For it is these little lies and betrayals that make a big difference to one’s credibility and to the quality of a relationship, whether personal or professional. The bigger lies that have the potential of blowing up in the face could remain unknown and hidden forever, thus not really causing any harm. The smaller lies that you unthinkingly and carelessly blurt out, not just get caught all the time, but also lay the foundation of how dependable or trustworthy a person or relationship is!
It was Adolf Hitler who coined the expression “Big Lie”, distinguishing it from the small lies. He used the Big Lie as a propaganda technique. As he said inMein Kampf, “… in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods…”
This is the principle adopted today by marketing agencies and propaganda machines when they furnish us with Big Lies on a regular basis with the help of mass media. However, the big lie is not something most of us would be familiar with in our daily lives. Sure, all of us would have indulged in some falsehood or the other sometime in life, but these are the small, everyday lies that either help us through a situation, or may have become a chronic habit!
Some people tell a small lie to avoid confrontation; others do so to avoid hurting someone, or so as not to rock the boat in a relationship. Some may lie to live up to fantasies they have about themselves, such as the size of their bungalow, the make of their car or the wealth they own. Still other chronic liars may have entrapped themselves so much into small lies that their entire life may have become a Big Lie that they have to willynilly live up to now! One wonders how these people feel about themselves. For instance, we have cases of people who have wrongly claimed to be POWs of World War II and spent a lifetime claiming compensation for the same and being finally caught out! Surely what must have started off as a small lie one day for such a person, and took over his entire life slowly, must have throttled him in private? Surely somewhere his conscience would have felt some relief when he was caught and finally could stop lying? A lie is a lie; there are no big or small ones. Similarly, a betrayal is a betrayal; it doesn’t have varying degrees of acceptability!
Likewise, a theft doesn’t gain any more acceptability if the amount stolen is less. The point is that if you have been able to convince yourself to indulge in what you consider a smaller evil, the bigger one follows in good time. Lying, stealing, cheating is first an act of betrayal to you yourself, then to anyone else. You are the one who draws the lines and defines the limits for yourself and for your relationship. Certainly how true you are to yourself and to your loved one decides the quality and strength of your relationship. At a workshop conducted by Shobhaa De, when she asked a group of women to answer the question, ‘Who am I?’ to the amazement of all one woman stood up and proclaimed, “I am a thief, a cheat and a liar!” Shobhaa goes on to quote the woman, “I cheat on my husband by feigning interest in his conversation at the end of a long day, when all I want to do is put my feet up and relax. I lie to my bosses and pretend to be sick when I want to spend time with my baby daughter. And I call myself a thief for stealing time which does not belong to me to pursue my personal interests during work hours.” The woman is a rare example of transparent honesty, such as most of us would hesitate to admit even to our ownselves! But it is true, isn’t it? At some level, we are all dishonest. Now call this a small dishonesty, or a big one — it is all about how you want to make yourself feel! We all have ways of making ourselves feel good. So, yes of course, these are all small lies.
But, are they really? Why then do you need to tell yourself yet another lie in order to feel better?
The story ofUMNO's relationship with big money and private enterprise sits fidgeting between these fragments of reality. as a co-conspirator in large scale corruption are gradually overwhelming the idea of business as a critical source of growth for the country as a whole. The focus on a few who are really wealthy and their lifestyle makes the idea of business, on which a large part of Malaysia depends, seem like an elitist concern. The discourse around business blurs the seductive with the substantive and in doing so trivialises it. If business wants to betaken seriously, perhaps it is time for it to cut out the fluff.
by Terence Netto
Anwar Ibrahim’s ease at finding parallels between seemingly contending beliefs and his comfort in paradox was in evidence at a forum in Kolkata over the weekend.
Invited to an Indian Muslim NGO’s silver jubilee conference themed ‘Good Governance in a Globalising World’, Anwar held forth on ‘Governance and Ethics’ in one segment of the three-day affair organised by the Institute of Objective Studies, a highly regarded research organisation with links to the International Institute of Islamic Thought and the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
The thrust of Anwar’s presentation revolved around the temptation of power to think that it is always twinned with virtue.
He cited the admonitory wisdom of Caliph Umar Abdul Aziz, one of Prophet Muhammad’s political successors, who appointed monitors to watch over his conduct.
Anwar quoted Umar’s rationale to his monitors: “Rulers usually appoint people to watch over their subjects. I appoint you to watch over me and my conduct.”
