In Sickness and in Health

By Pak Bui

 

“Once I was working overnight, as a junior doctor,” a friend told me, “when I was called to see a man in his 70s. He was at death’s door. He had a bleeding aneurysm in his abdomen.”

“What’s a bloody aneurysm?” I asked, patiently.

“It’s a swelling in the biggest blood vessel in the body. It’s usually caused by high blood pressure. The vessel had started to leak. The old man was already unconscious. I was asked to break the bad news to his wife,” the doctor explained.

The doctor and I were sitting in a cement car park outside a coffee shop, at dusk. The traders were laying out their plastic furniture. Smoke from barbecue stalls rose in the air. It was a peaceful time of day, in between the hectic daytime bustle and the alcohol-fuelled nocturnal clatter.

Police and your basic rights

By Sim Kwang Yang

When you are stopped by a policeman by the roadside, or called in for questioning, or arrested for some alleged crimes, do you know all the basic rights?  Or are you so scared you just let him do what he wants to do with you?

Remember that time when Wong Chin Fatt was detained at the brickfields police station for wearing black T shirt or some silly charge like that?  About 20 people went to the police station and held a candle light vigil to give him moral support outside the fencing.

The policemen in the station got excited and rushed out to arrest them.  Five lawyers went to the police station to offer their legal counsel and they too were arrested.

Sarawak’s hydroelectric dam megaproject EIAs in limbo

By Zhang ML

Bernama reported recently  that the “Special Purpose Vehicle” (SPV) company, set up for the purpose of undertaking the transmission line project to supply electricity from Sarawak to west Malaysia, has been purchased by Tenaga Nasional Berhad and Sarawak Energy Berhad, for a sum of RM16 million. They are each to have a 50% stake in the SPV.

It was also reported that 77 percent of the undersea high-voltage transmission line is planned to run across the sea bed of the South China Sea across Indonesian waters or territory.

The agreed price was said to have been arrived at after considering advances that had been made by Sime Darby to the SPV for the purpose of project studies, including the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the undersea cable.

“People First”? Najib, meet the poor Malays when you are in Kuching

By Chee How

The sun is setting on a housing estate with extensive open spaces with grass and trees, a flowing river and animated butterflies fluttering across the screen…

“Prestige amidst nature’s bounty”

This is how CMS Property Development Sdn Bhd described Bandar Baru Samariang in its website promoting its houses.

How wonderful … but is it really?

Yasin is certainly not impressed by the advertising gimmicks.

He has lived in Bandar Baru Samariang for the last 10 years, one of the pioneers in the ‘new’ township. But he has been living in the ghetto, very much shielded from the high-end housing estates -  even if the high-end estates themselves have little prestige to boast about.

Remembering Teoh Beng Hock

By Kenny Gan

As we mourn the untimely death of Teoh Beng Hock, whose life was cruelly snatched away in the prime of his youth, it seems as if the nation is moving under a long dark cloud, like a partial eclipse of the sun which will not go away.

We are united in anger at the sheer pointlessness of his death and the suspicious circumstances under which it happened. We are saddened at his youth, dismayed by his impending marriage missed by a few short hours and moved to tears that he will never see his unborn child.

We are also frustrated over the disdainful shrugging off of responsibility by the MACC. We are frustrated with the lumbering investigation of the police, whom few believe will be impartial.

Malaysians continue to die in march to a better future

By Apang

Yes, tragic, condemned, brutal, inhumane, outrageous, terrible, inexcusable, unforgettable, tearful rhetoric is heard, yet again. Not only Teoh’s family members and other loved ones, but all Malaysians, have heard of, and seen images of, this questionable death.

The latest outburst regarding the death of Teoh Beng Hock, rightly regarded as suspicious, is heard all over again. Malaysia Boleh! In this instance, Malaysians show they are humans, with emotions, and they can differentiate fact from fiction, among other things.

Allow me to put this scene in a “Malaysia Boleh” perspective. I am convinced that the BN knows only too well the mentality, or reality, of the vast majority of Malaysian voters. So this latest event, by the MACC, the newest member of the BN’s extended family, of Teoh’s death while in MACC custody will be only a minor hiccup.

Reflection on religion : a personal perspective

 

By Bunga Pakma

No need for me to comment at length on the events that continue to march over us in grim file.  Since Teoh Beng Hock’s martyrdom Malaysians have found their tongues and pens, and are using them eloquently in anger and indignation.  Meanwhile, the BN government, by declaring that the Royal Commission will not investigate the circumstances of Teoh’s death, has all but shouted from the rooftops that it has something to hide.

I was dismayed to read of another tragic loss this morning.  SC Chan died yesterday morning (23 July) at Normah Hospital, Kuching, after a coronary by-pass operation.  Malaysiakini readers knew him by his pen-name, Tony Thien. His long career climaxed with his appointment as Malaysiakini’s Sarawak correspondent, and he never failed to excite my admiration for his searching, accurate, and courageous reportage.  He has merited greatly of the people of Sarawak for his unrelenting probing of land issues and the injustices wreaked by a brutal regime.  He will be dearly missed.

