It is all about power and control

The Death of Stalin (2017)

The difference between Capitalism in the West and Communism in the East of Europe arose because Capitalist societies retained philosophical persuasions and political pluralism as expressed in a parliamentary democracy, a free press and free trade unions. Communist societies, on the other hand, froze Marxist philosophy into a closed system of orthodoxy. This led to heresy-hunting, which in due course reduced Marxism to the status of a Semitic creed like Christianity and Islam. Bertrand Russell was not far wrong when he identified Communism as a Christian heresy. It has acquired all the characteristic features of the Christian Church such as the only saviour, the only Revelation, the only Pope, the only priesthood, the only baptism, and the only sacraments. Communist regimes could not help becoming totalitarian enemies of human freedom.

The initial success of the Bolshevik Revolution is evidenced by the advancements in living conditions and headway in science, technology and space exploration. Buried in the rubble of development was the loss of human lives in the name of dissidence and the rebel yell for freedom.

For quite a while, Capitalism portrayed itself as the saviour of Mankind after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Greed drove economies, and everyone was happy. Nobody realised that unregulated Capitalism was the harbinger of many unrests that were to ensue. Vulture Capitalism left a trail of destruction and the widening of the gap between the haves and have nots. What started as compassionate capitalism which replaced despotic regimes and feudalistic autocrats ended up as cutthroat capitalism. The weak remained suppressed under any economic modality.

We finally realise that the world has all the resources to fulfil our needs but not our greed. No one economic system can sustain our wellbeing forever. It is innate within to take shortcuts and find ways to beat the system. We get lazy and cut corners.

Despite earning the unenviable reputation of having killed off over 20 million people during his reign, including more than a million the Gulags, Stalin still have a place in the heart of many Russians. His feat of decimating the Nazi Army singlehandedly, after being left to fend for themselves by the Allied Forces in the Second World War, hails him as the favourite leader. In a poll in conjunction with the Centennial Celebrations of the Bolshevik Revolution, 51% of respondents voted favourably towards Josef Stalin as a real Russian leader. Putin has been compared positively to Stalin in meting actions against 'outlaw' former Soviet states like Ukraine.

Stalin and his band of yeomen

The 'Death of Stalin' is a satirical piece on the set-up of 1953 Soviet Russia surrounding the time of the demise of their supreme leader. It tells about the grudgingly subservient people in the inner circle of the Politburo. Secretly each has power ambitions but does not dare to state the obvious for fear of joining the scores of people sent regularly to face the firing squad for alleged treason. Before the body is cold, they are scurrying around in an attempt to shore up their positions like in a court suddenly in need of a king. The inner circle of Stalin's 'comrades-in-arms' include Georgy Malenkov, Stalin's likely successor and deputy premier; Lavrenti Beria, Stalin's influential chief of the secret police; Nikita Khrushchev, whom Stalin had summoned to Moscow to balance the power dynamics of Malenkov and Beria; and Nikolai Bulganin, Stalin's defence minister. 

At the end of the day, even though the film opened to rave reviews in film festivals, it left with a bit of bad after taste. There were historical inaccuracies in the timeline of events that were shown in this supposedly historical movie. It ended up neither being a comedy act nor one which highlighted the horrors of Stalinism.

The movie is banned in Russia and many of the former colonies of Soviet Russia for denigrating Russia's WW2 war heroes and being disrespectful of their history.

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Weapons gone astray!

Sensitive topic - Readers' discretion advised

A Mosque in Munich (2010)

Author: Ian Johnson

When 9-11 attacks came about, investigations traced the perpetrators of sleeper cells spending a time of their lifetimes in Germany. These terrorist group did not spring up just before attacks on the American soil. They, in fact, have a very long past, going as far back as the Bolshevik revolution.

When Communist Soviet took over the predominantly Muslim lands in the Caucasus, collectively known as Western Turkestan, the area was filled with adrenaline-filled Muslim fighters who wanted to liberate their lands from their godless rulers. They were collectively known as the Prometheans, the mythical Greek hero who defied Zeus to save humanity.

This golden opportunity was grasped by Wehrmacht, the unified WW2 German Army to aid in their attack of Russia. As is common knowledge, many Muslim scholars, including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, soar at the thought of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after WW1, decided to pour their support on the side of the AxisPower. 

Betting on the wrong horse, they lost more than just their homeland. Many of the Muslim freedom fighters ended up as refugees in Germany. By 1950s, West Germany, especially places like Munich, had undergone an economic transformation. The miracle of German tenacity and engineering marvel saw industrial giants like Siemen and financial titans like Allianz proving their strength. Many Turkish immigrants soon start coming into West Germany.
After WW2, communism became the bogeyman, and there was an urgent need to keep activities behind the Iron Curtain under check. Many of these ex-Soviet Muslims became the eyes and the ears of the CIA and West Germany. They were rolled in the CIA-sponsored propaganda Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe as well as many of its espionage work. Along the way, the CIA decided to use Islam as their weapon to go after the non-believer Communists. They are said to create ruckus in Mekkah during a Haj season to highlight injustices against Muslims in the Soviet Union. At the 1955 Bandung Conference,  their members also created an embarrassing moment for the Soviets.

Schematic representation of the Mosque

The idea of having a mosque was drummed in by the Muslim community of Germany to garner more support to this end. Somehow, there soon came to be a tussle for leadership as members of the Muslim Brotherhood gained a stronghold in the Munich Mosque donation collection and construction. 

