Huzir Sulaiman tackles the thorny issue of Ketuanan Melayu (repost)

The Malaysian Insider

A middle class Malay perspective
WIDE ANGLE WITH HUZIR SULAIMAN
Sunday Star, December 14, 2008

The children of the Establishment tackle some difficult issues.

IN the strident and unnecessarily unpleasant debate over the concept of ketuanan Melayu and the Malay community’s political future, the quiet voices of urban middle-class Malays have yet to make themselves heard.

As a partial corrective, I spoke to several members of a tribe that, while small in number, is intriguing from a social anthropology perspective.

The Malays of the anak Datuk class – the children of senior civil servants and technocrats whose parents’ careers in public service predated the Mahathir era – are interesting in that their values and ideas about Malaysia must have been formed at least in part by their families’ experiences of nation building.

As their parents made the country, it stands to reason that they would have a considerable emotional stake in how it develops in the future.

Even within this rarefied sub-caste of children of the Establishment who are not themselves involved in politics, however, their feelings about ketuanan Melayu show a marked diversity.

Fahmi Fadzil (The Nut Graph)

Fahmi Fadzil, 27, is a writer and performer. He is the son of Datuk Fadzil Yunus, the former director-general – and later general manager – of the Felda group of companies, and Datin Fauziah Ramly, a senior civil servant who was most recently a Commissioner with the Public Service Commission.

I asked him what he makes of the concept of ketuanan Melayu.

“I never grew up thinking about it very much. My parents never spoke to me about it. Even when I was in college the whole matter was never really present in how I saw things.

“I think because I live in KL – and especially because my parents came from that group of earlier middle class Malay civil servants – I don’t think I would subscribe to ideas of ketuanan Melayu.”

But does he subscribe in any way to the idea that the Malays are the natural leaders – or in some way the owners – of Malaysia?

“No. On my father’s side I’m the fourth generation born on this peninsula, on my mother’s side just the third generation, so I see myself as a pendatang too. I don’t subscribe to the idea of a natural leadership role for the Malays.

“More than that, as a Muslim, I don’t see the need for this. There is no such thing as one group being ethnically superior to another.

“The thing I remember most from school, from kelas agama, (is that) from the early days of Islam there was a clear message that you were all the same. Whether you were Arabs or not, you are all the same now.

“We should be talking about values and principles held by people rather than subscribing to simplistic ideas of certain ethnicities being the owners of the land. I don’t subscribe to that, and even if I did, I think the rightful owners would be the Orang Asal.”

Zahim Albakri (The Nut Graph)

Datuk Zahim Albakri, 45, the director and actor, is the son of Datuk Ikmal Hisham Albakri, the first Malay architect and the first President of Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia, who designed the National Library, Putra World Trade Centre, and the Bank Bumiputera headquarters in KL.

Zahim’s grandfather, Datuk Seri Mustafa Albakri, of the Malayan Civil Service, was the first Commissioner of the Election Commission and the first Keeper of the Ruler’s Seal.

For Zahim, coming to grips with the concept of ketuanan Melayu means dispelling ambiguity: “There seems to be a confusion between the bumiputera policy (the New Economic Policy) and the idea of ketuanan Melayu. The bumiputera policy was a reaction to the riots of 1969, whereas ketuanan Melayu, in the Constitution, I don’t think is particularly giving special privileges or rights to the Malays, it’s to ensure that the Malay Rulers have a certain place, to ensure that those institutions continue.

“I grew up in a family where we were brought up with the understanding that the Malay rulers are there, and this is our history, our culture.

“I grew up with my granddad being proudly Malay, and proudly Orang Perak. There was this sense of being proud of our culture. But never were we made to think that being Malay gave us a right to something beyond.

“I was brought up (to believe) that every citizen in Malaysia was equal. I was never brought up believing that Malays should have more than everyone else.”

How would he feel about a non-Malay Prime Minister?

“I have no problem with a non-Malay PM. It should be about their competence. It should be the best person for the job.”

Saidah Rastam

The composer Datin Saidah Rastam comes from a family steeped in public life. Her maternal grandfather was Perak’s 14th Datuk Panglima Kinta, who held 56 public service posts at the time of his death. Her father is Datuk Rastam Hadi, the former managing director of Petronas and former deputy governor of Bank Negara. Her husband is the urbane lawyer-turned-banker Datuk Charon Mokhzani (who, with exquisite politeness, declined to be interviewed for this article).

Says Saidah, “I think the races should be treated equally and the biggest thing that makes me uneasy about the concept of ketuanan Melayu is that it’s increasingly being used in fascist ways.”

She believes that the NEP “was a necessary thing at the time, given the racial tensions, but that’s different from the concept of Malay supremacy”.

She points to the historical record: “Tun Razak said that that was only for that time, and this NEP thing would end at some point, so that’s different from the notion that there’s an inherent Malay supremacy that can’t be questioned, which I’m very uneasy with.

