Azly Rahman's Blog, page 2

#AllCulturesMatter: Notes for a course in Cultural Management, Ensenada, Mexico

#AllCulturesMatter
This is the foundation of Cultural Management and the road to cultural competency we ought to teach the young, and what I have been doing for decades as well. 

Educators need to master the art and science of teaching diversity and to integrate and infuse the themes of multiculturalism into the subject matter.

The young, of "Generation-C" or Gen-Covid need to be given guidance and offered humane and peaceful choices of what they are to do in life, in a world of such rapid and oftentimes violent changes that many of those restless will easily fall prey to those out to indoctrinate and turn the young into appendages and utilities of the powerful and egotistical interested in advanced destructive agenda.

Herein lie my continuing interest in guiding the young in managing culture, coming to terms with the impact of Covid-19, and feeling the changes of cultural hybrid in the self. Ultimately I see culture as organic, dynamic, constantly evolving, construct-laden, with the foundation of spirituality and scientific reasoning keeping the self still sane.

I do not merely teach about the concepts of culture bur how concepts inform the phenomenology of changes within the self, as experiences, signs, symbols, semiotics, sense-awareness of things around impact the psycho-physics aspects of the human mind, leading to personal cultural evolution -- these as culture gets reproduced and take the trajectory of being abling and disabling, being constructive and destructive and in-between.

What is "culture" if not a system of variegated meaning: of the self undergoing constant reconstruction, of the tools we use to work and play, the artifacts we create to solve problems or to amuse or even abuse ourselves, the rituals we participate in whether meaningful or not, the gods we worship, the house we inhabit -- all these as the still-evolving definition of "culture" as conceived and attempted to be defined by those studying it-- from Boas to Malinowski, to Levi-Strauss, to Mead, to Merle-Ponty, to Geertz, to Rosaldo and many others.

… --ar

WHAT I THINK of THIS INCOMPREHENSIBLE TWEET

WHAT I THINK of THIS INCOMPREHENSIBLE TWEET

and the attempt to "de-platform" me re: Gerakbudaya issue

I just found this while collecting data for my very brief memoir.

I don't know who these people are, in the sequence of the conversation, except Prem Chandran of Malaysiakini. It's worth writing about this, from the point of view of individual thought process, ideology, institutions, intentions, and what I see as a person's right to be informed or ignorant, to be illuminated or having the illusion of knowledge. Did this person call for the "de-platforming" of my Gerakbudaya talk?

This person who tweeted does not seem to have any clue what he's talking about nor understand the context of what I have been tweeting, nor he has any idea of what life in the USA is about. That's my assumption, based on what he concluded.

1. When I said I am glad that that public order is in place and I am glad that the violence, the looting, the burning has subsided, what is the problem? Why would I wish the mayhem continues?

2. When I tweeted that the government will bring in the National Guard or other forms of law enforcement agencies to protect the lives and properties of citizens, do you have a problem with that? Whether one is a Democrat, Republican, Socialist, Conservative, whatever -- is that not the right of the citizens to ask for protection? So that the country would not turn into Guatemala, Venezuela, Afghanistan? Or a Malaysia on May 13, 1969? Is there a problem with that tweet?

3. If I tweet that I have worked with great police officers in my community to help young people stay in school so that they could graduate and earn an honest living, and I have done that for many years and seen successes -- with the help of the Community Resources called "The Police" - what is wrong in tweeting that? Do you even understand how the local, city, state, county, and federal policing system works?

4. If I tweet that I feel safe for another night and in fact every night that only police cars pass by my house to ensure my community is safe and quiet after 10:00 pm and the neighborhood appreciate this because as taxpayers and home owners we contribute to paying the salary of the police, the teachers, the firefighters, the town officials -- how is that a problem to you?

5. If I condemn violence and that violence begets violence and you equate me with being a Trump supporter and white supremacist, what is wrong with your thinking?

6. If I tell you that I have been involved with the work of improving the lives of especially African-American youth (as well as Hispanic, Asians, etc. too) and see them through high school and college and they have come back to convey appreciation and I have done this without chanting slogans, protesting, cheering at burning buildings -- long before you learn how to ride the bicycle perhaps, what would you say?

7. If I tweet anything I wish to tweet to educate and not to aggravate, because I believe that as an educator working in the field of at-risk, pre-incarcerated, "oppressed youth and adults" and "teaching teachers who will be teaching in the inner-city schools in the Bronx and Harlem" or anywhere gangsta of a neighborhood -- who are you to pass judgement based on what I tweeted to my liking? Based on your no-knowledge of what I have done to improve all lives that matter?

I do not condone any form of violence to affect social change. Education -- slow a process it may seem -- is what will guarantee personal, spiritual, cultural and social change.

Those who called themselves "leftists" may think bringing down everything, burning down everything, or rationalizing these may think so. Your right. Your right to also be dealt with. With the rule of law.

I want peace. So that I could continue my work, my career, my calling on education for peace and justice, in a system that too promotes freedom and talent. And of course, hard work.

I believe as an educator of more than 33 years, the lives of my students matter. And there is never a better timing than anytime.

Understand my stand? Or do you still think I do not understand my own tweets and posts?

Let me know if these explanations make sense. Otherwise, go through life. With an open mind. And craft your own path. Not of those than have been sloganized.

You may find the road not taken. And hopefully that will make a difference.

ARE YOU A TEACHER? OR AN INDOCTRINATOR?

