March 25, 2008

Full house: Audience members applauding during the forum titled ‘New Politics in Post-Election Malaysia’ held at Menara Star Monday.

From the Star: By Jazlan

PETALING JAYA: The five opposition-held state governments must compete among themselves as well as with the Federal Government to prove to the electorate they are viable, a public forum was told yesterday

DAP Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua said the competition was actually extremely healthy for the country.

“In these states, the competition will be immense in bringing the country forward in terms of economic policies and politics,” he said.

“The Barisan will have to face the pressure of Penang becoming a fantastic success compared to the previous government.

“Will it lose more states in the peninsula if Penang becomes a model state for investment and economic administration?” he asked at The Star-ACMS public forum titled New Politics in Post-Election Malaysia.

Pua added that in Parliament, there would be competition between a possibly viable two-party system.

Among the Opposition parties, there would also be competition in the states they ruled. He said the DAP would set the pace to show that it could do the job better.

“If we do well, other states will also have to do well to prove to the people that their choices were not wrong.

“Before this, there was no competition to show that one could do better but more of a competition of who could make more money as an Adun (assemblyman),” he said.

On cooperation, Pua said in the past it was easy for Barisan to alienate the Opposition-led Kelantan as its economic contribution was minimal. However, in the current scenario, the Opposition rules the rich states of Penang, Perak and Selangor.

Pua said the reality was that there had to be politics of cooperation for Malaysia to move forward and for the Barisan to prove itself competent to win back the people’s trust.

He said the likelihood was that both parties would try to continue improving the economy and political affairs in the states but both would take credit for it.

“The strategy will not be to sabotage. You cannot do that anymore as too many states are involved and the stakes are too high for Barisan,” he said.

Former Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek said the political landscape had now changed completely and it could not be business as usual for Barisan nor the Opposition now.

He pointed out that the governments in the five states were under the microscope and faced many challenges as well as opportunities.

“But don’t forget that a new broom always sweeps clean, anywhere in the world,” he said, adding that other than PAS, none of the other parties had experience in administering states.

“If your learning curve is slow, you will be shown the door by voters in the next election the same way Barisan was shown the door on March 8.”

Dr Chua said people should be concerned about whether the new coalition partners could sit down together and administer the states or whether they would bicker among each other on who should call the shots.

He also questioned whether the Federal and state relationship would be one of confrontation or cooperation.

He added that even if there was cooperation, he wondered if it was because of political convenience or a genuine deal on a win-win basis.

Contending that it would likely not be all smooth sailing, he said the Opposition also faced tremendous challenges such as getting cooperation from the civil servants.

“If they succeed in overcoming the problems then it would present a challenge to Barisan as the people will then have a real alternative for Government.”

Pointing out that the people had voted for change, he said the Barisan component parties must change and the MCA should re-brand and re-strategise itself to regain the people’s support.

“We can no longer sing the same old tune of development, peace and stability as promises to the people as these are what the people expect from their Government,” he said.

He added that the party could no longer talk about new villages and its success in setting up TAR College and Utar as the Chinese now demanded more from the MCA and the young were alienated from issues like new villages.

MCA, he said, should feel the pulse of the Chinese community to enable it to articulate their fears, resentment and frustrations.

“However, Umno too, must accept the fact that the component parties must be more vocal and seen as championing the cause of the people they represent.

“Umno has to see that championing ethnic causes will not cause instability,” he said, adding that the MCA leadership must be interactive to reach out to the people.

Umno’s Pulai MP Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed agreed with Dr Chua that Umno needed to change.

He was concerned with the present situation in the country and for Umno.

He added that Umno had been rejuvenating itself over the years and the problem was how it should communicate the message that it had changed.

“We have rejuvenated the party but it’s just that we have been attacked from all sides and maybe we have a problem trying to respond in a way people want to hear,” he said.

He said many of the old parties in the region had gone through this painful process.

Giving an example of Indonesia, he said after the fall of Suharto many competing interests claiming to be forces of democracy stymied the political system and stunted the economic development of the country.

“Until today, Indonesia is struggling to find a clear cause in the absence of a shared vision in its direction because of the lack of leadership but Golkar, which is closely aligned to Suharto, defied its critics and still plays a major role in the political scene and has significant grassroots support,” he said.

He also pointed out the recent election victory of the Kuomintang presidential candidate despite the party being thrown out in 2000 when it was seen as promoting a concept of guided democracy despite developing Taiwan as an Asian economic tiger.

“The voters’ experiment with unbridled democracy was costly to the economy of Taiwan,” he said, adding that they now apparently were willing to sacrifice some independence and democracy in return for economic well-being and development by accepting the return of Kuomintang.

Nur Jazlan said there was a need to keep a balance between democracy and economic development by limiting and keeping check of the competing interests to have a clear and firm long-term direction for Malaysia’s development.

“My hope is the new non-Barisan governments, Barisan state governments and Federal Government act responsibly and find a shared goal as our forefathers did and continue their dream,” he said

However, DAP’s Klang MP Charles Santiago said that the election was about “reining in Umno”.

The Malays and Indians voted against Barisan because they felt their lives, families and jobs were not protected, he said.

He listed job security, intake of foreign workers and privatisation that caused higher cost of living as among the reasons for the discontentment among the lower-income Malays and Indians.

Santiago added that it was only fair to allow the Opposition governments to make some mistakes but it must be responsible to the people.

Gerakan secretary-general Datuk Seri Chia Kwang Chye said he would like to believe that there were positive changes, based on the election results, and that the people had done away with race-based politics.

