Add this to the list of shit that goes down in Shah Alam

Whatever criticism I level at Shah Alam, there will be those who are quick to come to its defence by saying that the town may not be as lively, entertaining or cosmopolitan as some of the other parts of the Klang Valley but “it’s safe and peaceful.” This statement is usually followed by some other rubbish implying that the rest of the Valley is only filled with hardened criminals, road-raging drivers in day-long traffic jams, and degenerate liberals.

I’m not going to deny that we have a ton of those outside of Shah Alam, but it’s not like Shah Alam is Seventh Heaven or anything where only the righteous and pure of heart and deed may enter. Methinks, that these folks are confusing Shah Alam’s dull facade with peace. Just look at the papers for the past year and you’ll find that all sorts of shit go down in Shah Alam, precisely because it’s so dull – even I’m considering resorting to some kind of crime, be it something as simple as possession of illegal substances or something more exotic - like sacrificing goats to the Death Metal Gods (like they did in Kedah all those years back) just to liven things up. A month or two ago, some guy lost his mind in the neighbouring state of Negeri Sembilan, chopped off his father’s head, placed it in a bag, took the train to Shah Alam and tried to bury it here. Why? I don’t know. Maybe he thought his father could rest in peace here. Geddit, geddit? Not funny? No?

The other day, the Inspector General of Police, Tan Sri Musa Hassan was quoted in the papers saying that Section 11, Section 9 and surrounding areas in Shah Alam have had high occurrences of burglaries (some of them armed, one lady was even killed in her own home, in front of her daughters). Yes, this shit happens everywhere and that includes Shah Alam. Safe and peaceful? No more than the next bandaraya, my friend.

Anyway, some of you can probably guess by now why the IGP was going on about the crime rate in Shah Alam in the papers – it all has to do with the recent fatal police shooting of a 15 year old boy in town.

The boy was on a joyride at 2am when the police caught on to him at Section 11, Shah Alam. The police officer said that it was dark, that repeated orders to the driver to stop were ignored, and that he was driving in a reckless manner “typical of a hardcore criminal.”


He didn’t stop because he was driving without a license and had snuck out his older sister’s car. He was 15. He panicked. He thought if the police caught up to him, he was going to get into so much shit with his parents or something. Maybe get grounded for life. Maybe have them look at you with that unbearable look of disappointment. Maybe take away his PlayStation privileges. Well, I don’t know, but that’s probably what would be going through my head if I was 15 and in that situation. Well, even at almost 25. Okay, so he wasn’t acting with much reason. So as he was driving away, he might have endangered the lives of others with his reckless driving. But let me just say that this is Malaysia. Pretty much everyone in the fucking country drives recklessly – license or no license, criminal or non criminal. Also, 15 year old teenagers aren’t known for their fantastic sense of logic or reasoning; I think even scientist have discovered that that particular part of the brain doesn’t develop until you’re well in your 20s (and even that doesn’t happen for some. Like me.) But I don’t think for one second he thought that it would lead to him being shot by the cops. In the back of the head.

My colleague knows the boy’s teachers, having worked closely with them on one of our community programmes. The teachers said the boy had no record of disciplinary problems in school. He was a fairly good student, and never gave any sort of trouble.

The IGP goes on to say, “The death of this teenager is unfortunate and sad. But how could the policemen have known that he was just a 15 year old on a joyride at 2am?” And he goes on to add, “In self-defense….the rules of engagement. It is not only a  parang or a gun that can be used as a weapon. Even a vehicle can.”

Correct us if we’re wrong but in self defense, the rules of engagement mean that you don’t shoot someone in the back of the head and call it self defence. It means that the person, whether wielding a parang, or a gun or driving a car was aiming and heading away from you. According to reports, the police officer said that the boy had tried to reverse the car into him. Hence a shot to the back of the head. Whether this is true or a concocted cover-up, is not for me to say.

Another colleague of mine, one of those obnoxious law-background blokes, started talking about another accidental police shooting case that happened a while back - an entire family travelling in a van was mistakenly, and fatally shot by the po-po. Extended family members sued the government. They lost.

My manager, who I tend to talk to everything about BUT work, started going off on a rant about “How come everyone’s just looking at what the police officer did wrong and not what the boy did wrong?” Well, mostly, boss, because the boy is dead. And the police officer is alive. What’s the point of harping on what the boy did wrong when he’s already had a bullet in his head? It seems to me, like punishment enough for the most heinous of crimes, let alone, for what began as a misdemeanor; a moment of teenage transgression.  

The Sun yesterday captured the IGP responding to the public outcry regarding the shooting, by saying, “So do they want us to enforce the law? If they don’t, just say so and I will tell my men. So no need to check suspicious looking cars, no need to stop the Mat Rempit.”