ARE YOU A TEACHER?
OR AN INDOCTRINATOR?
- Notes for a Memoir 

by Azly Rahman

The essence of the next level of progress is good teaching and how to train the young to be practitioners and generalists. And respect and appreciate diversity and social justice of course.
We have poor communicators in the universities these days who are only interested in forcing the young mind how to submit to ideologies.

My experience in this difficult dialogue of BlackLivesMatter-AllLivesMatter has revealed how much shallowness has pervaded the thinking of many of the academics who have stopped learning, yet wished to continue teaching, for economic-survival reasons. Slogans are what they feed on and they feed each other in joyous festivity. Life-long learning is abandoned. 

Some of these people teach Anthropology, Critical Media Studies, Political Science, Creative Writing -- from far away places such as Melbourne, Negeri Sembilan, Chicago, Bangi, Pantai Dalam, Penang and all. What was the dissertation defense about then?

So-- it is a global network of one-dimensionalism, as the American Marxist Herbert Marcuse would term, of those who ought to be teaching their students how to respect diverse points of view, as Voltaire would enjoin. We can't have our own "anthropological veto" on opinions we disagree if we are a teacher of Anthropology, we can't be blind to the way media too has shaped our consciousness and render us hegemonized beyond repair, if we are a teacher of Critical Media Studies, or we cannot be teaching our students the dangers of the "One-Single-Story", if we are a teacher of Creative Writing, if we fail to respect multiple genres of storytelling and narratives -- all these are faulty thinking in what we, as progressive educators, do in our work, developing the human mind in all its complexity.

Else we will belong to the new class of educators called the Academic-Talibans. Hopefully we are not. Read some of the work on the idea of thinking: by the American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey, to have a sense of what teaching can and ought to be about.

Today, perhaps, those who have differing opinions are being ganged-up upon and against. Even though the world of academia is about promoting dialectical thinking: seeing the ideas synthesizing --- from the actions of thesis and antithesis --- until one arrives at the meaning, phenomenologically-speaking. Alas-- the greatest enemy of knowledge is ignorance, if not the illusion of knowledge, let alone the believe that it is the truth and nothing but the truth though produced by some billionaire in Wall Street somewhere.

Logic bubbles that celebrate uninformed and uninvestigated ideologies backed by some billionaire rogue currency-trader are what these academics live in comfortably, knowingly or otherwise.

Our children in universities demand better instructors that would celebrate diversity in thinking rather that be stuck and presumably in awe in classrooms run like thought-control camps in some jungle in Baling, Kedah or Bentong, Selangor. There is more to teaching than just this method. Because as an educator, all lives should matter. And all opinions should be respected and celebrated.

I enjoy all kinds of music: rock, jazz, classical, kronchong, dangdut, Rock Kapak Johor, rap, hip hop, and music that pleases my soul. I like works of art that give me keys, windows, doors, insights to the different period: Classical, Neo-Classical, Baroque, Roccocco, Impressionism, Dadaism, and even Cubism which is said to be inspired by Fascism of the Third Reich.

I respect those with differing ideologies as they bring merriment of idea to Humanity, as they bring to the often-times intense discussions in my classroom -- be they Marxism, Capitalism, Progressivism, Essentialism, or whatever new "ism" that have emerged. I don't cancel them out nor call the owners of the ideas unpleasant names just because they blurted out OpinionsThatMatter to them.

We do not and should not own the minds of the younger generation. Our job is to give them enough tools to master their destiny -- based on the future in which the old would have died. Yes, the old will die with whatever ideology they have lived by.

I suggest these kinds of instructors take courses in how to teach -- or not teach at all. By sanctioning, rationalizing, patronizing, and even lecturing on the virtues of violence in making radical social change, they do not deserve to be further employed by their institutions.

I wonder what they do in their classes. Do they fail students who give the opinion in class discussions that "all lives matter"? Troubling to imagine this idea of indoctrination, rather than "teaching."

(PHOTO: University of Nottingham, UK. Panel Discussion on the future of education, 2019)

The price of not tweeting "BlackLivesMatter" exclusively

The price of not tweeting "BlackLivesMatter" exclusively
by Azly Rahman
(THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF THIS ESSAY WAS NOT APPROVED TO BE PUBLISHED in MY COLUMN in Malaysiakini. I respect their decision)


First, my condolences to the family of George Floyd. And may justice be served on those responsible for his death. This has been a challenging two weeks for me: the end of semester wrap-ups, novel writing continuation, and handling a Gerakbudaya author-interview cancellation issue. But let me share what transpired the day I tweeted what I believed in, as an educator for more than three decades. 'Cancel culture story' I was invited to give a Zoom-talk by Gerakbudaya, my publisher of seven books, on apartheid and education in Malaysia, and in fact I was the one who suggested the series of author-interviews, then “KABOOM!” a day before Saturday 13th, it was cancelled. The reason: the editors were perhaps contacted by an academic and a human right activist that I had tweeted and posted messages that are supposedly against BlackLivesMatter and therefore disrespectful to the movement and therefore I had to be “de-platformed” immediately. 