The Muslim Brotherhood movement, known for its doublespeak, saying one thing to one party and denying it to another, managed to hoodwink the Americans into believing that they could speak for the general world Muslim population. In reality, they advocated a rather conservative and domineering form of Islam; a kind which tends to control all aspects of day-to-day living and has no reservations against terrorism or killing of its enemies. 

Munich Mosque

The Munich Mosque was finally opened in 1973.

The Muslim Brotherhood, with the cooperation of the US intelligence agencies, managed to outmanoeuvre the ex-Nazi soldiers to control the mosque. As time went, The Muslim Brotherhood gained more traction in the world politics. The conservative, arch-Catholic city in Bavaria soon became a centre of radical Islam.

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Two sides of the same coin?

The Secret Behind Communism (2013)
Author: David Duke

Growing up, we were fed with ideas that Jews were wronged in Russia (and the whole world). The first exposure to this must have been when we were first given free movie tickets, during special national holidays, to watch films like ' Fiddler on the Roof'. Here, Russian Jews were portrayed as simple people living quiet lives only to be chased around for their beliefs. Whether it is a belief system or ethnicity is another bone of contention as breeding within the community is emphasised by its practitioners.
My earlier understanding was that Jews and Communism were on the opposite of the camps. Now, this book by Dr David Duke postulates that in fact both of them are comprised of Jews. Communism is a Jewish construct, financed by the Jewish capitalists and the mass murderers of the 20th century are not the Germans but the Jews themselves. The word 'Holocaust' has been hijacked by the world to refer to the gassing of the 6 million Jews by the Nazis, when in fact, around 10 million people may have perished under the oppressive Communist regimes in Russia. The deaths were masterminded and executed by Jews.

Jews in Russia were industrious people who prospered under their disciplined way of living. Much to the chagrin of the rest of the Gentiles, they refused to assimilate to norms of society. They were conceited by their perceived right way of living was paved by God Himself. They are content donning their own traditional garbs, refusing to wear what the rest seem trendy. Their careful way of life protects them from the rare trying times. That angers the gentiles. The shrewd Jewish business people always stood ahead of economic hardship and emphasised the need for quality education for their community.

To be fair, the Czars who ruled Russia just before the Revolution did pen out plans to integrate Jews into mainstream Russian society, but they chose to remain among themselves, confining themselves to the Pale of Settlement. A literature search indicates that Pale of Settlement refers to a vast region on the western part of Russia, equivalent to present-day Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, East of Poland and others. Jews came to be congregated here after repeated Christian armies tried to convert them. Life was harsh here. Despite their hardship, being the persecuted people they had always been, they became successful in whatever ventures they went into. With the World Wars, many of them migrated to the US (in late 19th and early 20th century), dispersed to interior Russia to escape the German Army or was killed in Hitler's planned genocide.

Jewish thinkers like Marx were behind the idea of an alternative form of economy to capitalism. Again Jews like Trotsky and half-Jews like Lenin execute the concept of a brutal kind of this oppressive ideology. They were supported by faithful generals who ran the secret police Cheka, the precursor of KGB and the Gulags. Many Jews were efficient bureaucrats who executed the leaders' execution orders to perfection. The Russian Revolution was in fact not initiated by the Russians at all. It is said to have been spearheaded by disgruntled Jews who were exiled for subversive activities. Taking the goodwill of the monarchs, the dissidents were instrumental in their fall. Thanks to Jewish bankers from outside Russia, the Communists came to power.

In other words, the evil Jewish bankers and the Communists are both sides of the same coin. The capitalists and communists are working together. Much like the Cola War, Pepsi or Coke, the global conglomerate still wins. And like the cereal war - Kellogg or Cornflakes, it is still the collapse of traditional breakfast and fattening of the foreign capitalists.

Zionism (or Jewish tribalism) and Marxism are said to be children of the same Jewish mother! Winston Churchill and the contemporary leaders were well aware of Jewish involvement in Communism. The Jews were supposed to be split between Zionism and Communism. Churchill went as far as to say that the Jews were to be blamed for every subversive movement of the 19th century!

After Communism planted itself in Russia, nationalism took precedence over the Jewish issues. About this time, the idea of Jewish state came about. Leaders like Gorbachev were more than willing to purge Jews from Russia to settle in Israel.

Jewish migration to the USA happened in three phases: Shepardic (with the Spanish in the 1600s), German (1840s through to WW1) and Eastern European (1880 through to 1924). With each wave of arrival, many industries prospered -garments, cigar, newspaper, drama, food production etcetera.

With their hegemony over the print media and entertainment media, they managed to influence the thinking of people around the world. With their financial control of the most developed countries, they control economies of most countries.

The book goes on to blame all of our current international turmoil to the Jews, either directly or indirectly through their actions. Communism created dictators in Hungary, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. Jews who migrated to China were the biggest opium dealers. As we know, opium was the means by which the West crippled China. Of course, Russia had a hand in establishing Communist China. Mao even had Jewish as the Health Minister in his cabinet. The Jewish elites started the Workers' Party of America which was the precursor of the Communist Party of America. This party was made famous in the 1940s and 50s when many hearings were conducted to hunt down Russian spies among Americans.

