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!

Rifle Range – Penang's colourful time capsule

http://www.thestar.com.my/metro/views/2017/04/25/highrise-heartland-of-local-chinese-a-visit-to-rifle-range-flats-is-an-eyeopening-and-humbling-exper/

Tuesday, 25 April 2017

BY ARNOLD LOH – PINANG POINTS

I WAS filled with anticipation when work took me to see some people in Rifle Range Flats, Penang, last week.

After the appointment, I wandered about and had the pleasure of chatting with a hawker about her grilled chicken backsides. That's bishop's nose, for you.

But not all pressmen relish visiting this place. And you can't blame them because during the 2013 General Election campaign someone in one of the flats filled a plastic bag with urine and threw it down at journalists and politicians walking below.

Thank goodness it did not land on anyone.

Two weeks ago, water rained down on journalists while they were photographing 14 motorcycles parked beside Block B that had been burned by arsonists. They saw soapy water gushing down from a washing machine outlet hose that jutted out of the rear balcony of a fifth-floor unit.

When these press corp shouted in revulsion, an elderly woman from that unit barked back in Hokkien.

“Ha mik? Mien sey, ah?” (What? No need to wash clothes, ah?)

Despite all this, I enjoy going to Rifle Range Flats when there’s a reason to do so.

The 3,699 flat units in nine blocks have 99-year leasehold titles. All are one-room affairs, except for four corner units per floor. The corner units have two rooms each.

Six blocks have 17 floors, while three blocks have 18. These nine blocks take up just 4ha, based on Google Earth Pro’s land measuring tool.

Between 8,000 and 10,000 people are estimated to live here, so the biological load is heavy and the place feels claustrophobic.

Boundary Road — the main traffic artery through here — is only 8m wide. The gap from one block to another is just 15m to 20m.

Yet going there feels like a socio-cultural exploration — an adventure — for me.

Rifle Range Flats is a living, functioning monument of humanity when it was not yet addicted to fossil fuel. It was built in 1969, the same year construction on the first Boon Siew Honda assembly plant started.

At the time, he kapcai (underbone) motorcycles were not yet the vogue, and cars were trophies of the rich.

Rifle Range Flats’ pioneers were cyclists. If you plan on exploring Rifle Range Flats, then carpool, or ride a bicycle or motorcycle. 

I froze wide-eyed upon seeing a tray of 24 skewers of richly marinated chicken backsides inside a glass display along the congested, haphazardly-placed hawker stalls below Blocks H and G.

The elderly lady sells it at RM1.30 a stick, grilled on the spot. Each skewer had five to six chicken backsides, depending on their sizes.

I tried to find out who loved to eat them, how many they might eat in one go, how she acquired so many chicken butts to sell, what the marinade was, how she cleaned them and so on. Journalists are hopeless busybodies.

She did not understand Cantonese or Mandarin, so I resorted to my broken Penang Hokkien – I am Cantonese Malaccan.

It dawned on me that Rifle Range Flats is the heartland of Penang’s Chinese folk, set back one generation. Their way of life has been preserved.

They are suffering.

Many of the lifts have broken down. The water pressure is horrendous because the pipes are clogged with rust. They do not have a multi-storey car park.

All these will cost tens of millions of ringgit to upgrade, so the state government has yet to get around to doing it.

But it is said that what cannot be changed must be endured, and if you can stop and observe, you will see patience on the faces of these Rifle Range folk.

I resolve to go back there later when I am not being chased by deadlines.

Go to their market and buy groceries. Order a coffee, sit among the aged population and hopefully gain some small talk.

I also need to steel my nerves and try those grilled chicken backsides.

I did not dare that day and have been kicking my rear end for being a gastronomic coward.

Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting, my friend!

I overheard a conversation recently.

"How come she is still a pain in the butt? Now that she is seeing a therapist, I thought that she would be less toxic. Hell, no. She is still the same old nuisance. All the time and therapy down the drain!" said one in a hushed voice.

"Well, the purpose of therapy is for her own wellbeing. Not to be a plush toy for other to squeeze," her friend replied. "It is for her to be able to withstand biatches like us!'

That seems to be right. Counselling and therapy are not meant that it will be a sun-shiny day for everybody. The primary concern is the individual. It may sound very self-centric and narcissistic but that is the reality. This science developed around the time when the century was undergoing massive transformations. People, who before that lived their lives just as a building block in a giant jigsaw puzzle called society, started living for themselves. If ex-communication used to be a death sentence, it became irrelevant in the new era. Welcome to the century of self! It was about this time that the great monarchs and great empires crumbled. People were fed up serving others. They wanted to serve themselves. They wanted to live life for themselves. Gone in the wind was the motto 'Charity beyond self' to be replaced by 'Charity begins at home'.

The individual soon became the centre of modern society. The focus fell upon oneself to cope with the pressures exerted by the society upon individual liberty. The society was no longer the bedrock for solace. It became caustic. Every man (or woman) was for himself. They think, therefore they exist. Of course, the therapist may talk of existential psychotherapy to treat social maladies, it is in no way going to explain the purpose of our existence - is it for our individual selves of is it a continuum of something much bigger?

Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend!

Not a day in paradise!

Line of Duty (Mini-Series; BBC)
Seasons 1-4, 2012 - present

It has been described as the best TV police procedural drama ever produced. Each season carries a theme, but they are all intrinsically linked to each other.

Anti-Corruption Section 12, AC#12, is a team within the police department given executive powers to look into possibilities of the miscarriage of justice, corruption and cover-ups in the force. In a way, it acts as the public's eyes that the police are supposed to serve in the first place. The miniseries show a wide intricate web of a network within the department that control each other to cover each other and paint a good name of the police force.

It is easy when a layperson commits a crime. His misdeed can easily be traced and pinned down in no time. However, when the perpetrator is entrusted with the duties to maintain law and order, one within the pack, the task of unmasking the wrongdoer becomes a Herculean task! With the advanced knowledge of dodging suspicion, avoiding detection and nuances of making pieces of evidence disappear, the investigations become near impossible, like chasing shadows.

Sometimes the protectors make mistakes. Sometimes the system errs them. But the culture of witch-hunting, fear of loss of recognition or prospect of promotion makes one plunge deeper and deeper into his own grave! To cover one lie, he needs to lie again and to expunge one wrongdoing, he does another. Two wrongs do not make a right but only opens the can of worms for more scrutiny. This seems to be the common theme in all the seasons. One mistake and another, and pretty soon, it becomes too overwhelming, and all hell breaks loose!

Only on the tiny screen or Tinseltown are civil servants made to be seen working as if their whole life is dependent on it. However, in real life, these servants are little Napoleons who treat their day jobs as just a way to feed their family. With their meagre wage, in many third world countries, they have to be creative in bringing home the bacon. The world is just for the rich and famous. For the little men who toil day and night, rain and shine, health and sickness, to maintain peace for the rest, it is not a day in paradise!

How easily they crumble!

The Handmaid's Tale (1990)


This film is an adaptation of Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel of the same name. It tells of a dystopian time in the future of a country (Republic of Gillard), facing declining fertility due to widespread pollution and sexually transmitted diseases, is ruled by a Christian fundamentalist militant group. The group rules by force and archaic theological teachings. They have degraded women as baby making machines with no rights whatsoever.

The ruling junta has devised a way to re-populate the state. They select fertile women among the general public to mate with selected officer to bear children for the officers as they and their wives are mostly barren.

Even though the plot of the story may have seemed implausible when it was written, thirty into the future, now, it no longer appears as a far-fetched idea. A small group of the population are content to propagate their lewd idea and sell it as a God-sent decree. The funny thing is that even though this group may be small, the voices are loud enough to create a clear and present danger to the rest of the population and generations to come. Somehow, the mention of the name of God cows most, even the wisest of them, to helpless submission. The most educated and the scientific-minded of them prefer silence over a debate. It is also comical to see how, in a mob situation, how easily anarchy prevails. It is so easy for the years of human civilisation to crumble and for Man to regress to their primordial beastly roots.

Rules and regulations are only made for the masses. They are always exceptions to the rule when it involves the people in power.

The mini-series based on this novel is currently being screened on Hulu.

Spiritual humanism

When protector turns predator!

Among the Believers (Urdu; 2015)

Pakistan is one living example how a country should not be ruled. Any country must have a clear demarcation between political and religious affairs of the state. The supreme law of the country must be kept secular. This, the foresighted founding fathers of America were clear on this. Many European countries, having endured bloodbaths at a time when the Church had a tight rein on the monarchs and the running of the country, have come to realise that these two branches need to be separated. Unfortunately, most of the Islamic faith cannot accept this demarcation as they believe the religion is all-encompassing and has the best set of rules to rule a family, a country or the whole world! On top of that, everyone has their own version of which is the correct one, theirs!

Scenes of the film remind me of a VHS tape I watched back in the late 80s. It was a grainy on-the-site recording of the violence at Kampung Memali. The same look in the eyes of people who were hellbent to protect their belief, the same trance-like state to defend their leader from seemingly unjust and evil oppressive government.

This documentary explores in depth of the activity in and around the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) and its madrassahs in Pakistan. The caretaker of this iconic mosque is one charismatic Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi. He is an unapologetic ISIS supporter and a Taliban ally. His vision is to see Pakistan being imposed strict Sharia Law. His war path with the Pakistani Government started in 2007 when the military flattened his mosque, killing many of his family members including his only son.

Going against the path of destruction is a renowned MIT-trained nuclear physicist, a Pakistani, Pervez Hoodbhoy, who leads a crusade to maintain sanity in this land. He is seen having a one to one TV discourse with Maulana Aziz but it led nowhere.

Interspersed in this narrative are stories of teenage boys recruited by the madrassah network and their gruelling endeavours to memorise the Quran and of a teenage girl who is in a limbo whether to study or to be married off.

Looking at the turn of events of late, Jinnah, the founder of modern Pakistan, must be turning in his grave. He must be regretting the premise of the foundation of the country that he fought for. He wanted to build an exemplary nation based on Islamic principles. Clearly, it failed. He should have listened to Gandhi!