Wow, you sound just like my mother when I tell her that I'm almost 25 years old for god's sake, so stop calling me every 5 seconds when I’m out for dinner with my friends. Except this isn’t dinner, is it?

No, Musa, Mr. IGP-man, it means that we just don’t want your men to mistakenly shoot another teenager in the back of the head, for the “crime” of panicking and an inability to properly think things through.  It means that if we the civillian public, must answer to the Law, then your men should too. And the Law requires questioning. Being the IGP, you should very well be aware of it. It’s not wrong for the public to question, so stop saying shit like, “The question of police discharging firearms shouldn’t arise…..”

The Law sometimes requires more questions than we have answers to.

The public is angry not because we knew the boy. But because any one of us, could’ve been the boy.

Nobody said being a teenager was easy. No one ever said it was going to come down on you this hard.

I never knew you. But we all could’ve been you.

Rest in peace, Aminul. 

Box of Boxes Guide to the Klang Valley: Chapter One - Shah Alam

Chapter One: Shah Alam

Shah Alam is one of many little-townships in the somewhat sprawling area known as the Klang Valley. Most Klang Valley dwellers, particularly those born and raised in old Petaling Jaya, the tripartite of Bangsar/Damansara/Hartamas and the inner suburbs of Kuala Lumpur, are as familiar with Shah Alam as they are with Atlantis and other such mythical places. Yes, you’ve heard several hypotheses on where these places are supposed to be located. In the case of Atlantis, scientists have placed it all over the globe – from northern Europe to the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean – either way; you get an idea that it’s likely somewhere very watery. In the case of Shah Alam, some may place it somewhere beyond the toll plaza on the Federal Highway; the one that marks the end of Subang Jaya, and the beginning of a black hole that leads to an even bigger black hole known as Klang.  Other guide books will tell you that Shah Alam is only about 20 - 30 kilometres away from the heart of Kuala Lumpur. That puts Shah Alam somewhere near the asshole region, or about 30 minutes drive from KL – traffic jam caused by USJ fuckers notwithstanding. Spiritually however, scientists will tell you that Shah Alam seems to not only operate in a different time zone; it might as well be on a separate planet, where the lack of gravity slows everyone’s movement down to a spacey Buzz Aldrin moonwalk. Either way, you get the idea that it’s probably not worth visiting.

And you would be right, under most circumstances. But many long-time Shah Alam residents will insist that Shah Alam actually has many things to offer, especially if you want to get the hell out of Pangkal “Pelle”, Kelantan to a place that sort of reminds you of Kelantan, if Kelantan didn’t insist on keeping PAS in power for the last 20 years. Sure, in the recent elections, Shah Alam, with its abundance of cow-head waving, beer-sale protesting residents, had inevitably fallen under the hold of “Islamic” party PAS but at least they were smart enough to wait until they had good roads in place before voting for the opposition. Shah Alam seems to be one of the last Klang Valley bastions of the conservative right, where Perodua Kelisa cars and Toyota Avanza minivans drive round-and-round the city’s many round-a-bouts with bumper stickers proclaiming “UiTM Hak Melayu”, (err...if you’re going to take that line of thought, what about other Bumiputeras?). Funny, I thought that the whole point of a university education is to “broaden your horizons” and open your mind up to new and different perspectives – but when everyone around you is from more or less the same ethnic background, I would imagine that this would limit things, just that little bit more. You know, I almost ended up at UiTM Shah Alam after my SPM but I suppose Fate was gracious enough to delay my suffering for just that little bit longer. As a Melayu person, I actually did, a long time ago, receive an offer to study Seni Persembahan at the UiTM Shah Alam campus but then, it occurred to me what the fuck would I do with a Performing Arts diploma in Malaysia? God knows I already have a hard time doing anything with a Media and Communications degree (should’ve been a lawyer, they told me. Fuck that, I told myself). Anyway, if I was going to study the Arts, it sure as hell wouldn’t be in Shah Alam. That would be like studying Marine Biology in Bhutan. Good luck finding an ocean! (at this point, I would like to apologise to all UiTM Shah Alam Seni Persembahan graduates. I’m sure many of you are fabulous nonetheless, unless your name is Farid Kamil)