By Jazlan

Posted in: Education, Human Rights, Malaysia Politics, Malaysian Government | Comments(0)

 http://inpursuitofhappiness.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/tibet-myth-reality/

Tibet’s isolation and unique religious practices
have made it the focus of many Western myths.

by Foster Stockwell
22nd March 2008

Western concepts of Tibet embrace more myth than reality. The idea that Tibet is an oppressed nation composed of peaceful Buddhists who never did anyone any harm distorts history. In fact the belief that the Dalai Lama is the leader of world Buddhism rather than being just the leader of one sect among more than 1,700 “Living Buddhas” of this unique Tibetan form of the faith displays a parochial view of world religions.The myth, of course, is an outgrowth of Tibet’s former inaccessibility, which has fostered illusions about this mysterious land in the midst of the Himalayan Mountains — illusions that have been skillfully promoted for political purposes by the Dalai Lama’s advocates. The myth will inevitably die, as all myths do, but until this happens, it would be wise to learn a few useful facts about this area of China.

First, Tibet has been a part of China ever since it was merged into that country in 1239, when the Mongols began creating the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). This was before Marco Polo reached China from Europe and more than two centuries before Columbus sailed to the New World. True, China’s hold on this area sometimes appeared somewhat loose, but neither the Chinese nor many Tibetans have ever denied that Tibet has been a part of China from the Yuan Dynasty to this very day.

The early Tibetans evolved into a number of competing nomadic tribes and developed a religion known as Bon that was led by shamans who conducted rituals that involved the sacrifice of many animals and some humans. These tribes fought battles with each other for better grazing lands, battles in which they killed or made slaves of those they conquered. They roamed far beyond the borders of Tibet into areas of China’s Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, Xinjiang, Gansu, and Qinghai. Eventually one of these tribes, the Tubo, became the most powerful and took control of all Tibet. (The name Tibet comes from Tubo.) During China’s Tang Dynasty (618-907), Emperor Taizong improved relations with the Tubo king, Songtsen Gampo, by giving him one of his daughters, Princess Wenzheng, in marriage. The Tubos, in response to this cementing of relations, developed close fraternal ties with the Tang court, and the two ruling powers regularly exchanged gifts.

The princess arrived in Tibet with an entourage of hundreds of servants, skilled craftspeople, and scribes. She was a Buddhist, as were all of the Tang emperors, and so Buddhism entered Tibet mainly through her influence, only to be suppressed later by resentful Bon shamans. Some years later another Tang princess was married to another Tubo king, again to cement relations between the two rulers.

The fact that the Tibetans and the Chinese had united royal families and engaged actively in trade (Tibetan horses for tea of the Central Plain) didn’t mean an absence of conflict between them. Battles occasionally occurred between Tang and Tubo troops, mostly over territorial issues. At one point in the 750s, the Tubos, taking advantage of a rebellion against the Tangs by other armed groups in China, raced on horseback across China to enter the Tang capital of Chang’an. But, they couldn’t hold the city.

In 838, the Tubo king was assassinated by two pro-Bon ministers, and the Bon religion was re-established as the only acceptable religion in Tibet. Buddhists were widely persecuted and forced into hiding.

Trade between Tibet and the interior areas continued during the Five Dynasties (907-960) and the Song Dynasty (960-1279) that followed the collapse of the Tang, although relations between the two ruling powers were limited. During this time Buddhism revived in Tibet as a result of the Buddhists’ willingness to accommodate some Bon practices. The form of Buddhism that resulted from this merging of the two religions was quite different from that of China and other countries in Southeast Asia, as well as from the form that had been practiced previously in Tibet.

Tibetan Buddhism, often called Lamaism, appealed to the Mongols, who conquered most of Russia, parts of Europe, and all of China under the leadership of Genghis Khan. The Mongols, like the Tibetans, were tribal herders who had a religion of animism similar to Bon.

When Kublai Khan, the first Yuan emperor, appointed administrators to Tibet, he elevated the head of the Tibetan Buddhist Sakya sect to the post of leader of all Buddhists in China, thus giving this monk greater power than any Buddhist had ever held before - and probably since. Needless to say, the appointment irritated the leaders of the other Buddhist sects in Tibet and the much larger group of non-Tibetan Buddhists in China. But, they couldn’t do anything to counter the wishes of the emperor.

The Yuan Dynasty divided Tibet into a series of administrative areas and put these areas under the charge of an imperial preceptor. Furthermore, the Yuan court encouraged the growth of feudal estates in Tibet as a way to maintain control there.

When the Yuan Dynasty collapsed, it was replaced by the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), which wasn’t composed of persons of Mongolian heritage. Tibet then became splintered because the Ming court adopted a policy of granting hereditary titles to many nobles and a policy of divide and rule.

Although the Ming court conferred the honorific title of Desi (ruling lama) to the head of one of Tibet’s most powerful families, the Rinpung family, they also bestowed enough official titles to his subordinates to encourage separatist trends within the local Tibetan society. One of these titles was given to the head of the newly founded Gelugpa sect, better known as the Yellow sect. He later took on the title “Dalai Lama.”

Tibet During the Qing Dynasty
The next and last dynasty, the Qing, came to power in 1644 and lasted until 1911. At the time of its founding, the most prominent Tibetan religious and secular leaders were the fifth Dalai Lama, the fourth Panchen Lama, and Gushri Khan. They formed a delegation that arrived at the Chinese capital, Beijing, in 1652.Before they returned to Tibet the following year, the emperor officially conferred upon Lozang Gyatso (the then Dalai Lama), the honorific title “The Dalai Lama, Buddha of Great Compassion in the West, Leader of the Buddhist Faith Beneath the Sky, Holder of the Vajra.” (Dalai is Mongolian for “ocean”; lama is a Tibetan word that means “guru.”)

