SHAME

By Askiah Adam

I have no shame
I have no blame
When all I have is given
And choice is not an option
Why should I be ashamed?

As a Muslim I must submit
And fate I must admit
So what blame, what shame?
Its all the same
I am but God's strategic fit!

I have free will?
Says who? you? he? maybe she?
Pray tell how I fit that bill
When to be or not be
Is not up to me to fulfill

Want is always a blast
When lucky, it just is met
Need though is a must
But yet, sometimes its hard to get!
So what is that?

You think I have not tried
To become Bill Gates
To be rich and great.
The last time I did, I got truly fried
That's how it was and so I hate!

So don't preach to me of future fame
Of power, glory and enormous gains
When it was never ordained
That I shall be anything but plain
Ordinary, stupid and always the same.

For, if I were to not believe in fate
That destiny is indeed for me to make
My life has shown
To make this world my own...
I must stab every back
I must step every head
No restraint and no respect
Everything goes, nothing's bad
And that no, no, not to be nice
For that is nothing but a vice.

And so what is shame?
When rich we take and take and take
The poor we blame, we call them lame
So shame is when justice we forsake
For wealth, for glory and a name to make.
That is shame!

So shame on them
For whom ethics is but a pain
Morality is just pure sham
A society where the law's a bane.
So, who's to blame for this shame?

Is it God or is it man?
Is it me or is it them?
Or is it nothing more than
wham, bam, thank you mam!

AD INTERIM

Before I leave I will say adieu
To my friends and all I knew

But until then there is much to do
to love, to play; to cry, to pray
TO BE, oh yes, TO BE.

Time enough to be inert
prone and very dead
To become dust, to be as one with dirt.

Today a present I receive, from fate
which I gladly take
I do not ask, I do not hesitate
Matters little friend or foe
for, will there be a tomorrow?

Today's prudence is future's gain
Yesterday's abandon is today's pain
But why think of blame and consequence
When to seize the day is joy and jubilance.

To do is to become
Act and you shall define
The who, the what, the why you are.

And when you arrive where all action is to forever cease
You will know, though surely deceased
You have lived to tell a tale
to win, to fail; to fall, to scale
to reach the heights
to feel the depths
TO BE, oh yes, TO FOREVER BE.

LOVING ARRYA

Each day a flower blooms in me

Of care, of joy, of love

Of tender feelings for a baby

Warming, as in winter by a glove

Even when I'm busy as a bee

I know its there

Ever growing, ever stronger in its being

Ever tugging at my heart strings

The bliss of having, loving and enjoying

A little boy so amazing.

Arrya makes my life worth living.

He is daddy's little boy
He is mummy's biggest joy

His laugh, his cry, his every sound

Means that happiness has come round

Lifting the spirit

To fighting fit
To bear hurts and pains

and the many strains

Of living, being and surviving.

Arrya keeps my heart singing.

This breast is soothed; this brow is smoothed

No longer restless; never again listless.

I am calm, charmed by his winning smiles

his innocent wiles

the sparkle in his mischiveous eyes

the gurgles and the little sighs.

I know now where I am going

I know now what I am doing.

Arrya gives my life meaning.

AN ODE TO HOPE

I don't like the world but the choice is too stark,
too dark
Why can there not be
A half-way house for the likes of me

This world is rotten to the core
Its getting to be an utter bore, a sore
A pain unfettered
Where fools untethered
Run everything as a birth right
Into the ground so deep, so tight
We have no place to hide
we are adrift, pulled out by the tide.

And then came Barack Obama...

One day the man is hope, the next day, nope
He's not
Yesterday he promised peace, today its only his bliss
His success to secure,
he embraces those who are far from pure
those who made the mess in the first place
So now its like "in your face"
I won the race
its my taste.

Barack Obama
Its early days yet
I can only place my bet.
But, like many,
I feel your first steps to be one huge whammy.

