Hope lies buried in eternity!

Most prayers we offer to a higher being invariably end with 'Peace on Earth' or 'Happiness for All'. Prayers like 'Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinaha 'and 'Om Shanti'  assume that everyone can have things their way at one given time, creating a win-win situation. Such a situation can only exist in our imagination.

https://borderlessjournal.com/2025/06/16/hope-lies-buried-in-eternity/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The Elusive Utopia

© Borderless Journal

When I was growing up, the radio was the musical score constantly playing in the background. Blaring between Tamil movie songs and radio dramas were news of the hour and current issue discussions. The things that got imprinted on my impressionable mind as I was transforming from a teenager to a young adult were about violence, wars and bombings. I remember about the war in Vietnam as it was close to home. For every peace talk and the end of war announcement, there would pop up another bombing and a barrage of casualties. My simple mind wondered when the war would end, but it never did. It went on for so long that they had a Tamil film in 1970 named Vietnam Veedu (House of Vietnam), referring to a household forever in family feuds and turmoil....

https://borderlessjournal.com/2024/03/14/the-elusive-utopia/

What is more important: satisfying one thousand desires or conquering just one?

Samsara (in Tibetian and Ladhaki languages; 2002)

Directed, Written by: Pan Nalin

I remember an episode when my house cat was engaged in a staring contest with a stray cat. My cat was inside the comfort of my home behind a glass door, staring intently at the other through the clear glass. In my mind, I imagined what thoughts could have crossed their nimble feline brains. The stray would probably be envious of my cat. It would imagine a cosy life, free of the cruelty of the elements, time to pampers oneself licking its fir in place and feeding time on the clock. It would have wished to swap places.

My cat would probably be jealous of the stray. The stray would be the master of its own destiny. Everywhere it decides to lay its butt, it is its home - freedom. My cat may not realise that it may be minced meat one day in the world of catfights. The stray would not live one day in the sterile environment of a home feeding on pellets called cat food. It may want to hunt its prey and tear into its prey's sinew. 

I guess it is no different for us humans. We have so many compelling desires and want to experience them all in this lifetime. We want to have the cake and eat it too. One can live an ordinary life like an average homo sapien or leave a mark in the annals of history. An average being can be caught in the trappings of commitments and relationships. As a token, he is rewarded with pleasures that a great person may need to forgo in his pursuit to leave a mark. What is the meaning of one's pursuit of happiness?

This must be a rare movie in Tibetan and Ladhaki languages. It starts with the scene of Tashi completing three years of meditation in a cave. Tashi had grown up in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery since five. Upon return from the penance, his mates realise that Tashi still has worldly urges. His nocturnal erections and nocturnal wet dream emissions did not go unnoticed. A farmer's daughter, Pema, caught his fancy during a visit. Tashi leaves the missionary life to become a farmer instead. He marries Pema to immerse himself in the trials and tribulations of a civilian and householder.

There are issues with middlemen selling the produce, fire threats to his farm and produce and the lure of a particular vixen, a migrant worker, who was sending him piercing glances. Being a mere mortal, despite the love of a doting wife, Pema, and his son, who thinks of him as a hero, he succumbs to temptations. Reeling from guilt after his infidelity, Tashi returns to his monastery ways.

In the climax, at the tail end, Pema intercepts Tashi on his journey to exchange the most compelling message behind the movie. When one decides to entangle in family life, all his actions have consequential effects on the rest of the family. It is not all about the want of an individual. His action may have detrimental effects on the other members of the family. When Gautama Siddharta decided to leave in the cloak of darkness to seek the Truth, he left his Yashodhara to fend for his young prince Rahul. Yashodhara too, must have been in pursuit of finding the real meaning of her existence. She could have just left everything and gone her way. No, she realised that her Truth was to guide Rahul to adulthood. Thus, the absolute Truth in life must be doing the best in whatever job, responsibilities and positions you are bestowed upon. That must be your Dharma. One does not have to wander aimlessly into crannies to explore the Truth. Enlightenment can also be found via worldly experiences, tragedy, comedy, and bliss. Celebrate, no need to be celibate.

P.S. What is essential - satisfying a thousand desires or conquering just one...?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Love thy neighbour, they say!

Fauda (Chaos, Hebrew/Arab; 2015-2019)
(Miniseries S1-3)

Is it not ironic that the Western nations want to police the whole world but failed miserably at finding peace at the heart of the Judeo-Christian stronghold. It seems that the brothers of the Book perform poorly when it comes to showing brotherly love. Also funny that a place that four great religions of the world look up to as their holy land cannot be protected by their Protector. A land hardly larger than 30,000 square kilometres, but this piece of land had not seen peace since time immemorial. 

