Thursday, July 26, 2007

 

a man with two muhammads in his name

as i've said before, i don't particularly like to read political blogs , more so the malaysian ones as this will only cause me distress and getting me depressed all day. but ocassionally you get sucked in by some events and in rare cases you may find such gems that you can't help it and when this happens it is a small price to pay to endure a bit of pain, grit your teeth and wade through malaysian political mucks.

this is not to say that my favorite kind of blogs (on books) can't be tiresome and depressing as well and i've come to the conclusion that even those who read what is generally assumed to be 'serious fictions' (read: literary fictions) are as stupid as those who don't read anything. this madness over the potter thing is a case in point. it's bloody downright embarassing to read perfectly good litblogs and what you get is people blabbing over getting into trouble pushing and shoving at six o'clock in a bloody morning to get their copies of the final potter book ,something about deathly swallows or something or other as though this book is the last seven copies left on the secret of eternal youth on the face of the earth.

but coming back to political blogs, it is a sure sign of something significant is happening when the malaysian political rulers start threatening bloggers yet again. Of course those who suck BN's dicks shouldn't worry about this, and i assume litbloggers who write about how much they will miss this potter boy will be left well alone too. but it's people like raja putra kamaruddin (RPK) who should think about going the whole hog or start thinking about writings paens to UMNO for a change.

but rest assured that RPK will NOT be sucking anybody's johnson for quite a while and i hope the rest of the political bloggers will be brave enough to continue writing what is what like RPK will surely continue to do unless the malaysian government in it's infinite wisdom sees it fit to put him in the jail first.

and it is a sorry day if the govt will one day (and perhaps soon) lock out RPK's Malaysia Today. one of the braver blogs that make it its raison d'etre to kick umno balls in particular. but that's the thing about our dear political masters, if they don't know how to respond to what their rakyat says, they just use their muscle and lock them out. but what would one expect from a government full of schemers out to fatten their pockets by whatever means possible and what is worse is that many of the top guys are arguably suspect in moral and probably worse in IQ separtment too.

and the case in point is this guy with two muhammads in his name, as RPK imaginatively put it. and this is the case in point that make me sometimes go to political blogs. this post by RPK is such a good writing and a ballsy gem of a challenge and insult to the guy with two muhammads in his name that i think i need to paste it here just in case malaysia today gets locked up sometimes soon.

the only pity is that i'm very sure this guy with two muhammads in his name will not be responding in kind anytime soon not least because he reputedly doesn't understand english. it is a wonder how he managed to drag all that money through an australian airport and find the embarkation gate if he doesn't read english. one thing i had to salute him though. if he can manage to fool an aussie court and got out scott free for such an obvious offence, this guy must be one sly monkey.

but here is the said posting anyway. I have a lot of fun reading it. May you be entertained so too.

here's the link
......

Malaysia Today
23/07: See you in hell Muhamad son of Muhamad

It seems there is a certain ex-Menteri Besar who made a police report against Malaysia Today and me. This ex-Menteri Besar who has two Muhamads is his name does not have even half the qualities of Prophet Muhamad S.A.W. let alone twice the qualities although he carries two Muhamads in his name.

This is the Muhamad who started life as a schoolteacher but does not speak a word of English. When caught carrying millions of dirty money into Australia, he pleaded ignorance of the English language and was acquitted by the Australian court the crime of smuggling money. What many people failed to realise is that when he resigned as a schoolteacher to contest the general election, the government made a claim of RM80,000 against him because he was on contract and was bound by this contract to serve the government to pay off what he owed.

You see, Malaysia has this unique system of giving underprivileged Malays government loans to further their studies. They must, however, serve the government for a certain period of time once they graduate and if they refuse to do so or resign before the expiry of their contract then they have to pay back the government the amount of their loan. This ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name therefore owed the government RM80,000 and if he did not pay back the amount then he would be denying other Malays the benefit of this money and therefore would in that same process be denying other Malays the benefit of a tertiary education.

This ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name then appealed to the then Minister of Education, Anwar Ibrahim, for exemption from paying back the government the RM80,000 that he owed and Anwar, being the smart politician that he was (or maybe still is, I am not sure of that), waived the rule so that this ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name need not pay back the nation the RM80,000 that he owed and which could have gone to other less-fortunate Malays who needed government assistance to further their studies.

What boggles the mind is how this ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name could suddenly have millions in his pocket and which he was arrested for as he entered Australia when just barely a few years before that he could not even pay back the government the RM80,000 that he owed and needed Anwar Ibrahim to exempt him from the rule of paying back the money.

This ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name has made a police report against Malaysia Today and me saying that I insulted the Agong and Islam and that I raised racial sentiments which could probably result in racial conflicts in Malaysia. He was of course acting on behalf of Umno and represented Umno as its Information Chief.

It is mind-boggling that this ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name would accuse me of insulting the Agong who is also the Sultan of Terengganu when the Agong is my buddy. When the Agong, who is also the Sultan of Terengganu, was merely the Raja Muda of Terengganu, I used to ride horses with him along the beach in Kuala Terengganu. I also made trips to London to meet the Agong who is also the Sultan of Terengganu when he was still just the Raja Muda of Terengganu and a student in London.

The then Raja Muda of Terengganu who is now the Agong and I would drive around London in his Ferrari and together with my sisters and wife would visit the famous London night-spots such as Longfellows where all the action is. When he was back in Kuala Lumpur I would take him to the then famous Tin Mine where we would just sit and talk as he was not a disco-dancer but preferred to just enjoy the music and talk.

Would I insult my long-time friend who is now the Agong when I sembah and kiss his hand and he would withdraw it and refuse to allow me to kiss his hand as he considered me a buddy rather than a subject? This, the ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name did not realise when he made that police report against Malaysia Today and me.

I will offer to make an audience (mengadap) with the Agong who was my buddy since the days he was merely the Raja Muda of Terengganu and if His Royal Highness is of the opinion that I have insulted him then I will subject myself to any form of punishment befitting a subject who has insulted his Agong. Such a punishment befitting the crime of insulting the Agong can include the death sentence and I will walk to the gallows to have my head separated from my body with the dignity of a true subject of the Agong. An Anak Raja Bugis is loyal to his Agong and a true Anak Raja Bugis looks death in the face with the dignity expected of an Anak Raja Bugis. I am not a descendant of Upu Tenribong Daeng Rilaka in vain and I shall not smear the name of my ancestors by avoiding the punishment of insulting his Agong. The Agong is one of the Raja-Raja Melayu and I am more than just an Anak Raja Melayu; I am an Anak Raja Bugis.

This ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name accuses me of insulting the Agong when he himself insulted the late Agong who was the Sultan of Selangor and my uncle. This ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name eloped with the Sultan’s daughter who is also my cousin and secretly married her in Thailand.

When the late Agong and Sultan of Selangor, my uncle, asked this ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name whether he (the ex-Menteri Besar with the two Muhamads in his name) had married his (the late Agong and Sultan of Selangor) daughter, this ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name denied it. Marrying secretly in Thailand is a crime and one can be punished for it. Furthermore, marrying a woman without the consent of her father goes against Islam and Malay culture and, being a Menteri Besar, this is even more of a no-no. After all, a Menteri Besar is not a man-on-the-street but the head of government of a state. But this ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name denied he had married the Sultan’s daughter secretly in Thailand and swore in the name of Allah that the allegation is a lie.

Eventually, this ex-Menteri Besar with the two Muhamads in his name divorced the Sultan of Selangor’s daughter, my cousin, and paid her RM12 million as a divorce settlement. This upset the late Agong and Sultan of Selangor, my uncle, who made a photocopy of the RM12 million cheque. The late Agong and Sultan of Selangor, my uncle, was not upset that his Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name had divorced his daughter, my cousin. He did not mind this. The late Agong and Sultan of Selangor was upset that his Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name had paid his daughter RM12 million as a divorce settlement. The late Agong and Sultan of Selangor then made a photocopy of the cheque and showed it to the Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, and demanded to know how a mere Menteri Besar could afford to pay RM12 million as a divorce settlement to his daughter, my cousin. This proves that Selangor has a corrupt Menteri Besar, said the late Agong and Sultan of Selangor, my uncle.

And this is the ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name who made a police report against Malaysia Today and me. This ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name is corrupt, a liar who married the late Agong’s and Sultan of Selangor’s daughter and denied it, and who insulted the Malays and Islam by secretly marrying someone’s daughter in another country without the permission of her father.

But this man is not a mere man-on-the-street. This man was then a Menteri Besar. And this man had two Muhamads in his name. And the woman is not a mere woman-on-the-street. This woman is the daughter of the late Agong and Sultan of Selangor. So this crime of the ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name is ten times worse. And any other man would have been arrested and convicted of the crime of marrying a woman secretly in Thailand. But this ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name was not arrested and put on trial. He was also not arrested and put on trial when he paid RM12 million as a divorce settlement and could not explain where he got the money from and how he could afford to pay such an amount on his meagre Menteri Besar’s salary.