In contemporaries times, the Jewish influence has not waned. Hollywood is their biggest outlet to propagate their ideology. The Neo-Conservatists who made their stronghold in the previous US administration are actually Trotskyites or closet leftist the least. The Neo-Cons were best known for their shenanigans in creating unreasonable fear the world over through their false intelligence and supposed discovery of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The Jewish agenda is said to be tribalist in nature. It creates mayhem in apparently peaceful countries. They are supposed to have spread Marxist ideology covertly hoping to destroy institutions that the world has built over centuries of trial and error. Their activities widen the gap between the haves and have nots, hence killing the middle class. By stirring the marginalised and the minority, they want unrests. The nuclear family concept is destroyed, and destructive habits like drugs and alcohol are glorified.

Two-faced Janus: the beginning and end!

The author does mention the reason for their behaviour. Generations of persecution or delusion of persecution with self-perceived grandiosity sowed the seed of genes that some have today. Inter-marriages perpetuated the dominance of this trait. The need to survive a harsh winter and the fear runs deep. Thus can be said of many migrant economies like the Chinese and the Indians. But then these people assimilate whilst the Zionist Jews do not. Tribalism in any form, Islamic fundamentalism, Hindutva, Christian Evangelical extremists is problematic.

At the end of the book, one cannot stop but wonder. Is this for real or are we trying to find the easy way out of all shortcomings, as we always have been doing by blaming the other, the bogeyman? Are we so weak as not to be able to assess what we need but to fall prey to fulfil our reptilian mind and follow the herd, plunging head in without thinking?

Of espionage, fags and blocks...

Confessions. For years I have been going to his house functions only to listen to his stories. All the small talks with the other guests just bore me so quickly; his presence was the motivating factor that drew me there. With his ever-smiling demure and his stories that transport me to a time when my country was a fledgeling confluence of people trying to stand together under the shade of a flag of a country named Malaya, Uncle Kesavan was the reason I was there.

Now aged 84 years old, he is still so passionate about his work that he will painstakingly tell every detail of the time when he was almost working like a secret agent, minus the licence to kill. His team, of the Malaysian Royal Police, was the pioneer in the heeding times of the communist insurgency. They were sent to the UK to learn the then-novel way to intercept communists' radio transmissions. From the stories, or rather life experiences, that he narrated, he must be easily thousands of unsung heroes in this country who are yet to be given due recognition.

He is a living example of how one can give up smoking just at the snuffing of a cigarette butt. It was a time when he was almost in his late 50s when he fulfilled his pilgrimage at a holy shrine in India. Due to the pressures of his work and the company he kept, he was already a chain smoker, burning 60 sticks daily. After descending the hill that held the deity of his liking after completing his religious obligations, he lit his first 'post-Enlightenment' fag. He felt an instant dislike for it. Thinking that the stick was a defective one and he lit another. And that was the last stick of cigarette that he ever held. He is living proof that willpower alone (maybe with a bit of divine intervention) can stop any addiction.

Then a few years later, after losing his dear beloved and fulfilling his fatherly duties, he felt a little queasy over his chest. To the utter disbelief of the attending medical practitioners, he was diagnosed to have four critical blockages in his coronary vessels. He was labelled by the cardiologists as a walking timebomb, saying that his situation was precarious and needed urgent intervention. Contrary to his physicians' advice, Uncle Kesavan, by around 70, decided that his treatment modality should just be masterly inactivity. Despite his doctors' predictions of not lasting Long enough to celebrate the next new year, he defied medical wisdom and is living to tell his stories some fifteen years later, perhaps even outliving some of his learned caregivers. Now and then, we have outliers. He must be one. Now aged 84 years young, he is grinning from ear to ear at the launch of his story in a book written by his daughter.

S Kesavan PPN, PPM, GSM

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Towards Communism? One World Order?

Credit: biography.com

Louis XVI’s policy of not raising taxes and taking
out international loans, including to fund the 
American Revolution, increased France’s debt, 
setting in motion the French Revolution. By the 
mid-1780s the country was near bankruptcy, 
which forced the king to support radical fiscal

reforms not favourable with the nobles or 
the people. [Smells like 1MDB]

As in many of our meaningless banters, this one too had no simplistic answers.

One of my friends proudly announced how he managed to identify a nagging problem on his car dashboard that none of the mechanics in town could correctly identify. An indicator kept on flashing implying that there could be a minor issue with the mixture of fuel and oxygen. With the help of his ever-inquisitive mind and resourcefulness, he got it fixed. With his self-taught knowledge of automobiles and the aid of Youtube, he diagnosed the fault. To source the sensor that needed to change, there was the net to search and Lazada to ensure that the merchandise arrived at your doorstep in no time. 

Only because he did not possess the tools to fix the part, he had to get the assistance of a local mechanic. That too, an apprentice came to his rescue. And voila, problem solved.

The friend was naturally jubilant on his achievement and of course had all rights to brag. 

Just to play devil advocate, I told him that he had just become an accomplice to the great evil capitalist empire whose intention is to gobble up the small time little men's livelihood. Like in the film 'You've got m@il', since the 90s, these big concerns have been trying, successfully, usurping SMEs. The biggest losers seem to be the common man. With the advent of DIY and ease of transborder mail order, their roles (the average man) seem superfluous. Try searching for anything online. There is a conspiracy to highlight specific predetermined options. Big tech companies own so many companies these days that almost every search engine and the companies that sell many products belong to these conglomerates. Payment portals and logistics companies too only profit the already super-rich multinational companies. At the end of the day, the small shops around town can just wind down. 

