that is why I have publicly hailed him as Malaysia’s best hope at this critical juncture in our political evolution.

Anwar has every quality that marks him as a man of extraordinary destiny. I trust him as much as I trust myself - and because I fear him not, I would walk up to him and tell him to his face if ever I felt he was turning into a tyrant. As a former victim of Dr M's tyranny, Anwar would never want to go down that ignominious road.

In 2001 while overnighting at a friend's house, I flipped through a copy of Anwar Ibrahim's Asian Renaissance I found in his library. Anwar came across as somebody I could imagine having a damn good conversation with on a one-to-one basis. But what most impressed me and turned my views around on politicians in general and Anwar in particular - was the bibliography at the end of the book which listed - among a broad spectrum of classics including the sublime poetry of Rabindranath Tagore - the Tao Te Ching. Now, anybody who can claim to have read that supreme masterpiece in pithy, organic wisdom is welcome in my household anytime. And if he decides to run for high political office, I'd put my money on him. These are no ordinary times we are living in. Successfully navigating the uncharted political seas immediately ahead calls for an extraordinary helmsman - one who has survived the worst storms!

[Here's an inspiring perspective on Anwar Ibrahim by Charles R. Avila that was uploaded 11 June 2008 on Din Merican's blog.]

APPENDIX A

Wednesday, 30 July 2008

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Malaysia Today

At 2.30pm on Wednesday, 25 June 2008, Senior Assistant Commissioner (SAC) II Mohd Rodwan Mohd Yusof met Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan in room 619 of the Concorde Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Prior to this secret meeting, Rodwan and Saiful spoke on the phone at least eight (8) times.

Three days later, at 2.00pm on 28 June 2008, Saiful went to see Dr Mohamed Osman Abdul Hamid of the Hospital Pusrawi to ‘complain’ that he had been sodomised by ‘a very important person’ and that he wished to lodge a police report. The doctor, however, found no traces or evidence that he had been sodomised and suggested, for purposes of the police report, that Saiful go to a government hospital.

Who is Rodwan, other than the fact that he works for the IGP and is known as the police chief’s bagman and go-between with the organised crime syndicate that controls all the drugs, prostitution, loan-sharking and gambling rackets? Well, read the following archived reports to get a better understanding of this scumbag and slime-ball named Rodwan. Maybe then you can understand why he met Saiful in a hotel room three days before the sodomy allegation against Anwar Ibrahim exploded.

APPENDIX B

This comment was posted 30 July 2008 on Susan Loone’s blog:

Susan,

I would like to write the following statement in the name of GOD whom I believe.

I am a government doctor in the rank of consultant working in Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL). I know personally the doctors who examined Saiful on that day - 28 June 2008.

The so-called medical report mentioned in the NST is a fabrication or imagination by the UMNO paper. There is no such medical report submitted to the polis yet.

When examining Saiful, the specialist could not find any signs of Saiful being sodomised. Saiful was very cheerful, unlike real sodomised patients who will usually be very sad and disturbed.

Saiful was subsequently admitted to the ward and observed for a day. He was completely well in the ward and not emotionally disturbed.

Thanks.

[First posted 30 July 2008]

We can only conclude, in view of Umno's psychopathological obsession with anal sex as a means of destroying Anwar Ibrahim's personal reputation and political career, that the Ketuanan Melayu party is possessed by far more dangerous demons - and is collectively a smellier asshole than Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

[Last posted 17 January 2012, reposted 22 March 2014 & 12 April 2016]

Anwar Ibrahim on the Spirit of Liberty (reprise)

[First posted 23 November 2009 and more relevant than ever!]


Anwar: We need substantive change

Terence Netto
November 22, 2009
1:25pm


Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim told a Pakatan Rakyat seminar yesterday on the two-party system that Malaysia must move from the forms of representation to the substance of democratic experience to give validity to the nation's founding constitution.

Speaking to several score leaders from PKR, PAS and DAP, the component parties of Pakatan, at the seminar in Kuala Lumpur organised to infuse them with a sense of mission, Anwar held that the country's democratic beginnings were not sustained because of servile subscription to certain shibboleths.

One was that its racial diversity was potentially explosive and the other was that the need for rapid economic progress was touted as incompatible with democracy.

pic courtesy of penangtalk.com

"Our diverse ethnic make-up, rather than an asset, was treated as a powder keg that could be ignited by the slightest spark," he said.

He said this manipulated fear of the country's social fragility was compounded by the perception that "economic development was not compatible with the freedoms that have been established in other democratic nations."

He said delusive beliefs led politicians to give free rein to "greed and avarice and not what Vaclav Havel (right) described as a heightened responsibility for the moral state of society."

Havel was the Czech playwright who figured prominently in his country's break with its communist past in 1989 and became president shortly afterwards, a modern epitome of Plato's ideal of the 'philosopher-king' that held philosophers as best equipped to rule a country because of their passion for truth and justice.

Of course, these notions are scoffed at by the hardnosed, realist school of leaders who think of politics as offering success only to those skilled at deploying the wiles of a fox and the strength of a lion.

That period is over

Anwar said the period was over when the notion held sway that Asians had a cultural predisposition to such values as social order, deferred gratification, and respect for hierarchy, in preference to the cacophony of democratic dissent.