“I’m somebody who benefited from the policies which favoured Malays – at the outset I’m happy to admit that. But looking at things today, my personal view is that we should give everybody equal opportunities because the policies favouring Malays haven’t been used properly.

“And given that the people who are supposed to safeguard the correct implementation of the policies are the same ones who benefit from them, I’m not optimistic that those policies will be correctly implemented.”

Dain Said

Dain-Iskandar Said is a writer and film director. His father was Datuk Mohamed Said Zain, a diplomat and intelligence officer.

He sees the concept of ketuanan Melayu as “outmoded, out of step with the times we live in, when the world is becoming more and more global. The world over, people are bringing down barriers of race, yet we are trying to instill and install those outmoded values.”

In his eyes, there are many aspects to the problem. “First, what is a Malay? Most Malays I know are some kind of mix, so who defines being Malay? Who are the guardians of the definition?

“The definition of ketuanan Melayu seems to be Umno; it always seems to lead back to Umno’s agenda.

“I’m not saying that outside of it it’s not valid; it may be valid to a lot of people. I can understand that. The main problem is the way it’s implemented. The tone of it is fascistic.”

Mahathir Mohamad: the ultimate Melayu?

For him, the promotion of the tenets of ketuanan Melayu “exposes deep insecurity, because if you really believe you are leading this country, what are you so scared of? I don’t think any of the other races want to take that away from you. They can’t, because in the Constitution are enshrined certain precepts.”

Dain argues that our debate is impoverished. “While many of us middle class Malays can be liberal and open, there’s never been any kind of infrastructure that supports ideas or traditions of openness.

“So on the one hand you have people who are willing to be open and liberal, but on the other hand it is so easy to destroy it, because there is no critical, intellectual or educational infrastructure to support those ideas.

“When you attack something that has no support, it is so easy to play to the rural Malay masses, to instill that kind of fear, and make people feel extremely powerless.

“There’s no tradition of talking critically about race and identity politics. You’re almost suspended in a vacuum.”

This is a vacuum that we need to fill with the plurality and diversity of our opinions. It has always been the position of Wide Angle that Malaysia’s many problems and tensions should not be ignored; they need to be addressed by continued, forthright yet respectful debate by citizens, and the issue of ketuanan Melayu is no exception.

-----
Huzir Sulaiman writes for theater, film, television, and newspapers. 

[First posted 18 May 2012, reposted 11 July 2014 & 16 july 2019]

ETHICS ~ by R. Buckminster Fuller (repost)

(12 July 1895 ~ 1 July 1983)

IN THE EVOLUTION of political economics
Of the late 20th century
There is an emerging pattern
In which yesterday's virtues
Become today's vices
And vice versa
Vices virtues.

We hope this signals the demise
Of either dollar or gun manipulated
Political puppetry's
Overwhelmment of humanity.

Throughout the past state
Of innate ignorance of the many,
The informed few
Told the uninformed many
What to do
So that the many's coordinated efforts
Could produce most effectively
The objectives of the few.

An omniwell-informed humanity
Does not need to be told
What needs to be done
Nor how to cooperate synergetically;
It does so spontaneously.

History demonstrates without exception
That successful sovereign power seizers
And successfully self-perpetuating,
Supreme physical power holders in general
Will always attempt to divide the opposition
In order to conquer them
And thereafter keep the conquered divided
To keep them conquered.

Controlling the sources
Of production and distribution
The self-advantaging power systems
Keep the conquered divided
By their uncontestable fiat
That the individual's right to live
Must be earned
To the power structure's satisfaction
By performing one of the ruling system's
Myriad of specialized functions.

The top-gun, self-serving power structure
Also claims outright ownership
Of the lives of all those born
Within their sovereignly claimed
Geographical bounds
And can forfeit their citizens' lives
In their official warfaring,
Which of psychological necessity
Is always waged in terms
Of moral rectitude
While covertly protecting and fostering
Their special self-interests.

To keep the conquered
Controllably disintegrated
And fearfully dependent
"They" also foster perpetuation or increase
Of religious, ethnic, linguistic,
And skin-color differentiations
As obvious conditioned-reflex exploitabilities.

Special-interest sovereignty will always
Attempt to monopolize and control
All strategic information (intelligence),
Thus to keep the divided specializing world
Innocently controlled by its propaganda
And dependent exclusively upon its dictum.

Youth has discovered all this
And is countering with comprehensivity and synergy.
Youth will win overwhelmingly
For truth
Is eternally regenerative
In youth.

Youth's love
Embracingly integrates,
Successfully frustrates
And holds together,
Often unwittingly,
All that hate, fear, and selfishness
Attempt to disintegrate.

Copyright 1973 © R. Buckminster Fuller and Saturday Review

INTRODUCTION TO BUCKMINSTER FULLER

“For the first time in history it is now possible to take care of everybody at a higher standard of living than any have ever known. Only ten years ago the ‘more with less’ technology reached the point where this could be done. All humanity now has the option to become enduringly successful.” – R. Buckminster Fuller, 1980

This confident assertion was made in 1980 by the late R. Buckminster Fuller – inventor, architect, engineer, mathematician, poet and cosmologist. As early as 1959, Newsweek reported that Fuller predicted the conquest of poverty by the year 2000.