Did you know that there are no cinemas in Shah Alam? Not that one can learn much in terms of arts education through Hollywood blockbuster movies like Transformers 2 (Megan Fox’s cup size, perhaps?). But I’m just saying, THERE ARE NO CINEMAS in Shah Alam, or any other type of “entertainment” outlets (you can forget about bars and clubs). It was decreed by the old Sultan of Selangor that Shah Alam, as the site of many universities and colleges and therefore, many impressionable youths, shall be a city free of morally corruptive influences. The current Sultan of Selangor has decided to go on with this, because he’s never in Shah Alam anyway and is free and rich enough to get his jollies anywhere around the world. Yeah, thanks a lot, man, thanks a lot. So you will find that the youths here have turned to other “healthier” forms of entertainment; the most popular one being “staring at people for no good reason.” If Staring was an Olympic sport, Malaysia can count on Shah Alamites to sweep the gold, silver and bronze medals. If you feel like no one ever pays you any attention, I suggest you take a stroll around Dataran Shah Alam on a Friday night – you’ll have many eyes on you, even if you’re usually, not worth looking at. You will find many boys and girls gathered there to watch each other, watch each other, eyes boring deep into each other’s souls and coming up with a handful of sand.  And this is why a large number of Shah Alam youths are very fond of smoking weed; this way, a whole lot of Nothing suddenly becomes Something very interesting. Healthy.

Other folks in Shah Alam might choose to enjoy Shah Alam’s many little parks in their spare time. And for this, I must give kudos to the Shah Alam Municipal Council’s (MBSA) parks & recreation department, whom I’ve had the opportunity to work with through one of my company’s CSR programmes, and who does a significantly better job than their whackjob peers at MBPJ. You would think though, that a city with so many parks and jogging tracks would at least, boast plenty of scenery-enhancing fit bodies. Au contraire, my friend. From my general observation, the Shah Alam population are generally fatter, or more accepting of fatness than the rest of the Klang Valley, and is therefore a good place to heal if you’ve had your self-esteem damaged by not being able to fit into a size 2 at Topshop. Half of Shah Alam’s park visitors forego physical activity in favour of sitting and wolfing down an entire picnic basket, while staring at the still waters of Tasik Shah Alam. 

Since we’re on the topic of food, I should probably take this opportunity to talk about the dining-out options in Shah Alam and they are: Kelantanese food, Kelantanese food and other food cooked by Kelantanese people that end up tasting like Kelantanese food. Think that radioactive blue rice dish known as Nasi Kerabu. While I do enjoy stuffing my face with Solok Lada and lacing my rice with a generous helping of Budu, I don’t enjoy diabetes. You see, Kelantanese people are awfully fond of sugar. They love their sugar so much; they put sugar in their milk, sugar in their curry, heck, they put sugar in their sugar. Have you ever tried Spaghetti Bolognaise prepared by a Kelantanese chef? Don’t worry – just drown your spaghetti in maple syrup with royal icing on top and the effect should be more or less the same. Just another thing to note: it is impossible to find well prepared pasta in Shah Alam. And fast food doesn’t exist either. Don’t get me wrong – we do have KFC, McDonalds, Burger King and the likes over here but there is nothing fast about the food service.  (Also, Shah Alam boasts the SLOWEST Starbucks in the word. I kid you not.) If you’re starving and looking for a quick meal, you would be better off waiting for the eggs in your fridge to hatch into a fully grown chicken. It ain’t going to happen just like that Happy Meal isn’t, my friend. If it’s Sunday morning however, you can pay a visit to the Pasar Tani (Farmer’s Market?) at Shah Alam Stadium where you can feast on something called Gearbox Soup (pronounced Kelantan-style as Sop Gear-bok) with the snap of your fingers. It might sound like boiled motor oil with old car engine parts but really, it’s tasty animal fat floating in water with 11 herbs and spices. You can add some flat rice noodles for an extra carbohydrate boost if you like.

Now, back to the topic of exercise and recreation in Shah Alam - there are no decently over-priced gyms in Shah Alam, blasting shitty dance music. Those who do exercise can take it outside for free, around the many parks, and they usually do so in a sartorially spectacular manner - in puffy, nylon-polyester track pants that makes your butt look inflatable and render you very flammable. Perhaps, if you were pushed or end up “accidentally” falling off the top of a tall building, say, Plaza Masalam in Section 9 Shah Alam, where the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission is located, these pants may act as a parachute and save your life. Well, it has been known to happen. Anyway, back to our Shah Alam Jogger - these track pants are often tucked into white sports socks for reasons that I haven’t been able to ascertain, but my, don’t you look zexxy....... Oh, how can anyone resist you now? On the topic of style, remember that when it comes to dressing up in Shah Alam; you don’t. Just forget about it. Call it a day. Use those pages from Vogue to wrap your Nasi Lemak. Unless it’s Hari Raya. Then Shah Alam offers a great and wide selection of beautiful traditional festive attire, sure to make even the most non-ayu, Grinch-iest among us glitter and sparkle like Siti Nurhaliza on the cover of Nona.