If you stay true to your pledge though
And not hedge your bets to appease the Party whore
You may indeed retain the edge
And make America the Great, the badge
That all will wear to honour the sage, the man,
the first Black President.
He who dare
To make the world a place for all to share.
END

OBAMA? OH MAMA...

SORRY EVERYONE, but I cannot fall in line, not yet. I must know that my expectations are mostly met before I, like so many others, will be a fawning supporter.

When Barack Hussein Obama moves into the White House the most powerful person in the world, at least for now, will not be all white. He will be half white, although the hangover from the colour bar of old would have him represented as African-American or Black as if attempting to wipe out his white ancestry and upbringing. He is not of the minorities. Rather, he chose to be by marrying into the Black community and thus appropriate to himself the mantle of a people long persecuted despite their contribution towards the building of America. For, the slaves from Africa were one of the earliest settlers in America. Forcibly brought there, but there nonetheless and it is on their sweat that the WASP civilisation was built. Obama's father was not one of them.

But does that disqualify him from assuming the label of "America's first Black President"? No, of course not. As far as labels go he is Black.

The question is, "Is Obama skin-deep-Black?"

That he is "Blue" there can be no doubt. He was the Democratic Party's candidate. He is now their president-elect. That he appears to be embracing Clintonites to man his administration is proof of how "Blue" he is. He is even planning to make Clinton's wife his Secretary of State. Here is a man winning the elections on a wave of change reportedly planning to stay the same -- no policy change! And, it must be added that that same is not short of bombing adventures. Of course, not as horrific as what Bush-the-son did, but all the same Clinton's adventures, too, saw civilians sacrificed by the thousands, also on a false claim: that Serbs were attempting a genocide in Kosovo. In Iraq the disregard for, again, civilian lives lost as a result of the pre-war sanctions does not differentiate Clinton much from the horrific Bush-the-son. It is a matter of degree, nothing less. And, Barack Obama is no less committed to the war solution.

The question is, "To what degree?"

Is he Black? I think he didn't think so. Didn't he admit that he became Reverend Wright's flock because he needed Black roots; words to the effect? At best, Obama could see that he was not all white. Everyday the mirror of American socialisation told him that, a fact not made obvious to him by his early environment of Indonesia and Hawaii combined. Mainland USA must have been somewhat of a culture shock for him, where Black is distinct from White and he can be either but never both. He chose Black because he fitted, physically. Mentally, too, he was not white "white". He cringed whenever he heard his white grandmother talking of her fear of Black men she passed on the streets.

The question is, "Will he be kidded into believing that 'America the Mighty' is not imperialism?"

So why is it that everything is pointing to "business as usual" policies? Is he, like all politicians, getting his priorities all wrong now that he is president-elect? Past the ballot box the imperative is to hold on to power, no matter what. If the Democratic Party says "red" he will say and see "red". He wants the presidency for its glory and not to make the world a safer, better place for our children. He just wants to be President.

I HOPE TO GOD I'M WRONG AND THAT THE MAN WHO HELD OUT HOPE TO ME WILL TRIUMPH OVER HIS AMBITION!!! Good luck Mr. President.

INTRODUCING ARRYA

HERACLITUS, the ancient Greek philosopher said that "man's character is his fate". I beg to differ, just a little.

I've lived long enough to know that there is more of what I have done than yet-to-do and that, simply put, means, being for me is no longer mere conjecture; something to be fashioned along the lines of profound observations by great others. Rather, I have come to a point in my life where its time I make my own observations and share them with other mortals. For, some recent happenings in my life have brought this awareness into clear relief. One of them, the arrival of Arrya.

Arrya arrived and living took a much needed kick-in-the-butt and complacency bid me good-bye.

Arrya is this beautiful little person who came into my life in spite of me. He is indeed my fate, my destiny. Another one of those things that, with control and some will power, the pleasure would never have been mine to have. Before him one word described me: selfish. But, trust me, I deserve a little selfishness, if not a lot. Let's not go into that. I want to share Arrya with you.