The feud has lasted so long that nobody can remember who drew first blood. Both parties, the Palestinians and the Israelis, claim legitimate historical rights on that piece of land. Looks like all that talk of the religion of peace, the religion of love and the religion of compassion is mere rhetoric. The reference to 'brotherhood' is only offered to the brethren of the same faith, not of the whole of mankind.

I am sure God must be in a quandary. It is like the old Indian saying or maybe an old movie dialogue. It is akin to asking a mother which child she wants to support; she would say, "you are asking me whether I love my right eye more than the left eye. I love them both." Probably that is why there are no permanent solutions here. Let both brothers fight it out till both exhausts each other. The trouble is that their course has sympathisers from people elsewhere. Everybody else is drawn into the bottomless wormhole. 

This miniseries shows, from an Israeli viewpoint, is about a group from an Israeli counter-terrorism unit in the Israeli Defence Force. They are often referred to as Mista'arvim, meaning living amongst Arabs. They speak Arabic and assimilate into the local population to collect intelligence on the latest Palestinian terrorist activities. In the series, we find a power struggle between the Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas and the newbie around town, ISIS. It looks like PA wants to maintain law and order, but everyone else has their idea of which brand of Islam should prevail on their land. They want more possession of land, which they assert was theirs anyway, to start with. To die for such a course is divine; they have been indoctrinated and have the rest of Palestine (and the world) follow suit.

This is, of course, the Israeli perspective of things. The Palestinians should rebut with their own version of the ground situation, but then, there will be confusion on which version is acceptable. Each faction of society would insist theirs is correct and proclaim their claim is a pursuit worth dying for.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

As long as law is respected...

Escape from Mogadishu (Korean; 2021)
Director: Ryoo Seung-wan

We go to bed at night knowing jolly well that we will get a good night's sleep. We can get up the next day to go to work, self-assured that our workplace will still be standing. We queue at the checkout counter to pay for our goods because it is the civil thing to do. We do not go around breaking into premises because we know that the long arms of the law will finally catch up with us.

This peace of mind is what we, as a society, gave up for law and order. The powers-that-be promised to care for us, and we, in return, would sacrifice some of our liberty to suppress our inner desires to do what we wanted. When the government loses its grip on power, all hell breaks loose. The evil side of mankind surfaces. The respect for law takes a backseat, decorum disappears, and mayhem will ensue. All special privileges vanish into thin air. The law of the jungle takes over where the rule of law fails.

The diplomats of two warring nations of the Korean peninsula, North and South Korea, found this out the hard way. Somalia in 1991 was in turmoil as President Barre's government was overthrown by General Aidid's rebels. It was a time when the Koreas were still trying to gain entry into the U.N. (This is news to me! Even though Malaysia was already in U.N. since 1957, the Koreas had been struggling to get in since 1949. Then the Korean War came, and the Soviet Union opposed South Korea's entry. Since 1973, North Korea has become a U.N. observer.)

The Koreas were frantic trying to gain votes from African countries for U.N. entries. They were sabotaging each other for this purpose. The level of animosity reached a feverish pitch until Somalia fell into anarchy and the rebels destroyed the North Korean embassy staff scurrying for refuge. Against much hesitation, the South Koreans gave humanitarian support and together, they tried to escape from Mogadishu as the hostile rebel troop terrorised the country. After all the fight for survival, they go separate ways acting as mortal enemies. At the height of desperation to stay alive in Mogadishu, they covered each other's backs and grew to like each other.

'Escape from Mogadishu' is a gripping action movie with high suspense and edge-of-the-seat value. It is based on actual events but with a liberal sprinkle of artistic liberty. If 'Black Hawk Down' was America's viewpoint of the Somalia situation, this film's South Korea's version. Maybe one day, we will get a Somalian version of the debacle.

(N.B. Perhaps Malaysians should give a pat on themselves. Being a young democracy that came into existence as an independent third-world nation 65 years ago, it did specific earth-shattering things to its government without much turmoil. It booted out a corrupt government through a peaceful election. It further sent its ex-Prime Minister to jail for corruption and may send more for the same.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

A taboo subject...

The Jew is not my Enemy

(Unveiling the Myths that Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism)

Tarek Fatah (2010)

Warning: Only for Mature Readers

It is often said it is good to forgive and forget. People also say that to err is human and to excuse is divine. We have seen nations fight in one generation, only to be allies in the next. But somehow, the Muslim-Jewish animosity seems to have last centuries.