He said this was the pet theory of a cadre of Asian authoritarians whose influence had waned. In any case their theory has been deflated by Asian intellectuals like Nobel laureate Amartya Sen (left) who has cogently argued that there was nothing intrinsically Asian about a preference for social conformity over democratic individualism.

Sen posited the contrary view that freedom and democracy are vital factors in wealth creation and social advancement in Asian societies.

Once again Anwar aired his opinion that while the Western world had established strong institutions of democracy, they held no monopoly on its underlying principles.

He reiterated that the theories of liberal democracy's progenitor John Locke were adumbrated by the principles laid down in Prophet Muhammad's Last Sermon, to wit, the sanctity of contracts and property rights, racial equality and women's rights.

These principles were upheld as the higher objectives of Islamic Law by the Andalusian legal scholar, al-Shatibi, in his treatise, maqasid al-Sharia, which sanctify the preservation of religion, life, family and wealth.

Anwar again claimed that the philosophic antecedents of the Enlightenment principles of Locke and Montesquieu that seeded the flowering of democratic government in the West could be found in the the Last sermon and the maqasid al-Sharia.

He said there was a discontinuity between Malaysia's beginnings as a constitutional democracy and its subsequent experience as a nation as its rulers deviated from the original spirit of the Constitution.

"The upshot is that Malaysia's experience as a pseudo democracy has been an utter disaster. A nation blessed with vast wealth and a people with the ability to learn and excel have been left in the lurch by decades of failed policies. Hope in a brighter future has been snuffed out by the blunt instrument of state power and the cancer of corruption," claimed Anwar.

Pakatan has a special responsibility

He said the impetus given to the two-party system by the results of the general elections of March 8, 2008, would be lost if the main values of the democratic societies are not fortified. These were liberty, social pluralism and political constitutionalism.

"The intent of these values and the institutions that mediate the relationship between the citizen and the government is to guard against the exercise of tyranny," he said.

Anwar said an independent and free judiciary, a free press and a legislature that applied moral precepts to its output, are vital to the mediation of the relationship between government and the citizen.

He proposed the concept of democracy articulated by the political scientist Ian Shapiro - that it is "an ideology of opposition as much as it is one of government" - as an animating principle for the two-party system.

"Yet we would be in a state of self-deception, however, if we pinned the hopes for healthy democracies on just one of its attributes," said Anwar.

He said free and fair elections in which all parties are allowed to compete on a level playing field and unobstructed governance by those elected by voters were the other attributes of a vibrant two-party system.

Anwar said all these features were envisaged by the country's founding constitution but the sum of subsequent deviations – 700 amendments to be sure – eventuated in the contorted construct Malaysians are faced with today.

He said the Pakatan coalition had a special responsibility to nurture the new consciousness that has emerged in Malaysian society after March 8, 2008, to "retrieve, revive and reinvigorate the spirit of liberty, individualism, humanism and tolerance" that was the underlying spirit of the founding constitution.

[Read the complete transcript of Anwar's excellent speech here.]

Get The Message (in 9 minutes) ~ by Terence McKenna

Uploaded on 15 Jun 2011

Terence McKenna talks about culture, 5 dried grams of psilocybin mushrooms and self empowerment, from the question and answer session of his lecture entitled 'Eros And The Eschaton.'

Watch this selected playlist of Terence McKenna videos. For full McKenna talks click here - or check out The Psychedelic Salon Podcast (this lecture is filed under 'Psychedelics: What Science Forgot')

With thanks to revolutionloveevolve!

[Brought to my attention by Quetzalcoatl Ehecatl. First posted 20 January 2014]

Russell Brand, Daniel Pinchbeck & Eve Ensler discuss some important issues...

[First posted 29 October 2013]

Basiran Nasional? ... Embarisan Nazional? ... Barbarisan Nastianal? ... Borosan Nasikangkang?

Once again, with apologies to Malaysiakini, I just have to repost this classic from the indefatigable Dean Johns...

What BN really stands for
Dean Johns
14 March 2012 / Malaysiakini

On the face of it this is painfully obvious, at least to most Malaysians. BN stands for Barisan Nasional, the coalition that has ruled them increasingly crookedly and incompetently for the past half-century.

But as ‘Barisan Nasional’ means ‘National Front’, the question remains what and who BN is a front for, and how much longer it can get away with all the ugly realities it strives to hide behind its carefully-crafted facade.

How much longer, for example, can some apparently sentient Malaysians keep taking it seriously as ‘Barisan Nasional’, when, as I pointed-out in a column some months ago, BN is so evidently a front for what could justly be called ‘Basiran Nasional’?

I recall that at the time several readers complained of my calling BN ‘basi’, which I had discovered in my trusty pocket Malay-English dictionary to mean “stale, rotten, out-of-date”, on the grounds that it was abusive.

An accusation to which my response was and remains that, after 54 dreary years in power, BN has come to stand for so much that is basi, not to mention buruk and busuk, that it’s ridiculous.

And if this plainly evident fact strikes anyone as abusive, or even ABUsive, I’m delighted. BN has subjected Malaysia and Malaysians to such an intolerable burden of abuse, of everything from public funds to human rights and civil liberties that no amount of verbal abuse by me or anyone else can come close to restoring the balance.

Especially in view of the fact that the rot goes on unabated, so that Barisan/Basiran seems to be not just a false front or throwback to the dim, dark ages, but a veritable Barahsan Nasional.