You know how babies tend to cry a lot. Well, Arrya doesn't. He used to cry very little and even then not at intolerable decibels. That has changed with the months though. He is crying much more and at decibels you will not miss. I guess he has discovered Samsara and thank God. I know that he has acquired some important survival skills. In turn, I have discovered a veritable reservoir of patience and some sense of priority.

Now, let me tell you something about aging. You can take all the anti-aging supplements and skin care and every armoury available in the stable, but trust me none of this works without enough sleep. [But let me lay a clear caveat here: I think a regular dose of adrenalin rush is also very beneficial.] When a baby comes into your life, the first thing that goes totally awry is your sleep pattern. When that happens to older people, fundamental structural strains occur. Where once you woke up with a body reasonable resurrected to do another day's battles, you now are jiggling all over. And that, my friend, is scary.

Strangely, however, that has not stopped me from taking the night shift with Arrya. I need to know that we are bonding. I want him to learn quickly who I am and how we fit together in Samsara. All this new unqualified selflessness is new to me. I sense that a new me is being born, one who finds solace beyond my own skin in an unexacting way.

Never having been a saint, every act of kindness -- most definitely not rare -- I extended to others has always felt as if it had been ripped from me. The difference between each one of them is mere degree. What is obvious every time is the sense of accompanying triumph, what to me is a demonstration of moral agency. That I am a moral agent is comforting because I then know that I'm no sociopath.

Things have changed though. With Arrya I am aware of living and loving unconditionally as never before. Not that I have never loved unconditionally. My two boys are exactly that to me. But with them I was a young mother burning with ambition and aflame with desires, myriads of them. To salve my conscience each time I took a step farther than hearth and home I told myself that it was all for them. It was an honest mistake made out of youthful ignorance, a blind allegiance to socialisation. Which automatically took me to that period before Arrya when I felt entitled to enjoy my many freedoms now that the boys are grown.

With Arrya that all changed. Those freedoms, in retrospect, were empty and was leading to nowhere. They were nothing but self indulgence, a crass hedonism as bad as any addiction. I was drowning in meaningless seeming pleasures, seeking an elusive ecstasy in an orgy of living, doing, working. With Arrya, fate has given me character. Will this new found character shape my fate, no matter how late in life, and prove Heraclitus right?

No matter. What I am now left with is this wondering whether what I have been taught about life is a dangerous fallacy intended to leave my existence patterned with ugly holes, missing what might be the happiness much sought after throughout history, from Epicurus to the Stoics. And, that society's concepts on what consitutes a good life is but a sham, a conspiracy so that others might live undisturbed in their stupor. In short, I now feel cheated and short changed.

END

SO, IS IT FITNAH: THE ANWAR IBRAHIM SAGA

WHILE “conjecture is no substitute for truth” says the Holy Quran, some too credible circumstantial evidence makes speculation excusable in this case. If I’m wrong, may God forgive me.

Obviously the man the press labels as de facto leader of PKR, Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim, has little choice but to find redress in the Shariah Courts, especially if he is not guilty. He knows what the alternative court of law is capable of doing, despite his ultimate acquittal. The world, too, knows this!

The correctness of this move by him, however, relies heavily on the assumption that God’s law will not be gerrymandered at the whims and behest of political masters by the faithful. And, an even bigger assumption is that the system is indeed manned by pious Muslims who fears no other but God. But most of all it assumes that his accuser is truly a man of faith and, therefore, God-fearing. Sadly, this last could prove to be a mistake and the ensuing debacle a mockery of Islamic law.

One very important pointer that is indicative of questionable character on the part of the accuser is the man’s willingness to be sodomised. Why I say this is because it is difficult – even near impossible – to see this whole affair as one of rape. He is young compared to Anwar, who is 60. He is a big fellow, bigger than the average as his photograph with Datuk Shahrir Samad makes clear. He is a fit young man compared to Anwar who has had severe injuries inflicted on him by the late former IGP and a horse riding injury to his neck. If Anwar had tried to rape him he could have easily beaten the man to a pulp, had he wished. Don’t you think? No, instead, he allows it to happen and then makes a police report. Why?