What is a Royal Commission?

By Pak Bui

Teoh Beng Hock’s political martyrdom is another catastrophe in the barely hundred-day-old infancy of Najib’s malformed administration.

Prime Minister Najib has bowed, finally, to public demands to set up a Royal Commission to review the interrogation tactics of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC). But he has refused to allow the royal panel to probe the harrowing death of the Selangor political aide.

Teoh died during, or following, MACC interrogation. He died after the MACC denied him his basic human rights. This was labeled the first “political death” of the Najib regime by 17 civil society groups, including the Bar Council, Jamaah Islah Malaysia, the Centre for Independent Journalism, and Suaram.

MACC: what “politicising”?

By Sim Kwang Yang

In a malaysiakini story headlined “Stop politicising Teoh’s death”, Nasri the de facto Law Minister accused Lim Kit Siang of trying to turn the MACC issue into a racial issue.

This strange term “politicising” (what a twisted mouthful!) is one of the most often used mantras ensuing from the lips of BN ministers in over three decades.  It has also been dutifully quoted in headlines in the mainstream media during the same period.

Everyday, I browse through three or four newspapers online in the USA and UK, and have not encountered this term even once all these years.  It is indeed a unique and prominent Malaysian word in our political language.  It deserves some attention.

We have to ask: why is politicising any issue such a big crime?  Is there a law against it?  What is politicising anything anyway?

MACC: Damn this race thing……. again!

By Sim Kwang Yang

The de facto Law Minister Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz has accused DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang of turning Teoh Beng Hock’s death into a racial issue.

As a character from Alice in Wonderland would say, “It’s getting curiouser and curiouser.”  For the life of me, I cannot recall having read or heard LKS saying anything racial about Teoh’s death, and he is a man of many words!  It takes a racist to see other people’s racism when none in fact exists.

Then, Malaysia Insider carries a story with the headline Dr. M says the Chinese are the real masters of the country. That is even more surreal than Asri’s deluded vision.

Dr. M said that he will be called a racist by Chinese racists because of his view.  So we will not call him a racist.  Name calling is not a valid argument anyway.

MACC: damn this racist thing!

By Sim Kwang Yang

Last Sunday, I sat down with Eddie Ng and some friends at my Cheras neighbourhood coffee shop.  Eddie is a local DAP official and a newly appointed Councillor to represent residents in our area in the city council.

Eddie had to step away on some errand.  He does have a large and bulky frame, and as his huge back disappeared into the Pasar Malam crowd, my neighbour – an old man — asked me who he was.  I told him Eddie was our newly minted local councillor.

The old man mused, “He is the next one to go into the MACC HQ.”

Without batting an eye lid, his wife beside him retorted, “Don’t worry about him.  He is too large to lift up.  Even if 4 or 5 men can lift him up, they won’t be able to squeeze him through the window!”

MACC and Police: new laws and regulations on interrogation, detention, and interview needed!

By Sim Kwang Yang

The sudden death of Teoh Beng Hock has aroused a tsunami of righteous outrage from the public and civil society groups over the mode and method of investigation of our enforcement agencies, such as the Police and the MACC.

The account given by the Kajang DAP Councillor Tan Boon Hua is particularly revealing.  He was dealt very humiliating verbal violence and threats to his person, and called “Cina bodoh”, and asked to go back to China.  He was then punished by having to stand stiff for four hours from 10 pm until 2 am the next morning.

Teoh probably had to endure similar barbaric treatment.

Justice for Beng Hock

“Justice for Beng Hock” March in Kuching, Sarawak

20.07.2009

1.00pm meet at DAP Service Centre, Chonglin Park, Jalan Tabuan.

Please wear Black shirt

Please inform others and bring your friends

Justice for Beng Hock, Justice for All Malaysians

The MACC failed: A Betrayal of the Native Ethos

By Bunga Pakma

I hope that Our Founder, Mr. Sim, will allow me to add a short pendant to my last.

We all have had the experience of rough usage in conversation, of being taken aback (this is a metaphor referring to sailing ships) by an sudden gale of words that blow upon us without our expecting it.  And then, as we leave, we understand what we ought to have said.

The term for this in French is espirit d’escalier, literally, “staircase wit.” You know what you wanted to say when you’re already on the way down.  This mode of thought could be expressed in Iban as pengerunding di pala’ tangga.

No piece of writing is ever truly complete.  We all participate in an endless conversation.  I contemplated what I wrote last, and would like to add these few words.

Logging puts Borneo tribe in peril – 16 Jul 09

The Penan tribe of northern Borneo has spent hundreds of years living in the rainforest, hunting, fishing and using the trees for shelter and medicine.