The fifth Dalai Lama pledged his allegiance to the Qing government and in return, received enough gold and silver to build 13 new monasteries of the Yellow sect in Tibet. All successive reincarnations of the Dalai Lama have been confirmed by the central government in China, and this has become a historical convention practiced to this very day.

A later Qing emperor suspected the intentions of the seventh Dalai Lama, so he increased the power of the Panchen Lama (also of the Yellow sect). In 1713 the Qing court granted the title “Panchen Erdeni” to the fifth Panchen Lama, thus elevating him to a status similar to that given to the Dalai Lama (Panchen means “great scholar” in Sanskrit, and Erdeni means “treasure” in Manchu.)

The largest part of the Tibetan population (more than 90 percent) at that time was composed of serfs, who were treated harshly by the landlords and ruling monks. All monasteries had large tracts of land as well as a great number of serfs under their control. The ruling monks’ exploitation of these serfs was just as severe as that of the aristocratic landlords.

Serfs had no personal freedom from birth to death. They and their children were given freely as gifts or donations, sold or bartered for goods. They were, in fact, viewed by landlords as “livestock that can speak.” As late as 1943, a high-ranking aristocrat named Tsemon Norbu Wangyal sold 100 serfs to a monk in the Drigung area for only four silver dollars per serf.

If serfs lost their ability to work, the lord confiscated all their property, including livestock and farm tools. If they ran away and subsequently were captured, half their personal belongings were given to the captors while the other half went to the lords for whom they worked. The runaways then were flogged or even condemned to death.

The lords used such inhuman tortures as gouging out eyes, cutting off feet or hands, pushing the condemned person over a cliff, drowning and beheading.Numerous rebellions occurred over the years against this harsh treatment, and in 1347 alone (the seventh year of Yuan Emperor Shundi’s reign), more than 200 serf rebellions occurred in Tibet.

Foreign Aggression
Foreign nations made numerous attempts to invade Tibet and take it away from China. These were repulsed by Chinese troops and Tibetan fighters. The first such invasion took place in 1337 when Mohammed Tugluk of Delhi (in what is now India) sent 100,000 troops into the Himalayan area.During the second half of the 18th century, troops from the Kingdom of Nepal invaded Tibet twice in an attempt to expand Nepal’s territory.

During the 19th century, Britain competed with Russia in pouring large sums of money and many spies into a struggle to see which of the two might eventually occupy and control Tibet. When the British finally invaded Tibet, first in 1888 and again in 1903, the Russians were so involved in conflicts at home that they couldn’t stop the British troops from pushing all the way to Lhasa. And the Qing government, having recently lost the Opium War to the British, did nothing either.

The Tibetans, using spears, arrows, catapults and homemade guns, fought valiantly but to no avail against the invading British army and its big cannons and machine guns. The British withdrew after imposing “peace” terms and before the harsh winter began because they feared the Tibetan resistance would prevent supplies from getting through to the occupying troops, thereby causing them to starve to death.

The British signed a Convention with China in 1906, the second article of which stipulated that the British would no longer interfere with the administration of Tibet and that China had sovereignty over Tibet. But, they conveniently forgot the terms of this agreement when, the very next year, they signed a Convention with Russia that specified British “special interests” in Tibet. It would probably fill a book to detail the many ways the British from that point on tried to take over Tibet and make it a part of their colony of India.

Yet, something needs to be said about the conference held at Simla, India, in 1914. Conference participants included representatives of the new Nationalist government of China that had overthrown the Qing Dynasty just two years before, plus Tibetans, and British-Indians. The British had blackmailed the Chinese into attending by threatening to withdraw their recognition of the new nationalist government and by saying they would work out an agreement with the Tibetans alone if the Chinese didn’t participate.

The Simla Conference failed because the Chinese and the 13th Dalai Lama both opposed the British plan to divide Tibet into two parts (Inner and Outer Tibet). The conference, however, did produce one document that since has caused dissension — a map drawn by the British representative Arthur H. McMahon that never was shown to the Chinese, although it was revealed secretly to the Tibetan delegates.

McMahon’s map showed a new boundary line that included three districts of Tibet — Monyul, Loyul, and Lower Zayul — within the territory of British- India. This so-called “McMahon Line” first became public 23 years later when it appeared in a printed set of British documents related to the conference and other diplomatic matters. The McMahon Line became the basis for India’s failed attempt to take over this part of Tibet in 1962. The British, who made a great show of their desire to have “independence for Tibet” at the Simla Conference, in drawing this map were adding 90,000 square kilometers  (an area three times the size of Belgium) from Tibet’s natural territory to their own Indian colony.

During and after World War II and shortly before Britain’s departure from India, the American Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S., the forerunner of the C.I.A.), operating under Cold War guidelines, joined the British Foreign Office as the instigator of the Tibetan “freedom movement.”

Much of what the O.S.S. did in Tibet remains hidden in secret files at C.I.A headquarters near Washington, D.C., but one of their plots has been widely reported. It involved a smear campaign launched against the regent who had been appointed to act for the young 14th Dalai Lama after the 13th Dalai died in 1933. The regent was hostile to U.S.-British intrigues in Tibet, so the O.S.S. spread rumors about his alleged incompetence and criminal activities. Eventually these charges led to the regent’s arrest and murder in a Tibetan prison. The 14th Dalai Lama’s father subsequently was poisoned because he was a friend and supporter of the regent.