In 1977, almost twenty years later, the National Academy of Sciences confirmed Fuller’s prediction. Their World Food and Nutrition Study, prepared by 1,500 scientists, concluded:

“If there is the political will in this country and abroad... it should be possible to overcome the worst aspects of widespread hunger and malnutrition within one generation.”

Even with tragedies like Ethiopia and Somalia, it is becoming clear that, as Fuller predicted, we have arrived at the possibility of eliminating hunger and poverty in all the world within our lifetime.

[First posted 12 July 2013, reposted 19 June 2021, 12 July 2023, 12 July 2025 & 7 July 2026]

Alex Collier on Earth Transformation (revisited)

SOME BACKGROUND ON ALEX COLLIER
Alex Collier claims to be a 'contactee' with a race of Nordic looking humans from the constellation of Andromeda. He has had a number of contact experiences since his childhood and this developed over the years as he was given more and more information by his Andromedan contacts.

I have analysed Alex Collier's information, had physical and phone interviews with him. I have witnessed some private physical evidence he has provided to support his testimony, and been taken on a tour of the Decker Canyon location in Malibu where he claims to have had contact. I have also spoken with two direct witnesses verifying various aspects of Alex's contact experiences.

Alex has also revealed that he was the recipient of threats from shadow government agencies and abruptly chose to stop disseminating his information in the period 2000-2002. Furthermore, Alex has given face to face interviews with veteran UFO researchers Paola Harris and Wendelle Stevens who have had the opportunity to examine the evidence supporting his testimony and found no evidence of fraud.

Finally, back on June 2, 2007 Alex Collier gave me advance notice of a set of confidential meetings to be held at the United Nations, well before this information leaked in February 2008.

My conclusion from my investigation so far of Alex's claims of contact with a genuinely 'friendly' extraterrestrial race is that they are supported by the available evidence. While I continue to investigate Alex's case and am accumulating more evidence, I can say that so far I find him to be very credible. I therefore recommend taking the information he has to reveal very seriously. All those interested in galactic diplomacy and understanding a variety of extraterrestrial races interacting with humanity, will find Alex's work to be very helpful.

Today, Alex released a statement responding to recent criticisms directed against him and researchers who have interviewed him and/or investigated his case. It is important that contactees like Alex are supported and protected so they can safely share their material to the public, rather than be hounded into silence. I and others sincerely hope that Alex soon resumes his public life and disseminate the additional information he has to share about his contact experiences, and the evidence he has prepared to substantiate these.

The next place to go learn about Alex is his own writing in terms of his book, Defending Sacred Ground, and his discontinued journal "Letters From Andromeda." These can be accessed from the following websites:

Letters from Andromeda

For a version of Galactic History based on Alex's writing, click here for a transcript of his 2002 lecture and click here for an extract from his writings.

Online videos of Alex Collier:

1. Presentation at the 2008 Earth Transformation Conference (78 min), click here.

2. April 2009 video on You Tube (120 min), click here.

Michael E. Salla, PhD
July 14, 2009

ALEX COLLIER'S WORK WITH THE ANDROMEDANS

[First posted 13 January 2011. reposted 4 July 2016]

Time magazine ranked Paul Ponnudorai among the world's best guitarists... (reprise)

Paul Ponnudorai died the morning of July 7th, 2012, at age 51. I'll bet there's a huge bunch of ace musicians on the other side waiting to jam with him. Paul was undoubtedly an absolute phenomenon - a musician's musician, with an innate musicianship he honed to virtuoso heights. And yet he was always approachable, friendly and generous with his time. 

We never really know how precious some lives and their unique gifts are - until they're gone.

Love you, bro.

[First posted 7 July 2012. Reposted 7 July 2023]

Why I should be Minister of Phynance (revisited)

"It is the artist/scientist/architect who is the mover of history. Under our present nation-state system, the artist/scientist/architect is enslaved in a world where the politicians are entropically concerned with their own fragmented power and wealth. The visionary is unemployed and finds it difficult to fit into the rigid educational system that is becoming more financially exclusive each semester." ~ Libby Hubbard, paraphrasing Buckminster Fuller

"We find all the no-life-support-wealth-producing people going to their jobs in their cars or buses, spending trillions of dollars' worth of petroleum daily to get to their no-wealth-producing jobs. It doesn't take a computer to tell you that it will save both Universe and humanity trillions of dollars a day to pay them handsomely to stay at home." ~ Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path (1981)

First of all, I readily admit that I know next to nothing about money. The word “economics” leaves me cold. The concept of busyness (as in business) makes me yawn.

Second of all, if you look at the self-appointed phynancial wizards who have each claimed to be some sort of “foremost authority” in his field (and it’s still pretty much a male precinct; can’t think of any female economic advisors offhand) it’s obvious they have completely screwed up at every turn.

