The Eye in the Sky knows?

Using the smartphone app Waze is pretty much like using our senses to manoeuvre ourselves through the journey of life.
Getting from Point A to Point B has never been easier. Whether you are new to an area or need to go somewhere in fastest possible time, Waze comes to our rescue. So, we would like to think. And we pacify ourselves that it must be the shortest route or the speediest one. Is it really? Sometimes, we cannot wonder but ask ourselves, are we actually taking the best route?

More often than not, on our return journey, we had been made to realise that there is indeed a more convenient route than the one we had used earlier. But then, who is to know how it would have been if we had indeed taken the other path? Is it a question of the grass being greener on the other side or a case of sour grapes just to pacify ourselves?

The situation is pretty much the same when we are told early in life how life should be lived. We are told to follow certain rituals and rules so as not to upset the status quo. We are told that tranquillity must prevail, the boat must not be rocked and that elders before us have paved the way. We should not be a smart alec to scientifically argue and rationalise certain seemingly paganistic practices.

We are informed that every gesture, symbol and material had its scientific basis that we are just too naive to comprehend. In time, we would see clearly when the haze was gone. 

Now, after what seems like aeons later, we are still groping in the dark. Just like the users of Waze, should we just accept that the eye in the sky that oversees what we cannot see about the traffic situation is right beyond any shadow of a doubt? Or should we still be a sceptic that the technology is not infallible and knowledge always need to evolve and be renewed? Or should we just take it like Pascal, the real Mathematician who took the question of belief in God in the spirit of probability? Being wrong in the divine sense means punitive actions for eternity, which is a mighty long time. He, therefore, decided to be a believer as it made more mathematical sense to be one than not!

Nobody cares, really!

The Hills and the Sea (2017)
Director: Andrew Ng

Nobody actually bothers about the little people in this world. They only matter to leaders when they are not on the ruling side or to ruling leaders when it is time for their re-election. Otherwise, it is just lip-service.

This 25-minute documentary highlights the effects of overdevelopment of Penang Island to the coastal fishing community of Tanjung Tokong and the displacement of the Dusky Leaf monkeys from the hills of Penang.

Reclamation of lands around the Penang has utterly destroyed the corals, swamp and the marine life around the bay around Tanjung Tokong. Small-time coastal fishermen had been sustaining their family for generations with their little boat catching fishes, crabs and prawns in this area. The building of high rise luxury apartments had not only damaged their rice bowls, but it has also made them strangers on their own turf. A portion of the lagoon had been cordoned off and is classified as private property.

Pleas to the powers that be by the fishermen representatives for aid for bigger boats and durable fishing nets as well as equipment for deep-sea fishing has fallen on deaf ears. The silence from the leaders is deafening. Somehow, these little people feel sidelined to serve the interests of the developers. They are not anti-development but merely want to be able to join in the merriment of living in comfort as the state prospers.

The scarcity of land also pushes development towards the hills. The introvert occupants of these hills, the Dusky Leaf monkeys are feeling the brunt of loss of habitat and difficulty in finding food as the highway cuts through their home. Researcher Joleen Yap highlights the plights of these cute animals as they become road kills when they have to venture far from their usual surroundings for survival. Her efforts seem to be bearing fruit as the people high up have agreed to reassess the environmental impact of the project. Things like canopy bridges are in the pipeline to ease their access to the other parts of the island.

This film debuted at the Malaysian Freedom Film Festival on 2nd September 2017. After the screening of the documentary, the Director, Joleen Yap and the representatives of the affected fishermen were there in person to highlight their grievances.

Nobody's child!

Selfie with the Prime Minister (2017)
Directors: Nor Arlene Tan, Grace Cho

At first I thought it was just a film to showcase the plight of the migrants and the hardship that they had to endure on a daily basis after being swindled by human traffickers and shunned by the Malaysian society at large. Well it is that and much more, but it tries putting it in a light hearted manner. It tells the tale of a selfie crazy migrant worker who goes around taking pictures of himself against the backdrop of the landscape around the country.

As he introduced himself, he made a blooper (or was it is on intention, I wondered!). He introduced himself as Ziaur Rahman from Bangla... er, Myanmar. What kind of person would forget his country of origin. Then it clicked. Ziaur is a Rohinya from Arakhine State whose people are is in great turmoil as we speak.

A bit of history on the origins of the Rohinyas. They occupy the Western part of Burma neighbouring Bengal and they were recruited by the British to fight the Japanese in World War 2. The rest of Burma, (as Myanmar was known then) were with the Japanese fighting the British-led Indian Army. This demarcation continued as their allegiance to their Motherland was always questioned due to their religious belief and their ignorance(?refusal) in Myanmarese language. With lack of economic opportunities, poverty and the religious insurgence as many jihadists flock that area to sacrifice in the name of religion, this rich area has become something akin to war zone. Humanity has died, Savagery is the order of the day as carnage and human sacrifice spreads like wild fire.

Refugees who manage to escape persecution land in the hands of human traffickers. Like commodities, they change hand and finally land in Malaysia. Also amongst these refugees are many who had borrowed from moneylenders hoping for a good life in Malaysia just to realise that they had been taken for a ride.