Cancer mutated into conspiracy

A cancer that has grown from barely-detectable beginnings in a formerly apparently benign political coalition, and mutated and metastasised into a malignant criminal conspiracy that threatens the livelihoods and even the lives of Malaysian citizens.

If you think I’m exaggerating in the life-and-death department, take a look at the what BN expects Malaysians to Barinsanely stand for at the hands of their Nasional law-enforcement agencies.

Not only the unexplained, uninvestigated and of course unpunished homicide of ‘suspects’ in staged ‘shoot-outs’ and in custody, and charges and counter-charges between senior police and law officers allegedly in league with organised crime, but such dereliction of ordinary, everyday duties that communities have to pay private security organisations to ensure their own and their families’ safety, and the fatality rates on Malaysia’s pathetically-policed roads are 10 times of those in countries like the UK and Australia.

Then there’s BN’s legendary standing as Borosan Nasional, extravagantly spending and squandering so much public money on its members and their relatives and cronies as to threaten to reduce the rakyat to ruin.

The prime minister and his shopaholic consort spend fortunes jet-setting around the world and throwing glitzy parties using either public funds or mysteriously-amassed millions of their own. Billions disappear in ‘commissions’ on submarines, armoured personnel carriers and other ‘defence’ deals, and countless more billions go missing in ‘soft loans’, ‘bail-outs’ and ‘development’ schemes and scams.

And in case the poor suckers who pay for all this get wise to how wantonly they’re being cheated, short-changed, ripped-off, and thus take to complaining or - horror of horrors - avenging themselves at the ballot-box, there’s the ultimate expression of what BN stands for, Barisandiwara Nasional.

What a show of shows this is. What a dazzling display of deception, trickery, illusionism and sleight-of-hand. Roll up, roll up and see BN’s ‘world’s best democracy’, never mind BN’s world-class anti-democratic laws, phoney BN ‘reforms’, rigged BN electoral system and BN ‘transformations’ that turn out to be just more of the same old BN transfornications.

Tune-in to the BN show-trials of opposition leaders, and selected scapegoats in BN scandals where ‘justice’ has to be seen to be done by a hand-picked BN judiciary.

Sit through years of fraudulent BN ‘inquests’ and ‘royal commissions’ that eventually end but never come to any actual, actionable conclusions.

See, hear and read all the exciting, sordid details of BN allegations against its critics and opponents, and thrill to the thunderous silence about BN crimes and misdeeds in the BN-biased ‘news’ media.

Chorus of sectarian discord

Feel the peace, love and harmony of a BN-united 1Malaysia, and never mind the dreadful din of the BN-conducted chorus of racial and sectarian discord.

Barisan Nasional is no doubt a front for many more evils than those I’ve identified among those that BN stands for.

But I’m right on deadline for this column, so I haven’t much time to come up with any others. In any case, despite my ownership of the dictionary I mentioned up front, I’ve pretty well exhausted my store of BN-appropriate Malay words.

Or to put this another way, I’m monolingual or what I guess you could call homotextual in English, unlike many of you readers in Malaysia who, ‘homo’ being a no-no, are pretty well all heterolingual or even heteroliterate and thus far better-equipped to come up with some more ideas.

But whatever language we all manage to communicate in, I’m sure that the vast majority of us are on the same page when it comes to BN.

Only a 1Malaysiac, 1Malaysiaccomplice or 1Malaysiaccessory would stand for another minute of Barisan, Basiran, Barahsan, Barinsane, Borosan, Barisandiwara or any other kind of Nasional anyone can think of that BN stands for.

With the notable exception, of course, of the words that those of us who can’t stand BN for another minute would love to see come true: Burysan Nasional.

-------

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include Mad about Malaysia, Even Madder about Malaysia, Missing Malaysia and 1Malaysia.con.

[First posted 15 March 2012, reposted 3 December 2013]

Grey Filastine ~ Visionary Poet, Percussionist & Prophet of the Apocalypse

A selection from Filastine's YouTube channel

Photo: Max Shay

A longtime Seattle resident, Filastine has been a part of the hammering rhythm section of anticapitalist tribal-rock/performance troupe ¡Tchkung!, conceiver and founding member of radical marching band Infernal Noise Brigade, and, most recently, a sweat-inducing club DJ and composer of wildly diverse and drrty laptop music.

In short, he has spent his artistic life heretofore straddling the line between unrelentingly political statement and action, and the lost-in-music euphoria of the broadest possible definition of pop music. His debut album, Burn It (on kindred avant spirit DJ /rupture’s UK-based Soot Records), steams with juddering hiphop/modern R&B rhythms, South American breaks, North African trance, and a grip of vocal and instrumental contributors from every corner of the world.

Recent years have seen an overwhelming influx of Asian and Middle Eastern textures in pop production, with gargantuan hits like “Get Ur Freak On,” “Baby Boy,” and “Toxic” threading undulating tablas, screeching Bollywood strings, etc. into their black-lit melodrama. While some of Burn It’s tracks mine these veins in a way just as instantly gratifying and club ready, Filastine’s appropriations are more legit.