If these economic experts were worth their own weight in salt, would there be so many starving children in some countries – and so many obese ones in others?

Doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to figure out that these “economic strategists” are essentially a bunch of conmen who serve the narrow interests of a tiny elite cabal and not humanity as a whole.

The deep background to this out-of-whack state of affairs makes a fascinating study but I won’t delve into it here. Those interested are encouraged to do a bit of DuckDuckGoing on the Anunnaki colonization of Planet Earth (as recorded in the Enuma Elish) and how they manufactured a slavish subspecies (Homo sapiens sapiens aka the Adama) to perform menial tasks - and inadvertently got genetically entangled with Adamic humanity’s evolution towards autonomy and spiritual consciousness.

Coming back to my appointment as Minister of Phynance, here are some good reasons why I feel I’m the best person for the job.

For a start, I’ve become expert at minimizing overheads. I quit my last full-time job on April 1st, 1977, and have managed to live modestly but comfortably since. In those five decades I’ve acquired intimate knowledge of the true value of everything.

If you‘ve been trekking up and down several hills through the forest for four hours, you most certainly will appreciate what shelter means: to arrive finally at a cosy lodge with facilities for boiling water and making tea, and to be able to put your weary feet up and sip sweet black tea and listen to the jungle – that’s certainly an enriching experience. Moments like these, what’s a cup of tea worth to you? Or a warm bed to lie in? How about the company and conversation of a few good friends?

In the real world – and I don’t mean the dog-eat-dog “real world” cynically alluded to by moneyed folk and crime syndicates – where nature reigns supreme, our understanding of what constitutes wealth becomes grounded in tangible experience. For instance, if you find yourself lost in the desert and you’ve been trudging in circles up and down sand dunes under a blazing sun for hours on end, which would you rather stumble upon – a well containing potable water or a bag stuffed with currency notes or even uncut diamonds?


Our sense of values has become distorted over many generations with the introduction of money as a symbol of wealth. To a hungry man, a bunch of bananas and a pitcher of cool, sweet water are worth infinitely more than a gleaming new Porsche or a platinum credit card with unlimited access.

As Minister of Phynance I would shut down the stock exchange and turn it into a budget hostel for young travelers. It’s totally absurd that people think it’s okay to make money with money. It’s not okay, folks – because money isn’t real!

It’s just a puerile game wherein folks with surplus cash are lured into investing it in big corporations, thereby giving them sufficient financial clout to wreak total havoc with their endless expansion schemes. Giant corporations are an unhealthy phenomenon as they tend to grow and grow like a cancer, devouring everything of genuine value – especially natural ecosystems - in their path.

What do people with surplus cash do with the stuff then? Well, they can donate it to a community trust fund managed by a panel of respected citizens and this trust fund will supersede the parasitic insurance companies and the Employees Provident Fund. Anyone who requires financial support and funding for adventurous and worthwhile projects may apply for a grant from this fund. If they accrue a financial surplus from any of these projects, they are expected to donate it to the fund so others can benefit from it.

What constitutes a financial surplus? If we calculate the cost of supporting an adult human for a single day and multiply the amount by ten to make sure that his or her quality of life is at least ten times better than basic – anything above that amount would be considered as surplus.


For example, I estimate that an adult human can manage comfortably on a budget of RM100 or €20 a day. Ten times that is RM1,000 or €200. So in a month of 30 days an adult human would be more than comfortably supported on a income of RM30,000 or €6,000. If he or she lives frugally, at least half the monthly income can be saved in an interest-free account. This way, those who tend to be spendthrift will end up with hardly any surplus; whilst the thrifty ones will have plenty of surplus to donate to the community trust fund.

Those who donate their surplus to the community trust fund will acquire the status of community elders and therefore share the responsibility of governing their communities. By living well within their means and managing to accumulate a monthly or annual surplus, they would have demonstrated their maturity, inner discipline and freedom from self-indulgent habits and addictions.


Essentially, this will help resolve destabilizing imbalances resulting from generations of financial mismanagement at the hands of those who tend to be most extravagant and undisciplined in their misuse of energy. To be sure, they won’t be overjoyed about this – since this class of humans has traditionally set themselves up as the ruling elite by dint of the fact that they were descended from the Anunnaki creator gods – or were able to become leaders of armed gangs that routinely plundered the land, terrorized the populace, and proclaimed themselves overlords.


And where will the guaranteed income come from? It will accrue from harvesting free energy and effectively converting and rechanneling it for specific tasks. Back in the early 1970s, whole systems thinker Buckminster Fuller calculated that if we could efficiently tap the daily universal income of raw energy from our nearest star, Sol or Ra, and convert it to its monetary equivalent in US dollars – we would receive sufficient energy from the Sun alone to pay every living human on Spaceship Earth a daily wage of approximately USD400,000.