This oft-cited quotation from Umar helps the Malaysian opposition leader to dilate on another favorite oracular pronouncement: “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary” – this one from the Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.
As long ago as his 1996 Budget speech to Parliament as finance minister, Anwar cited this cautionary wisdom as a check on the temptations of power to vanity, complacency and hypocrisy.
Anwar told the audience during his segment of the conference that a critique of hubris was necessary to keep the apparatus of even democratic states from the temptations of extrajudicial procedures that result in injustice and the muzzling of dissent and opposition.
Yet again, he held up as a guide for the restraint of power the maqasid shariah, the 12th century formulation of the Islamic jurist Al Shatibi, which posited the protection of life, property and the preservation of peace as the higher goals of syariah.
Anwar said a holistic conception of the maqasid shariah was the guarantee against the rigid interpretation and application of syariah.
Tagore’s poetry
Anwar said he was conscious that the venue of the conference, Jesuit St Xavier’s College, was where Nobel literary laureate Rabindranath Tagore studied as a boy.
“In this year of the 150th anniversary of his birth, I am reminded of Sir Rabindranath Tagore’s gesture of returning his knighthood in protest against the Amritsar massacre of 1919,” said Anwar who has cited Tagore (right) as one of the progenitors of the ‘Asian Renaissance’ espoused by the Malaysian leader since the mid-1990s.
“Not only must power resist the temptation to think that it is always twinned with virtue, but fame must always be accompanied by solicitude for those who suffer from man’s inhumanity to man,” said Anwar in praise of Tagore who was born in Kolkata in 1841, received the Nobel for literature in 1913, and was knighted in 1915.
Anwar said that in Tagore’s poetry and short stories there was always the emphasis on freedom and reason and because he conveyed these ideas in mystic terms, he encountered much misunderstanding in the West.
In expatiating on the philosophic identity of noble minds, Anwar quoted the following lines from Tagore’s poetry:
“Where the mind is without fear and
the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been
broken up into fragments by
narrow domestic walls.”
He said that the lines conveyed the same sentiment embodied in Philippine national hero Jose Rizal’s declaration in his book El Filibusterismo: “Within a few centuries, when humanity has become redeemed and enlightened, when there are no races, when all peoples are free, when they are neither tyrants nor slaves, colonies nor mother countries, when justice rules and man is a citizen of the world…”
“These two men born in the same year in different countries on the same continent, articulators and strugglers for the liberation of not only their peoples but also of their continents, are the precursors of the Asian Renaissance through their lofty vision of the human pageant and of where it should eventuate.
“Their dream was not only for human emancipation but also for man’s ethical governance without which all struggle is futile and all striving meaningless,” concluded Anwar.
Malaysian Airlines (MAS), Khazanah Nasional and government officials defended the
controversial share swap deal with AirAsia before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today, claiming the deal was “more to the advantage of MAS”.
controversial share swap deal with AirAsia before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today, claiming the deal was “more to the advantage of MAS”.“That is basically (what they explained). And why do they want to do the CCF (Comprehensive Collaboration Framework)… because, the whole international civil aviation is changing.
“MAS is losing a lot of money. So they are saying… (this is) to try and overcome these problems,” PAC member Tan Seng Giaw told reporters when approached after the committee met today.
“Khazanah defended the deal on a commercial basis. MAS is in a bad shape and some form of collab (collaboration) required to alleviate the problems MAS is facing,” another PAC member Tony Pua explained later, in an SMS.
The select committee interviewed MAS Managing Director Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, Khazanah Chief Executive Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar, and the Secretaries-General of the Treasury and the Transport and Finance ministries today, kicking off its probe into the controversial share swap deal between MAS and the budget carrier.During a press conference after the meeting, PAC chairman Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid said the panel would not issue any formal stand based on the interviews due to insufficient information.
He said the PAC plans to invite the same individuals for a second round of interviews and is also mulling summoning AirAsia.
“I cannot say in detail because we have yet to make any conclusion. We are just getting information about why and how (the share swap deal). So for the time being, we have no comments.
“Yes, we are considering (calling AirAsia). Time was so short today. Two hours is not enough. We 
could not ask many questions today,” he added when asked if the panel would invite AirAsia next.
could not ask many questions today,” he added when asked if the panel would invite AirAsia next.When pressed for details on today’s briefing, Azmi said those interviewed had also explained the problems faced currently in the global aviation industry.