Of course, things got out of hand and there began the controversy on how I should be behaving like a “progressive” as how the BlackLivesMatter fanatics had wanted it to be. In short, their argument goes like this: if you are not promoting BlackLivesMatter you are a racist and a Trump supporter and a white supremist. That’s how many Malaysians too think.When you get the chance, you can go to the Gerakbudaya page and see my responses, including a letter of apology from the owner, I posted. [https://www.facebook.com/…/a.1015184360…/10157631962324426/…]Now it seems some human rights activists in Malaysia as well as academics are suggesting that I continue to be "de-platformed" and my books taken off the shelves until I "revise my view" on BlackLivesMatter. I find this concerning. But this is Malaysia. You may visit my Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/azly.rahman] and have a sense of what matters to me as an educator and why I get turned off by hegemony, social projections, and the meaning of protests when one starts saying that "Until BlackLivesMatter all lives do not yet matter" Or -- "PoliceLivesDon'tMatter" or "WhiteLivesDon'tMatter". These, to me are violent messages hash-tagged for maximum-viral impact. “BlackLivesMatter Too BECAUSE AllLivesMatter” was my concluding post. I also posted that “AllLivesMatter” is perfectly in agreement with what I have always championed for in all my writings: that “AllMalaysianLivesMatter” in a world in which the promotion of Malay Supremacy is ever present. So, these and the violence attached to the movement turned me off and I start to protest against the world. I am a teacher essentially and to me "AlLivesMatter” resonate with me better and if I have to chant "BlackLivesMatter" all my life, I might next start hating people of all color, especially the whites. It is a crystal-clear philosophical stand I am taking. Malaysians especially don’t like this stand because Philosophy can be worse than Zoom-Fatigue. 'Symbols destroyed'Statues are now being brought down such as in Bristol and continuing in many parts of the world, I'd say that's a natural progression of human action when freedom to destroy them go rampant. Lenin's statue, Sadam Hussein's, Leopold of Belgium's, Columbus -- all these symbols of oppression are targets. The French taught the modern world about destroying symbols, by first beheading Louis Capet and Mary Antoinette and today producing theories of deconstructionism. We moved from the physical to the intellectual. The nature of Man perhaps to destroy as in the Shiva-Brahma-Vishnu in us (Preserver-Creator-Destroyer). But the Biblical stories too, the chosen peace messengers from Abraham to Muhammad destroyed symbols. So, it is part of the inner drive of the primordial self to destroy, I suppose. BlackLivesMatter protests, triggered by the George Floyd event, gave inspiration to destroy: from old paradigms of thinking, to statues, to properties in the cities and businesses owned by peace-loving-law-abiding citizens. Anarchism seems to be an addiction of youth these days. The Liberal Left, bent on the ideas of change promoted by Communists – that violence is that way too – has possessed the mind of the young. Destruction is the modus operandi to feed the soul of the protester.Yes, it’s all about inner and outer symbols: Of what one worships and destroys. 'A symbol of violence?'Of course, the Covid-19 lockdown fermented the anger and sped up the destruction. Today, the addiction to protests still continue. The only difference is the burning and looting has stopped. Except in the latest case in Atlanta. The irony of BlackLivesMatter is that it looked like it worked in concert with looting and burning and destruction. As if planned. Man loves to see things burn when language of reason fails, avenues for peace closed, and the view that the world is an oyster and the land of opportunities and not to create mayhem is lost. Those who love to burn the city down are merely feeding the Fire within. Whether a meaningful symbol such as BlackLivesMatter is attached to it or not. I want to continue to spread the message that all lives matter: not the Trumpian of White Supremacy slogan but the very basic idea that we are all humans. There is no question of "timing" here that collides with BlackLivesMatter, nor the metaphor of the two houses, one burning that we ought to save. 



This is what made people angry with me -- that I refused to "revise my view" and I am not "repenting". My response has always and will always be this: I am an educator and all lives matter to me. As soon as I step into my classroom, all those in it, to me, are human beings with unique cultures and talents and levels of motivation, ready to learn. My job is to seem them only as my students of all shapes, sizes, color, gender, race, and religious affiliations for me to not only teach – but to learn from. I have been living with this credo and ethos as an educator, since I started teaching 33 years ago. I can only promote the words “AllLivesMatter” however my critics wish to interpret it. I offer no apologies even though many have said that the timing is not right. How ridiculous!? But I respect their views and will defend their rights, although mine will be demolished, in many ways as I have been reading. I stand by what the French philosopher Voltaire would say about respecting and defending other people’s views. 


Besides, I am no stranger to controversies and how people have been responding to what I stand for. I believe controversies are good especially when they are handled, as the Russian thinker Mikhail Bakhtin would call “dialogically” rather than be an avenue for name-calling, even (strangely) by ageing academics who ought to have acquired the status of a Merlin the Magician or a Tolstoy or a Dame Agatha Christie or even a Harriet Tubman: wise old men and women. 'Does race matter?'Besides the above on the nature of protestation and disagreements, first and foremost, I do not believe race is significant nor emphasizing it brings us any good. And what will violence achieve? What’s the point of chanting and screaming justice in the day and looting, burning, and threatening the lives of others at night—burning down the businesses of people whose lives depend on those. Most of the businesses burned to the ground and looted empty are those family-owned by immigrants trying to survive in a land that is giving them hope to flourish, after escaping persecution. And each one of these people – the Italians, Irish, Armenians, Mexicans, Chinese, Jamaican, West Indian, Japanese, Jews, Turkish, Syrians, Somalians, Palestinians, Haitians, etc. -- have had a long history of discrimination, persecution, and slavery too. We have not yet talked about the Native Americans! – in different context than those who lost their livelihood when businesses and neighborhoods get looted and burned to the ground!So—to you my esteemed readers: what do you think? Which one is better: AllLivesmatter? Or BlackLivesMatter? Or should race matter at all?