I would love to speculate on this, but I have no facts to back my suspicion other than that the young punk can get an appointment to see the DPM at his residence. But even here there can be many legitimate reasons and one of them, as the DPM says, is that he is a rakyat and the DPM is an elected leader of the rakyat. Seeing him, even at what must be short notice, can be plausible. The Lord works in mysterious ways for His own purpose. Lame though this may appear to be it could be true. Wallahu’alam.

Yet, there is one strong assumption I can still make, I feel. I can surmise quite accurately, from the many pictures of him with ministers and those with access to them, that this is an ambitious young man going all out to rub shoulders with the high and mighty. What other reason can there be for this but to climb the ladder of success given the “who-you-know” culture that colours success in our society. Let us also assume that he was hedging his bets when he moved into Anwar’s private office, as assistant no less. When on 8 March 2008 the biggest upset in Malaysian political history occurred, surely he was able to smell the strong whiffs of potential power where he was. And the months following made it even more demonstrable. Nevertheless, he chose to throw the spanner in Anwar’s works at precisely the most important point of the man’s political comeback.

That there was no rape we can almost be certain of. This is a fair conjecture. Why, therefore, complain and make it so public in a police report and open oneself to prosecution when it is consensual sex? Herein is the conundrum. Such intimacy will only make him more favoured by the boss and if he really believed that a comeback by Anwar is highly likely (presumably the reason for his joining the PKR camp) why spoil the show?

One possible answer is that richer, more immediate rewards – measures of success in a materialist society – are forthcoming elsewhere. Speculation, of course, but this is entrapment pure and simple meant to foil the tsunami of Anwar’s comeback that will drown BN into oblivion. The question is whether there is a puppet master somewhere in the murky backstage of Malaysian politics, someone who believed the possibility of Anwar’s return to Parliament as opposition leader, or even PM, to be real. Or was Saiful “fishing in murky waters” so to speak, with the intention of auctioning his sordid services to the highest bidder.

Now, under either of these circumstances, one would have thought that some way would have been found to record the incident, preferably on video. After all, this is premeditated. If someone’s behind this seamy episode this kind of evidence would destroy Anwar once and for all. On the other hand if Saiful is the sole mastermind of the entrapment a truly rich reward would be paid by the highest bidder for any kind of evidence. But there is no evidence, hard or otherwise. Silly ain’t it!
END

MALAYSIA: THE MENTAL EVOLUTION IS ON

IS IT REALLY? Or are Malaysians just peeved: peeved at not being able to get their hands dirtied, as have the politicians and their cronies; peeved at being marginalised because in this last round there has been no need for cronies -- just the wannabe first family will do nicely, thank you (they are reputedly so closed shop that one nominee/crony was quickly christened by critics with the family name) ; and, peeved because this lot dared flaunt their power thinking that they can do it with impunity (You have to give back too mate, not just take: like kept petrol prices down and cooking oil cheap.)!

As a result, the general elections of 8 March 2008, with a definitive tug, pulled the rug from under the feet of the Barisan Nasional (BN), a coalition party that has ruled the country, in one guise or another, since independence. Ministers, deputy ministers, other self-important office-holders and unofficial official holders fell and some were alleged to have fallen but rescued by foul means. This latter only the courts can verify. We, the people, having done what we set out to do, will have to wait and see whether we truly got it right. Was the last Government genuinely so disinterested in us and absolutely corrupt or are we victims of the blogs that have no business publishing rumours passed off as "news". My bet is that the truth lies somewhere in between.

Robbing BN of its two-thirds majority and putting in alternative governments in 4 states with economies instrumental to maintaining the national economic health and restoring the overwhelming majority of the PanIslamic Malaysian Party (PAS) Government in the east coast peninsular state of Kelantan, the people have made it impossible for indifference to economic policies. Now the federal government must indeed be innovative and ingenuous to merely sustain the already lacklustre growth that even now is under threat from a global financial meltdown.