Since my love for Shah Alam is as evident as white mice in a field of snow, you may wonder, why I haven’t made a real effort to get the hell out of the place and return to the dimension from which I came? There are many answers to this question; the simplest one being free and abundant parking space. Seriously, do not underestimate the power of parking space in the Klang Valley. Have you ever tried looking for a parking spot in One Utama on a Saturday? Have you found one yet? How long has it been? 3 years? You’re better off parking your car in Shah Alam and walking the whole 30km to Bandar Utama – you’ll save time that way. My friends who work in KL – either in the Petronas Twin Towers or anywhere around Bukit Bintang spend RM 250 a month on parking alone (and that doesn’t include the toll charges for using the Smart Tunnel and whatnots so they’ll actually get to work in less than 7 hours). I spend about RM50 a year, and that’s only for the occasional parking fines I get for leaving my car in the middle of the bloody road because I suddenly got tired of living my life in an orderly fashion. Not for any lack of parking spots. Of course, the abundance of parking in Shah Alam is probably a sound acknowledgment of the fact that public transport to and around the area is shit, with everything but the armpit-scented KTM Komuter train stopping short at Subang. Even then, the KTM Komuter only passes through the industrial areas of Shah Alam – so unless you live in a tractor graveyard, good luck trying to get home. And you should know that the taxis here refuse to use their meter, charging you an arbitrarily and extravagantly chosen fee of RM20 just to drive a little further away than where you can spit. You end up asking the Taxi driver if he is employed by Satan and he ends up going all Pacino on your ass.

I’m pretty convinced now that the lack of public transport in and out of the area is not due to bad town planning but a devious and diabolical conspiracy, between the Powers That Be to keep Shah Alam people in Shah Alam and the rest of Klang Valley out. They’re trying to isolate us. Maybe Shah Alam was established for the purpose of a wacky, secret social experiment – like the island on Lost. Or maybe they’ve decided to put us under quarantine for general public health and safety – like lepers and tuberculosis patients in the old days, H1N1 sufferers, Zombies!!!!!! You see folks, at the end of the day, Shah Alam is not just a physical and geographical location; like New York, it’s also a state of mind. Well, it’s a state of mind that is a symptom of some kind of infectious disease. Just like people infected by the Zombie virus can’t help but think that they would like to eat your intestines. I’ve been in Shah Alam for 2 years now. It’s too late for me. I feel it, I feel the Shah Alam taking over. I’m staring at you, aren’t I? Save yourself! I don’t want you to see me like this. Leave me to my puffy polyester track pants, my blue rice, my parking spots, my slow-ass movements. Leave and don’t look back. The only thing I ask of you is that you remember me as I was, remember me before this dastardly disease took hold! Remember me as I was, and remember me fondly.

This is not a guide.

This is goodbye. 

Box of Boxes Guide to the Klang Valley: Introduction

If you’re a foreigner, and you meet a Malaysian who says he lives in “Kuala Lumpur”, otherwise fondly known as KL, do not automatically assume that he has a nice cottage smack next door to the glittering Petronas Twin Towers. Hardly anyone from “KL” actually lives there, and if you do, fuck you, you’re an expat living off the strength of the Euro. Or, you might as well be one. Or, you’re from Kampung Baru. In that case, the rest of us will assume that you know where all the best Nasi Lemak/ Tom Yam stalls and weed dealers are. .  

 More often than not, “Kuala Lumpur” is used by many to refer to one of the many cities, towns and suburbs that make up the Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan Area/  Greater Kuala Lumpur,  usually referred to as the Klang Valley, named after the large drain that flows through it.

On foreign soil, Klang Valley natives will present a united front as KL-ites because you might already have a hard time wrapping your head around where Malaysia is and we don’t want you to strain a muscle in your hat. Yes, that’s right. Your hat. Nice hat by the way. For your information, West or Peninsular Malaysia, where the Klang Valley is located, is a penis shaped thing below Thailand, pissing out a kidney stone known as Singapore. East Malaysia is irrelevant when we’re not stealing oil, gas and native land to make Peninsular Malaysia richer or come national election time, when Barisan Nasional (BN) needs to dig for votes to keep themselves in power since we’re all sort of fed up with them over here.