Together, these economic migrants, play a cat-and-mouse game with the authorities and gets played out by errand employers of their hard-earned salaries. As Malaysia is not a signatory of UN convention on Refugees, the migrant workers cannot move freely as legal refugees, They all live under the radar, unseen, unheard but still play an important role to do the duties deemed too dirty, degrading and dangerous for an average Malaysian.

This documentary tells of Ziaur's struggles making ends meet, his quest to solicit donation for his cataract surgery, his activism work which involves writing to dignitaries the world over on the helpless state of Rohinyas in Myanmar and outside as well as indulging in his favourite pastime, taking selfie and being active in social media. The highlight of the film is when he attends PM Najib's Hari Raya open house in Putrajaya to take a selfie with him. To top the icing on his cake, he also took a selfie with the police officer on duty at that occasion. He thought it was ironic considering the number of times he and his friends were harassed by the them for bribes. In the spirit of festivities, everybody had their guard down and nobody was stressing anybody out!

Till date, Rohinyas remain unwanted. Their birth country is refusing them. Their neighbours do not want them. Countries and organisations like OIC who are vocal about their sufferings under the umbrella of the common religion look the other way when it comes to the crux of the matter.

The blurring of who is right and who is wrong cannot be overstated. Brutality from all involved parties is obvious. The disturbances have gone on for so long that none of combating sides (the Rohinyas, the Myanmarese military or the militant Buddhist monks) remember who drew first blood. Situation becomes worse when jihadists with the same ideologies as ISIS and Al-Queda rear their ugly heads in the mayhem.

Everyone has his story

The Rice Mother (2004)
Author: Rani Manicka

History is written by victors said Walter Benjamin. History is a set of lies that people have agreed upon according to Napoleon Bonaparte. History will be kind to me as I intend to write it, asserted Winston Churchill. These statements just show us how the real narration, the truth can and will be manipulated by the people in power to set forth their personal agendas.

Of late, in Malaysia, there is a concerted effort to erase the contributions of particular communities in the development of the country. History is altered and churned out as they like as if it is a fictional writing to bring out a happy ending that suits the flavour of the month. Like the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984, they churn out lies after lies to suit their game plan. They know well that one who controls the past controls the future and he who controls the present controls the past.

Talk to any Malaysian family. They all have a tale to tell about the predicaments that their forefathers had to endure to protect their piece of space which they called home. They have stories of pain, tears, sweat, blood, heartaches, deaths and disappointments as they toiled the sun to see their produce. Learn how they forwent happiness and comfort to chase invaders from the land they looked up as home, not purely as the piece of land where they would squander its wealth to syphon off to lands far away. Stories like 'Rice Mother' are far too many but remain closed in the eternal vault of their family bygones and hidden in memory banks as kindred treasures.

The novel narrates the tale of a young girl who was plucked from the tranquil land of Ceylon to be married off to a wealthy man from Malaya in the 1930s. Only after reaching Malaya did she realise that the whole arrangement was a facade. There was no rich husband and life was far from perfect. Being a subservient wife, in keeping with the times, she carried on. Life was never a bed of roses. The unhappy marriage did produce a succession of heirs. The seeming quiet country went through some tumultuous times, fighting foreign invaders and surviving the world war.

The book goes on to tell the life and times of Lakshmi, the protagonist, who later metamorphosed into a fierce matriarch; the husband and his meek ways of handling adversities; their children and their escapades and idiosyncrasies all though to Lakshmi's grandchildren as the country, Malaysia, transforms to meet the challenges of the new world.

N.B. Rice Mother refers to the scarecrow who stands steadfast unflinching against the elements of Nature to safeguard the dependent she is assigned to care. In the same vein, the matriarchal figure in the story stands firm to be a pillar to the family to ensure that everyone in the family, the father and the children, come ashore the journey of life safe and sound. The Rice Mother, slowly but surely, in the background, looks like hawk, stinges like an ant and brings the gifts like Santa Claus when the time is ripe or it demands!

The serene sceneries around 1930s JB

http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017/09/06/rare-clip-of-johor-in-the-1930s-going-viral/

Wednesday, 6 September 2017

Rare clip of Johor in the 1930s going viral

 

JOHOR BARU: Johor’s rich history is being rekindled, thanks to an age-old video clip going viral over social media.

The eight-minute clip, believed to have been made some 80 years ago, was part of a travel documentary series titled Fitzpatrick Travel­talks. It was shown to American and British audiences by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc, a US media company founded in 1924.

Called Singapore and Jahore, the clip begins with footage of the Singapore port before showing the Causeway, which was completed in 1923, and scenes of Johor Baru.

image: http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017/09/06/rare-clip-of-johor-in-the-1930s-going-viral/~/media/88ac9e33f521408a8131aae7d4422874.ashx

A screengrab from the video clip. 

One scene shows Sungai Segget with a small boat along its banks, with the Johor Baru High Court building and Masjid Sultan Abu Bakar visible.