THE FUTURE of EDUCATION: An interview with the Oxford Cambridge Society, May 13 2020

THE FUTURE of EDUCATION: An interview with the Oxford Cambridge Society, May 13 2020

MALAYSIA: Opening daycare centres, crafting our fatalities

OPINIONS0314SHARESShare to FacebookShare to MoreCOMMENT | Opening daycare centres, crafting our fatalities Azly Rahman Published 3 May 2020, 1:46 amModified 3 May 2020, 4:37 am 8 A+A-COMMENT | Opening up Malaysian schools soon? The young will bring the virus to the old at home. The oldest of the old will suffer the worst.Malaysia might see a spike in infected Covid-19 a month after May 4. Learn from Singapore too. First, it was okay, then not okay. Is there enough testing done in Malaysia to reopen the economy? Are you in the government rushing through under an illusion and a nice numbers game? Let us frame this issue of reopening the economy to how the global economy itself is crashing down.Young lives at riskWill children in daycare wear full-bodied suits and masks all day and be forced into cubicles 6X6 feet to ensure maximum safety? Do children in daycare centres know about "physical distancing"? Isn't it better to still keep them at home for now? How do you ensure that caretakers at the centres are not carriers of Covid-19? Are these centres well-monitored to begin with?O' Malaysians: Why risk the lives of the young (and old too) opening daycare centres now? And schools next, soon?Children in daycares are the most difficult to take care of without the proper training of caretakers. With Covid-19? Three-quarter of the states in the US have closed schools until the end of the academic year in June. Daycares and pre-kindergartens are especially vulnerable.The fear is that in a few weeks after May 4, Malaysia will become Singapore. We too have foreign workers, in fact, millions. Malaysian healthcare workers will have a tough time in a few weeks after May 4 following the rush to open. The virus does not care.In Malaysia, it was reported the virus has mutated into a more dangerous strand. Fast and infectious. And you still want to open on May 4? Think!Would parents dare send their kids to daycare centres and schools at this time? How many out of a million have the Malaysian government tested? To trumpet those nice numbers? In a conversation online, on Facebook, a Silicon-Valley, a California-based Malaysian-born surgeon and a dear friend of mine said:“I don't think Malaysia has the virology capacity to detect any strains or mutations. Any test, regardless of how hi-tech or automated, requires a human skill component to it. Even a simple blood chemistry test could and had been bungled by a careless technician. “For clinicians, it is common practice (in fact we would be considered negligent) if we do not repeat the test whose result is at variance with the clinical situation. There are endless reasons for false positives as well as false negatives. The challenge of interpreting screening tests or tests in asymptomatic individuals only compounds the difficulty...“The Malaysian decision to open so soon is like Trump's America in their red states. Stop emulating the US without sufficient data.Hypocrisy of Labour DayThe nation just celebrated Labour Day. In the year of the pandemic where the spectre of coronavirus is haunting the globe, as Marx and Engle’s would have put it in an updated and revised 2020 version of "The Communist Manifesto".O’ Malaysians: On Labour Day don’t just talk about Marx and Das Kapital. Name your local capitalists - the owners of banks, airlines, plantations, tin mines, oil and gas companies, government-linked companies (GLCs) or the government-linked crony-economy. Tell us who controls what and the nature of distributive justice, in a world of modern slavery. On Labour Day which labour will the Malaysian NGOs, socialists, wannabe-Marxists, Bangsar liberals champion? Foreign labour? In this post-Covid-19 era, send the illegals and refugees back to their homes. Start building a strong national economy using our own labour.Bankers will protect their astronomical earnings, bonuses, what they cream off from lenders. They don't care, do they? Chiefs of GLCs are being paid "coronapoliticalload" of money to appease them politically, while the poor stay at home jobless. When we say the economy's bleeding and collapsing statistically, we are hearing the lamentation of the filthy rich.It is as if, in the auditorium of the banking drama on moratoriums, the elite gets to go to the sanatorium and the people sent to the crematorium as bankers smoke opium.Should companies with offshore accounts and foreign headquarters be helped by the government?Migrant workers are now stuck with no jobs. Danger looms. Perhaps they should journey home and build their nations. Every country is in ruins now. Millions in the US have either lost their jobs or furloughed. Next, - immigration will be suspended to protect jobs for Americans. The condition in Malaysia should be no different.Billionaires have become beggars to the poor, asking governments to bail them out, and governments wanting workers to get back to work in this time of the peaking Coronavirus outbreak. The poor will die by the millions but oil sheikhs are crying blood now. Oil, the black gold, like blood diamond, is now useless - the classic diamond-water paradox. Life continues to be precious.Budget airlines holding customers' money for their own bailout, keeping refunds. UK-based Virgin Atlantic is going bankrupt as reported. Most of the world's airlines will be filing for bankruptcy soon.These are the questions concerning the global economic collapse.Society cannot pretend to get back to "normal", using the same paradigm that created a "world of normalcy that is abnormal. In post-Covid-19, the world might not turn socialist in toto, contrary to Marxist hopes. However, it might fuel other forms of crude liberal democracy and monopoly capitalism. It might also lead to the next world war, be it with sticks & stones, as in the opening scene of Stanley Kubrick’s cult movie "2001: A Space Odyssey"Benjamin Franklin’s America - big business, big banks, monopoly capitalism - defeated Thomas Jeffersonian pastoral-agricultural-philosophical ideal. Today's America is Benjamin Franklin's. Today, Covid-19, with nature as its ally, is destroying Franklin's Paradise. Adam Smith, the grand wizard of classical economics too is weeping – seeing what the “invisible hand” has done to humans, the powerless human beings in face of a global health catastrophe!Back to the changing reality of Malaysian politics. Enough of my musings on the butterfly effect of things, of the whirlpool and whirlwinds of the collapsing global economy and of the destruction and deconstruction of a new world order.Meanwhile in Malaysia, here is our message - Malaysian elected officials, we want to see you live on Zoom in Parliament. Not on golf courses cutting deals and cutting grass. Come May 4, will the Malaysian Parliament, or the People's Daycare Centre, be open for political play too?Save our children. Save our nation. Stay at home. We are not going back to the old normal.