I understand that this ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name can’t speak English. This is what the Australian court said and this is why the court acquitted him of the crime of smuggling dirty money into Australia. This means he also can’t read English. How this ex-Menteri Besar with two Muhamads in his name managed to figure out that I insulted the Agong in my article is beyond me when I write in English and not in Malay. Umno should have chosen another man who can speak English to make that police report against Malaysia Today and me.

Many people from the media phoned me today to ask me my comments on the police report against Malaysia Today and me. Well, this is my response to that police report against Malaysia Today and me. I would just like to say: go to hell Muhamad the son of Muhamad. You are a disgrace to the Muhamad name. And let me tell you Muhamad the son of Muhamad: you should thank your lucky stars that this is 2007 and not 1907. If this was 1907 instead of 2007 I would challenge you to a duel. It would be a man-to-man, one-to-one duel. It would be a duel to the death with kerises.But no, I don’t think you would accept my challenge to a duel with kerises. You may have two Muhamads in your name but you have no class. You eloped with the late Agong’s and Sultan of Selangor’s daughter and secretly married her in Thailand. Then you denied it when the late Agong and Sultan of Selangor asked you about it. Only someone with no balls would do this. A man with balls would not deny it. So there is no way you would accept my challenge to a duel with kerises.

I know that when the late Agong and Sultan of Selangor, my uncle, found out that you had in fact married his daughter, my cousin, and that you had lied about it, you arranged for Umno Youth to organise an anti-Sultan demonstration. The late Agong and Sultan of Selangor was very hurt and he cancelled his birthday celebration that year. So that year no datukships were awarded and you had to return the money to all those who had paid you for their datukships.

This act of yours, Muhamad the son of Muhamad, is treasonous. If this was 1907 instead of 2007 you would have been put to death. And you accuse me of insulting the Agong? You committed treason. You can send me to jail if you wish. You would have been put to death if this was 1907 instead of 2007.

But I know why you made that police report against Malaysia Today and me, Muhamad the son of Muhamad. You want to make a political comeback. You want to contest a parliament seat in the next general election. And you want to be made a federal minister when you win that parliament seat. You hope that the present Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak, will fall and that you can take his job. That is why you made that police report against Malaysia Today and me, Muhamad the son of Muhamad.

Muhamad the son of Muhamad, see you in hell. And if I go there first I will wait at the gates of hell to greet you on your arrival, Muhamad the son of Muhamad. Ini Anak Raja Bugis bercakap yang mati dengan keris di dalam tangan.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

 

bloghopping

i don't read too many blogs...precious few in fact. about the only few i go to fairly frequently are grumpy old bookman for his mildly humorous posts and detailed discussions on all kinds of book things and the literary salon for book news and reviews.and the only blog i go to religously is in fact our very own bibliobibuli for her daily updates on book news and especially for her good taste on literary fictions and local book news.

but occassionally i wonder around a bit bloghopping from one to another and sometimes it can fission into all sort of places. most cases i don't find anything that really interest me but occassionally you do find gems. an example. i don't normally go to the hindu but i can't recall what made me go there but it's a classic case of those fission thing i mentioned, and as i say i was there and read a fascinating interview of david mitchell and an interesting point he mentioned about writing and music was this...

Number 9 Dream was written under the musical spell of Kate Bush and John Lennon.

now that is really interesting. looks like i must try to read the book (which is gathering dust in my library) and see what's that all about. a very long time ago i was also under a spell of kate bush and lennon - among others, (but unlike mr mitchell who produced great work of art as a result of that, for me unfortunately it remained just that...just cluttered memory) ...mr mitchell didn't mention which songs but i was particularly under a spell of kate bush's song 'the wuthering height'...a very melodic and intriguing song with her trade mark high pitched voice and that enigmatic wailing which did justice to a great classic of the same title . and also a few years before that i was knocked over flat by lennon... his imagine and earlier, mother which perhaps is not too dissimilar in intensity and powerful melody -if not the content- of kate bush's song.

i usually try to steer away from political blogs. aljazeera, bbc and cnn are more than enough to make me feel depress all day and i don't need to get my blood boiling further by reading angry malaysian blogs on malaysian politics which are full of corrupt and retarded politicians as we all know....

but sometimes we can't help it, and while bloghopping today i came across Susan loone's blog and i was struck by this funny comment to 12th July post.

anonymous on July 12th, 2007

at 4:47 pm

The Mongolian government should urgently request France to check the entry records into Paris of the “Allah be my witness” DPM, the C4 victim and the “I am Proud 0f IT” accused Abdul Razak Baginda. (Don’t ever hope for the Malaysian govt to make such a request. If a Malaysian request is ever made, it is for the French to erase those records.)

there's a lot on this altantuya case swirling around in blogosphere right now, but now, suddenly i feel very tired...

never mind, i'm off to bali tomorrow so that should perk me up a bit....