A voracious traveler and student of various global musics, he has studied with Indian tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, spent weeks at the feet of the Master Musicians of Jajouka, and dug deep into the ancient-to-the-future music of Brazil. Like many great producers, Filastine is also a great instrumentalist, and his years of rhythmic study lend magnificent depth to Burn It’s varied and intricate programming. [Source: last.fm]

[Thanks to Gino 'Der Hammer' Galan for alerting me to this extraordinary guy, Filastine, who can magically transmute ugliness into beauty, despair into hope ~ the mark of an authentic artist-shaman! First posted 24 June 2012, reposted 19 November 2013]

WTF, PEOPLE... STILL FAST ASLEEP??? (reprise)

I became aware of the cosmic backdrop to my own existence only at the age of 19, following a spontaneous kundalini experience which opened up my chakras to the perception of multidimensionality. In that heightened state of awareness which mystics call satori (Japanese) or samadhi (Sanskrit), there is absolutely no doubt that every single atom is a living entity endowed with consciousness and that we are integral parts of a magnificent and mysterious web of dynamic energies governed by precise mathematical, musical, and geometric principles.

In effect, to conduct our human lives upon this earth with so little consideration of other lifeforms - mineral, vegetable, animal, elemental, angelic, and deific - is a recipe for calamity and eco-apocalypse.

Yet, that is how most humans have been programmed over the course of many generations - particularly since the introduction of alphanumeric intelligence and the start of so-called history (which really exposes the Male bias, because what about herstory?)

The difference between Aboriginal and Industrial consciousness can be found in the divide between Animism and Book Religion. The animistic mind experiences life as a magical continuum and anything and everything can be charged with spiritual power, even a rock or a river or a tree or a bird.


However, the industrial mind tends to quantify and calculate and manipulate, opting for an anthropocentric, anthropomorphic view of the concept of sacredness or divinity. The notion of God as Father or Celestial Lord (with no reference to the Mother Principle or Earth Goddess) marks the beginning of our self-destructive hubris as a technology-using and abusing species.

Technology is neutral and can be useful (Internet, digital video, free chat) or totally useless (nuclear weaponry, top-secret crowd and climate control tech like ELF and HAARP and chemtrails).

HAARP: the secret technology of climatological warfare?

Unfortunately, the warlike gene in Homo sapiens, fueled by testosteronal urges, has pushed us into an evolutionary dead-end where more than 75% of our precious resources are squandered on warfaring when they could easily be utilized for welfaring (to paraphrase holistic thinker Bucky Fuller).

No doubt a tiny cabal of well-connected families profit obscenely from perpetual war - while the rest end up enslaved by a benighted economic system or wiped out by large-scale epidemics and unnatural disasters (I won't discuss the possibility of man-made earthquakes, droughts, cyclones and tsunamis but the debate rages on this). Now if you're curious where this is leading... I'm suggesting we take stock of our ontological bearings and re-valuate what our Book Religions have indoctrinated us into unquestioningly believing: that Man is the Crown of Creation, granted dominion over Nature by none other than the Archetypal Patriarch, God Himself! This mode of thinking severs us from the flow of life, makes us insensitive to natural beauty and harmony, and causes us to believe we have a right to colonize other lifeforms and cultures and build vainglorious empires wherever we go. And yet it has been the dominant ethos of human civilizations (so-called) since the Year Dot.

To understand where this imperialistic and warlike tendency originates, we shall have to open our minds to the distinct possibility that our "creator gods" were not some "Supreme Being" - but a very much watered-down shadow aspect of the Procreative Force. Sumerian cuneiform tablets dating back 6,000 years refer to these creator gods as Anunnaki; and in the Hebrew version of the Old Testament, they are called the Nephilim (meaning: "Those Who from Heaven Fell to Earth"). This is a very large study and I shall skip the details, leaving the reader a few links with which to begin in-depth research, if so prompted.

The way out is also the way back in to our own Core Essence - which is a fractal of the Nuclear Intelligence of All Existence. It doesn't create and enforce artificial hierarchies, nor does it demand sheeplike obedience, or exclusive worship. The idea of a "jealous god" that we should fear is utter crap!

What Nuclear Intelligence does do is EMPOWER each of us as INDIVIDUALS to reclaim our evolutionary heritage as Cosmic Citizens sojourning on a beautiful physical planet who has undertaken our education, redemption and transformation even as she prepares to quantum jump to the next spiral of her own evolution as a baby star. When we realign our core beings with Mother Earth and Father Sun, our agendas and priorities will also get realigned and rectified. Spiritual maturity, physical beauty and cosmic wisdom will become our goals - not economic, political and military dominance over others!

Antares © 2008

[First published 23 May 2008 under the heading "ALL RIGHT, PEOPLE, TIME TO WAKE UP!!!"... Reposted 5 December 2013]

In Response to the lovely Lisa Lee (updated & revisited)

Early one morning in January 2009 a very charming blogger left this comment on my blog after I had gone to bed. She made some pertinent statements about Malaysian politics that prompted me to respond at length. I feel this exchange deserves to be upgraded to a blogpost in its own right rather than left in the comments section... (thanks for inspiring this post, Lisa!)...

Lisa Lee said on Jan 17, 2009 @ 4:32 AM MYT:

Honestly, I do wonder if BN will ever lose control? Because the livelihood of many will be affected. Peace and harmony is my hope for Malaysia.

The thought of BN losing may impact so many people and for this reason, I hope peace prevails. Desperation sets in and who knows what may happen.