Tibetan Buddhism
Before considering Tibet today, some words should be said about Tibetan Buddhism as a religion. The accommodations it made with Bon resulted in its becoming very different from other forms of Buddhism, particularly from the more common and much larger Chan Buddhism of China (called Zen in Japan). Images found in Tibetan Buddhist temples are much fiercer than those found in other Buddhist temples, and some Tibetan ceremonies that once used human skulls, human skin, and fresh human intestines clearly reflect the animistic elements of Bon.Also, Tibetan Buddhists rely a great deal on prayer wheels, which most other Buddhists scorn. These are mechanical devices with prayers written on them that are constantly turned by water or wind so the forces of nature do the work of sending prayers to heaven.

The reincarnation of Living Buddhas, which is unique to this form of Buddhism, began as early as 1294 with the Karma Kagyu sect, a sub-sect of the Kagyu sect (known as the black hats). It then spread to all of Tibetan Buddhism’s other sects and monasteries, but it didn’t reach the Gelugpa sect (the one that includes the Dalai and Panchen Lama lines) until after 1419.

From the beginning, the system of selecting Living Buddhas was open to abuse because it was easy for clever members of the monk selection committee to manipulate the objects presented to potential child candidates in order to make sure a particular child was chosen. In the case of the fourth Dalai Lama, the child selected was the great-grandson of the Mongolian chief Altan Khan. He was chosen at a time when the Gelugpa sect badly needed the protection of the Altan Khan’s followers because the Gelugpa were being persecuted by the older Tibetan sects, who were jealous of the Yellow sect’s rapid growth.

Tibet Since 1949
In 1949, the Chinese Communists won the revolution and overthrew the Nationalist government. But they didn’t send their army into Tibet until October 1951, after they and Tibetan representatives of the 14th Dalai Lama and 10th Panchen Lama had signed an agreement to liberate Tibet peacefully. The Dalai Lama expressed his support for this 17-point agreement in a telegraphed message to Chairman Mao on October 24, 1951. Three years later the Dalai and Panchen Lamas went together to Beijing to attend the first National People’s Congress at which the Dalai Lama was elected vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and the Panchen Lama was elected a member of that committee. After the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) entered Tibet, they took steps to protect the rights of the serfs but didn’t, at first, try to reorganize Tibetan society along socialist or democratic lines. Yet, the landlords and ruling monks knew that in time, their land would be redistributed, just as the landlords’ property in the rest of China had been confiscated and divided among the peasants.The Tibetan landlords did all they could to frighten the serfs away from associating with the PLA. But, as the serfs increasingly ignored their landlords’ wishes and called on the Communists to eliminate the oppressive system of serfdom, some leaders of the “three great monasteries” (Ganden, Sera, and Drepung) issued a statement, in the latter half of 1956, demanding the feudal system be maintained. At this point, the PLA decided the time had come to confiscate the landlords’ property and redistribute it among the serfs. The landlords and top-level monks retaliated by announcing, in March 1959, the founding of a “Tibet Independent State,” and about 7,000 of them assembled in Lhasa to stage a revolt. Included were more than 170 “Khampa guerrillas” who had been trained overseas by the O.S.S. and air-dropped into Tibet, according to a former C.I.A. agent. The O.S.S. also gave them machine guns, mortars, rifles and ammunition.

The PLA put down the revolt in Lhasa within two days, capturing some 4,000 rebels. The rebellion had the support of the Dalai Lama, but not of the Panchen Lama. After it failed, the Dalai Lama, along with a group of rebel leaders, fled to India.

The most disruptive event of recent years was the “cultural revolution,” which lasted from 1966 to 1976. It turned most of Tibet’s farm and herding areas into giant communes and closed or destroyed many monasteries and temples, just as it did elsewhere in China. At its end, the communes were disbanded and the temples and monasteries were repaired and reopened at government expense.

The idea that most Tibetans are unhappy about what has happened in Tibet and want independence from China is a product manufactured in the West and promoted by the dispossessed landlords who fled to India. Indeed, to believe it is true stretches logic to its breaking point. Who really can believe that a million former serfs - more than 90% of the population - are unhappy about having the shackles of serfdom removed? They now care for their own herds and farmland, marry whomever they wish without first getting their landlord’s permission, aren’t punished for disrespecting these same landlords, own their own homes, attend school, and have relatively modern hospitals, paved roads, airports and modern industries.

An objective measure of this progress is found in the population statistics. The Tibetan population has doubled since 1950, and the average Tibetan’s life span has risen from 36 years at that time to 65 years at present.

Of course some Tibetans are unhappy with their lot, but a little investigation soon shows that they are, for the most part, people from families who lost their landlord privileges. There is plenty of evidence that the former serfs tell a quite different story.

You will find some Tibetans who hate the Hans (the majority nationality of China) and some Hans who hate the Tibetans, a matter of ordinary ethnic prejudice ­ something any American should be able to understand. But, this doesn’t represent a desire for an independent Tibet any more than black- white hostilities in Washington, D.C., Detroit, or Boston represent a desire on the part of most African-Americans to form a separate nation.

Tibetan Culture Today
The final part of the Tibetan myth has to do with Tibetan culture, which the Dalai Lama’s supporters say has been crushed by “the Chinese takeover of Tibet.” Culture is an area that requires great care because it is fraught with biases and self-fulfilling judgments. The growth of television in America, for example, is cited as killing American culture by some and as enhancing it by others.Regarding the field of literature, prior to 1950 Tibetans could point with pride to only a few fine epics that had been passed down through the centuries. Now that serfs can become authors, many new writers are producing works of great quality; persons such as the poet Yedam Tsering and the fiction writers Jampel Gyatso, Tashi Dawa, and Dondru Wangbum.