The earliest record of Jewish betrayal happened during the Battle of Badr (Trench War) when Meccan pagans ambushed Prophet Mohamed's army in Medina. A group of Jews who were chased from Medina for breaking certain treaties joined forces with the Meccans. As the going was tough, and the mighty Meccan army could not infiltrate the Medinians, the renegade Jews tried to coax the Medinaian Jews to double cross. Here, the story turns cloudy. After the win, Mohamed is supposed to have personally killed about 900 Jews to be buried in trenches. The authenticity of such an event has been argued for ages now. On the one hand, opposers to this narration claim such an event is not even mentioned in the Quran. It is also not in keeping with His previous teachings of not punishing others for the crime of someone else and the Islamic law on the treatment of women and children.

There was also a time when Jews and Muslims had apparently lived in harmony, in Andalusia, for example. Under Islamic rule, many Jewish thinkers including Maimonides prospered.

The problem of justification of Jew bashing had started with the writing of Ibn Ishaq, in the 14th century, of the biography of Prophet Mohamad. In his writings, he described the killing of Jews by the Prophet. Somehow, this made its way to the Hadiths and newer prints of the Holy Book. Extremists groups, with leaders like Banna, Qutb and Maududi, were more than happy to continue the Prophet's unfinished work.

In the modern era, every malady faced by humankind is often pinpointed at the Jews and their secret agenda. Let there an earthquake, a flu epidemic, the communist insurgency, tsunami or even Sunni-Shia divide; the Jews are almost always blamed. What started as a secret meeting in 1895 to decide the fate of the displaced Jews culminate to Balfour declaration and eventually the creation of the state of Israel. This formation invoked the ire of the jihadists for losing part of their land, as the second most sacred mosque where the Prophet is said to have ascended to heaven is situated. What the jihadists fail to realise is that the Ottoman Empire and the Grand Mufti were supporting the losing side of the World Wars, Germany and Hitler respectively.

Paradoxically, the Quran does not condemn the non-believers. If at all, it is the Hadith that does. In one verse, it is said that Judgement Day would only come after the last Jew is slain!

The author goes on to condemn the Muslims themselves for fighting amongst themselves and practising race politics where Arabs perch on the highest branch. Many Muslims societies, long ago, used to live in harmony with other communities. Now, with the new brand of militant Islam practised by believers gives the impression the religion is a hostile one. Many non-Islamic countries who obtained Independence around their Islamic counterparts have reached great heights in term of economic, scientific, social and living standards. Sadly, the Muslim countries still struggle to get their act together. They dream of turning back the clock to Golden Era of Islamic Civilisation.

In the concluding chapter, Fatah takes a swipe at Holocaust deniers. He reiterates that many Muslim fighters too died fighting against the cruel Nazi regime. This includes the Turkestan Army, the many Muslim soldiers buried in Majdanek, Poland, just outskirts of Auschwitz, the Muslim soldiers of the British Empire and Princess Nor Inayat Khan @ Nora Baker who was a British secret agent who died in a concentration camp. Interestingly, the Princess is the great-granddaughter of Tipu Sultan of India who fought to defend his land against the British. She gave her life protecting for the course of the British, fighting tyranny.

Author with Holocaust survivor Max Eisen
Auschwitz, March 2010 

Heaven on Earth?

"Don't ask too many questions, sometimes it is better to just let go and follow the pack. Follow the people who are experts and know more than us!" At the end of our intellectual discourse on religion, this is the best my friend could tell me. I think that aptly explains the current situation we are in.

There was a time in our civilisation, we were all clueless about the things around us. One blind leading another, we all used to grope around making sense of things as we moved around in an environment that never failed to awe us. Initially, simple explanations sufficed to satisfy our curiosity. Answers begot more questions and our thirst for knowledge and desire to know the Truth never got doused.

Then a group of self-appointed beholden of the race came to the fore to claim of direct communications with the Maker. They claim to have obtained fresh rolls hot out of the oven! Our answers are answered and that we have reached the zenith of our understanding. That, we should not kid our minuscule minds to comprehend the master plan set by the Agent Intellect. That we should just accept and not prod too much.

These leaders' action smattered of power and control but who are we to question? They put us the fear of eternal damnation and the horrid pain of hell fire. We cow to submission.

On the other hand, tribes who dwelled in an environment of discourse, constructive argumentation and scientific thinking, always questioning the known and experimenting the unknown, reached progress of dizzying heights. The naysayers lament that their advancement is not the one favoured by the Agent Intellect but who cares. They have their society in order and their life peaceful. After all, that is what we want. Peace on Earth and Heaven on Earth!