If you’re a local, you probably know all this already and you just should admit that back on home turf, Klang Valley folks are deeply divided by a sense of tribalism and you look upon other cities/towns/suburbs with a sense of superiority, or complete ignorance. Particularly, if you’re like me and you spent the first 20 years of my life in old PJ (that’s Bukit Gasing, not SS2, and definitely not the shitty PJS which isn’t even PJ mind you, but bloody Sunway). You see, even PJ kids are divided amongst eachother - it’s not just about where you live. Sometimes, it’s also about which school you went to when you were 14, even if you’re now 44. Graduates of Assunta, Sri Aman, Bukit Bintang or La Salle might still hate eachother but at least, we recognise one another as equals. If you went to say, Taman Petaling/ Taman Sea/ Taman Dato’ Harun - we might like you, but only because it’s so fun to root for the underdogs, isn’t it? If you went to a private/ international school like Cempaka or Kolej Tunku Jaafar, then you’re rich brat and even a 100k per year secondary education couldn’t save you from ending up dumber than a rock.   We sniff at you for your lack of pretend-street cred, and you in turn, will sniff at us for our toilet-cleaning, Mission-turned-Government school, boringly bourgeois, middling middle class ways.  Oh, and if your parents sent you off to some MARA Boarding school in another state; we wonder what you did to badly piss them off that they would destroy your life so. This is of course, only if you live in PJ. MARA Boarding Schools are completely acceptable if you live in places that some PJ kids can’t even name. And there are a lot of places that we can’t even name. Even if it’s just other places in the Klang Valley.  We’re out of touch, like that, and if we appear to not be, we probably fancy ourselves as some “creative freelance type”, who gets featured in KLUE a lot because all our friends work for the mag. And that ultimately means that we’re actually twice as out of touch but hey, look at this awesome DSLR around my neck, check out my “vintage” plaid shirt and wait, wait, wait, check out this dog-eared copy of this book with something that Nietzsche wrote on Andreas-Salome and uh, uh, we also write poetry on our blog and that’s where you can also find many artful pictures of us which makes us sort of look like Rodney Alcala’s murder victims.

Oh. Don’t mind me, I’m just bitter that I ended up moving to Shah Alam, with a shitty 9 to 5, no, 8 to 8 GOVERNMENT-LINKED COMPANY office job that also happens to be in Shah Alam. And the last time I wore some skinny pants to work, someone asked me why I decided to wear my swimming costume to the office. These are not swimming tights or part of a burqini you sartorially challenged wart! These are called “Disco Pants” by the pervert-owned poser-serving American Apparel

I want to have no EPF too. I want to write poetry too but as you can see, I have trouble sticking to a word limit. I also don’t have a Twitter account for this reason. I mean 140 word limit? The fuck! Do you tell Michelangelo that he can only paint using the colour purple? What’s that? I’m not an artist of his stature?!!

Stop digressing and end this introduction already.

Well, yes, Shah Alam. Living and working in Shah Alam for almost two years now, makes me hate myself and want to die. And that pretty much makes me the best person to write a guide on Shah Alam, doesn’t it? I mean, don’t you just hate those cloyingly optimistic, upbeat travel guides? They make it sound as if people in other places shit rainbows out of their ass. And they don’t. The only thing people shit out of their ass is shit. Hence, we refer to the action as shitting. Because it’s shit. Sometimes, I shit out of my mouth too or through my hands onto my keyboard and onto my blog. But not everyone is affected with that particular condition. Shitting rainbows however; well, no one can do that. Not even Care Bears. And screw Lonely Planet - dude, you people don’t even sound lonely! You know what’s lonely? Being stuck in gaddam Shah Alam.

So ladies & gentlemen, for the next part of my guide to the Klang Valley (yes, that would be Chapter One), I invite you to journey with me through time and space and non-matter to the “city” known as SHAH ALAM……………….

Except I haven’t written Chapter One yet so you’re just gonna have to wait.

Who is going to have to wait? No one reads your blog. 

Talk Box: Malaysia, Interrupted

You know, I really thought I wasn’t going to comment anymore on the non-Muslim use of the word “Allah” controversy and the whole Molotov-cocktail throwing fiasco which ensued. I really was going to blog about something else today. But then, I came across this really interesting article in today’s edition of The Sun (the Malaysian one, not the trashy British one) and it got me thinking again.

Zakiah Koya interviewed Professor Tariq Ramadan, a European Muslim academic who advocates reform in Islam and promotes interfaith dialogue, named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Important Innovators of the Century. Some excerpts:

ZK: Muslims say that their religion is perfect and it is because of this many are against interfaith dialogues......

TR: We have a perfect religion but we are not perfect........ (interfaith dialogue) may make you see something which you have neglected to see. For example, when I was in South America, the priests there were talking of love. So, I learnt to also talk of the spiritual dimension of love in Islam and its importance in life.

I always suspected that the religion had something more to offer other than eternal damnation and suffering. Tariq Ramadan further adds, “Malaysia cannot have social cohesion if you do not have dialogue.” Of course, in Malaysia, in place of dialogue, we have balas pantun –  where 2 out of 4 sentences we say doesn’t actually mean anything – just some bullshit that’s been thrown it for rhyming purposes. Ayat pembayang galore!