As for art, Tibet for centuries had produced nothing but repetitious religious designs for temples. Now there are many fine artists, such as Bama Tashi, who has been hailed in both France and Canada as a great modern artist who combines Tibetan religious themes with modern pastoral images.

Tibet now has more than 30 professional song and dance ensembles, Tibetan opera groups, and other theatrical troupes where none existed before 1950.

No, Tibetan culture is not dead; it is flourishing as never before.

Foster Stockwell is an American writer who grew up as the son of missionaries in southwestern China (Chengdu) near Tibet, and has visited China many times in recent years. His several books include Religion in China Today (New World Press) and Mount Huashan (Foreign Languages Press)

http://members.tripod.com/~journeyeast/myth_and_reality.html

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From : Malaysian Minorities’ Human Rights Blogspot

Mahathir is the true enemy of Rakyat. He destroyed all key civil society institutions, destroyed social institutions, jailed human right champions, jailed elected representatives of the people especially the opposition members of parliament, allowed fascism to permeate into his political party (UMNO).

In that process he had his own political party de-registered and opened a fake UMNO in which he had total and absolute control to the extent he rule unopposed and unchallenged without internal party elections for years.

On the commercial front he squandered billions on Putrajaya and Cyberjaya, two towns (that’s what they are, not cities) that are not functional, effective and useful to the citizens.

When his poor financial management of the country collapsed under the 1997 financial contagion, he conveniently blamed the Jews. In his own country he called the Chinese people “Communists” in one of their own party conference -they kept quiet.

Now he is in a hurry to kill off Badawi politically so as to avoid a situation where Anwar may come to power and unravel Mahathir’s sins. If only he can get Najib into power, he may be able to direct a “Operasi Lalang” II which may see Anwar going into ISA detention thus preventing him from being an effective threat to Mahathir.

Who and what can be done about this? Nobody and Nothing. All powers rest in the hands of the future PM who will replace Badawi.

Mahathir is returning to power, only this time via someone else. Anwar is going back to jail. The rakyat will continue to be “occupied” by these rapacious colonist.

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To:

malaysiafm@yahoogroups.co.uk

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Abolish ISA Movement 12th GENERAL ELECTION DEMANDS (GMI)

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The imperfect storm

CNN’s special investigative report, “Lifting the Veil,” is clear about what happens to women where the Taliban, Islam’s fundamentalist sect, seeks to be — pretends to be — the real, the only, expression of Islam. In these places, women are imprisoned in their homes, allowed in public only with a man or at least heavily shrouded, forbidden to drive or travel alone, left uneducated, married off as children and abandoned on the streets when widowed. It’s a bleak, desperate situation. “God’s will,” they say — as have so many before them.

In theocratic governments, religions other than the state religions exist only by virtue of the fiat of the state and the state is devoted to maintaining the laws of the religion that underlies it. Too bad for everyone else. Like women.

Absolutism is the old wind.

Inclusiveness is the new wind.

And this new wind is blowing, as well. Benizar Bhutto, although a most religious woman, was also the proponent of a secular democratic government. In the secular state, all religions enjoy equal protection under the law. All people are safe from the excesses of religion. This is the wind of justice and equality. And it is equally religious as well as comfortably secular.

This is the wind that comes with those who believe that God created all people with human rights, that God calls women, as well as men, to go on doing God’s will, to continue co-creating the universe, to be moral agents. To vote, to minister, to teach, to think, to lead.

As a result, women everywhere, propelled by religion, are calling on both their religions and their governments to realize that as long as women can be suppressed, ignored, discriminated against, used, abused and made invisible — all in the name of God — humanity is only half human, government is suspect and religion itself is in danger of betraying itself.

Until the women’s agenda is addressed, until things change for women, until the Benizar Bhuttos, the Hillary Clintons, and the Bishop Kathryn Jeffers-Shorri’s of the world, leaders all, are the norm, not the exception, until domination and female invisibility stops being blamed on God, oppression will be the norm. Then nothing may change for women, true, but nothing will change for the rest of the world either. The fact is that whether they realize it or not, in the end, oppressors limit themselves as much as they limit those they oppress.

From where I stand, it seems clear that religions that only pretend to be religions ride on the past wind. Just look around you at all the women’s groups rising up all over the world. In the face of religious fundamentalism, all of them — like Benizar Bhutto — pay the price, of course. But, has anyone noticed, these groups of women leaders are not going away.

Be not mistaken: There is clearly another wind blowing that no number, no kind, of assassinations can quell.

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Madam Cardinal.If Benedict

Submitted by sevenup on February 11, 2008 - 9:42am.

Madam Cardinal.If Benedict were to allow the ordination of women tomorrow would women be happy having achieved a landmark for women? Would it be a landmark for Catholicism? or would it give women more power? A woman could be president of the US, or Speaker of the house then she could definitely run a diocese or the entire church. For the present the avenue toward the power that is sought may not be through the priesthood. A lay person can be a cardinal and that may be what happens. How about an entire consultative body that would have the status of the college of cardinals made up entirely of women?

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Sr. Chittister has painted

Submitted by jolenecasa on January 18, 2008 - 6:45am.