Now that is way beyond my recommended basic daily wage of RM500 or €100. Buckminster Fuller was merely stating a point in very broad terms. It’s unlikely that we could harvest 100% of the daily energy income we receive from the Sun. 60-70% would already be more than sufficient to provide a daily energy income to each human worth approximately USD280,000. And since each human will be guaranteed only RM500 (approximately USD142) per day, it means that at least USD279,858 per human would accrue to the planetary energy pool for infrastructural design, development and maintenance.

In effect, after deducting the basic daily cost of maintaining each adult human, there would still be an enormous amount held in reserve for large-scale operations like the building and maintenance of transport systems, ecosystem rehabilitation projects, educational networks and a state-of-the-art planetary communications grid.


Notice that I have omitted any mention of defence systems or military forces. We really don’t need these archaic institutions anymore. If we haven’t matured enough as a species to resolve our conceptual differences through philosophical engagement, interpersonal interaction and conflict resolution, then Homo sapiens sapiens truly deserves to become extinct. And the rest of the universe won’t shed a single tear to be rid of such a virulent and warlike lifeform.

In order to make such a planetary scale transformation possible, it would of course be much easier if there existed an enlightened planetary administrative body modeled after the United Nations – but minus the political bullying that currently makes the UN a mere symbolic gesture rather than an authoritative unifying and coordinating force.

Many of us are disturbed by talk of a New World Order or One World Government and rightly so – because the ones pushing this nefarious agenda are merely perpetuating the ancient caste system wherein the most aggressive egos form themselves into an overpowering elite cabal and systematically exploit and enslave the rest of humanity.

What I’m discussing here is the cosmically kosher counterforce to the Illuminati’s One World Order agenda. In effect, the most aggressive and immature egos will no longer be allowed to plunder the Earth for their own aggrandizement and the enslavement of the ignorant masses.

Instead, because of their lack of self-control, they will be allowed to do what they wish within the generous means granted them – but will have no say in the management of their communities, since that responsibility will be assigned only to those who have developed sufficient inner discipline and wisdom to accumulate a surplus and donate it to the community trust fund.

Give this some serious thought and if you still think I don’t deserve to be appointed Minister of Phynance, I shall be forced to use the pschittapump on you.

-------
Literary footnote: The spelling of “finance” as “phynance” and the introduction of the pschittapump were inspired by the pataphysical works of Alfred Jarry (1873-1907), originator of the infamous Ubu plays.

APPENDIX: Notes by Libby Hubbard

Wealth is defined by Buckminster Fuller as the "technological ability to protect, nurture, support, and accommodate all growth needs of life." The computer will show us that at least 70% of jobs in Western private-enterprise countries are work that creates no life support, therefore no real wealth. Examples of these jobs are: "inspectors of inspectors, reunderwriters of insurance reinsurers, Obnoxico promoters, spies and counterspies, military personnel, gunmakers, etc." It is more economical to pay these people to stay at home and not drive their cars to work since it cost "nature well over a million dollars to produce each gallon of petroleum."

The Sun does not make us pay for the energy the Earth imports. It wants to us succeed in the cosmic scheme by using what Fuller calls "cosmic costing accounts." Cosmic accounting can never go bankrupt, since the sun is always shining, accept when humans make the mistake of withdrawing our critical "capital" assets as we are doing presently with fossil fuels. So one can see how we are living in a bankrupt state of affairs, wasting our fossil fuels and burning fusion and fission nuclear energy which Fuller says is "burning our terrestrial production equipment," when we should be living syntropically by the sunlight being imported to Earth.

When we begin living in a syntropic way on a "cosmic-energy wealth income" by wind, wave, and solar power, big businesses will see no way for putting a meter on these forms of energy to run their bureaucracies and war machines. National governments and big business continue to use up "nature's energy savings account," that is, fossil fuels and by atomic energy which is what Fuller calls "Spaceship Earth's physical hull," even though scientists can find no solution to the problem of nuclear waste. (Fuller thinks we should rocket the waste back into the sun). But because of our intuitive wisdom strongly forming an anti-nuclear energy movement, the energy owners have turned back to the coal and shale mines to convert them into meterable and pipeable liquid fuels. Fuller writes: "This selfishly exploitable energy fuel strategy will inexorably destroy the atmosphere's capability of supporting biological life on planet Earth."

[First posted 26 November 2009, reposted 20 July 2015, 25 October 2018 & 22 October 2021]

HOW MEN GET THEIR LOOKS (repost)

[I don't know who drew these brilliant cartoons or I'd have included a link to his site (it's almost 100% certain the artist is male). My darling daughter forwarded these to me many, many years ago. Guess I'm an archivist at heart. First posted 8 October 2007, reposted 16 September 2014 & 2 October 2021]

Thwarting the Druglords & their Biochemical Wet Dreams (repost)

On 30 June 2021 I had a vivid dream involving altering bits of code (that looked like Bitcoin keys) to neutralize the deleterious effects of the toxic jabs millions (if not billions) have unsuspectingly accepted. 