Having said that, I hope that Pakatan Rakyat would be a strong cohesive Opposition. Maybe not take over in this sitting but next election, consolidate their hold in Malaysia.

I do hope that Malaysia will be like USA (Democrats vs Republicans) and England (Labor vs Conservative) - in a sense that we will have a strong two party system to have the check and balance there.

Can you share your views on this? I like to learn from you. TQ :)

My dear Lisa,

Imagine you're a princess adopted as a baby by pirates who slaughtered your parents, ransacked the palace, and set themselves up as the new government of the land. They spared your life because you were cute and harmless and posed no threat to them (even pirates must have some vague memory of almost-forgotten human feelings). In fact, the pirate king saw that you were destined to blossom into a true beauty and fancied he could acquire royal status by marrying you once you were of age.

In other words, you grew up knowing no other authority apart from this band of brigands who began to dress quite well and were soon able to pass themselves off as "respectable folk." Nobody dared inform you who your real parents were and as time passed you came to regard the pirate king as a beloved uncle and trusted him implicitly. After all, he did possess a sort of rakish charm and was actually quite a clever chap (though some might call it "rat cunning"). He told you stories about how he had heroically rescued you from the evil clutches of an ogre and now you owed your life to him and were duty-bound to wed him.

One day, walking through a forest, you chance upon a humble cottage and out of curiosity decide to find out who lives there. As you approach the cottage, the front door swings open and a smiling old man steps out to offer you a cup of tea. You accept and soon find yourself engaged in deep conversation with this mysterious hermit of the woods, who reveals the truth of what happened to the land when you were just a newly born.

The old man shares with you a secret that forever changes your destiny. He was the loyal adviser to your biological parents, the King and Queen of this land, who were cruelly murdered by the marauders. He managed to escape the massacre and fled to the forest along with a handful of others who have long awaited the day you were old enough to rule the land as the rightful Queen. For years this band of survivors have lived in hidden caves, dreaming of the day when they would be strong enough to reclaim the land and liberate it from pirate dominion. He concludes by asking you if you are ready to take your place as the leader of these true patriots who desire to see the end of pirate misrule and justice restored.


Now, this is your current dilemma, Lisa. Having known no other form of government apart from the piratic (and parasitic), can you remember what true leadership is all about? Pull the wool from your eyes and you will see that for decades the Barisan Nasional has attracted mostly those who seek to aggrandize and enrich themselves at the expense of the land and of the people. They care little for the sufferings of the common folk and even less for the health and well-being of the land itself, having inherited the rapacious tendencies of their pirate ancestors who understood only rape, pillage and plunder.


In the name of greed, these self-serving parasites continue to destroy the landscape through mining, logging and insensitive "development." They support those who share their own destructively uncreative urges - namely, ruthless businessmen with megalomaniacal tendencies - while suppressing, through barbaric and repressive laws, all those who desire to see the wealth of the land equally and wisely shared.

In effect, dear Lisa, the simplistic scenario I have outlined is a parable for the sort of misgovernance we have been subject to on this planet for countless generations - a top-heavy Humpty-Dumpty sort of power structure wherein the most aggressive and unprincipled amass the greatest amount of wealth and then proceed to hijack the processes of government via almost absolute control of the mass media, education and financial systems, even religious institutions (I mean especially!).

However, the time has come for those who truly love the land - and I mean Planet Earth - to reclaim our sovereign power as conscious individuals, liberating ourselves from generations of inherited robotism (living our lives according to factory defaults) and fatalism (believing it is our lot to suffer in this "vale of tears").

We must think globally (nay, universally) and act locally. So in Malaysia our foremost duty as true patriots is to remove Barisan Nasional completely from power - because they have abused the power entrusted them for too many generations.

In the most basic terms, BN must not retain control of the police force, the national purse, and the mass media. Those are the mechanisms by which they have ruled us through fear and greed - a powerful combination of intimidation and bribery. Any population subject to such misgovernance eventually becomes infantilized, demoralized, and dehumanized.

Ultimately, we shall be turned into a nation of human robots while our energy and spirit are vampirically depleted by an elite cabal of demonically possessed humans devoid of compassion and empathy... UNLESS we succeed in booting out these piratic and parasitic entities and replacing them with open-minded, open-hearted leaders who genuinely believe that being a public servant means precisely that - you serve the public, not private interests!

There isn't a single individual in Umno/BN I can name as somebody I love, respect and trust.

On the other hand, there are many in the various component parties of Pakatan Harapan I wholeheartedly applaud and support in their candidacy to lead and govern. Among these I would unhesitatingly name Anwar Ibrahim, Nurul Izzah Anwar, Tony Pua, Gobind Singh Deo, Mat Sabu, Rafizi Ramli, Liew Chin Tong, Wong Chen, Sivarasa Rasiah, Tian Chua, Nizar Jamaluddin, Dyana Sofya, Zairil Khir Johari, Elizabeth Wong, Hannah Yeoh, Azmin Ali, Guan Eng and Kit Siang, Teresa Kok, Teo Nie Ching, Charles Santiago, Husam Musa, Khalid Samad, Dzulkefly Ahmad, Salahudin Ayub, Dr Mujahid Yusof Rawa, Dr Nasir Hashim, Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, and S. Arutchelvan (I have omitted many others but these few are the ones that immediately spring to mind).