A Malaysian human sacrifice?

OPINIONS0490SHARESShare to FacebookShare to MoreCOMMENT | A Malaysian human sacrifice? Azly Rahman Published 6 May 2020, 7:43 pmModified 6 May 2020, 7:44 pm 32 A+A-COMMENT | Malaysians opening up the economy too fast is human sacrifice, I’d say. I can’t put it any milder after learning from the case of the US and New York City as the world’s epicentre.I have taught world history as well and the history of global infectious diseases. Learn particularly from the 1918 pandemic (the Spanish Flu which started in Kansas, US). Learn from the US today, after the protests in its red states. The economy can wait to recover. Lives lost prematurely can't be your policy!Why are we risking our young and the elderly by reopening the economy now? How many spikes in cases and how many deaths do you wish to see?Malaysia will see a spike in Covid-19 cases. A month after May 4. Too eager to open. Too slow in thinking that we can still wait and use data to predict and project and take precautions. Opening daycare centres is a huge mistake. Child fatality next? Think!A recent international report on the human predicament in the US during this pandemic reads:"The relaxation of social-distancing rules will more than offset any decline in transmissions that might come from warmer weather and stronger containment measures, such as more wide-scale testing and tracing the contacts of infected people so they too can be tested and isolated, Murray said." (Dr Christopher Murray of the University of Washington’s Institute of Health Metrics [IHME]).The revised IHME projections coincided with the disclosure of an internal Trump administration forecast predicting a surge in Covid-19 cases killing 3,000 Americans a day by the end of May, up from a current daily toll that a Reuters tally places at around 2,000.That projection, first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by a Reuters source, also forecast about 200,000 new coronavirus cases each day by the end of the month, up from the current rate of about 25,000 cases every 24 hours.Every country must ask also this question: What if the vaccine still cannot be developed as fast as it can to stop the death of millions? What radical adjustments to everything should be made? Scenarios are good. Best case and worst case. Alternate reality should be crafted and lived in. Not lamenting things past. We must learn to get used to changes so abrupt that our psychological and cultural well-being will be radically affected. Change can be painful, especially as “economic beings” (homo economicus) our lives collectively is dictated both by the state and by market forces.Today we are seeing the welfare state taking care of those whose lives have been ravaged by the design of free enterprise. Covid-19 is like George Soros and his band of currency traders, only that the former cannot be seen and wreaks planet-wide havoc.Foreign workers line up to be tested for Covid-19 at Pudu.Okay, enough of the base-economic and “Vladimir Lenin’s Commanding Heights” stuff I just threw into the mix of our discussion on the global-economic-matrix of the impact of Covid-19. We were supposed to talk about this “human sacrifice” the current government is engaging in. By opening up too soon, so that money can be made. So that the workers, legal and illegal, can be called back to work. There are more than two million of them, whose fate we can no longer ascertain.The recent raid on undocumented migrants is bringing us into the idea of what we wish to salvage as a nation. As a country still struggling to forge a better understanding amongst the Malays, Chinese, Indians, Orang Asli, Iban, Kadasan-Dusun, and others that have been here since before and after independence, as legal Malaysians.Then the undocumented migrants arrived. By the hundreds of thousands. The addiction of the owners of the means of production to profit immensely through the system of modern-day slavery. Now we have got a major problem of what to do with them, when our economy had just nose-dived, tanked!Millions of undocumented migrants hoping for jobs. Some 200,000 Rohingya refugees hoping for citizenship. Legal citizens hoping they will still have jobs. Graduates don't have a clue what awaits them. Government still thinking in the pre-Industry 4.0 paradigm. Chaotic thinking must be fixed. Now.Post-Covid-19, each country must take care of her own citizens. The world has changed. Nationalism is back in popular demand. We are all economic beings, tied to the dictates of citizenship. No jobs anymore for undocumented migrants and hopeful refugees. New reality.For Malaysia, having millions of undocumented migrants is not a good policy to develop her economy. Train the locals first. Fix our labour laws to meet the need of social regeneration and the goals of sustainability rather than think of making immense profits entirely. Herein lie the miseducation of the human rights activists, I sense.In conclusion, I am writing this article on the “human sacrifice” on a national scale, poorly planned by the current government. A rush job inviting fatalities. It is May 6. We will know of the casualties of this war by June 6. Perhaps. I hope we will not be another Italy. Or the US. In our haste to make money.

Will Malaysia's coronapolitics destroy our educational hope?