It began with the AstraZeneca, followed by all the other variants. I felt great exultation when I discovered how to reconfigure the codes. 

This subsequently led to the giant pharmaceutical companies being exposed as entirely evil and the factories forced to shut down, their owners arrested and incarcerated or executed.

And thus began a whole new era in our approach to healing. No more invasive and injurious surgery, no more toxic chemicals churned out merely for profit. We began to use color and sound and vibrations to repair and restore damaged cells - with med beds, "bio-scalar photonic fusion" quantum devices, healing modalities we could only dream about when the pharmaceutical giants misruled the medical universe. 

[First posted 1 July 2021. Reposted 10 July 2024]

A JEWISH BOARD OF DIRECTORS (reprise)

Schwartz, Cohen and Ginsburg have been good friends since childhood.

They decide to start a business together.

Schwartz says, "Okay, I'll invest $100,000."

Cohen says he'll put in $200,000.

Ginsburg says, "Alright, I'll put in $50."

Cohen says, "If I'm putting in $200,000, I'll be the President and CEO of the corporation. Schwartz, for your $100,000, you will be Vice President and CFO, and Ginsburg, for your $50 you can be our Sex Adviser."

Puzzled, Ginsburg asks: "Sex Adviser? Umm, what exactly do you mean by that?"

Cohen replies: "It means, when we want your fucking advice, we'll ask for it."

Al Pacino as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice

[Contributed by Raj. First posted 11 July 2009. Reposteed  1 July 2020]

FOUR LEGS GOOD ~ ANIMAL FARM REVISITED (YET AGAIN!)

 

WILD RICE CELEBRATES AN ORWELLIAN CENTENNIAL

Ivan Heng’s 2003 restaging of George Orwell’s classic is wonderfully thought-provoking

IT’S BEEN AGES since I last read Animal Farm, undoubtedly one of George Orwell’s best-known works. So it was a pleasure indeed to be reacquainted with this timeless allegory - “A Fairy Story,” Orwell called it - through Wild Rice’s production of Ian Wooldridge’s faithful stage adaptation, for an appreciative Singapore audience in September 2003.

Singaporean theater prodigy Ivan Heng

Directed by the immensely gifted Ivan Heng, Animal Farm impressed with the caliber of the performers, the quirkiness of the set, the artful make-up, and Philip Tan’s animated live music (a performance in itself). Heng opted for an unexpectedly sober and only slightly zany dramatization of the plot.  

Relying largely on stylized movements and a very disciplined cast, Heng’s directorial vision was reminiscent of the “3D effect” of computer-generated animation (e.g., the Dreamworks production of A Bug’s Life in which the characterizations blur all boundaries between cartoon and realism). With well-defined physical mannerisms, the actors effectively created vivid animal personas that somehow made them human without anthropomorphizing them.

Lim Yu-Beng and Selena Tan were convincingly horsey as Boxer and Mollie, steadfast but a bit slow on the uptake. Ivan Heng, Gene Sha Rudyn, and Pam Oei were pricelessly piggish as Napoleon, Snowball and Squealer. As the ruthlessly ousted deputy, Sha Rudyn’s Anwarish goatee harked back to Leon Trotsky - and he was equally brilliant as Benjamin the literate but phlegmatic donkey, and cockily comical as the resident rooster. Michael Ian Corbidge’s Farmer Jones was a John Bullish political cartoon down to his Union Jack underpants, and he also doubled as Pilkington - a cross between Uncle Sam and a redneck evangelist entrepreneur. 

The casting of ruddy-faced angmoh Corbidge as Jones was an oblique allusion to our colonial past - a political subtext that wasn’t lost on the audience. When Napoleon harangues the animals and asks querulously if they want Farmer Jones to return and reclaim Manor Farm, it sounds like the sort of dire warning against the dangers of globalization you might hear at any Umno General Assembly.

Ivan Heng’s Napoleon was a masterful study of a charismatic leader’s steady metamorphosis into demiurgic despotism. The political scapegoating of his erstwhile deputy into Public Enemy No. 1, leading to inquisitorial witch-hunts and party purges to divert attention from gross mismanagement, were chillingly, goosebumpily real - as Heng pigged out completely on his juicy rôle without ever succumbing to the temptation to “ham” it up.

 

As agitprop chief Squealer, Pam Oei’s high-pitched stridency evoked eerie memories of China’s cultural revolution when party cadres in Mao suits brandished copies of the little Red book at all potential dissidents and heretics. But hysterical Squealers are found in every ministry of “information.”

Audience participation consisted of our being invited to recite the post-colonial doctrine of “Four legs good, two legs baaaaaaaaaaaad!” in appropriately sheeplike tones. Indeed, since the only farm animals not represented on stage were the sheep, it fell to the audience to take on that rôle like good law-abiding, tax-paying citizens. For our valiant efforts we were paid off in sponsored pre-election apples.