Thursday, July 12, 2007

 

men as chicken

as i've mentioned several times before, i have almost complete volumes of GRANTA which i patiently collected over the years . and what i love to do is pick a volume at random and read an article or two, say just before going to sleep or to kill time when i don't have any particular thing to do. and thus last night to keep my mind off the very sad and distressing event of the storming of the red mosque in pakistan i picked off my library shelf vol. 52 on the theme FOOD: the vital stuff. And it is a particularly good volume which has among others, articles by Giles foden's "idi amin's banquet" which i've read sometimes back and as i've mentioned before became the first scenes in a very good film "king of scotland" , Norman lewis on aphrodisiacs, Joan smith on cannibalism a graham swift story the butcher of bermondsey and many others.

but the piece that particularly caught my attention was this article men as chicken by one Geoffrey Beattie .

the story was about a challenge by one lady who ...

offered four men 2,500 pounds each to live like battery hens for a week. They were to be kept in a wire cage with a sloping wire floor. They would be barefoot, and there would be no lavatory and nowhere to wash. The light would be on seventeen hours a day. There would be continuous noise.....

the idea was for these people to feel what it's like to be in a condition battery chickens are subjected to. you need to find the volume and read for yourself what the outcome of this challenge was but i'll say this. a big problem of the world today is largely due to us looking at things from our own perspective and totally ignore and refusing to understand the other side's point of view.

so, coming back to that distressing event of the lal mosque and musharaf the pakistan president killing all those muslim hardliners in the holy place ,this is just another example of one side not understanding another and took a terrible method to solve the problem.

from my side, i weep for the senseless killings of these 'muslim extremists', my fellow taliban brothers...ah yes, i can hear coconuts, bananas and assorted fruits with cnn microchips for brain exclaim ...but they had it coming! why are they creating disturbances disturbing prostitues, burning and shouting against salman rushdie, bringing all those weapons into the mosque, and shooting at the army blah blah blah...well, i too don't agree with much of what they did , but the point is, even imran khan a man who is as far from muslim extremism as can be is highly critical of the way the thing is handled. and of course the bastard bush is the first to support musharraf's action as one would expect.

and coming back to food. i sometimes wonder why the highest proportion of vegetarians in the world are hindus and buddhists in the indian subcontinent. i guess a part of the reason is because they believe in reincarnation and if you do bad deeds in this life you may end up being reborn as a frog or pig or monkey or worms...and you would not want to eat your grandmother if she happended to be reborn as a pig or a battery chicken would you?....

in my calculation it may be fairly accurate to say that if bush -or musharraf who is getting to be his top lackey now that blair is gone - is to be reincarnated i think he'd likely to be reborn as a pig or at the very least a chicken...

i certainly love to eat him if it's a chicken, but i leave it to coconuts and bananas and other pork eaters if he happens to be reborn as a pig....






Monday, July 09, 2007

 

peeling grass

i first read gunther grass novels a very2 long time ago. in fact when i was in the second year uni ...oh seems like a hundred years ago. i remember reading the tin drum while munching on bread rolls with cold cuts and gerkhin pickles . we were on one of our ecology field excursions and i remember we were counting population of different species of flies and assorted insects on cow pats in a meadow under the shadow of pine trees. and the entomology professor was grumbling about the pine trees being slowly killed by by sirex wasps . and he glanced at what i was reading and glanced at a girl student -lisa hulse- beside me, reading one of those ian fleming's james bond's series and i remember he tsk tsk-ed at lisa and looking at me and said 'now here's a guy who knows about books'...i remember like it was yesterday. or may be my memory played trick on me , could it be during one of those times when we were growing lupins for our agronomy class? but never mind, the point is, i started reading gunther grass since a long while back.

and i still love his writings... dog years, the flounder, meeting at telgte, crabwalk and so on and so forth...and i have all of his major writings in my library and i hope to read them all one of these days...and so i was very excited when his memoir was published last year amid a lot of controversy because he admitted that he was once a member of the SS. and now that the english translation "peeling the onion" is just published i will certainly look for it.

now here's the interesting thing. him being a mere boy at that time , i would understand that joining the SS , however repulsive it may seem now (in retrospect of course) it was just one of those activities any normal german boys were perhaps expected to do and probably have nothing to do with his idealism or support for nazism as such, but many find this very2 offensive. he was criticised for hiding this fact for so long and only willing to come out and admit at such a late stage.

in this review of the book it was mentioned that:


When Peeling the Onion was published in Germany last year, Gunter Grass faced a hailstorm of disdain after he revealed that in the dying months of the Second World War he had been enlisted, aged 17, into the Waffen SS.

and...

