BN’S RATIONALE ABSURD
US first lady Michelle Obama (right) and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hand Ambiga the Secretary of State’s Award for International Women of Courage, on 11 March 2009
Ambiga Sreenevasan is a colossus of intellect and integrity in the Malaysian legal fraternity. Ask any lawyer and they will tell you. Here is what Wikipedia has to say:
Dato’ Ambiga Sreenevasan (born 1956) is a Malaysian lawyer who served as the Malaysian Bar chairlady from 2007 to 2009.
In March 2009, she became one of the eight recipients for the 2009 Secretary of State’s Award for International Women of Courage Awards. In the ceremony, the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commented, “… Ambiga Sreenevasan, has a remarkable record of accomplishment in Malaysia. She has pursued judicial reform and good governance, she has stood up for religious tolerance, and she has been a resolute advocate of women’s equality and their full political participation. She is someone who is not only working in her own country, but whose influence is felt beyond the borders of Malaysia. And it is a great honor to recognize her and invite her to the podium.”
References: “Remarks by Clinton on International Women of Courage Awards”. America.gov. United States. 11 March. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
What scares me? Several things. Let me start with what is probably the worst of my fears. The fear of closed spaces, known as claustrophobia. When I see a coffin, it’s not the fear of dying which scares me, it’s the fear of being encased in it. One look at an MRI machine and I am out of the room like a shot. I have often contemplated on this fear and found that it stems from my childhood when I watched The Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas’ amazing story about this guy who escaped from prison in a coffin thrown into the sea, and then managed to break free. He went back and destroyed all those who had conspired to put him away, knowing he was innocent. It’s possibly one of the most exciting revenge tales ever, one that the Mahatma would not have approved of, but for young, impressionistic me it was an iconic story of retribution. I loved it. No emotion is more sweeping in its impact as vendetta. It rushes the adrenaline in your blood watching a good man avenge himself against the wicked.
What else scares me? Fear of meeting other people’s expectations. I remember dropping out of college for that reason. I do what I do in my life in search of that amazing but ephemeral O moment: A moment of extreme joy or incredible bliss. That’s my Holy Grail. Relationships that work best for me are those where neither person needs to climb Mount Everest to impress the other. For that’s exactly when fakery steps in, people begin to live out a lie. Any relationship withers under stress. I am happiest being me. In fact, I find solitude a charming companion even if I may not have enough time for her. So are women. They are smart, clever, beautiful, charming and can hunt down any man with the ease of a panther chasing a limping elk. Our horns are too big, our ego gets in the way. We are hapless when trapped in the headlights by a beautiful woman who has perfected the art of looking distraught. I know I am a fool but then, I never pretend otherwise. I loved Elvis sing A Fool Such as I.
What else is scary? The fear of extinction, I guess. The kind of men I liked and admired are about to disappear forever. The normal, easy, fun loving guy with a glint in his eyes when he sees a lovely woman is now quietly walking into the sunset. You won’t get a Marlon Brando again. Or a Richard Burton. Or even a Dylan Thomas. Last week New York became the sixth US State to allow gay marriages. The male bra is Japan’s hottest selling new male accessory. Nearer home, a racket in Indore was busted last week where little girls are being surgically corrected at birth by giving them male genitals. Every young tourist to Thailand boasts of their sexual encounters with lady boys. Every male movie star today aspires to be a gay icon since John wore his yellow swimming trunks low and won so many male hearts in Dostana. Unfortunately, I grew up in a different era when one was seriously offended by another man’s attention. Now it’s the in thing. There are guys, popular youth icons who swing every which way like Tarzan, king of the apes. I feel like a fashion discard. This is not a world I comprehend. As a heterosexual male with no metrosexual inclinations, I feel banished by the new sexual revolution. But no, there’s no way I am going to wear foundation and lip gloss and drink pink gin with mascara wearing men with waxed armpits. I would rather sleep with a Boa constrictor.