But with changing realities - and lucrative joint ventures signed between the porcine farm management and Pilkington the American corporate representative - leaflets had to be dropped from the rafters in four languages (English, Tamil, Malay and Chinese) proclaiming the new-era ideology of four-legs-good-two-legs-better. Another “Farm Development Project” to serve the needs of progressive animals, brought to us by Napoleon, the fine upstanding porker in a well-cut dark suit and red tie - standard uniform of the nefarious Illuminati World Management Team sported by NWO executives and their political proxies on all important occasions.

What Ivan Heng has achieved through this hip and savvy re-staging of Animal Farm with a distinctly ASEAN flavor is a revitalization of Orwell’s classic study of the neo-feudal mechanics of political power, giving it a fresh, contemporary sheen, rich in local color.

The somber theme of bad times getting worse is dynamically offset by very physical performances, and the insertion of a garish, carnivalesque grand finale - abetted throughout by the vigorous live music - mostly percussive - provided by an enormously exuberant and talented Philip Tan: he performs offstage for the most part, though visibly, but occasionally leaps onstage and contributes to the surrealistic mayhem. Air-conditioning ducts feature prominently as multi-purpose stage props, representing the pseudo-mystical fascination of newfangled technology - as well as the animal butcher’s van in which Boxer is carted off for slaughter when he outlives his usefulness to the System.

In short, Wild Rice’s Animal Farm was a totally credible - and more than creditable - tribute to George Orwell’s acute insight into the ploys and pitfalls of political power, and his dystopian view of the human condition. The production has been invited to tour New Zealand in early 2004 - and, hopefully, Malaysian audiences will get to see it soon after that. [Note: Ivan Heng's Animal Farm was successfully staged in New Zealand, Tasmania, Hong Kong, and restaged in Singapore - but it still hasn't happened in Malaysia, although in August 2017 a Malay version titled Kandang, directed by Omar Ali, is to be staged at KLPAC]. 

Ivan Heng’s first staging of Animal Farm in 2002 earned him the DBS-Life Theatre Award for Best Director. In his director’s notes for the souped-up 2003 version, Heng states: “This production was a gut reaction to the ‘War against Terror’ in Iraq. I remember sitting in front of the television on March 20th, feeling sick to the core as I watched the first bombs on Iraq fall. If there is one thing I’m learning, it is how Governments can become so separate from the very people who vote them into power. Watching the news made me think about how the media has the power to distort and manipulate the truth. It made me think about my responsibility as an artist. If only to understand my personal response to the events of the world, I was searching for a way of expressing my confusion and disappointment.”

“In the world of Animal Farm, most speechifying and public palaver is bullshit and instigated lying, and though many characters are good-hearted and mean well, they can be frightened into closing their eyes to what's really going on.” ~ Margaret Atwood

George Orwell @ Eric Blair

BORN ERIC ARTHUR BLAIR on 25 June 1903 in Bengal, George Orwell’s centennial in 2003 stirred up some controversy about the validity of his status as a literary icon, with leftwing critics bristling over the fact that Animal Farm had been co-opted as an antisocialist tract by rightwing interests.

His detractors have remarked on Orwell-Blair’s long history of hobnobbing with the secret police - as a police officer in Burma, BBC propagandist for India and Southeast Asia, and British Intelligence consultant on anti-communist strategies during the early days of the Cold War. Whose side was he on? Was he in truth the maverick Winston Smith or master manipulator O’Brien (two key characters in 1984) - or was he perhaps both?

Some of the sharpest minds are recruited for psyops (psychological warfare) and Eric Blair just happened to have an acute literary flair - and a profound loathing for the cynical mass-control mechanisms installed by the ruling elite to perpetuate its feudalistic stranglehold on the human imagination. Upon leaving Burma he embraced anarchism with a vengeance, and then swung to the extreme left, fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War. Then he got disenchanted by the communist movement and chose the life of a penniless vagabond for several years - an experience that spawned his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), and later The Road to Wigan Pier (1937).

The soul’s yearning for freedom is doomed to futility in Orwell’s universe, and one gets the sense that he finally gives up fighting the Status Quo because he can see no way out: it’s a task he finds morally repugnant, but he will serve the Dark Lords of the Matrix by inserting himself into 10 Downing Street as a future prime minister - not as an Orwell, of course, but as a Blair - in any case, as someone supremely fluent in Doublethink and Newspeak.

Therein lies the poignant irony of Orwell’s dark, visionary novels - especially 1984 (written in 1948) which is a perfect prescription for a Big Brother power elite ruling through sloganeering, disinformation and public relations - and when all that fails, ruthless police brutality. Precisely the sort of world we find ourselves living in today, where war is peace and might is right, and history an infinitely rewritable cut-and-paste business.

Winston Smith, the chief protagonist of 1984, is turned around by the mind control experts in Room 101 where, confronted by his deepest, darkest fears, his rebellious individualism is broken - and the novel concludes bleakly with the socially rehabilitated citizen Smith drinking Victory gin at the local and watching Big Brother on the boob tube along with all the other faceless plebes - while the chorus of a popular ditty echoes in his brain: “Under the spreading chestnut tree/I sold you and you sold me.”

