THE SPIRIT IS STILL ALIVE

I went to a Hari Raya open house on Sunday which also fell on the Deepavali Day held by my malay neighbour in the condo i just moved in. I hardly know him but have talked to his friendly wife on the way to the lift one day and she invited me and my family to attend.

Upon entering the crowded hall i was a bit uneasy as i didnt know most of the crowds let alone the MC. My neighbour introduced me to her charming husband and we helped ourselves to the buffet line.

I could not help but notice among the crowds the different races of the attendees -Malays, Arabs, Chinese and Indians. It is more glaring that some of the Indians are very cheerful and acting like a co-host welcoming and wishing the guests. I am very pleased to see that the spirit of friendship is still alive and strong among Malaysians despite what has happened recently in relation to the government's decision to ban Hindraf as an unlawful organisation. I guess not everybody in Malaysia prescribes to extreme idealogies and methods to resolve one's grouses. Open House by various ethnics can help bring the people closer and strenthen the relationship and should be continued. We can have our differences but must not allow it to divide us and cause hatred.

To our Indian friends, i would like to wish Happy Deepavali to all.

SELF TERMINATION

As i sit inside my room and stare out my window towards the half bald hills due to the construction clearing, i just wonder why there are so many problems in this world nowadays. How did we get to this point?

There are countless problems that we are facing ranging from the environmental degradation due to uncontrolled developments like the reduction in green areas which contributed to global warning, siltation and choking of our rivers that can kill the fishes and also cause flooding, uncontrolled disposal of toxic waste that ends up in the food chain, human conflicts with countless wars and disputes over land, honor (and women sometimes!), sovereignty, difference in values in religion, race and cultures, politics and the very latest economic meltdown world wide.

We as a human race are going towards self termination. We do not need the Terminator as we are good in destroying everything around us including our fellow human. The most intelligent animal on this planet - us the Homo Sapien are not so intelligent in the long run. Billions of dollars are spent to build things that are destroying the planet in the name of progress of mankind and economic returns with deadly after effects to the environment. Global warming is on the rise and the sea level is increasing. We are destroying the only planet that supports life so far. Instead of spending money to fix this problems on Earth, we spend billions of dollar for a mission to Mars to study why a planet used to support life once became a barren field of rocks and lost its atmosphere. Now there is only signs of ancient rivers and and atmosphere full of CO2. All the water had dissappeared and become ice in the poles. It is ironic, we have to spend so much to find an answer at a distant planet when we can see the problems right here on Earth and have a chance to do something about it before Earth turns into Mars. But nobody want to spend the same amount of money to clean and revitalise this Earth.

Unfortunately, human cannot see eye to eye to do something about it due to their own selfish reasons. Politics and greed are at the center of it all. If there is nothing to gain, there will be no action to change.

We spend billions of dollars to produce more and more advance weapons to protect us against fellow human beings due to our fear and obsession with supremacy but reluctant to spend a fraction of that to help other human beings who are facing problems to get basic necessities in other part of the world like Africa. Wars have become an instrument of business to certain countries to enrich themselves. Human lives no longer have values, casualties in wars are treated as a statistic figure. The mighty feeds over the weak and defenceless.

Human species used to be one until the migration to the various parts of the world. With the creation and evolution of different races, the disparity in values and cultures and religions eventually become greater and greater. Differences in race and religions caused a lot of friction which eventually led to wars. Conflicts become more complicated with the difference idealogy in politics. There are conflicts within the same races and political party, conflicts with different races and different political parties, and the same goes for religions.

In Islamic religion, there are so many sects with different teaching, each claiming better than the other. The Sunnah Sect and the Syiah Sect are at odds with one another and sometimes led to animosity among followers. Christianity is not spared either, there are the Catholics, Protestants,

Lutheranss and Presbysterian to name a few. Other religions have different sects too i am sure. Conflicts happen between different religious followers too as can be seen in the series of Crusade Wars between the Muslims and the Christians in the 11th and 12th Century. The effects is embedded until the modern day among the two followers. Bush called the Gulf War as the New Crusade at the beginning and then changed it to Freedom War, but is it?

Now, it is a different kind of war happening around the world -The Bailout Wars! In the quest to make more and more money by the big banks in certain countries, have mismanaged their loan practices by giving loan to people many times the level the are able to service them. Eventually the NPL(non performing loans) becomes bigger and bigger until the banks themselves requires to be saved as they lost money big time! The US government had to give US700 billion bailout to rescue her economy. This problem has spread to other continents with deadly repurcussion - world wide recession and probably a Depression worse than the 1930. The effects of recession are endless, loss of jobs, houses, family breakdown, increase in crime, increase suicide, depression,migration to better countries not affected and many more!

My my, what are we going to do? How do we solve all these problems that fill every corner of our minds everyday? Do we have the will power to look beyond our differences in race, religion, status, political stance and selfish interests to overcome these problems one by one and save our selves and this planet so that there is hope for a better tomorrow? Can we overcome our animosity and greed to take the first step? I say why not, cause if we dont we are going towards self termination as a species, i am very sure about it!

VILLAINY WEARS MANY MASKS

"Villainy wears many masks, nothing worse than the mask of virtue" said Johnny Depp in the Sleepy Hollow movie i watched last night. Wow, what a great line!

In reality that saying holds true in many instances. We have seen how greed and passion even got the best of the rich and respected members of the society. Some are businessmen, politicians and even royalties. They got involved in many scandals that defies belief. The latest trends is using the mask of religion to gain respect and positions and to support one's cause.

In Muslim countries, putting up a robe and keep a beard automatically earn a respect as you appear to be a pious man, religiouslly trained and should be respected. However, there are many occassions that this technic is used for the wrong reasons to achieve personal agendas. There are syndicates going around collecting donations at local mosques by men in robes claiming that the money will be channelled to the orphanage etc. Sometimes they would go house to house especially in the rural areas where the folks are unsuspecting and naive. Those more sophisticated, would organise to make it look as though they are legitimate religious organisations, by forging fake approvals from certain ministry for their activities.

I wonder whether these people have any conscience and knows what is right and what is wrong. They believe that as long they are not caught right handed it is alright. I guess money and personal gains are more powerful motives that outweigh the risks.

In the political world, especially in Malaysia, politicians also wear many masks to achieve their agendas. Their masks can be changed daily depending on issues brought up by the media and what are there to gain. Today they are in the ruling side wearing one mask, tomorrow they are on a different side wearing different masks. Then there are those always wearing the same masks and always on the same side, the only thing to wonder is whether the masks they wear are actually representing their true selves.

I think the public have to be weary and not to be too trusting nowadays when evaluating other people personalities and beliefs by not putting too much weighting to their exterior facades and the titles they hold. Nowadays we see lot of villains drive Mercedes cars to commit robbery, some cases of misusses of funds by the people with the titles MD, Dato or Tan Sri, and sexual crimes committed by some religious schools teachers with the title of Ustaz. Even there a few cases where some members of the Police Force got into trouble as reported in the papers. But, there are still a lot of good people left in this world to give hope to the human race that all is not lost, good will prevail over evil.