Apart from these, I have the usual phobias. Like arachibutyrophobia, bromidrophobia, cyprianophobia, didaskaleinophobia, eisoptrophobia, febriphobia, gamophobia (even though I have married more than once), hellenologophobia, ithyphallophobia, Jaipalophobia (it comes from expecting Jaipal Reddy to keep increasing fuel prices every few weeks), kyphophobia, ligyrophobia, molysmophobia, nyctohlophobia, ouranophobia, pocrescophobia, rhytiphobia, stenophobia, trypanophobia, uranophobia, verminophobia, wiccaphobia, xerophobia, yamophobia, zelophobia. In short, I have them all from A to Z. Worried? Not me. I love them all. My fears define me.
On the surface, all seems calm in Syria's second city.
It is a strange thing indeed but graffiti art on the walls do tell a lot about the signs of the times.
About 10 days to a week before the 12th General Election on 8th March 2008, someone had sprayed graffiti on the walls of buildings located near Central Market and Masjid Jamek LRT in Kuala Lumpur. Two significant words on these walls were 'Mahathirism' and 'ABU'.
Everyone understands what Mahathirism is all about as Mahathir had governed our country for 22 years but ABU is just a Malay name and left many wondering who this Malay guy was and what was his role in the polls.
It was only later that it dawned on many that ABU is the acronym for 'Anyone But UMNO' and its Bahasa Malaysia version is 'Asalkan Bukan UMNO' which translated into English means 'As Long As It's Not UMNO'.
Why should we? We are only just starting to warm our seat
Now, no one knows when the 13th General Election will be held although there's a joke making its rounds that even Prime Minister Najib Razak does not know as he needs to consult the First Lady Of Malaysia, Rosmah Mansor, first. And foremost.
Some of thiose who attended the engagement party of 'first daughter' Nooryana Najib in Seri Perdana recently tell of Rosmah's response when asked by eager guests whether the GE would be in July, "Why should we? We are only just starting to warm our seat."
That must surely send a tremor of fear down the spine of many citizens. But fortunately, the latest sign from Najib just last night when asked by a group of young professionals was, "We are still holding the mandate now, it can be held soon. But it must be held before March 2013 when the mandate for us expires."
So on and on, the guessing continues even as investors' grousing about the uncertainty grows louder. Becauses the chances are narrow between BN and Pakatan, many of the rich and powerful prefer to wait for the dust to settle before they bring in the 'real' money.
July to January forecast
Still, as Najib has said speculating about the polls date is the greatest national past-time, so let us take a month-by-month look to see when GE-13 will most likely be held:First of all, the immediate month ahead, which is July. This is actually the best month for Najib to hold the polls as he needs to get it over and done with quickly before anymore tricky issues such another silly RM1.8 million Facebook factual foul-up crops up. And more importantly before the people wake-up to the fact that all his alphabet-soup megabucks projects have so far been hot air or only benefitting the BN-cronies.
His birthday on 23rd July also happens to be a weekend. It may sound trite but he can use his birthday to campaign by requesting the people to give him a birthday gift he will never forget! But he needs to be careful too. After all which is more unfrogettable - a BN win or a Pakatan victory.
August being the Muslim fasting month of Ramadhan is a sure indicator that the polls will not be held this month.
September may be a possibility as the government would have already doled out lots of goodies to the Malays during Ramadhan, plus the highlights of a so-called harmonious Merdeka campaign splashed across the papers for all to see, but its effect may be limited only to the gullible. Even so, BN can achieve victory due to the feel-good factor and they will surely capitalise on the short memory of Malaysian voters.
The whole month of October is also a possibility as the polls can be called after the 'goodies' are announced in the Budget Presentation in the early part of the month. Note the word 'announced'. Whether the deals materialise or not is a different matter. Nevertheless, October after the Budget is now the month most favoured by GE punters.
From 9th November to 9th December, polls will definitely not be held. The Prime Minister tends to travel overseas extensively in November. This happened in year 2009 and year 2010 and it will be the same this year. This is his good and so-called lucky month for travel. So, Malaysian taxpayers had better brace for another huge bill from the lavish first couple after the government revealed on Monday their travelling expenses for the first 6 months of this year alone exceeded RM5 million!