ZK: Since Muslims say that their religion is perfect, why are you talking about the need to reform Islam?

TR: ... Islam does not need to be reformed and Islam has in itself tools for Muslims to have a true understanding of it. What we need to reform is the Muslim minds. .... It is our static rationality that is betraying the text (the Quran & the Hadith). Active rationality is what makes the text universal.

ZK: Malaysia is country with a lot of diversity.... How does Islam view these diversities?

TR: The Quran says that if God wants it. He could have made you one community. He said: We made you tribes and nations so that you may know one another. It is God’s will. It is therefore, not enough to tolerate others – we must respect them.

.......At the same time, Muslims must stop the belief in this illusion that we have one and the same thought in Islam. There is diversity among Muslims too. It is a reality.

ZK: Most Muslim societies are guided by their ulama and religious scholars. In time, they have become revered people. Whatever they say is accepted without question. Thus many Muslims grow up with a fear of asking questions...

TR: ------- there is no deep faith without a critical mind.....The scholars must listen to the community and know what is happening. By definition, a scholar is serving the community – not to be served by the community – his power or authority is coming from the community he is serving. What we have now is the other way round.

(And I think the same can be said, not only for certain ulama and religious scholars, but also for most of our politicians). The professor goes on to say, “We have to revive the questioning mind. During the time of the Prophet, when he gave an opinion or a ruling, his companions questioned him, “Is this coming from God or is this coming from you?” When he said, “This is my opinion,” they said then we challenge you. They were his authority to find out how he came up with his opinion.”

• ZK: You must have heard that there is a request by a Catholic publication,  the Herald,    to use the word “Allah” when referring to God in its articles in Bahasa Malaysia. The government has objected to this. What is your view?
• TR: In the Arab world, Allah is used by all Christians – Coptics and others. The point is the substance and the substance is one God. When the Christian Arabs speak Arabic in their Bible, they use “Allah” to speak about God. This has been the case for centuries. The Roman Catholics among them do not use “Allah” to describe Jesus. There is no problem there. And my understanding of their general hypothesis is that the Trinity is Three in One but they are not confusing the three dimensions of One God. If that is not a problem for them, neither is it for us.

Well, that should solve the problem. But the moral panic that has swept a segment of Malay Muslims doesn’t seem to have so much to do with “Allah” being used to describe Jesus Christ (which it isn’t) or something other than the One God, but over the fact that the Christian missionaries are out to confuse and convert us all, because you know, we apparently have so little ability to think about our own beliefs.

To add to all this, I’ve been receiving shitloads, and I mean SHITLOADS of inflammatory e-mails about this matter at work (further affirming the fact that I work for a company of idiots. I’m sorry I have to use the word ‘idiot’ but I can’t be bothered to sugar coat it)! WORK! A General Manager in my company actually forwarded me an e-mail yesterday with the subject: Beware Malays!

The e-mail relates to the story of a man who was born into a Malay Muslim family in Kedah. He went to Johor Bahru looking for work – and failed. He was penniless, homeless, sleeping out on the streets at a train station. He was taken in by a Christian priest and taken care of, and after quite some time, he became a Christian himself. Now, this e-mail is full of accusations that the man was fed with “holy water” which apparently, works like some magic voodoo potion and this, and this alone, led to his conversion. (dude, really? DRINK the holy water?) Right then. Sooo, I have an atheist friend who accidentally drank a whole bottle of air zam zam which my mom had brought back from Mecca. And guess what? He’s still an atheist! That friend has also been dragged to church before by an ex-girlfriend where he ate communion wafers and sang hymns. And guess what? He’s still an atheist! He has also gone to Sikh temples and ate the sweets they served (no, I don’t know what it is with this guy and eating food from holy places) And guess what?! Yup, that’s right – he’s still an atheist! The person who wrote the “Beware Malays” e-mail, along with the people who thought forwarding it was a good idea must have forgotten about the very thing that makes us human: free will.  God said so himself. He gave us free will.

People, you enjoy the benefits of living in a “democratic” country, don’t you? And that should include freedom of religion. And what does freedom of religion mean? It’s the freedom to practice your religion, be it the one you were born and raised with or the one you choose to hold on to. Or, you can choose not to practice your “religion” at all; like my zam-zam-water-drinking, Communion-wafer-eating Atheist friend who despite not believing in a “Higher Power” is more or less a good friend, a good son, a good citizen and as a human being, he doesn’t seem to be any better or worse than you and I.  As much as some of us might personally worry, about others who do not choose to take the same “path to salvation” we do, worry of how they will burn in Satan’s pits with the rest of the “disbelievers”; that is our own problem and another’s choice. I’m sorry, but that’s what you have to put up with if you like the idea of a free country, free will, and God’s will for us to have free will.