“And in the early stages, we were told this (share swap deal) is a long term strategy to overcome future problems,” he said.
When met later, PAC member Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahalan told reporters that today’s session was more a “one-way traffic” but added more questions would be issued during the second round of interviews.
“So, really, we have not given them any curve ball yet, we haven’t asked any tough questions… No time yet for that,” he said.
The controversial share swap between MAS and AirAsia is currently also being probed by Bursa Malaysia and the Securities Commission (SC) for insider trading.
MAS’s poor financial performance of late had resulted in the share swap with AirAsia on August 9. It saw state investment arm Khazanah Nasional taking a 10 per cent stake in Asia’s top budget carrier in exchange for a 20.5 per cent stake in the flag carrier.This allowed AirAsia boss Tan Sri Tony Fernandes to sit on the MAS board, ostensibly to help turn the ailing airline around.
MAS had announced in August a net loss of RM527 million for the second quarter of 2011 due to higher fuel costs despite recording a better yield and a nine per cent growth in passenger revenue from the same period last year.
This brings total losses in the first half of the year to RM769 million even as the airline said that profit outlook for the second half of the year appears bleak.
It's hard to see the forest for the trees. And it's hard to see a movement when it is happening. It's easier to look back in time and read about successful campaigns by individuals that changed the course of human history. If we look back upon the Civil Rights Movement, we find similarities of purpose, citizens peacefully demonstrating for rights and freedoms guaranteed in our Constitution. The Occupy Wall Street movement doesn't have a powerful, charismatic spokesperson that the Civil Rights movement had in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., yet. And it may not need one. OWS cannot see beyond the trees yet because it is immersed in the developing swirl of details. Being bullied and criticized while under the trees of Zuccotti Park, being pepper sprayed, beaten, and misunderstood, is helping us all to see the forest we live in.
I stepped back from the images of police brutality and violence, the militant attacks upon my fellow citizens, to try and "see" more clearly what is actually happening. As an artist, looking at this situation reminded me of something Pablo Picasso is supposed to have said, "Are we to paint the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it?" In this case, what is behind the face is what is most important. The foundation of the Occupy movement, its rancor, grows from a soil poisoned with political and economic lies.
I recently met Erri de Luca, a gentleman from Naples who has been called the Italian "writer of the decade" (by the Corriere della Sera literature critic Giorgio De Rienzo). Mr. de Luca has written about Occupy. But not the Occupy we are living with at present. In the 70's he was a member of the Lotta Continua ("continuous struggle") group in Italy. Founded in 1969 by the student-worker movement in Turin and spread across Italy to universities and factories. Their struggle was similar to the Occupy movement in that they recognized that without a fight, those with economic power would always suppress the rights and freedoms of the working class and poor.
In Erri de Luca's short story, "The Wind in Your Face", I saw the image of an elderly woman being carried through the streets of Seattle, Washington. Her face slathered with pepper spray. The 84-year-old woman, Dorli Rainey is a former schoolteacher and, like de Luca, has been active in politics since the 1960's. When she ran for mayor in 2009 she said, "I am old and should learn to be old, stay home, watch TV." So why did she not learn? Why would she join the Occupy Seattle movement at her age? "Now you know something that you didn't' know then: some forms of courage spring up out of shame..." de Luca's short story is a lesson in shame and shame as a blessing. We can be motivated into action out of personal shame.
As a nation we are experiencing collective shame, a painful feeling of humiliation and distress caused by the knowledge that, for years, we have acted out of greed, we've behaved with ignorance toward the environment, we've lived with economic denial, and foolish behavior. We feel shame because we allowed it to happen. We didn't speak up when we needed to have our voices heard.
In de Luca's short story you see how a young girl or boy from the 70's could easily be a young boy or girl being beaten and pepper sprayed at anyone of the Occupy villages across the United States today: "The ones who don't want to run are starting to meet. The stubborn are starting to form a line...they're still far and few between, but they recognize each other.... In the morning they let you out. You don't go to the emergency room, but instead to a doctor who helps wounded demonstrators, he brings you to him, your friend for less than a day, someone you'd trust with both your eyes. Because these are the sort of days where trust comes quickly, loyalty too, and destiny likewise" de Luca says that the"difference between State violence and that of the people, is that one is abusive, the other not...it's a street battle, to stay in the street even when it's prohibited, to not be crushed, to not be arrested... we don't liberate territory, we only grab the right to oppose established power.... It's our duty to act as if, as if revolution were indeed the next order of business -- to be in the world as revolutionaries. Not because of the revolution, but because the right to demonstrate is the most basic emblem of democracy.... In the fray you needed calm, not fire, someone with discipline, not a hero."