The clip also shows two of Johor’s past rulers – Almarhum Sultan Ismail Ibni Almarhum Sultan Ibrahim, the then Tunku Mahkota Johor, who was driving a vintage car before greeting the show’s host just outside Istana Besar. The host is then seen meeting Johor’s second Ruler Almarhum Sultan Ibrahim Ibni Almarhum Sultan Abu Bakar together with the Johor Military Force.

The clip was uploaded by Persatuan Bangsa Johor on its Facebook page where it received more than 8,000 views.

Local historian Kamdi Kamil urged the people, mainly the younger generation, to view the clip to learn about the state’s rich history.

“To have such a major international production company depicting Johor Baru proves that the city was already well-known to foreigners back in the early days,” he added.

All lives matter?

*Terms and conditions apply!

The newest battle cry screams 'Black Lives Matter'. Of course, it is the only politically correct thing to say, that all lives are precious, irrespective of race, colour and class.

Nice on paper, nice to hear but not in practice. It is an undeniable fact that some lives matter more than others. Rather than thinking that race, colour and creed are determining factors on who should live and who should just bite the bullet and disappear, I would like to think that money is the common denominator that saves everybody's skin in the end.

In this time and age, the dictum 'Health is Wealth' no longer holds water. It should be rewritten as ' Wealth assures good Health'. As the cost of medical services snowballs by leaps and bounds, governments and health providers are running to cut cost. Even though the world has the technological know-how or at least have access to some experimental techniques to treat some potentially fatal illnesses, the cost may be a limiting factor. How many times have we heard of doors to expensive modalities of treatment being shut for non-affordability? With the wave of stacks of the greenback, even cadavers would open their gap to volunteer organ donation! True, entitlement to basic health care is a human right. That is how it is going to be for the (m)asses, basic with bare necessity. Looking at the way medical services have evolved over the years, it appears like it is only affordable to the demigods. The rest of the mortals can only live their lives on a prayer or just go to hell.


Even God could not help you if you walked on the wild side to cross the wrong aspect of the law, especially if you are born or happen to live on the wrong side of town. How quickly a false arrest, misunderstanding or just being in the wrong place wrong time can develop into something unbailable. Legal representation for the barrel scraper is at the liberty of the unskilled novice defender of justice. With affluence, with the best representation that money can buy, Lady Justice would gladly tilt the scales in your favour. Echoes of wrongful arrests, technicalities, loss of cold chain, incompetencies of the force may be heard loud and clear.

It is 'Animal Farm' all over again where some animals are 'more equal' than others. Some lives matter more than others.

The Return of the Amazons

Last Tango in Halifax (2012-present, S1E1-S4E2)

After fifty years of bra burning and empowerment of women, this is what you get. After enduring the second-class treatment and the cold shoulder treatment from the general public to show their prowess all these while, they have developed into strong willed individuals who are well prepared to handle the hurdles that come their way. This is exactly what you see in this movie.

All the female characters dominate the show all the way. They decide, they control, they insist, they do, and they get away with anything they deem fit. It is indeed a matriarchal world. They rule the world, run the household and its daily chores, manage the farm, balance the accounts and go out to work. They choose whom they want to live with, stay married to and choice of gender of their man. Maternity is at their disposal. They are master of the fertility and feminity. No man is going to tell them what to do.

Men, on the other hand, are depicted as weak, indecisive, wimps, imbeciles, drunks and mere followers. They quickly toe the line as their perception of life is simple, to just go with the flow. There is no need to get uptight about something that may not happen. Nothing a good chill beer and a good night's sleep cannot cure. Somehow, everything looks clearer the next morning.

Women, by nature, maybe remnants of the traits of their cavewomen ancestors who safeguarded the caves and children from ravaging beasts when the men were out hunting, still retain their proactive and forward thinking strategies. Hence, they plan many steps in advance to avert catastrophes. This invokes ire the male species. They accuse women of creating a mountain out of a molehill, putting the cart before the wheel and looking for problems when there is none.

These enigmas are not just mere first-world problems as we can these changes develop in the newly emerging economies. With affluence and availability of educational opportunities, the fairer sex has made significant strides even surpassing the masculine gender who still live under the delusion that they are the chosen one to lead the human race. They hide under the cloak of tradition and religion to keep the already dimming ember burning!

This ongoing BBC mini-series tells of a couple of septuagenarians who are re-introduced to each after leaving their school kids puppy loves at school. After leading their lives with their own sob stories of blood and tears, they rekindle their old flame. They discover that through some errors of circumstances, their teenage love affair was nipped in the bud. Their passion gets a second life. They marry to the persons that they had loved all these while and inherit with it the trials and tribulations of each other's family. On the man's side, he has a daughter who is a farmer and a widow with a teenage son who fathered a kid. The daughter has her own problems in love and is haunted by the death of her abusive husband.

On the woman's side, she has a daughter who is going through an unhappy marriage with a writer with a drinking problem and philandering eyes. The girl, with two school going sons,  also re-discovers her life-long suppressed lesbian tendencies. Her lesbian, on the other hand, long for a baby as her biological clock keeps ticking away.

With all these masalas, there is no short of episodes with issues over issues to ponder.