Apart from the professional politicians, we now have the civil society movement and a slew of dynamic NGOs - a loose coalition of public intellectuals and true patriots consisting of popular figures like Adam Adli, Hishamuddin Rais, Haris Ibrahim, Ambiga Sreenevasan, Maria Chin Abdullah, Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, Kua Kia Soong, Wong Chin Huat, Azmi Sharom, Cynthia Gabriel; and countless other politically aware citizens (including myself). And, don't forget, public intellectuals like Toh Kin Woon, Zaid Ibrahim, Amir Muhammad, Pang Khee Teik and Din Merican who will certainly play a significant role in reshaping the new Malaysia once the country is free of this stubborn and debilitating disease called BN.

Lisa, the only people who will be terribly upset when BN loses control of the police and Petronas are an overfed coterie of fat-cat capitalists who have enjoyed more than 30 years of monopolistic access to the nation's resources and established huge empires based on political patronage. The competent managers amongst them will be able to adapt and continue doing well under a new government - so long as they genuinely serve the public good. Those who have corruptly made their money as crony rent-seekers will either be allowed to retire in comfort (if they donate a fair portion of their ill-gotten gains to charity) or face a therapeutic spell in prison.

While de facto Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim languishes in jail, his old enemy Dr Mahathir
unexpectedly emerges from retirement to lead the charge against the Umno kleptocracy (Malaysiakini)

When Pakatan Harapan takes over as government, it will not exactly be a one-party management. With PKR, DAP and Amanah joining forces with Dr Mahathir's Parti Bersatu as equal partners, there will effectively be at least three different political ideologies - many more if you include a few independent parties from Sabah and Sarawak, plus the remains of Gerakan and PPP - working together (preferably in perfect harmony and hopefully with minimal friction) towards one common goal - the rescue of Malaysia from the economic and ethical doldrums and the creation of a healthy national ethos in which every citizen regardless of skin color, culinary preferences and creed can at last feel a sense of belonging - and therefore a sense of authentic pride.

It remains to be seen whether Umno will survive as the Opposition. Without its reactionary and dangerous Ketuanan Melayu agenda - and suddenly deprived of the chance to carry on robbing the nation - these descendants of pirates will almost surely disintegrate as a political party. Those individuals amongst them with any intelligence and ability whatsoever will swiftly realize that the horse is DEAD - kaput, finito, expired - and proceed on foot till they reach the next oasis where they will rest and reassess their lives and, insyallah, come to their senses and become decent human beings.

No, Lisa, we don't want Malaysia to become like America or Britain where the illusion of democracy, not the real thing, prevails. We don't want a Tweedledum and Tweedledee type of two-party system (like the Donkey and Elephant parties or the Tories and Whigs). In fact, we don't want to be obsessed with government and politics any longer than we need!

What we want is a clean, efficient administration that will work quietly and with minimal histrionics to ensure that everyday life just keeps getting easier and pleasanter for more and more of the population. Ultimately, the government of a country ought to be just like the plumbing in your house - we don't want to be distracted by it or even notice it. A properly designed plumbing system carries out its functions unobtrusively, without complaint, and with negligible maintenance problems. Indeed, the plumbing in a well-built house ought to last at least a hundred years!


With government out of the way and internalized, we will at long last become a nation of self-governing individuals with nothing to stop us from each fulfilling our true destinies as free citizens and achieving our maximum potential as evolving humans.

And, take my word for it, Lisa dear. It's NOT going to take another two generations. Perhaps two terms under a new, enlightened government!

[First posted 17 January 2009, reposted 14 December 2013]

THE SULTANIZATION OF UMNO LEADERS ~ by Hussein Abdul Hamid

Here's an excellent essay from blogger Hussein Abdul Hamid that expands on exactly what I've been saying in recent months about Umno...

OVER THE YEARS we have seen UMNO assuming the role that was once the prerogative of the Sultans of the various states in Malaysia. It was a process started by the British and ironically concluded by the Malays themselves, albeit through UMNO. These tendencies towards Sultanization have evolved over the years to what it is today – an UMNO president living in splendid isolation in a grandiose palace called Sri Perdana in Putrajaya, surrounded by all the trappings of wealth and power. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The quest by UMNO leaders towards their own Sultanization began with a partiality to ostentatious consumption: Zahid Hamidi's very costly watches, silk shirts, expensive suits, really expensive cars, and grand houses. Khir Toyo’s palace is the manifestation of these tendencies to a tee. The Prime Ministers motorcade, the legion of people that seems to surround him everywhere he goes, and the splendid, splendid office at Putrajaya is all par for the course. Of course, to maintain this lifestyle on their meager salaries as Ministers and YB’s means that they are all susceptible to corruption on a grand scale.

Personalization of authority

In Malaysia all power resides with the Prime Minister. In the state the Mentri Besar title says it all – BIG Minister. This concentration of power in the PM at the federal level and the MB at state level can only give rise to the politics of patronage and nepotism, as all largesse flows from these leaders. The wholesale change that is the norm whenever there is a change of these individuals gives rise to the ‘make hay while the sunshine’ mentality. So where the Sultan was ‘king’ in his state, it is now the Mentri Besar that dispenses favor to the Sultans – in business opportunities, in extending credit to pay gambling debts, in keeping under the lid the excesses of the Royal family.