Just like the vegetable sellers in wet markets who have lost out to hypermarkets in selling greens, every entrepreneur in town will eventually just become salaryman to these MNCs. The already cash-strapped mammoth cartels whose assets already supercede that of a third world country will rule the world. That will lead to a New World Order where the divide between the haves and have-nots will be so vast, reminiscing of a time not so long in the distant past; when the peasants were wailing in hunger while the nobility could not understand why they could not be content with the leftover cakes! By then we would have made a full 360° turn and back to where we started. The French and Russian Revolutions that attempted to correct the disparity between the 1% rich and 99% poor would have been proved futile. 

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Parallels we have seen before!

The symbolic crossing of the 38th parallel

The leaders of the Koreas cajoling each other

to cross the coveted line. ©FG

The world is pleased with the symbolic crossing of two brothers, brothers-in-arms, who, for the good 60 over years were hawkishly looking after each other with scorn over the 38th parallel. The arbitrary line set up in a wishy-washy way in 1955 after a feud which was heading nowhere. Instigated by cheering and doomsday prophets from the world over, the siblings spotted tangential growths of gargantuan proportions, so we are made to believe.

Bear in mind, the world should not be too complacent that everything would be hunky dory from now on. Remember, the euphoria after the fall of Berlin Wall did not last enough for the world to forget the dark years of the Cold War.

Lest not we forget the generally great vibes that Neville Chamberlain got after his meeting with the soon to Führer of the Reich. And the faux pas that followed as Germany invaded Poland before the ink dried above the dotted lines.

After the Second World War, in their infant post-liberation, two metamorphosed giants of Asia, India with its struggling democracy and China with its bumbling communist dictatorship decided to prosper together in a collaboration which came to be mocked as "Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai" (India and China are brothers). Unfortunately, both nations had different notions of prosperity; India via mutual cooperation and industrialisation whilst the Middle Kingdom thought that their revolution was the answer to the world's problems.

But see what happened? Lowering their shields, Bharat soon realised that their newfound kinsmen had run over to take over part of their territory. The tension of this 1962 event lingers to date.

North Korea had always been by the world as an appendage of Red China. Is the visit to the Southern counterpart just a front for them to tone down the defence to aid the nefarious activities of their Big Brother?

Is it the lull before the storm? The settling of a storm in a teacup? Should we be worried? Well, history tells us to be.

 https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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The lure, too strong, you crumble!

Ninotchka (1939)

At one look, it appears like a movie from the genre of, what we would call 'romcom' (romantic comedy). Look deeper, it is a parody of communism and poking fun at the lifestyle of Bolsheviks who oust their bourgeois to distribute the wealth of the nation to the working class people. Look deeper still, you will find the unanswerable question of life. Is the purpose of life is to enjoy the moment, here and now or is it a journey of self-discovery, self-discipline, following of a preset path for a mission to be attained at the end of it all?

This preWW2 film was banned in the Soviet Union and its controlled countries as it painted a lifeless, caricatured and an automaton-like picture of Soviet people and its officers. In the film, life in Russia is portrayed as pathetic. Living in cramped quarters with privacy being an alien word and eating omelette is a luxurious cuisine.

It is the post-Bolshevik Russia and three Soviet officers are sent to Paris to auction off a set of jewellery from the aristocratic collections to finance the Stalin's 5-year plan programme. (There is a joke in the movie about the 5-year-plan taking 15 years to complete!)

The three bumbling officers, drawn to city lights and the lure of Paris orchestrated by exiled Russian bourgeoisie, go astray from their duties. Soviet authorities send their straight talking business minded special officer Ninotchka Yakushova to put things straight. Things were going right for the Russians until Ninotchka fell in love with the lure of private ownership, commercialism, the luxury of life in the free world and a hopelessly romantic playboy and a Count.

At the end of the day, personal ambitions, drive to do the good thing for the greater God and to do the right thing all took a backseat. The inner primordial desire to satisfy lust, to enjoy the finer things in life, sloth and greed won. No matter how hard one tries to attain his ambitions, Man, being Man, crumbles to his indwelling biological needs. You can only suppress the feelings to a certain extent. He would ponder on the futility of this exercise when the environment he is in is not hostile. He would question the necessity to prepare for an uncertain catastrophe, which in his current situation would appear remote or even non-existent. That is when he would the shields down and tell himself that he had a fool all these while. But has he?


Memorable lines

• This picture takes place in Paris in those wonderful days when a siren was a brunette and not an alarm --- and if a Frenchman turned out the light, it was not on account of an air raid! (Introduction)

• "I was hurt when the swallows left us in the winter for capitalistic countries.  Now I know why! We have the high ideals, they have the climate!" 'says Nintschka when she opens a Parisian hotel window to appreciate the capitalistc air!

God is in all of us!

Anbe Sivam (அன்பே சிவம், Love is God; 2003)


Another of Kamalhaasan starred film filled themes of communism, God, social justice, realism and atheism. This time around, it was done on a story based on Hollywood's blockbuster, 'Planes, trains and automobiles' where the Steve Martin character is stuck with an annoying fellow traveller as he is held at New York airport which was closed due to worsening blizzard.