OPINIONSShare to FacebookShare to MoreWill Malaysia's coronapolitics destroy our educational hope? Azly Rahman Published 12:59 am12 A+A-COMMENT | You may all have known of my passion for education. Out of the more than 500 articles I have written, over the last 15 years of writing for the public, over 33 years of teaching, perhaps more than 60 percent addressed education and critical consciousness taking Malaysia as case study, framed within the context of global and comparative education. But how can a sound and sane education system be borne out of a regime change that was forced-delivered out of the birthing room of Malay coronaviral politics ? Our concern for our childrenAs yours too, my concern is simple:In the hands of leaders who do not have the idea of the political-economic, macro, and micro, or even neurological aspects of education, or even worse, those who do not have the experience of being in a classroom developing minds, we will be heading towards the doom mentioned above.In the hands of those whose interest is to continue to divide and rule and reproduce beings into racists and religious bigots in a multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-talented society, we will create an education system of social reproduction that will produce and reproduce more and more human beings ready to go to war with one another - whatever we may call a "war" is - when it comes to hidden and visible war to protect each other’s racial and religious interests. Besides protecting wealth and power.This is my fear of the power of the "social conveyer belt" in education! What are we seeing reproduced?What must we demand of the new ("illegitimate") government as it finalised the installation of the chief execution officers of education who will not butcher the future of our children?Education is Malaysia's biggest failure. That's where we breed race and religious bigotry. How long will this last? Will Malaysian education continue to be in the hands of "the rats mending the pumpkin"? As the Malay proverb, “seperti tikus membaiki labu” goes? This is my concern, as well as those fed-up with the never-ending politics of the “game of toilet bowls”, sacrificing the future of our children. Coronapolitical regime Only a people's choice government, betrayal-free can last long. Not the old-greedy Pakatan Harapan-type. Not the new one either! Is a new regime comes with a new spirit? Not necessarily. Individuals cannot be separated from ideology. Anti-multiculturalist-backdoor, we are seen parachuted into this new set-up, deemed by many observers, as an illegitimate child of a coronapolitical coup .  Mahathirism has ended. We must rejoice. But we have entered a new age. Of uncertainty and fear and no cure. Of Malay-coronapolitics. Voters took their responsibility seriously. Harapan fooled them quickly. All ended in idiocy.We have a prime minister who thinks “Malay first and Malaysian later” in a cabinet pushing for the agenda of Malay-Salafi-Wahabbi only. I’d say: Why not be human beings first, Malaysian second, and Malay next? Wouldn’t this kind of thinking help up move forward? Harapan under Dr Mahathir Mohamad too was not keen on pushing the agenda for racial justice and harmony, through education. The goal of the new coalition, through education, as we may predict, is to render the non-Malays and non- Muslims inferior to Malay-Muslims, as citizens. Looks like there will be no hope for Malaysians to be Malaysians in a country heading towards damnation.Imagine too those about to be prosecuted for crimes against the nation - may be scott-free? Is this divine justice? Today's Malay politics: about the war to be billionaires as fast as one's term of service allows. We voted for that game show!I don’t know if any of you were interested in the announcement of the new cabinet , when all is about a robbers' banquet? In the new game, even PAS will gradually gobble up Umno. Because one is more religious than the other. Fit to rule in toto.The hudud might become the preferred form of punishment. There will be a great push for this. Thought-police and moral-police will be twin ideological state apparatuses of the new regime. "Liberals" will be hunted down. Malaysia's new regime will pave the way for that "Islamic state" many longed for. Start reading Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid's Tale, may we?The gradual closing of the corruption cases will signify the highest form of hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of the new regime. It will be a government based on both, revenge and the insatiable urge to plunder. Race-religion as twin-turbo-force. The goal of the new regime is to make Ketuanan-Melayu-Salafi-Wahabbi take over everything. Education, especially.As a political observer, my fear is non-Malays will not have a future in the new society, even if Mahathirists take over. The new regime is beginning to be swallowed alive by the race and religious deep state. A fatal game, selling off Malaysians.Malaysia, you and I fear, is on its way to total political collapse and the eighteen months of Harapan seemed just a figment of our imagination. We are back to square one, with even worse politics of vengeance continuing. When in the world and hell-when are we going to progress? In conclusionIn the entire scheme, this is my conclusion: Malaysia’s coronapolitics is merely an internal class war. Between billionaires from BN and wannabe millionaires from Harapan. Of immediate concern to us is the future of education. Will it continue to create coronaviral politicians only good at killing one another through back door deals, backstabbings, and backing each other who were robbers in this epic of Ali Baba and the now perhaps 222 thieves?I don’t know. Do we all - anymore? We are tired, aren’t we? 