Sr. Chittister has painted us a portrait of Benazir Bhutto which is compelling: a glamorous, Western-educated scion of a great South Asian political dynasty who represented the best hope for women and the poor against the dark forces of fundamentalism. She’s portrayed as everything we in the west would like a Muslim leader to be. From this position is launched the standard dark ages vs. enlightenment essay- a liberal tradition going all the way back to Voltaire.

But what we’re not being told here is that Ms. Bhutto was apparently the victim of Islamist militant groups that she allowed to flourish under her administrations in the 1980s and 1990s. It was under Ms. Bhutto’s watch that the Pakistani intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, first installed the Taliban in Afghanistan. It was also at that time that hundreds of young Islamic militants were recruited from the madrassas to do the agency’s dirty work in Indian Kashmir. Everyone now knows how disastrous the rule of the Taliban turned out to be in Afghanistan, how brutally it subjugated women, created Al Qaeda and turned Kashmir into a Jihadist playground. For years, during her second tenure as PM, Bhutto lied brazenly to Washington about the extent to which Pakistan, with her approval, was covertly arming and funding the Taliban and Kashmir’s radicals. As Bhutto admitted in a 2002 interview: “Once I gave the go-ahead that they should get the money, I don’t know how much money they were ultimately given … I know it was a lot. It was just carte blanche.”

To the Bhutto goverment, women’s rights were on the back burner, on the front burner was their first objective: to keep a newly liberated Afghanistan yoked to Pakistan and out of India’s orbit. Out of this relationship would flow the riches of a Pakistan-controlled trucking industry circumventing Kabul – a modern Silk Road trade incorporating the markets of Central Asia – the never realized gas pipeline from Turkmenistan, and training camps, off the Pakistan reservation, for fighters deployed to Kashmir. Bhutto had an economic and political vision for Pakistan, one that depended largely on creating a compliant client state next door. Call it naivety, stupidity or bad luck, it all spun out of control and eventually resulted in Al Qaeda – now firmly interwoven with the Taliban which would plot from the start, her political demise.

But the primary opposition to her rule within Pakistan is the corruption and looting of the national treasury by her immediate family. Surely most NCR readers trust the reportage of The New York Times (being reliably liberal, secular, anti-catholic and anti-Bush) Before Bhuttomania clouded everyone’s judgement, the New York Times on Jan 9, 1998 published a special report entitled “Bhutto Clan Leaves Trail of Corruption in Pakistan” and House of Graft: Tracing the Bhutto Millions: A Special Report. This investigation outlines the Pakistani government’s case against her which is that more than $100 million was stolen from the country and secreted in foreign bank accounts and properties controlled by Bhutto’s family. Because she declared herself her party’s president for life and controlled all decisions it is difficult to get an answer to these very serious charges. She refused to discuss any of the specific deals outlined in the documents, and did not explain how her husband, (a dilettante Polo player who became known to all Pakistanis as “Mr. 10 Percent” because of his taste for massive bribes) had paid for his property and jewelry. Lamenting what she described as “the irreparable damage done to my standing in the world” by the corruption inquiry, she said her family had inherited wealth, despite their wealth not even coming close the scale implied by the huge bank deposits and luxury properties overseas.

The point of all this is not to disparage the memory of Ms. Bhutto but to expose the first intrinsic flaw in this month’s essay: The assertion that there is a neat divide between (corrupt) “Absolutism” and (clean) “Inclusiveness.” This is a facile position which the evidence doesn’t support. Bhutto’s party was both broadly inclusive and hopelessly corrupt.

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Jolenecasa, Obviously,

Submitted by butterfly on February 6, 2008 - 9:15am.

Jolenecasa,
Obviously, Bhutto had many supporters, and religious extremist terrorist did her in, not due to anything such as you write, but due to the fact she is a woman and she embodied the spirit of those in her country who were against religious extremism. Given a choice between a leadership of a Taliban-like regime, Pakistan stood up and said with the voice of their female leader that they will not tolerate them and, in essence said, ‘we will not wear a burka, we will not bow down to the extremes, but will for our country a democracy with rights for women and men.’

This is the main point that I understood from Sr. Joan’s writing: “Until the women’s agenda is addressed, until things change for women, until the Benizar Bhuttos, the Hillary Clintons, and the Bishop Kathryn Jeffers-Shorri’s of the world, leaders all, are the norm, not the exception, until domination and female invisibility stops being blamed on God, oppression will be the norm.”

You said, “But the primary opposition to her rule within Pakistan is the corruption and looting of the national treasury by her immediate family.”

The primary opposition to her rule were men who belive women should wear burkas, women should not have any rights, women should not be educated, women should shut up and be enslaved or they will be killed.

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Jolenecasa, I appreciated

Submitted by starlight on February 2, 2008 - 4:42pm.

Jolenecasa, I appreciated reading the above. I have to say that I agree with your position about the “neat divide”. It is difficult to present a “point of view” and not seem one-sided. Most are aware that there are “two sides of the story” and shades of gray everywhere. I’m certain Ms. Bhutto discovered this when she tried to rule Pakistan years ago. I would like to think she was sincere in her desire to benefit her people, but I am sure corruption was overwhelming and rampant, as it has been in that area (”the way business is done”—do I agree with it? No.) for many years, and continues to be.

I happen to know very wealthy people in the United States who have had much easier access to the “Powers That Be” in Rome (and elsewhere) than ordinary, everyday citizens. I remember being astounded, many, many years ago, when my wealthy and kindly Aunt mentioned travelling to Rome to get her daughter’s annulment(s) “taken care of”. This was under the “old rules” of the Church. Why? because people who have lots of money and “donate” huge sums to Church-related charities(for which they get a tax write-off.) do enjoy certain privilege. It’s a “fact of life” in our culture, as well. I’m sure Benezir Bhutto observed this while she was at Harvard, so she probably saw little awry with the way her Family managed its affairs.