There were demands that Grass be stripped of his Nobel Prize. Lech Walesa, that other great son of Danzig/Gdansk, called for Grass's honorary citizenship to be revoked.


Not exactly on par with the fatwa on salman rushdie's head of course but the jury's response is basically the same. except that when muslims criticize salman's behaviour everybody are up in arms but when influential people criticize grass, nobody feels anything wrong with it. perhaps grass already anticipated the reaction so it was really good of him to keep it a secret until those guys give him the nobel first!....

Friday, July 06, 2007

 

the report

under difference circumstances it would be the funniest piece of writing i ever read for a long time. but in all conscience nobody should make any disparaging comments knowing that this was written by poor amina (altantuya) the mongolian beauty just a day before she was blown to bits just about half an hour's drive from my home. all the same to think that (with that kind of english proficiency) she reportedly acted as a translator to very important people involved with very important business dealings which may or may not have anything to do with malaysian government , one just wonder...goes to show that long legs and good looks do make a difference .

to say that this razak baginda -amina saga is interesting is an understatement and my hope is that some local writers would do justice and write a proper book on the sad affair once everything settles down...but in reality the likelihood of that to happen is just about nil.

oh yes, we may probably get a hundred page or so superficial hack job which i would be in the least bit interested in, or quite possibly none at all, for our country is not a nation of writers...oh yes, we have journalists aplenty but they rather suck the proverbial political masters' dicks and write some hagiographies on some retarded politicians than write real books that delve deep into the dark side of the nation's pulse...or they just write some wimpy poems that nobody in the least bit interested to read....ah well, may be that is easier...

but such a pity, the notorious and intriguing mona fandey case , bentong kali, etc... we have our good share of all kinds of diabolical mayhems , historic events , evil characters serial killers , rapists but all came and gone without anybody writing anything substantial so that we can truly understand our national psyche better ....oh yes recently we did get a small book "may 13" purportedly about 'declassified documents on the malaysian riots of 1969 by one hua kia seong but what a pitiful book it was... devoid of any literary merit whatsoever and certainly did not explain anything new or try to make us understand why my race the malays which are the most docile creatures on earth by nature became so murderous...

this pitiful book incidently reminded me of that review of the film da vinci code in the new yorker (may 29 , 2006) which i picked at random and read last night .

it has this to say about that dan brown's book:

...if a person of sound mind begins reading the book at ten o'clock in the morning, at what time will he or she come to the realization that it is unmitigated junk? The answer in my case was 10:00:03, shortly after i read the opening sentence...


at another place it was written thus...

Should we mind that forty million readers-or, to use the technical term "lemmings" - have followed one another over the cliff of this long and laughable text?...

well, in my case it took me about five minutes to decide that "may 13" is not to my liking but yes there are a lot of lemmings judging by how well this book is selling...

and now that another harry bloody potter of deathly swallow or some such thing is coming out soon , perfectly sane adult women (for only women and little kids read this tripe ) will be transformed to lemmings and followed one another over the cliff of this long and laughable text...

but i digressed and misbehaved again...
coming back to the report...
here it is verbatim...but please do not laugh. Respect the dead....

Altantuya claimed she would be killed by Razak, witness tells court

Thestar.com.my 4 July 2007

The following is the report in verbatim:

I told all story. I got friend here to help me but he said I need to be carefull because his rich man. Can everything do to me. Now he could easyly kill me or put to jail and says I did write letters. I blackmailed him. So all proofness on my case can ask from embassy in Honk Kong or hotel where I stay.

Its hotel Malaya. One of the Indian man is Suraj, another is Bala. They saying they protect the boss. If they do job why they follow me and knocking my door at 5am at morning and acting like friend.

Why they asking me to pay money and asking to marry that Indian guy.

They follow me from my hotel outside to any place I go. If they protect the boss why they saying to my pir that they can kill me?

That Indian guy told me Mr Razak is rich man, he knows many people here so can easyly put me to jail. They say Malaysia is different from Mongolia and said they know people in police so can easy get me to jail.

If Malaysia law goes like that I cant complane. But true is I didnt nothing to him. Im just normal girl trying to meet my lover who lied to me and promised many things but now want to put me to jail or kill...

If I made mistake Ill never do again. But if something happened to me please check that person.”







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