Watch out the Dragon Rises From The Sea
There is also possibility that the general election will be held after 9th December and in January 2012. If next year, it will definitely be before the Chinese Lunar New Year, which will be the year of the Water Dragon.2012 per the Chinese Almanac is also known as the Dragon Rises From The Sea, a phenomenon that herald disaster with a capital D. Remember the movie '2012'?
Those who had punted on a July GE need not be disappointed. For the BN, its gives them more time to enjoy their powers. For the Pakatan, it gives them more time to reinforce the awareness and need for free and fair elections.
Who knows, if Bersih 2.0 does well, and the people like it and the demand for the sense of social justice it brings increases, then Bersih 3.0 may even be rolled ou
Traffic and tourists might not be bustling along Aleppo's ancient thoroughfares in the abundance they once did, but to a casual observer there appears little sign that the turmoil of Syria's four-month old uprising has made much of an impact on its largest city.But talk to shopkeepers, hotel managers and traders in Aleppo's famous covered souk and one soon finds grumblings of dissent.
For in the Syrian capital of commerce, no one is making money anymore, threatening to undermine the key pillar of a long established pact between Aleppo's Sunni merchant class and the imposed stability of the Alawite-led regime.
"Where are you, Halab?" chanted thousands of protestors, using the city's Arabic name, exasperated by Aleppo's conspicuous quiet while streets in towns and cities across the country filled with demonstrators every Friday since mid-March.
The answer is an interlocking mix of political, religious and economic interests which the regime has been largely successful in co-opting and which have kept Aleppo quiet, but which appear, as the uprising enters its fourth month, to be coming increasingly unstuck, threatening what analysts describe as the regime's Achilles heel.
Sitting at the end of the Silk Road, the ancient trading route between Asia and the Mediterranean, Aleppo is one of the oldest centres of commerce in the world."If Aleppo were to rise up, it would mean that one of the metrics by which the West is charting the fall of the Assad regime would have been met," said Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
A student at Aleppo University was beaten to death by security forces during a pro-democracy demonstration on June 17, activists said - the first death of a protester there since the uprising began and a grim example of the length the regime will go to impose its stability on the country's largest city.
Mohammed el-Ektaa was among a small group of students who held protests on the university campus before being attacked by secret police and pro-Assad thugs, known as shabiha, said a member of the Syrian
Revolution Co-ordinators' Union (SRCU), an activist network in the city.
Mohammed's body was returned to his family by secret police shortly after the attack. Another student was also beaten and arrested during the protests, said the SRCU, while secret police broke into student dormitories making arbitrary arrests. The SRCU member said he had seen one student jump from his third floor room to avoid being arrested.
Students have been at the vanguard of attempts to bring Syria's nationwide protests against the Assad family's 41-year-dictatorship to Aleppo, a city of some four million, one of the largest in the Levant.
'Security touring the mosques'
Though predominantly Sunni Muslim, increasingly religiously conservative and - during the bloodiest days of Iraq’s civil war - a producer of the murky jihadist preacher known as Abu Qaqa, who called for the slaughter of Americans in Iraq, Aleppo's mosques have long been controlled by the secret police of the Alawite-led regime, an offshoot of Shia Islam.
Since its military crushed an armed rebellion in Aleppo led by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1980, the regime uses the state-run ministry of religious endowments to appoint Aleppo's preachers, ensuring worshippers at Friday prayers never again hear the call to turn against their own rulers.
Though an advocate of violent jihad in the name of Islam, Abu Qaqa, a Kurd, was allowed to preach in his Aleppo mosque unhindered by the secret police, until he was gunned down in September 2007 after reports surfaced he had delivered a list of Sunni extremists to state intelligence.
Today, however, the murky relationship between the regime and Aleppo's preachers is being challenged by a message less easily drowned out in violence.
"The people are becoming angrier every week and the government is not giving much, just some promises. Every Friday I feel some worshippers want to demonstrate but I call on them to be quiet," said a prominent Muslim scholar who preaches at one of Aleppo's largest mosques, asking to remain anonymous fearing regime reprisals.
"To see hundreds of students demonstrating, even if they are small demonstrations, is symbolic: They are the young and educated. Some sheikhs [preachers] told me they cannot control their people any more and security men are touring around the mosques every Friday. It's only a matter of weeks and Aleppo will see big demonstrations."