People like de Luca and Dorli Rainey are heroes. They are calm and reasonable voices that speak truth to power and oppression. I find courage in their continued example of how to live with dignity and to not stay at home and watch the world through an electronic box, but to go to into the trees and be heard. This Thanksgiving my thanks and prayers go to all the OWS supporters in 951 cities in 83 countries around the world. Because "the right to demonstrate is the most basic emblem of democracy".
One of the more intriguing questions that democracy raises is this: Can a democracy choose, in a democratic manner, to make itself less democratic?
The case of what the media have labelled the Arab Spring. In a number of West Asian countries dictatorships have been overthrown and the ground has been prepared for the sowing of the seeds of democracy. Preliminary polls have shown that parties which advocate religious fundamentalism are likely to assume office. The governments formed by such parties will have been democratically elected. But how democratic are such governments going to be with regard to the individual freedoms they allow or disallow to the citizens who voted them into office?
Though Tunisia, for instance, had not had elections for many years, Tunisian citizens, particularly the women, enjoyed a measure of social freedom, not generally found in Arab societies. Women did not have to be veiled in public, they could travel freely, they could take up jobs and be economically independent of their menfolk.
The Islamist party that has won the majority vote in Tunisia has introduced sharia law in the country. The leader of the party has said that his government will follow the path of moderate Islam and not of fundamentalism. Islam is perfectly compatible with democracy. But fundamentalism, of Islam or any other religion, is not. Nonetheless, by adopting sharia law, Tunisia seems to have voluntarily surrendered its secular freedoms - particularly those pertaining to women - in favour of a social orthodoxy which could limit the public space available to women, who constitute half the electorate. Will Tunisian women now be required to wear burqas in public, not travel unescorted by males, give up their jobs? Perhaps, or perhaps not. Tunisians - like any other people, anywhere in the world, of whatever religious or ideological beliefs - ought to be free to decide for themselves what sort of society they choose to live in.
If it is a democratic society, its citizens can choose to limit or restrict some of their freedoms for religious or any other reasons. This is the paradox about democracy: it gives you the freedom of choice to limit your own freedom of choice.
Can democracy subvert itself and be undemocratic? It can, and unfortunately it too often does. When Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984, anti-Sikh riots claimed hundreds of lives in Delhi and elsewhere. The rioting mobs were allegedly led by Congress party leaders who were never brought to justice. Instead, in a sympathy wave for the victim's son, the Congress party under Rajiv Gandhi won an overwhelming mandate from voters.
Similarly, the Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was voted back for a second term in office despite accusations that his administration aided and abetted the anti-Muslim killings that took place in Gujarat in 2002. The charges against Modi - that he is an accomplice to mass murder - have yet to be disproved in a court of law. Despite this, thanks to his strongman image, Modi's many admirers, in Gujarat and elsewhere would vote for Modi as the next Indian prime minister if they could.
Modi's Gujarat is a democracy. But like many other democracies it is a democracy flawed by majoritarianism: that people who are in the majority, who have the numbers on their side, must have their way and those who are in the minority can like it or lump it.
This is a gross distortion of democracy, which ought to guarantee the protection of all minorities, the ultimate minority being the individual citizen whose rights must not only be protected but seen to be protected.
In a democracy, the individual citizen has, or ought to have, democratic rights. By the same token is that individual also obliged to have democratic responsibilities? There can be no rights without responsibilities. What are these rights and what are these responsibilities? That's another question that has been recently raised by Indian democracy. Anna Hazare and his movement against corruption - in which my co-panellist Kiran Bedi plays a prominent role - has raised several questions about democracy and how it should function. To his many followers Anna Hazare represents the democratic right of the citizen to dissent and protest, in this case against rampant corruption in public life. To his critics, he is a danger to democracy by attempting to dictate terms to Parliament, which according to the Indian Constitution represents the elected will of the people.
So is Anna's movement pro-people or anti-people? Pro-democracy or anti-democracy? Your answers to these and other questions may be very different from mine. But there's one thing on which we might all agree. That it is only democracy which permits the asking of such questions. Because questions are the only permissible weapons that we can use in this ongoing battlefield of the mind. The battlefield of ideas that is called democracy.
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