Historical Identity

Like the Sultans who are normally descended from an immediate family tree – UMNO too are comfortable with accepting its leaders when they are descended from families closely associated with UMNO - possibly with the exception of Mahathir – because his Indian background precludes that possibility. But at times, even when your Father is a Class-A leader, his genius will skip a generation or two. How else can you explain Najib and his cousin Hishammuddin?

For now the Sultans still cling to being the head of religion in their own states. But we can see this too is increasingly becoming the function of the religious authorities – whose salaries and appointments are the function of the central government – controlled, for now, by UMNO. So, effectively, even in these areas UMNO will have a say if not absolute control to do as it wish – with just a passing nod to the Sultans as a mark of respect.

So in reality these UMNO leaders – have not only taken power from the Sultans but have also assumed the Sultanization of their own selves in the very mould of the Sultans that they have now deposed in everything but name.


The Malays have always been loyal to their Sultans and are expected to obey their commands unquestioningly. We are all aware what Hang Tuah had to do to appease his Sultan: kill a loyal friend, Hang Jebat. I do not think any Malay today would want to kill a loyal friend for a pretender to the throne that calls itself UMNO. Not when the Sultanization of these pretenders was done without due consideration of the rights and aspirations of the Rakyat.

Hussein Abdul Hamid

[First posted 23 September 2009, reposted 8 January 2014]

Reflections on Death, Resurrection, and the Afterlife

Weddings and funerals are major social events in every Orang Asli community, bringing everybody together - just as they are in every other community - obviously because they are markers in the cycle of life and death. At Bayo's funeral on June 5th, I listened to the lay preacher (a Temuan from Tanjong Malim Calvary Mission) recite the last rites just before they covered the tiny, hastily knocked-together plywood coffin with earth.

Bayo's family is one of two in Pertak Village who converted to Christianity, probably in the 1980s, before the Orang Asli Affairs Department began taking a dim view of missionary incursions (apart from Islamic) into Orang Asli communities.

"Let this be a reminder to us all," the lay preacher intoned, "that our existence on this earth is only temporary. What God gives, God also takes away. But even death is temporary, for our souls are immortal; and those who believe in Jesus Christ shall live forever in Heaven."

It's been a long time since I heard such outright nonsense uttered. I drifted out of earshot and let the brief ceremony proceed. The lay preacher was merely parroting a doctrine handed down a hundred generations. Few question these pious platitudes, because nobody I know has returned from the grave to report on the afterlife (apart from a few who survived near-death experiences and whose stories have been recorded).

True, the entire basis of Christianity revolves around the belief that Jesus was bodily resurrected from his tomb and appeared before the Magdalene and the Apostles on what is now known as Easter Sunday.

However, the Koran explicitly disputes that the Master Jesus was actually crucified. "Another took his place," the Koran says - and this view is supported by the account of the Christos Incarnations recorded by the oracle, A'shayana Deane (initiate of the Melchizedek Cloister Emerald Order), as well as many other esoteric writings. But as it all boils down to a question of belief and faith, it's pointless to get into a heated debate on this issue, since opinions widely diverge on the subject.

The Orang Asli concept of the afterlife isn't all that different from the Christian version - except it doesn't require believing that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. The physical form is only our fleshly baju (clothing), say the Temuan elders. Our roh (soul) does not die and already exists before we are born. Indeed, there doesn't seem to be much difference - apart from terminology - between what animists believe and what Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists claim to believe. The common thread is the idea that the physical form is temporary, and the spiritual essence immortal. Now that is difficult to dispute, seeing as how plants, animals, and humans all go through a specific lifespan and then wither away before our eyes.

What distresses me, however, is that this devaluation of physical existence tends to make humans careless about the natural environment, Mother Earth, that gives rise to and supports their being. It makes a big difference whether people regard their homes as permanent and bequeathable - or only rented, and therefore temporary. Why invest so much effort in beautifying a rented property when, at any moment, you might get evicted by the owner? Would this explain why the Earth has been so badly treated by her human tenants?

When generation after generation is told by professional priests (regardless of denomination or sect) that their sojourn on Earth is but temporary, that their true home is in the afterlife, can you blame humans for not taking proper care of their bodies - and, by extension, their earthly home? This sort of "teaching" also serves to placate the impoverished masses who might otherwise decide they've had enough of being exploited and oppressed by the "ruling class" and join forces to overthrow the Management (a scenario that has occurred several times within recent history, but invariably it's a case of "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" as Orwell depicted so memorably in Animal Farm).

Add to this the Buddhist and Hindu teachings of karma and reincarnation (which some interpret as "fate" or "predestiny") and you have a ready-made excuse to shrug off other people's misfortunes by saying, "Oh well, it's their bad karma that they got napalmed by the Americans."

Excuse me, but I'm inclined to view America's military adventurism as the result of an egocentric and opportunistic foreign policy rather than the workings of geopolitical karma. Bad management can be identified and redressed - and each citizen of every country shares the onus of restraining their leaders from gross, power-intoxicated misbehavior on the world stage.