The personal lives of “large contributors” are no different than ours, nor their personal failings and disappointments, yet they are fawned upon. They probably, at times,(don’t count on this–people get used to and feel “entitled” to certain treatment) may not even realize that they have a certain power and influence with those who require their charity, or that others could not have access to the same. They simply “move in certain circles” where things are easier, and accomplished more quickly. I am, of course, talking about people who have millions to contribute.

Power and money, let’s face it, wield disproportionate influence everywhere–Church AND State. So it has been for thousands of years. As sophisticated a form of Democracy as we think we have, we are dealing with issues of corruption in our own Government at the moment. I have no wish to argue this point on one side or the other–corruption just “is”, sad to say, and it is hard to root out completely, as much as one would wish to, and continue the effort for ” a level playing field” for all…People are human, and they are unfortunately influenced by the material, even if it is for a “good end”. Is it truly “Christian”? No. But it has taken our civilizations thousands of years to even realize that corruption, bribes, etc. are even questionable.

My point: “corruption” is “here, and now”, not just in Pakistan, and not just with the Bhuttos.

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Written by Anti Relon, February 29, 2008 | 20:43:50
From BBC 29.2.2008
Hope our politicans read this piece on Indonesia.Indonesia’s foreign policy is much more focused on its economic and political role in South East Asia, and even its links with Africa, than with the Middle East.

The country’s role in global peace and security comes 18th on its list of foreign policy objectives. Islam never gets a mention at all.

The reason is that the government - unlike some of its voters - does not like to see things in terms of religion.

Full report below

Indonesia: Muslim bridge-builder?
Israel’s deputy foreign minister has called on Indonesia to play a more active role in the Middle East. The BBC’s Lucy Williamson in Jakarta asks whether the government will listen.

This month, a letter appeared in Indonesia’s main English-language newspaper.

It was signed by Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majalli Whbee and it called on Indonesia to expand its role in the Middle East, and to engage more with the challenges facing the Muslim world.

This might come as something of a surprise, given that Indonesia has no diplomatic relations with Israel.

It also happens to be the world’s most populous Muslim country, is a member of Opec and enjoys good relations with Iran and Syria.

But Indonesia is the kind of Muslim country many western nations and their allies feel comfortable with - it is democratic, pluralist, and has had real success in tackling Islamic extremism.

No wonder some people see it as an ideal candidate to bridge the gaps between the Muslim world and the West.

To some extent, it is already involved in that dialogue. Indonesia took part in last year’s Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, and is working on capacity-building programmes for the Palestinians.

But given its size and political spread, could it do more? Should it have a more prominent role in issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or Iran’s nuclear programme?

‘Active neutrality’

One of those who thinks it should is Wimar Witoelar, a former Indonesian presidential spokesman. He believes Jakarta is well-placed to talk to countries like Iran, and that the US should be asking for its help.

Indonesia, he says, has a made a virtue out of being “actively neutral” - a policy first introduced by Sukarno, the country’s first president.

“At that time,” says Witoelar, “it applied to communism and the West; now it applies equally to Muslim countries and the West.”

There is support too from the Indonesian public for a more assertive role, particularly in the Middle East.

A straw poll on the streets of Jakarta found that more than half the people we talked to wanted Indonesia to support the Palestinians - with money or even troops - “because they are Muslims”.

Religious identity in Indonesia is growing - the number of people wearing the headscarf has been rising for decades.

And while most Indonesians are proud of their pluralist democracy, they also feel a personal, emotional connection to the situations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian Territories.

But is domestic desire for a greater role for Indonesia mirrored among Muslims in Pakistan, or Kosovo, or Egypt?

Broadly, the answer appears to be no.

Most Muslim countries around the world still look to the Middle East for leadership.