In this film, an eccentric communist sympathiser, Nallasivam, is stuck with a capitalistic minded advertisement executive, Anbarasu, in a flood-hit airport in Orissa. Their adventures and misadventures travelling all the way from Bhubaneswar in Orissa to Chennai via various modalities of transportation aid them to understand and empathise each other, especially the scarred faced, limping and hemiparetic Nallasivam.

In this almost 3-hour long story, we get to know about Nalla's communist afflictions, his fight for increased minimum wage for workers, his tiff with an outwardly religious looking greedy entrepreneur, his failed love affair with the businessman's daughter, his brush with death and his philosophical outlook on life from an economic and theological viewpoint.

The film is filled with witty dialogue that questions the many things we take for granted in life. When cornered with death, we make decisions that we feel is morally correct. It also takes a swipe at the multinational companies which hoodwink the general public that they are there to help and serve. Their sole interest is profit and more profit.

On the other hand, the general public (the peasants) appreciates the humanistic values. This is evident from scenes of people going out their way to help out accident victims, the medical missionaries who go the extra mile to heal the sick and how the villagers seem so happy to see an accident victim who returns to thank his saviours! At the same time, Man shows his contradictory image when he is nasty to his own kind and animals whilst putting a smiley face to his visitor!

An interesting watch with intelligent dialogue and religious undertones. The conclusion drawn at the end of the flick is that the God that we are so fervent to seek out for is residing within us. The good deeds that we do for the fellow kind make us all God! Even a dog attain divine status, not by reversing the spelling but its actions. It does not have to be owned by Yudhishthira only to enter heaven! But then does a dog has free will?

Mexican painter Diego Rivera's fresco, Man at the Crossroads (top), served as an inspiration for Nallasivam's painting (bottom) to indicate the atrocities committed by Kandasamy Padayatchi. [Note the sickle over Siva's hair, Lenin's image over the lower right, the water flowing denotes 910, the minimum pay of workers]

A man should live virtuously because virtue is good, not because it pays to be virtuous. Yudhishtra's experience. 

Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods? The Euthyphro dilemma as found in Plato's dialogue in which Socrates asks Euthyphro.

Hero or villain?

BBC Four. Genius of the Modern World, Karl Marx (2016)

He is honoured as one of the greatest thinkers of the modern world together with Nietzsche and Freud. Their ideas came about at a time when the whole world was changing, pre-existing economic models were crumbling, science was changing religious beliefs and people started developing new ideas about life.

In the first of the three episodes, a historian Bettany Hughes tells us the life and times of a 20th-century icon whose idea rocked the world for a good part of the century, Karl Marx (1818-1883).

It is interesting to note that he did not invent Communism. Communism predates his ideas. He got his inspirations from the young Hegelian movement at the University of Berlin and the French Revolution. Growing in a society controlled by the aristocratic Prussian rulers who discriminate his background as a Jew, he postulated that capitalism was a self-defeating and an exploitative system that makes everybody unhappy in the end. The whole basis of capitalism is to fail and to squeeze the workers to maximise profit for the ruling class.

Religion is used as a tool to manipulate the minds of the masses. It retards our real potential. It is opium for the people, a painkiller for something deep rooted.

Unable to get a job in academia due to his harsh criticisms of the Prussian ruling class, journalism was his tool to propagate his ideas with the help of Engels, the son of a capitalistic industrialist from Manchester. He did not claim to be the guru to the answers in life but was a critical analyser of everything that was wrong in modern capitalism. Man's creativity is retarded by mundane, repetitive jobs chained into the production chain. Unlike machines or animal, he can be creative. Bees can only make honey, birds nest but man can make whatever he wants. He admits that the bourgeoisies have shown their might via their mammoth projects, cannot even be rivalled by the mighty Egyptian and Roman civilisations. The rich can move mountains.

A person only needs to work so much to sustain his existence. For the rest of time, he should spend his time doing the things that he likes like fishing, hunting, drinking wine and spend time with friends. We are required much more than we are required. The surplus value of work is the profit that is extracted from the exploitation of the working class.

For most of human civilisation, there have been haves and have nots, through the cooperative society, medieval feudalism and authoritarian rule but in capitalism, the divide is getting wider as industries prosper. The frequent recurrent cycles of ups and down make capitalism an unstable system.

The woes of the society are due to production issues. The capitalist owners are also caught in this quagmire. They cannot cut working hours as it would mean losing to competitors and loss of profit and potentially go bust. The law, religion, culture and arts are exploited by the powers that be to maintain status quo. In our pursuit of happiness, we have created a monster that controls us.

He suggests that the soul would reach perfection by embedding itself in the heart of the society. He did not, however, live to what he preached. Unlike people like Trotsky and Gandhi, who lived the life that they advocated, Marx, even though he wrote about the plight of the proletarians, he lived a relatively bourgeoise one most of his life.

Marx suffered from a debilitating medical condition, probably, hyderanitis suppuritiva which is a chronic inflammatory scarring condition of the sweat glands. He lost three of his children to illness. His lowest ebb in life must have been when he fathered a love child with his home helper especially when his wife, Jenny was too! Every hero has a weak point but in came his friend, Engels, to take the rap. Only eleven mourners turned out at his funeral.