And if we each paused for a moment and consciously decided to wholeheartedly appreciate and esteem the natural beauty around us - instead of taking it all for granted as we seem to have done for generations - then, perhaps, we may begin to realize that we lose absolutely nothing by investing our energy in making our earthly sojourn as heavenly as possible. So what if each of us can only enjoy it for a brief lifespan? Indeed we may discover that when life on earth becomes truly paradisal, we might decide to extend our visas indefinitely (instead of complaining that "life's a bitch"), thereby making translation to an abstract notion of Heaven merely optional.

Many of my friends have been interested in the idea of Ascension for years - though nobody appears to know exactly what the process entails. Some believe they can accelerate it by becoming vegan or by abstaining from sensory stimulants like caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. They cling to the words of the Ascended Masters and secretly aspire to attaining similar spiritual status. Quite frankly, I seem to be looking at it all through the "wrong" end of the telescope in that I clearly remember what a joyous accomplishment it was to finally be able to inhabit a physical vehicle and explore reality in a dense body with all the miraculous sensory organs we have evolved over the aeons.

In this respect I'd much rather identify with the Descended Masters. Having experienced physical existence on this incredibly beautiful and boundlessly fascinating planet many times over (I've certainly had multiple flashbacks of parallel incarnations over the years), I've opted to adopt Earth as my base of operations and my permanent Home.

[First posted 8 June 2007, reposted 10 March 2016]

PINK FLOYD ~ PULSE 1994 (full concert!)

The above videos have been taken down by anal retentive copyright grinches.... but (for now) you can still watch the whole show in HD HERE.... the finale will leave you enraptured!

Where do the brains go when they drain out of Malaysia? That's right, Down Under!

The Lost Thing, which took over three years to create, is a 15-minute fable about a boy in Melbourne who, while collecting bottle caps near a beach, discovers a strange creature that seems to be a combination of an industrial boiler, a crab and an octopus.

The son of a Malaysian-Chinese father and an Anglo-Irish mother, Tan, 37, came to filmmaking after a career as an award-winning author and illustrator.

The Lost Thing, originally the story of a lost pet, was written by Tan in 1999 "on the kitchen table of a share house." He says the deadpan lead character is partially based on himself as a teenager.

That teenager was once interested in becoming a genetic scientist, and studied chemistry and physics as well as continuing a childhood interest in drawing and science fiction, before studying literature and art history at the University of Western Australia.

Despite moving to Melbourne in 2007, Brunswick resident Tan remains strongly tied to the west, where he grew up, inaugurating The Shaun Tan Award for Young Artists, (for shcoolchildren aged between five and 17 years) which sponsored by the City of Subiaco. A mural he painted adorns 20 square metres of the wall at the Subiaco Public Library.

Andrew Ruhemann, owner and producer of Passion Pictures, worked as a producer at Richard Williams Studios, which made the animated feature Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He said he was "immediately drawn" to the book of The Lost Thing when he encountered it at the Bologna Children's Book Fair.

[Read the rest here.]

Andrew Ruhemann & Shaun Tan with their Oscars

Interview with 2011 short film Oscar-winner Shaun Tan

The 2011 Oscars have awarded The Lost Thing as the Best Animated Short. Check out the full interview with talented filmmakers Andrew Ruhemann and Shaun Tan who reveal how they made the film happen and the journey they took from illustration to CG animation.

Congratulations. When did you first write this and how long was this in the making from when you mentioned it to when it actually made the screen?

[Tan] Okay. I originally wrote this story in, I think, 1998. I was an unemployed illustrator. I wrote it on the kitchen table of my share house. Worked on it for a year. Developed it as a picture book, which was then published in Melbourne in the year 2000. Shortly afterward, it was exhibited in an international book fair in Italy, which is where Andrew came across the story. And we began discussions about developing it as an animated film at that point. So, the whole project for me has spanned, I guess, some 13 years.

So, you originally started as an illustrator. How was that going into animation? CG animation nonetheless?

[Tan] Well, I started off as an illustrator with absolutely no formal training aside from high school. And so, when Andrew originally approached me and suggested adapting this for animation, my first reaction was I am not a filmmaker and secondly, (inaudible) and I still managed to do other stuff as an artist. And so, I basically just asked everybody I knew in the film industry about animation, and I started studying handbooks. And also, Andrew came down to both Melbourne and Perth and Western Australia, and we had very intensive story boarding sessions and, I guess, part of that was actually a degree of mentorship. You were explaining to me narrative flow in pictures. I was already working in that in illustrated stories, but film is obviously a different animal and I guess, if anything, it helps me bridge that gap.

This is another win for Australia, this category. What do you think is going on down there in the animation business?

[Tan] You know, it’s not just animation. As an illustrator, I know it’s in the world of children books (inaudible). It’s something to do with the fact that we don’t have any existing tradition. Something like that. And we experiment. And we go a little crazy. And a lot of our projects are very small. And our project was extremely small as well. And both Andrew and our producer, it’s basically just two other guys. It’s one animator (which is very unusual for even a short animated film) Leo Baker, and one digital artist, Tom Bryant. The three of us; myself, Tom, Leo, we did all the visuals that you see in the whole film over a period of three and a half years. With very little outside intervention or anybody to come in and say, no, it should be like this, it should be like that. We just thought this looks right to us, we will just give it a go, and we thought it worked, and obviously it’s working for other people now, too.

THE MIGRANT'S EYE ~ by Shaun Tan 
(Note: This essay is by a different Shaun Tan, not the creator of The Lost Thing)

[First posted 20 December 2011]