A second, even more significant pillar of the regime's control over Aleppo now also appears to be beginning to crumble as well: the economy.
Specialising in textiles and industry, modern Aleppo's economy is largely shaped by its access to, and competition with, the vast market of Turkey, just 50km north.
Flood of Turkish imports
For decades Aleppo's original Sunnis merchant families did very well trading with their co-religionists in Turkey while maintaining stability in the city as part of a deal with the Alawite-led regime of Damascus.
But from 2004, Aleppo's industries have been hit hard by a flood of imports from Turkey following a free-trade agreement between the two nations, built on Bashar al-Assad's personal friendship with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister.
Today, however, Erdogan accuses President Assad's regime of "savagery" against its own people, leading regional calls for the regime to end its brutal crackdown.
"The regime has bribed a lot of Sunni business interests, leaving them to do business while being protected by the security apparatus," said Imad Salamey, assistant professor of political science at the Lebanese American University (LAU) and an expert on Syrian affairs.
"But eventually the bourgeois will come to feel the regime can no longer provide them with economic stability and that business as usual is no longer viable. They will no longer feel committed to the existing system. I think it’s a matter of time."
In a speech at Damascus University on June 20, Assad acknowledged that the greatest challenge facing his regime as it attempts to crush the uprising "is the weakness or collapse of the Syrian economy."
"Aleppo was one of the areas that suffered extensively from the regime's bloody crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, so the fear factor still remains," Tabler, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said.
"When added to the interests of the city's merchants and traders, it's not surprising protestors have not come out in force. But as the protests have moved into Aleppo's hinterland, this will put the fear factor to the test."
As well as protests in Aleppo University, June 17 also saw pro-democracy protests in the Aleppo neighbourhoods of Salahedeen and Seif al-Dawali. It was the second Friday of protests in Seif al-Dawali.
"Although it is slowly, it is very important to see Aleppo joining the uprising," an opposition leader in the city said.
In the villages north of Aleppo, a witness estimated around 5,000 protesters had turned out across Tal Rifaat, Hreitan, Mareaa and Aazaz. In Hreitan protesters called on local residents to join them in the streets, chanting: "The one who not participate has no conscience."
A week before, on June 10, the first protests had spread from Hreitan, 10km north of Aleppo, to Akhtareen, 13km northeast of the city, where several thousand gathered to call for freedom and support Jisr al-Shughour, which is less than 100km west of Aleppo.
Massive layoffs imminent
Sitting behind his desk in a lavishly decorated office, a photograph of President Assad hanging on the wall, a 45-year-old Sunni businessman from Aleppo's Old City cautioned that the economic consequences of the crisis in Syria could soon fuel further protests.
"Today I am losing money as no one wants to buy garments and textile. Syrians are buying bread and food stuffs as they are worried about the future. I am seriously considering having to sack or give unpaid vacation to a third of my workforce," he said.
Late last month Assad had met a delegation of Aleppo business leaders, said the textile factory owner. The businessmen had urged Assad to end the crisis in Syria swiftly to avoid massive layoffs.
"The government promised to decrease fuel and electricity prices, but this is not enough for us," said the textile factory owner.
"The government looks to us as their partners who should help them in this crisis. But if the situation continues, Aleppo will feel the economic consequences and we will see demonstrations in the city."
In April, the International Monetary Fund lowered Syria's economic growth rate this year from 5.5 per cent to three per cent. The International Institute of Finance, an association of major global banks, paints an even bleaker picture, projecting Syria's GDP could contract by as much as three per cent in fiscal 2011.
Finally, the political pact that kept Aleppo, and much of Syria's population, bound to the regime for decades appears also to be coming unstuck in the demands and protests of the students who have led the opposition in the city.
Abdul Qader, 22, a student at Aleppo University's Faculty of Arts is one of those.
"During the last four decades, the Baathists were telling us that the government gives us, the citizens, everything for free or with a subsidised price and for that reason we should be silent," he said. "But now we get no free services and no bread so we want freedom."
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