Correctly or not, his writings through his publications, namely 'Communist Manifesto' and 'Das Kapital', were manipulated by people with self-serving intentions to be used as a blueprint for the subsequent communist states like the Soviet Union and China. The experiment apparently proved to be disastrous, causing loss of lives to famine, torture and the detention camps. The collapse of the fall of the Berlin Wall is evidence of another failure of yet another economic model. Marx had created a monster just like how he referred to capitalism.

In the wake of recurrent economic collapse around the world, capitalism is also reevaluated, and Marxian thoughts are given a second thought.

Another swipe at capitalism?

Babu (பாபு, Tamil; 1971)

I remember this movie as the one that we, in our childhood, could not watch as our annual Deepavali film. Amma was disappointed when we could not get the tickets and had to watch something else instead. Many of its songs used to fill the airwaves regularly, and one of the songs, 'Kanji Varuthappa', was a hit during Thaipusam at the refreshment stalls before movie songs were banned by the Thaipusam organising committees. Even though the song talks about the various avatars of Lakshmi and their roles, there is the uneasy colloquial association of kanji (broth) and vanji (woman) in the same sentence!

At one look, one can easily see that it sees its socialistic-communistic leanings. The story, written by a writer from Kerala, argues about the actual meaning of divinity and the division of classes. It tries to wake the general public from the slumber that God paves the way for us to follow. We are masters of our destiny.

The signature tune of this film, 'Itho Enthan Deivam Munnale' (Here in front of me is God), tries to tell the audience that God lives in simple things in life. You see Him in a child's innocent smile and a philanthropist's compassionate gaze. He lives in the heart of the kind individuals.

A clip from the song 'Kanji Varuthappa'.

The lyrics suggest that food unites all of us. 

Because of societal pressures, the Brahmin avoids the 

prawn in the Christian missionary's tiffin. The Hindu 

priest gets upset when the meat eater's gravy somehow 

mixes with his, but he likes it, even though he shows 

his resentment!

His Grace is seen in the blossom of a flower, the fragrance of bloom, creepy crawlies and the quenching flow of the river. One attains divinity through education. Wealth is in performing public service. Joy is in uplifting others and seeing the smile of a downtrodden. Herein lies God! Our life is in our toil and sweat. What else could this sound like but communist propaganda?

Babu grew up as a rough and tough kid on the street. Despite his tough exterior, he is tender on the inside, ever to help out a soul in need. By circumstance, he takes the job of a rickshaw puller in his adulthood. [In the socialist circle, the position of a rickshaw puller must be the epitome of abuse of human labour; the well-to-do, by virtue of their wealth and subsequent upliftment of class, can easily buy the toil and sweat of the poor.]

The other main characters comprise his confidante, a religious restauranteur (VK Ramasamy) who looks up to him and after him; a ruthless but comical moneylender (MRR Vasu); his fellow rickshaw puller (Nagesh) and a kind, liberal-minded wealthy contractor who gave Babu shelter and a warm meal (Balaji).

Babu was pleasantly surprised that someone well-to-do could be so kind as to give him due recognition as a human being that he became eternally loyal to him like a guard dog.

Two families of different classes join;

the industrialist and the labourer.

After serving time for murdering the killer of his sweetheart, he is shocked to see the contractor's daughter (a very young Sridevi) begging for food. For the single kindness that her deceased father had given him, Babu decides to make it his lifetime duty to support the contractor's widow (Sowkar Janaki). Understanding the importance of education, he educates her with his meagre income.

As the child grows older with the company she keeps in her convent school, she is embarrassed of the man who singlehandedly rose her from the pits. Over the years, the rift grows, but finally, life knocks sense into her. She graduates from university and marries a man of her liking after a little glitch with his high social status.

Vijayasree

Money and accumulation of wealth are portrayed as a bad thing here. The urge to be chasing after affluence is frowned upon. The pursuit of education for self-development and empowerment of society is revered, not for selfish self-interest.

A little bit of trivia here. Vijayasree, who made a brief appearance as Babu's love interest before being killed off, is a sultry actress from the Malayalam cinema. She had made quite an impact there and was labelled the Marilyn Monroe of the East for her vivaciousness. Sadly, her short career ended prematurely at 21 years of age when she committed suicide.

Forgive, forget and move on...

Senyap (The Look of Silence, Indonesian, documentary; 2014)

Director: Joshua Oppenheimer

This well deserved multiple award winning documentary film is actually a follow-up to 2012 'The Act of Killing' by the same director. Both documentaries look at Indonesia's marred history with the handling with supposed communist sympathisers in 1965/66 era. An estimated one million people perished then.

In the former film, the narration was from the perpetrators who carried out the so-called justice of the rulers of the land. In the sequelae, the approach is from the victim's perspective. Adi, an optician, had an elder brother who was killed during those tumultuous times. Adi himself was born about 3 years after the episode. Adi, a father himself of 2 young kids, tries to subtly interview the past militia men who carried out the murders under the guise of offering free optical consultation.
The presentation managed to draw in the emotional aspect of the interviewer (i.e. Adi) through slow long shots and concentrating on facial mannerisms and expressions. The slow laid back photography showing much of the village landscape and the villagers' houses accentuates the nostalgic, pensive and sometimes surreal mood. Adi's parents, a demented almost blind old man and a old lady who attends to her husband's every need live all by themselves in the memory of their past. Adi's father, because of his medical condition, is oblivious to what is happening and has no recollection of his son, his killing or that matter, his own age! Adi's mother, even though bitter about the whole episode, would not rekindle the past but let it be bygones.