 I must add here, that it is heartening to see that the silent (and sane) majority of Malaysians have finally decided to come together and speak out against the attacks. We are good people. The majority of Malaysians are still more or less good people.The other day, flowers were freely distributed to anyone at Bintang Walk to tell people, in the words of the organisers, “that everything’s gonna be alright” (and here I initially thought they were funeral wreaths given out as an RIP to Najib’s 1Malaysia). Several Muslim NGOs have volunteered to patrol and protect churches and other places of worship from being attacked. Church officials have called for voluntarily dropping the use of the word “Allah” in Christian publications in Malaysia, seeing the anger it has caused in certain segments of the Muslim community. Still, while these gestures and actions are indeed wonderful and much needed, I can’t help but feel that it’s all a bit like spraying perfume on dirty laundry. (and I know ALL about spraying perfume on dirty laundry!). Spray as much you like, there will come a time when you really do have to wash them.

 I do think it’s about time that we not only re-examine our view of Islam but particularly for this country, the way we view Islam and the Malay identity. And to begin, we can go straight to the definition of “Malay” in our Constitution. No wonder we assume ourselves to be easily “confused” people. The Constitutional definition for “Malay” itself confuses ethnicity with religion.

*And please, before you so casually accuse me of blasphemy and being a disbeliever, and start to lightly throw around heavy phrases like murtad, kafir, ahli neraka, liberal wanker....oh what the hell; it’s a free country – those words are your problem, not mine.

** Also, as a side note, I don’t understand why international news networks decided to interview Anwar Ibrahim on the Herald controversy and the Molotov cocktail church attacks. I’m sorry, but the guy has no real insight, nor any real solutions to offer – neither do I, but then I’m an unknown office drone with a blog that no one reads – he’s the de-facto leader of the Opposition and is on an international news network and therefore, has higher expectations to meet. Anwar is one opportunistic fucker. Does anyone remember that he used to present himself as an ultra-Malay Nationalist and when that didn’t quite work out; he’s Mr. Equality Ladida? Like I said, fucker – he’ll fuck about with any stand as long as it gets him your vote.

Alright, enough ranting for now.  To end:

ZK: Would you describe yourself as a moderate Muslim?

TR: I am not using this vocabulary. This qualification is coming from the colonisers who always had a binary view of the colonised – the good and the bad, the moderate and the fundamentalist. All the people who resisted colonisation were bad and fundamentalists; and all those with them were good and moderate. I think it’s silly.

Me too. 

Talk Box: Who can use the name of God?

I love my country.

Political aide falling out of a building after being interrogated by the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission and now, now, don’t jump to conclusions, they tell us, it might not be murder, really.

I love my country.

Two missing F5-E fighter jet engines stolen from the Royal Malaysian Air Force Base and ending up in Argentina and no, no, they tell us, no senior officials were involved in the conspiracy, really. The two lowly grunts sentenced for it must be infinitely more awesome than David Copperfield circa when he was still dating Claudia Schiffer to be able to smuggle FIGHTER JET ENGINES out of the country without any sort of help from “senior officials”. And without being discovered until 2 years later. Well, recently, at my office, a whole bunch of spoons disappeared from our pantry – just like that, *poof* and my boss has absolutely no idea where it went. But we’re not talking about spoons are we? We’re talking about FIGHTER JET ENGINES.
 
It’s nice to see that after everything that has happened in this country, after the rude shock of the last elections, after over 50 years of Independence, after human evolution, after the internet, after Vision 2020, Islam Hadhari and now 1Malaysia; the government and the mainstream media still takes the general Malaysian public for fools.


I love my country.

But today, some of us have proven once more, to be very much the fools we are taken for.

I think my country is sick. This is not the country I grew up in. The country I grew up in was pretty stupid, but it was not sick. Stupid people are funny. They might even be loveable. Sick people might still be funny but my momma once told me that that it’s wrong to laugh at them. So I don’t. I cannot laugh at my country anymore. And you’re afraid to love it just as one is afraid to love a terribly sick person because they tend to die on you and grief is such a hassle to deal with. Yes, my country is sick and pale and in need of a bone marrow transplant. The chemo’s not working but the hair keeps falling out. The doctor’s report came out today and it seems that the cancer has metastasized.

Last year, we had severed cow heads being held up in protest of a Hindu temple. Today, we have arson attacks on three churches in the Klang Valley (Klang Valley!!!) in wake of the “Allah controversy”.