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By : Azly Rahman

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labour - not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. - Albert Einstein in ‘Why Socialism?’ (1949)What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea. - Mohandas K GandhiWill Queen Elizabeth II of England pay for the 150-year suffering of Indian Malaysians? How would reparations be addressed in an age in which we are still mystified by newer forms of colonialism - the English Premier League, Malaysian Eton-clones, Oxbridge education, and British rock musicians such as the guitarist-astrophysicist Dr Brian May of the better-than-the-Beatles rock group Queen (and recently appointed chancellor of a Liverpool university)?Who in British Malaya collaborated with the British East India company in facilitating the globalised system of indentured slavery? Will the current government now pay attention to the 50-year problems of Indian Malaysians? We need to untangle this ideological mess and listen to the pulse of the nation. We are hyperventilating from the ills of a 50-year indentured self-designed pathological system of discriminatory servitude of the mind and body, fashioned after the style of colonialism. We need a crash course in the history of reparation, slavery, and the declaration universal human rights. We need to understand the style of British colonialism as it collaborated with the local power elites of any colony it buried its tentacles in and sucked dry the blood, sweat and tears of the natives it dehumanised and sub-humanised. We need to calculate how much the imperialists and the local chieftains gained from the trafficking of human labour - across time and space and throughout history. In short, we need to educate ourselves on the anatomy, chemistry, anthropology and post-structurality of old and newer forms of imperialism. British imperialism has successfully structured a profitable system of the servitude of the body, mind and soul and has transferred this ideology onto the natives wishing to be “more British than their brown skins can handle”. We need to encourage our children to read about the system of indentured slavery - of the kangchu and kangani and how the Malays were also relegated to becoming ‘reluctant’ producers of the colonial economy. The Malays’ reluctance led to the British designation “lazy native”. We need to also learn from the Orang Asli and the natives of each state and how their philosophy of developmentalism is more advanced that the programmes prescribed under the successive five-year Malaysia Plans. A philosophy of development that respects and is symbiotic with Nature is certainly more appropriate for cultural dignity that the one to which we have been subjected; one that exploits human beings and destroys the environment under the guise of ‘progress’. Caged construction Our history lessons mask the larger issue of traditional, modern and corporate control of the means of production of Malaya. We see the issue of race being played up from time immemorial; issue of convenience and necessity to the sustenance of the status quo and the proliferation of modern local oligopoly and plutocracy. Our history classes have failed our generation that is in need of the bigger picture; ones that will allow us to see what is outside of our caged construction of historicising. Our historians, from the court propagandist Tun Sri Lanang to our modern historians written under the mental surveillance of the ruling parties, have not been true to the demand of the production of knowledge based on social and humanistic dimensions of factualising historical accounts. We need to study the political-economy of the rubber and canning industry and the relationship between the British and the American empire as industrialisation began to take off. The Indians in Malaysia have all the right to ask for reparation and even most importantly they have the rights as rightful citizens of Malaysia to demand for equality and equal opportunity as such accorded to the ‘bumiputera’. Every Malaysian must be given such rights. Failure to do so we will all be guilty of practising neo-colonialism and we will one day be faced with similar issue of reparation; this time marginalised Malaysians against the independent government of Malaysia. How are we going to peacefully correct the imbalances if we do not learn from the history of international slavery, labour migration and human labour trafficking that, in the case of Hindraf, involved millions of Tamils from Tamil Nadu province? I once wrote a piece calling for all of us to help the least privileged of our fellow Malaysians - the Indians. The piece called for the leaders to stop fighting and to help each other as well. I wrote a passage on the need to help each other in the spirit of selflessness and collaboration: “It is time for the other races to engage in serious and sincere gotong-royong to help the poorest of the poor among the Indians. It is time that we become possessed with a new spirit of multi-cultural marhaenism. The great Indonesian leader Ahmed Soekarno popularised the concept of marhaenism as an antidote to the ideological battle against materialism, colonialism, dependency and imperialism. The thought that the top 10 percent of the richest Malaysians are earning more than 20 times compared to the 90 percent of the population is terrifying. What has become of this nation that promised a just distribution of wealth at the onset of Independence?” Not a Hindu problem Now we have a better scenario - we have the rights group that is beginning to pull together,-close ranks and demand for their basic human rights that have been denied. Not only their rights to be accorded places of worship and economic justice, but also the rights to look at history and ourselves and interrogate what actually happened and who actually was responsible for the misery, desolation and sustained abject poverty to which they have been subjected. It is not a Hindu problem - it is universal problem that cuts across race and religion. If we believe in what religion has taught us about human dignity and the brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity, we will all be speaking in one voice rallying for those who demand for their rights to live with dignity. In Hindraf, I believe there are Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Catholics, atheists, Buddhists, Sikhs, Bahais, Jains, etc rallying for the cause. In other words there are human beings speaking up for peace and social justice. It is the right of every Malaysian to lend support to their demands. We have let the Indians in Malaysia suffer for too long. We ought to have a programme of affirmative action in place. We ought to have a sound programme for alleviation of poverty for the Indians and radically improve their conditions through political action, education and cultural preservation. We ought to extract the enabling aspects of culture though and perhaps reconstruct the our understanding of the relationship between culture and human progress. But can the current political paradigm engineer a solution to the problems of the Malaysian Indians, as long as politics - after 50 years - is still British colonialist-imperialist-oppressive in nature? We have evolved into a sophisticated politically racist nation, hiding our discriminatory policies with the use of language that rationalises what the British imperialists brutally did in the open. But our arguments cannot hold water any loner. Things are falling apart - deconstructed. The waves of demands, the frequency of rallies and the excavating of issues drawn from the archaeology of our fossilised arrogant knowledge - all these are symptoms of deconstructionism in our body politics. It is like the violent vomit of a rehabilitating cocaine addict undergoing treatment in a Buddhist monastery somewhere in northern Thailand. We cannot continue to alienate each other through arguments on a ‘social contract’ that is alien from perhaps what Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote about some 300 years ago - a philosophy that inspired the founding of America, a nation of immigrants constantly struggling (albeit imperfectly) to meet the standards requirements of equality, equity and equal opportunity especially in education. How do we come together, as Malaysians, as neo-bumiputeras free from false political-economic and ideological dichotomies of Malays versus non-Malays, bumi versus non-bumi and craft a better way of looking at our political, economic, social, cultural, psychological and spiritual destiny - so that we may continue to survive as a species for the next 50 years? As a privileged Malaysian whose mother tongue is the Malay language and as one designated as a bumiputera, I want to see the false dichotomies destroyed and a new sense of social order emerging, based on a more just form of linguistic play designed as a new Merdeka game plan. Think Malaysian - we do not have anything to lose except our mental chains. We have a lot to gain in seeing the oppressed be freed from the burden of history; one that is based on the march of materialism. We are essentially social beings, as Einstein would emphasise. Our economic design must address the socialism of existence. Let us restructure of policies to help the Indian Malaysians - they are our lawful citizens speaking up for their fundamental rights. Let us help restructure the lives of the poor before they restructure the lives of the rich.

Posted by DR. AZLY RAHMAN at 10:57 PM  

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