What Adi cannot stomach is the fact that his brother's killers are still walking around without an iota of guilt amongst them. Some are even holding important reputable posts and command respect from the community.

Oppenheimer leads another crew to interview two men who had actually killed Ady's brother personally. They go on to describe the gory details of their actions, slowly disembowelling and mutilating his genitals. These perpetrators did not exhibit any remorse of their action. They, in fact, feel proud for being there to protect the country from the tyranny of communism. They took great pride in demonstrating their prowess in slaughtering communist insurgents 50 years previously. To them, communism is godless belief and it was bad. They were told by their leaders that the communists were bad, so they must be bad. Asked on the morality of their acts, they just shudder and were emphatic that what they did was correct at that time.

The irony of all is that the ex-vigilantes are now pious family people who utter godly words in their every sentence. There was an ex-member who genuinely felt remorseful of the whole event and took the courage to apologise unabashedly to the grieved family. The majority of them were quite defensive and refuse to admit any wrong doings on their part.

As it had been often told, we, the human race, are a bunch of rash unthinking species. At the drop of provocation, with the element of doubt when we feel our comfort zone is threatened, we recoil into defensive mode. The devil in us take charge and the worst of the primal animal behaviour surfaces. As always when the climax of violence and destruction is complete, only then our godly inner eyes open. We come to our senses, we try to clear the slate, forgive, forget and move on. We console ourselves that we are weak and we err and to forgive is divine that revenge would leave everyone dead! 

Robin Hood of Clam River forest!

Kaatu Perumal, Folk Hero of Sungai Siput.
Author: Dave Anthony (2015)


They say many great scriptures of yesteryear started off in the oral tradition. The holy scriptures were written many years after it was told and passed on from ear to ear. If we can accept that, why not the many folklores that are bountiful in our country, especially about common people who never made it to the bibliography of our history books as they were dictated by victors and the powers that be.

This was the basis of this small book. It is a novice attempt to bring alive a supposedly 'Robin Hood' type of an anti-hero around the vicinity of Sungai Siput and a few other northern towns in Perak.
The book comprise interviews with many from the geriatric population and their dependants who were children when all of his activities were allegedly going on. As in many oral narrations after a time lapse, the results proved sometimes contradictory and altered depending from which side of the fence they are looking from, the rubber tapper perspective or the the police.

Perumal is said to be a dashing athletic person who was a state footballer and a keen stage actor who would don female attire to give a good impression of female characters in the estate stage dramas. He had early links with the communist party and would fight for the welfare of the estate rubber tappers whenever they were ill-treated by the estate administration, mandors or clerks.


In one of this encounters, he become a fugitive after he killed a man. In many ambushes, Perumal managed to escape being caught by cross dressing as a female. Of course, word went around that he actually possessed magical powers as he was apparently seen at two places at one time and how he mysteriously escaped every time!

Legend has it that Perumal was shot by his own comrades when he wanted to surrender en-bloc with his comrades to the authorities when Malaya attained independence. Amnesty was offered by the Government and he wanted to give up with his band of 'freedom fighters'. Die hard commies were not too keen on civilian life and they gunned him down.

There are many conflicting accounts on Perumal's activities during the Emergency. The official version is that he was the head of CPM of Perak to recruit Malayan Indians. One witness reiterated that Perumal was not killed but seen in Lenggong, Perak as late as 1994!

We have to remember that Perumal had by then attained a demi-god status and everyone wanted to be like him.

The older generation have many stories of 'he says' and 'she says'. There must a figment of truth in their narrations. They did not have mobile devices to pixelise their every action like now. Oral tradition was the only way then. And many parts of actual event gets altered or lost in translation.

A war it was not!

The War of the Running Dogs

How Malaya Defeated the Communist Guerrillas 1948-1960

Noel Barber (1971)

A few years ago, when Chin Peng was requesting to the Malaysian Government, my friend PS had firm opinions about not allowing any of the communist henchmen to set their foot on our soil. After he had the first-hand experience enduring the atrocities of self-proclaimed independence fighters of the nation. Their endeavour for a free Malayan nation, of course, predates the return of the British to Malaya after World War 2. The hurried unceremonious exit, some say abandonment, of the colonies, stirred the nationalist spirit of the young nation. Members of CPM were actually British allies fighting the invading Japanese, and even Chin Peng was knighted. Turn of events after the Second World War put the Communist ideology minded 'freedom fighters' as terrorists (CT).

The danger of communist ideology lurking in the society was there but was downplayed by the Chief of Police and the High Commissioner of Malaya then Edward Gent.

A series of daring attacks on English planters in Sungai Siput and adjacent areas made it mandatory for the British for recouping their resources to go all out to wipe out the spread of communist ideology in the country. The problem with fighting against CT is that cooperation from the general public was not forthcoming due to the extreme scare tactics and bloody, brutal, mindless slaying.

In actual terms, this emergency period (1948-60) is a civil war between two ideologies, but due to the escalation of insurance coverage of commercial merchandise, the word 'war' was never used. CTs refer to supporters of British administration as the colonial master's running dog, hence the name of the war.