Remember the 1997 regional financial meltdown? It took spunk to keep the people happy. The good doctor kept us, the people, in work. But that we take for granted because it is indeed the function of governments TO LOOK AFTER THE PEOPLE'S WELFARE. Governing is about TRUST. Those voted into office is entrusted with the overall well-being of those who voted them into office, a necessary consequence of the social contract. If they did not, why would be allowing them to make policies that will definitely impact on our lives, for better or worse???

Unfortunately, while that bit of the bargain was then kept, there was another, equally important, that was ignored! TRUST meant that things would be kept above board. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY should have meant only that and not massaged to mean something else under the pretext of Malay special privileges. The cronies that the system spawned under the good doctor helped make the wannabe first family and create the climate that so disgusted the electorate, which culminated in the humiliation of the prime minister, especially, and the BN in general. (Why are the BN component parties silent in the face of such a debacle? Is this an admission of joint liability?)

Malaysia is peculiar in that a convention makes the New United Malay National Organisation (UMNO Baru) -- lest we forget, that is what the current UMNO is -- supremely important. Not unlike the importance of the American presidential elections is to the world, the election of the UMNO president is pivotal to the country. Whoever is the UMNO president will be the prime minister of any BN federal government. And, whoever is the deputy president will step in if anything happened to the incumbent. This is why it is imperative that the top party posts be fought for democratically to ensure that indeed, the best person will win.

With this, another of the good doctors errors was made. In transforming the party from a democracy to an oligarchy, for the simple purpose of holding on to power, UMNO was left with an anointed deputy president and, therefore, Malaysia a prime minister, whose honeymoon period with the nation is not only over but a divorce petition is most definitely already issued.

Under these circumstances, with the exception of the incumbent prime minister and his deputy, intransigence is unacceptable behaviour. UMNO must indulge in navel gazing and figure out how to restore its prestige. Naturally, the most immediate move is to find a new leader from among its MPs. One veteran politician of many decades and a former finance minister has offered himself.

Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah is the only UMNO sitting MP with the stature to hold the country's economy together given the pressure the new Government faces. On the one hand, an impending global economic slowdown, if not recession. On the other, the need to work with the State governments of Selangor, Perak, Pulau Pinang and Kedah to ensure that economic growth is sustained. When it was just Kelantan in opposition hands the strategy of strangling its economy was of little consequence to the national equation. Now, however, the industrialised states and the country's rice bowl are in the hands of parties of the parliamentary opposition. Strangling their economy would only damage the nation.

Now, too, the BN Government has lost its two-thirds parliamentary majority. No more riding rough-shod over the opposition. Bills will have to be debated and the government benches cannot afford a split. Without access to lucrative government contracts UMNO members have to be kept in line by appealing to their better nature of national duty and ethical conduct. A leadership tainted with allegations of corruption and incompetence cannot hope to unite an unhappy party.

UMNO must give the nation a new leadership lineup comprising of able and honest men and women, a leadership that can impress the electorate the next time around. Unfortunately, a much harder task than usual because the competition now has the wherewithal to prove themselves to the public. Having been out of the political leadership lineup now for more than two decades, nobody can point a finger at Tengku Razaleigh and accuse him of corruption. His track record speaks for itself: he is the architect of the Bumiputra economy, not an easy feat because Malaysia then, when he set up Petronas and later was finance minister, was a fledgling nation. Not a stranger to opposition politics the prince from Kelantan may be well placed to appeal to the opposition on the basis of national interests. And, in the face of the mishandling of the Terengganu palace by the incumbent, he is the salve to heal that wound.

Tengku Razaleigh and his UMNO Supreme Council members will be very conscious of the need to overhaul UMNO and BN's image, both nationally and internationally. He will not resuscitate the "dead" by appointing them to his Cabinet, as has the incumbent who has left the people appalled at his sheer audacity. No one sitting UMNO MP can hope to challenge his credentials and his credibility in the face of a newly restless electorate that have drawn "blood" by asserting their democratic rights. If UMNO is not to be relegated to the pages of history its members must act to placate the public NOW!!!
END