You want to know what my take is on the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims in Malaysia? Of course, you don’t. You don’t really care, do you? But I’ll tell you anyway. The only people I think, who should be prohibited from using the name of God are thugs and despicable waste-of-Life who try to justify their acts of violence and provocation. Whether you’re a local arsonist or a suicide bomber on the other side of the world, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, etc....... But Malaysians, really, what the hell? Is the Muslim community so oppressed here that you have to resort to such measures? It’s not freakin Palestine over here, is it? What exactly are you defending? What are you fighting for?


And suddenly, as a Malay Muslim person, I found myself being invited to join the Facebook group protesting the use of “Allah” by non-Muslims. In here they claim that it is a deliberate move by the Church or something to confuse and lead the Muslims astray. Can’t you see, the Facebook Group shouts, they’re all out to get us! They’re all out to destroy us! Oh please, give the community some credit. Not all of us are as dumb and easily confused as you are and if we are, then maybe why aren’t we doing more to educate ourselves and eachother? Instead, we have in-fighting between our muftis and what nots, getting eachother arrested and charged in court out of probably, though I can’t say definitively, professional jealousy. Forget about external threats. I think we’re doing a pretty fucking good job of destroying the community on our own. Way to go team!

Also, if there’s anyone out there who’s really out to confuse us; it’s not the Church as it is our politicians – whether they’re in the ruling government party, opposition, opposition who used to be in ruling party, politicians from the ruling government party who went to the opposition – they’re all the same. They might officially be of different race, religion, colour, creed and ideologies but they’re all united by the fact that they ultimately, truly, worship the same thing: themselves. Uh-oh, threat to my power – hey look, I’ll pull out this race/religion card out from under my sleeve. Ta-da! This will cause a violent distraction across the room so no one will notice that I’m just fucking about getting Botox injections at my desk and siphoning the people’s money into my pocket. Missing jet engines? Murdered political aide? No – look there – someone is trying to lead the Malay and Muslim people astray! And we have exposed a fundamental weakness in Pakatan Rakyat – DAP and PAS will never be able to work together, really, just look at how they’re butting heads over this issue, on top of the beer in Shah Alam shit. Keep us in power, people! And the opposition says – no, look there, the government should take responsibility for this church arson incident because they’re the ones who brought the matter up. So vote for us people! Yeah, eat that Barisan, backfired on ya didn’t it? Ha-Ha-Ha, nyehnyehnyeh. No, we don’t actually know what we’ll do if we do win the next elections – there will be no BN federal government to blame for blocking our grand plans anymore but heck, did you hear what UMNO did? Over there! Ah, what would we do without violent incidents? Hey remember a long, long time ago when the whole Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky sex scandal blew and the next day he orders an airstrike over Iraq? Like that. That's how Michael Bay makes up for movies with bad actors and bad scripts too -just throw in like, a really big explosion in between shots of Megan Fox's ass. yeah, like that. Fuck, I'm rich.


I do not vote.

I cannot bring myself to vote. And it saddens me so.

I still love my country.

On a related note, neutral ol’ Switzerland banning the construction of mosque minarets, Islamophobia on the rise everywhere and the global Muslim community whines, whines and whines about how the world is out to get us. Sure, maybe the Swiss are secretly prejudiced assholes, maybe the US Foreign Policy is biased (it’s the US – how do you think they became the most powerful nation in the world without looking out for their own interests, doh!), maybe Israel is bloody guilty of war crimes but hey, there comes a time when we need to stop this self-pity party. You want Jihad? Go home to your family. Take care of your kids! Get educated. Get rich. Control the world financial system. Take over Hollywood. Movies can solicit more sympathy for your cause then a 100 Molotov cocktails/ suicide bombs ever will. Seriously.

I hate politicians, terrorists, fanatics, bigots and thugs speaking on behalf of all of us. I hate that they claim to be speaking on behalf of ME. I am not a part of your community. I am not “your people”, “umat”, “sister” or whatever stupid ass familial term that you like to use. I disown you.

Not in my name.
I love my country.

And if I’m upset about it, me, mere mortal, whose name is not directly being used, can’t begin to imagine how God/Allah/Tuhan/YHWH, feels about the whole matter.


*Yeah, although I doubt this will happen as no one ever comments on my blog anyway, I think I should say anyway, just in case - don't leave your damn political opinions here unless you agree with me. This isn't some free speech democratic forum. For reasons that I will explain in future entries, if I'm bothered to do so at all, I no longer believe in Democracy. I believe in ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL. Preferably worn by ME. Yeah, that's right. Just like Sauron from Lord of the Rings. Yessssssssssss (would rub hands together in evil glee but since I'm only a fiery eye in a tower - I  have no hands. Bummer).