For his oversight and inactivity, Edward Gent was relieved of his duties and sent home. Unfortunately, he succumbed to an aviation accident as the plane he was flying collided in London. One character who played the pivotal role in the fight against CT, I found through the book was Robert @ Bob Thompson. He was in the background with Henry Gurney and later General Gerald Templer with police operations. Many years later, he was knighted and helped the US in the Vietnam War. He, however, has no relations with Jim Thompson, the planter who disappeared in Cameron Highlands.

Reading through the pages, the author recreates the time when the country was lush green with vegetation, mist and flowers. It also reminisces the times when Coliseum Cafe in Kuala Lumpur was the place to be for stengahs (whisky and soda and water) and steak.

Too Chee Choo AKA C. C. Too

It recollects the time when our Special Branch (SB) of Police was revered for its intelligence and dedication, something wanting more than half a century on. It highlights a certain Irene Lee, a detective in cheongsam who had a personal vendetta with the CT after her husband was killed by them. There was a time when she daringly infiltrated into the communist line to paralyse their courier line. SB went to great lengths to buy over a company, fill up a lorry with pineapple cans genuinely scheduled to be transported from Johore to Penang port and just to puncture in front the CPM clandestine office in Batu Road for SB to explore their office!

Then there is this character, C.C. Too, who is in charge of Psychological Warfare in the fight against CT. Money had always been the root as well as the panacea for all ills. Plush rewards certainly went a long way in persuading CT to turn over to the otherwise.

1951 and 1952 were the best years for Chin Peng and his band of man. With the chance assassination of Sir Henry Gurney at Frasier's Hill, General Gerald Templer was handpicked by Churchill to lead the helm, and it proved to be a turning point. The straight-backed disciplinarian and no-sense guy believed that the communist war was a psychological war. His high-handed method of uprooting villages overnight and cordoning them off in pre-determined areas (New Villages) may not appear humane at present context. We were talking about war times, and its end results justified the means. To lure these tappers and farmers away from their usual abode, they were cajoled with free land. The properties were obtained in the name of national security through the goodwill and excellent negotiating skills of the British from the Sultans of states.

Sir Gerald Templer, featured on the cover of 

TIME magazine, December 15, 1952.

A quote from the book...

After losing food and supplies to CT, a visibly upset Templer was addressing a group of Chinese villagers within the cordoned new village. Angry with them for allowing CT to take their supplies, he told them they were a bunch of cowards. A Chinese translator was by his side to do the needful.

'You are a bunch of bastards,' shouted Templer; and an assistant who spoke Chinese listened carefully as the translator announced without emotion: 'His Excellency informs you that he knows that none of your mothers and fathers was married when you were born.' Templer waited, then pointing the finger at the astonished villagers to show who was the 'tuan', he added, 'You may be bastards, but you'll find out that I can be a bigger one.' Missing the point of the threat entirely, the translator said politely, 'His Excellency does admit, however, that his father was also not married to his mother.' I guess that is a classic case when a message is lost in translation.

Talking about Sultans, the Johore Sultan Abu Bakar was the colonial masters' favourite. They had easy access to the royal grounds at Bukit Serene where many fun-filled parties took place under the auspices of the fun-loving monarch.

Money has always been blamed as the root of all evil. But here, we find that money appeared as a panacea of all worries. Money splurged as a reward was instrumental in luring hundreds of starving and demoralised CTs out of the jungle and even turn turn-coats to expose their so-called comrades. Many joked that reward money awarded was too extravagant, sometimes more than a Government officer's monthly pay-check.

Along the fight against the tyranny of the communist in the countryside, in 1953, Malaya made it to the world headlines. A young communist lass, Lee Meng, was condemned to hang by the Malayan courts. She was defended by DR Sreenivasagam. Her plight was taken up by a young barrister Mrs PG Lim and appeal was made at Privy Council. The Hungarian government offered to swap a British spy for her but bluntly refused by Winston Churchill as he did not want to set a precedent for other communist countries to follow. Lee Meng was freed and exiled to the China. The British spy also was released unceremoniously.

One thing I find perplexing after reading book set in the pre-independence Malaya is the assertion by certain politicians and historians that Malaya was never conquered by the British. We were just assisted by the British. Well, doesn't administration of police, ensuring peace n the country, passing laws to locate and relocate people as is needed by the country, have differential status for professionals of the descendants of colonial master indicate that we were indeed colonised.

In the end, all the Malayans wanted was independence. CPM tried to achieve it via armed struggle whereas the English educated elitists and wealthy businessmen sought to achieve it through rubbing shoulders, a round of whisky and roundtable discussions. When 1957 came, CPM realised that they had lost a psychological war of ideology of which the English were master players!

Unresolved issue: 55 years after the end of Emergency, dependents of the 24 killed in 'Batang Kali massacre' or 'Britain's My Lai' are still seeking closure.
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/world/2015/04/22/britains-highest-court-to-hear-msia-massacre-case/

P/S. Our leaders recently threw in a spanner in the works when they toyed the ideas when the British never actually conquered Malaya and we were still 'independent' in the pre-Independent era. Now, what do the regime that controls the police, the legislature, the school system, the healthcare, the finances, devices ways to stimulate the economy for themselves and the country to prosper while creating job opportunities for others including sons of other soils? Hey, déjà vu?