Malaysia's 'coronapolitics' not a game of thrones, but toilet bowls

OPINIONS03.8KSHARESShare to FacebookShare to MoreOur 'coronapolitics' not a game of thrones, but toilet bowls Azly Rahman Published 29 Feb 2020, 10:59 pm33 A+A-COMMENT | What is "Malay-coronapolitics"? It is when the old and new are infected by the same deadly breath of stinky politics.Malaysia will soon become just like Nicaragua, a banana republic. Tinpot politicians ruling. And please stop calling it a "Game of Thrones", that is too honourable. The fiasco should be called the "Game of Toilet Bowls", with musical chairs.It is not about the transition of power but of Mahathir Mohamad who allegedly created a system of greed, of authoritarianism in his 22-odd years of Umno culture in him. First, they fought when they were in Umno. Now, when they in a cloned party, the rakyat suffers.When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground, says an African proverb. In Malaysia, these old men burn everything. Kubur kata mari. Rakyat kata pergi. How I love this new Malay saying.Instead of being wise, old leaders, they became better at conning each other. Pathetic, grumpy, vengeful, stinky old men they are.Numbers game? When a politician says "I have the numbers" I thought he meant Sports Toto. Or, when they say “I have the numbers”, they mean I have contact numbers of "frogs" that could jump at a moment's phone call. How honourable is the fate of Malaysians when it rests merely on the politics of "I have the numbers".But welcome to Malaysia's "coronapolitics" where kleptocrats will get their grand pardon. A never-ending game.GE14 was a great con-game by the great con-artists. The people who voted cried in joy. But now, conned to tears. The novelist Shannon Ahmad was perceptive and prophetic when he wrote the postmodern political novel, Shit. I am reading Shit again now. This truly is not a "Game of Thrones" I repeat. But a "Game of Toilet Bowls". Never glamorise filth. Those fighting for the country's loot are ex-Umno. Same old game. Only they got older. Really old.In Malaysia, maybe we should not anyone above 70 to be the country's leader. Look at Donald Trump. We ought to study gerontology. When an old man becomes so powerful, nothing matters to him. He will bulldoze everything. Never cross his path. The ugliness of gerontological politics has dawned upon Malaysians. The damage is irreversible. The worse is yet to come.And I read that the attorney-general Tommy Thomas (photo) has resigned? What a mess this country is in. So many fake news flying around while a fake government consisting of political frogs is being installed.But seriously, our national energy should be on preparing to deal with Covid-19, not some stupid power grab. These pathetic politicians are, perhaps, already billionaires, capitalising on their mastery of fooling people all these years. Mostly these pathetic politicians want to get up there only to ride the gravy train. Not to serve the people. Parasites.Why not pay MPs the same salary as fresh graduates until they prove their worth? Get them to they use Grab, too. They do not deserve to be treated like kings and queens when they are prone to plunder the nation and con the voters.Wrong stepsToday, suddenly, all Umno folks under investigation for all kinds of white-collar crimes are getting a libido-rush and their spirits surging like the Kelantan wau bulan. A Malay-Freudian moment. All these "Langkah Kajang", "Langkah Port Dickson", "Langkah Sheraton", "Langkah Senget", or even better "Langkah Shaitan" - not Sheraton - are maybe giant steps to Sungai Buluh Prison.Many wanted to become the prime minister. That is part of the problem. Create more prime minister jobs, more ministerial posts, more posts with power attached. Power to rule over others. To feel important and be worshipped and crafted and curated well by the media. Yes, create more positions. A simple supply-demand issue solved. Law of diminishing sanity. Why not have 10 prime ministers and offer them each minimum wage. See how well they would work to keep their jobs.Alas, after 30 years of writing about Mahathirism and Malaysian politics, I feel I have nothing much to write about anymore. I feel that these politicians are not interested in doing good work for the good of the nation. Only dirty work for their own good. I don't know how many lives politicians have and how many layers of shame their faces are blessed with. Mascara of mangled personae.Our nation will be in deep turmoil, yet again. Another Bersih-type rally is needed, perhaps?The ugliness of race and religion politics will be back in full swing. Damn these politicians! The return of Umno culture, with unsavoury characters as leaders, supported by Ali Baba and his 40 thieves. That's our story.Look what the old man has done? He has destroyed democracy over and over again and still want to keep the nation ransom. No shame. He wanted to be known as a "statesman" but ended up a "staleman". He well overstayed his welcome. Power and greed got the best of him.Master strategy?These politicians we gave our vote to can't even work together. These clowns. How can they govern so that the people of all races can work together as well?
Those who marvelled that man as a "master strategist" do not have an idea of how pathetic our politics has become under him. We read about the day Mahathir quit. Resigned. The ministers lost their job. Then Mahathir got his job back in a day. He got everybody's job. All for himself. Then a counter-coup happened. Aren’t we tired of reading about this nonsense? At a time of coronavirus, we are forced to read about this Malay coronapolitics. How pathetic.Call for new elections. This is the only way to do justice to the voters who were fooled, lied to all this while. Three decades of Mahathir rule direct or indirectly, have created a democracy dead on the inside. Pathetic patronage system we have seen being cultivated.Crazy, is it not? You don't like somebody till death, you burn the entire village. This insane move is like removing the handcuffs from those being prosecuted in the 1MDB scandal. Ali Baba and his 40 thieves will escape in joy. Chaos! Bursa Malaysia will continue to shake and rattle. All the fish in the ocean of coronapolitics, big and small, will be jumping ashore running away. What a way to destroy the economy.What unity government?A “unity government” was earlier proposed. A unity government in a toxic political environment? Who decides on the composition? One man again? His self and his age are two of Mahathir's greatest enemies he must confront in his final battle over time. The rakyat is tired of reading about this nonsense in Malaysian politics. Whether you call it realism or realpolitik or any other fancy name, it is insulting our intelligence.In the ultimate analysis, how dare these politicians in Pakatan Harapan destroy that bit of remaining hope for reform they promised? Just because they think they can do anything. The voters are now angry and want to go to the polls to choose real leaders, not clowns and conmen and women.This species called politicians beg for your votes so that they could play their Game of Toilet Bowls all night long. In this kind of toxic and pathetic political culture, we may see a change of government every year as in many failed nations.In the year of Vision 2020, we have destroyed what we planned to be. Total chaos. Because one man wanted it all. What a shameful country Malaysia is. Can't even have a decent leader elected through a good and clean political culture.Though costly, a new election is needed to choose apples or oranges or durians. Voters need to decide and to punish betrayers.What now?We will have a kamikaze government doing a seppuku on itself. Imagine the governmental disruption, the fiasco that this game of toilet bowls has caused in the name of greed and selfishness. Imagine the chaos in all states? Just imagine what we are now made to become?What then must we do? We are super sick of being mere spectators while Ali Baba and the 40 thieves are having their last laugh - escaping prosecution. Can't we salvage some things?

Will Malaysian voters accept this backdoor-government?