But Orwell’s intellectual integrity and his extraordinary skill as a writer more than redeem his own internal conflicts - and his readers are left with the onus to seek, and ultimately find, a non-polarized resolution beyond the dire straits of divide-and-rule dualism.

25 November 2003 [First posted 14 August 2012. Reposted 25 june 2014]

Slow drivers most likely cause of road accidents!

Sir Percival, my trusty 24-year-old Satria, is no boxy car!

Just before Chinese New Year (2015) I had to pick up my laptop from a shop in Tanjong Malim. Not knowing the traffic cops had set a trap for motorists between Kerling & Kalumpang, I was shocked to find a speeding ticket waiting for me in the post months after the festive season. There was a B&W image of my car (so no argument) & I was accused of traveling at 70kmh in a 60kmh zone. Long story short, I got hit for RM150 but at least the lady cop who issued the receipt passed me her mobile number (which remains unused).

This got me a little annoyed, you can imagine. I'm used to thinking in mph, not kph, so a speed limit of 60kph translates as 36mph - that's slower than your average Kancil or Kelisa driven by an 80-year-old granny. I know the cops aren't really concerned about my safety - they only want the money. It's legalized extortion, no less. But it got me pondering once again the abysmal lack of insight of those who purport to administer departments, states, even entire countries & who take it upon themselves to constantly enact new laws (oblivious of the truism that more laws equal less justice).

To my mind the primary cause of highway accidents is slow drivers. The secondary cause is often tow-truck operators working in cahoots with workshop owners who deliberately spill oil on the roads & then await their prey.

But let's focus on the slow coaches for now. I've been driving since I was 15 (first two years without a licence, couldn't wait) & I had the best driving instructor in the world - my dad. He told me how you can tell a confident driver from a timid one by observing how often they use their foot brake, especially around corners. He taught me how to apply the accelerator for better traction on wet roads while taking a bend, instead of jamming on the brakes, which could cause a tailspin. Over the decades, I have found his advice entirely sound & when I see a driver ahead of me overusing his or her brakes I can tell at once we have a timid, incompetent driver (well, I guess not everyone has a dad like mine who taught me so many practical things as a kid).

Anyway, these timid drivers are often also nervous & overcautious & they seem to favor boxy cars that resemble horse-driven coaches, which reveals their conservative taste. Apart from that, their fearfulness tends to make them more insular - with the unfortunate result that they become insensitive to other drivers. Often they seem so preoccupied with keeping their eyes on the road ahead they become unaware of the long line of vehicles behind them, unable to overtake on narrow or busy roads. Now don't get me wrong. There's a place for everyone under the sun - including nervous, fear-driven types. In almost every case, these neuroses are acquired through family dynamics (overprotective mum, overbearing dad) & can be quite easily transmuted - so long as the sufferer is open to jettisoning unnecessary emotional baggage & getting on with life.

What I'm driving at is simply this: why punish confident, competent drivers by imposing absurd speed limits on us? I'm willing to bet that if a statistical study was conducted, at least 80% of road accidents result from drivers getting impatient & taking unnecessary risks after being stuck for some time behind slow-moving vehicles, especially on narrow single-lane roads. 

I'm not suggesting that slow, timid drivers be banned or penalized. Indeed, nobody needs to be punished for being what they are - but those inclined to be fearful, overcautious, nervous would do well (for themselves & for others) to be open to healing their childhood traumas & replacing fear-based outlooks with more dynamic, more self-confident tendencies. Then they might discover that driving can be joyful & pleasurable - not a terrifying ordeal - & that becoming a better, more alert driver is self-rewarding. Fear & anxiety fuels incompetence, no doubt about that.

Those who insist on clinging to their anxious, timid dispositions can always opt for public transport & help ease traffic congestion.

21 June 2015

MY POST-JUNE SOLSTICE 2021 DREAM (repost)

Muladhara
(Root)

Right after the June Solstice 2021, I awoke from a vivid, exciting dream in which I saw three shiny discs (like tiny CDs or chakras) spontaneously begin to realign in every human being I encountered. They appeared to be supercharged electromagnetic fields compressed into toroidal discs and I felt a deep sense of satisfaction when I saw all three discs slide magically into position along the spines of each human being.

Anahata
(Heart)

As this occurred their emotional bodies began to reactivate and resensitize and they found themselves feeling reconnected with everything around them - plants, animals, other humans, even inanimate objects like buildings.  

Now they could see through their hearts again - not only through their minds (where their nonsensical beliefs, prejudices and ideologies are collected and stored). 

Sahasrara
(Crown)

It was truly wonderful - indeed, ecstatic - to witness the Great Awakening and Quantum Transformation of an entire species, suddenly liberated from a deep robotic trance that had been gradually imposed on them over countless generations! 

Antares Maitreya

22 June 2021