Opinion01.5KSHARESShare to FacebookShare to MoreWill the rakyat, accept this backdoor-government? Azly Rahman Published: 7:59 pm  |  Modified: 8:41 pm A+ A- COMMENT | Chaos. Mayhem The coronavirus infection of Malaysian politics. Something we have expected to happen but unsure if it would happen. Until yesterday when hell broke loose and the total damage to our political-economic and social stability is yet to be seen.What a betrayal. What a bunch of losers we voted into power back in May, two years ago. Little did the voters knew that this magnitude of no-shame politics would happen, derailing all the possible plans we had for a truly multicultural social evolution.Advertisement
I was about to write this week’s column on how we ought to brace together as a nation facing the foreseeable pandemic. “Love in the time of Corona” as we should think about, a phrase I borrowed with apologies to the title of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, Love in the time of Cholera.And then this came. Back door government in the making. What then must the rakyat do? How angry I am sure we all are being played up by those who think that they can fool us.I wrote these thoughts which hopefully reflect what we all are feeling about this sudden display of spineless politics. Of a game of musical chairs with Death Metal music playing in the background.In the tradition of a Jamaica Kinchaid rant, I say these in the following paragraphs. You can add more after reading:Our grave concernsMaybe the new government may not happen. Maybe the plan will be stopped by the Yang Di Pertuan Agong? A counter-checkmate in place? Or, will the new government materialize and be a haven for old and dying crooks, hobos, parasites, parachuted-politicians and robber-barons seeking blessings and pardons?Dissolve Parliament, I’d say. It will be fair for the voters. Let the hypocrites face the voters, let the rakyat deal with the betrayal. The battle for power will be intense. But I hope no huge rally should be planned. We now have the coronavirus scare. Online protests will be ok.Just when we are about to see a multicultural sensibility developing, we are seeing a political multipolar disorder surfacing. In the North, this is called "Politik Pelingkup Haprak" (Untrustworthy politicians) where they will "pelekoh" (beat someone to a pulp) each other. Rakyat will "mati kering" (die standing). Useless, senseless, spineless, ridiculous bunch of politicians we have. Only concerned with saving their wealth, power, dynasty.What will the next elections mean anymore? What else is there to vote for? Expect authoritarianism and anarchy to reign? Malaysians will see a long period of instability, at a time when we need to manage the Wuhan effect on our lives and economy.Pakatan Harapan todayPakatan Harapan is now the destroyer of the people's hope. The #UndiRosak folks were right then.Ministers in DAP and PKR are now scrambling to find other jobs. It's like Donald Trump's show The Apprentice. What a country! Harapan ministers, in general, are now worried who will lose their jobs. Theirs was a short-term employment. They were “political-temps” made glamorous. They are now clearing their desks as we are reading about this huge mess.Joyous-weeping Malaysians just voted for a half-term government. The poker players shifted the goal post, laughing to the bank. One man saving himself and his family brought down politics of the entire country. Welcome to the show that never ends.The birth of Umno 3.0 today and a new Pakatan Nasional signify the most destructive fundamental shift in latter-day Malaysian politics, at a time when we are hoping for stability so that peace and social justice can be the foundation of our economic growth. But well good luck, Malaysians. You voted for change!My call is this: O' Malays, care not just about halal food but about halal politicians and if they get halal income. Open your eyes to hypocrisy.As badass-gangsta-prez as Trump is, Americans still have choices every four years. In Malaysia, the choice is long buried. Malaysia does not have any credible replacement as yet. To replace a toxic culture of political patronage now brewed to madness.End of a “theory”The “Rahman Theory” is over in Malaysian politics. It's the age of 3M. Mahathir. Then Muhyiddin. Then Mukriz. Perhaps. Your guess is as good as mine. Then comes now the age of madness. To Mahathir, the 1998 Reformasi March to his residence and the aftermath of the 1997 Tom Yum effect seems like yesterday. This vendetta has brought the nation down the drain of history.I have always said this: Trust not those you see wearing the mask of "Islam" these days. Behind that may lie a big license to plunder, rob, con, steal! Those who embezzled billions today are mainly Malay-Muslim leaders. From Tabung Haji to Tabung Hajjah to Tabung Palestine!We are all saying ensure rule of law & welfare of all Malaysians, please. Stop protecting only Malays. Especially leaders who embezzle everything!Voters gave the mandate with their sweat and tears of hope, the government gave the last laugh. Politics of urination, I call it. The work of American pop artist Andy Warhol in that genre called “Oxidation” seems holier. Essentially this game of survival of PAS-Umno-Bersatu alliance is selfish, immoral, and dangerous. Think about it. Its consequences.The longer one is in power, the more fearful one becomes, of being investigated for the abuse of power. Lousy is the culture of "power transition," Malaysia needs to learn at least about and from the US primaries. Something's wrong with the Malaysian system of "power-transition" when one refuses to get out and one knocking hard, to get in.If and when "Pakatan Nasional" is born, the voters & rakyat are fooled, big time. And what was that last GE and Bersih rally about? A big con pre-ordained?Politicians don't care and don't serve. They just want to keep their job. Taking as much while they ride the gravy train. A post-hypocritical world we're in. Politics means pathos. Politicians aren't worth a dime. Post-existentialism is in for me.Malaysians have been asking: What’s up with the transition of power? Nobody wants to leave. Too risky. Chaos looming. Our pathos. Those who voted for the new government are now served with a new soap opera of power transition. It is a betrayal of the voter’s trust. A waste of time spent on casting that precious vote.Now, "Have a cigar" Pink Floyd's song on corporate-crony success playing in my head. As I continue to read the story on bribery, robbery, hypocrisy in the never-ending game of Malaysian politics.What then must the voters do?We seemed doomed.From high hopes to shattered dreams. As I wrote about recently.