But as logging by large corporations threaten the area with deforestation, the tribes’ way of life is being destroyed.

Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reports on the human cost of the rainforest’s destruction.

Appalled by Teoh’s death in the Klang Valley

By Bunga Pakma

Today I was going to write about religion. Yes, I was going to play with fire, I hoped in the form of a modest candle of illumination rather than of high explosive and white phosphorus. My practice is to conceive a topic, then muse on it until I am ready for the arduous work of sitting in one place and arranging what my mind has discovered in prose that can be sent out into the world. For me, the unconscious mind does most of the work of thinking.

On the computer this morning the first I see is Yao Yan Poh’s moving and thoughtful poem/essay. He had covered much of the ground I had surveyed to build upon. I sighed, metaphorically tore up my blueprints, and set my imagination to work on another structure.

Teoh’s death

1Malaysia: Teoh Beng Hock, Kugan Ananthan and Adi Anwar

By Pak Bui

Teoh Beng Hock, 30, Political Secretary to Selangor Executive Councillor (Exco) Ean Yong Hian Wah, was found dead yesterday afternoon. He had fallen to his death onto a roof of a four-storey building next to the Selangor offices of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on the 14th floor of the Masalam Building in Shah Alam.

Teoh, from Alor Gajah, Malacca, had been a former Sin Chew Jit Poh journalist. The MACC had summoned Teoh, aide to the DAP Exco Ean Yong (an equivalent of a Sarawak State Minister), to the building at 5pm on July 15, to be interviewed as a witness. The MACC had begun investigations into Ean Yong and six other Pakatan Rakyat (PR) Selangor State Assembly members.

PR leaders have condemned the MACC raids of elected representatives’ offices, as being biased and politically motivated. The PR has pointed out that the MACC has ignored numerous reports of ill-gotten wealth involving former Umno Selangor Menteri Besar Khir Toyo and others.

Rethinking civilisation

By Yao Yan Poh

( We all have our favourite blogs and bloggers. My favourite blog is loyauburuk, and my favourite blogger is Yao Yan Poh, the past president of the Malaysian Bar Council. I have taken the liberty to reproduce below Yao’s latest entry. A thinking man’s point of view not always expressed in Malaysia – SKY )

Written on May 3, 2009. Originally published in “Eye Asia” (July 2009 edition).

I have to know

If there is God, or karma

Is Life a string of random mishaps

Or a laborious web of scripted dramas

I cannot tell

Borneo’s burning forests

The rainforests of Borneo are some of the most important and complex natural eco-systems on Earth. But despite campaigns for conservation and promises to preserve the forests, they are disappearing…

 

Change in NCR land-grab policy? What’s the difference from the 20-year con job?

By Apang

In yet another big sweep, James Masing, the Sarawak Land Development Minister was willing to witness yet another large-scale land development scheme on Native Customary Rights (NCR) lands in Julau, about 55 km from Sibu. Masing was in Sarikei, about one hour’s drive from Sibu, to witness the signing ceremony between Sime Darby and the landowners who were again represented by the state agency, Land Custody and Development Authority (LCDA).

Masing is obviously right to state the fact, as reported in The Borneo Post Online  on 10.07.2009 that Sime Darby is a “very well established and leading multinational conglomerate which has about 100 years’ experience in developing not only oil palm but also rubber plantations in Sabah and the peninsula.” Thus, he said the people must not doubt Sime Darby’s ability. Of course the history of Sime Darby’s practice in Malaysia and Indonesia can be googled for one’s own interpretation if huge conglomerate means a trustworthy partner, especially one with NCR landowners.

After Najib’s first 100 days

By Sim Kwang Yang

Much has been made in the media about Najib’s first 100 days in office as the latest Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Many commentators have observed how the political and economic measures initiated by Najib is to win back the middle ground, especially the Chinese and Indian voters who had shifted their political support to the Pakatan rakyat coalition during the March 8 general election last year.

For instance, he has announced liberalisation policies with regard to share equity in public listed companies, though some say that will benefit foreign investors more than Chinese and Indian investors.

Then, on the 100^th day itself, Najib announced eleven measures that are supposed to shower gifts on Malaysian people.  (I did not even go through the list.)  It got the Pakatan Rakyat leadership worried.

The Malay language dilemma

By Sim Kwang Yang

Many commentators have since observed that the recent government flip-flop in the language switch for teaching math and science has been a BN concession to linguistic nationalism.

I had suffered much personally from the policies that emerged from such linguistic nationalism.  When I was so much educated in English, I used to be regarded with some suspicion by the old traditional Chinese educationists.  Then again, I was refused a scholarship to study medicine in the university on grounds that I could not speak Malay.

When I entered Parliament in 1982, I was delighted to find that MPs from Sarawak and Sabah could still speak English in that august House.  Non-Malay MPs would be delighted hearing me speaking English, but UMNO MPs were not pleased.  In 1983, a bill was passed to amend the law, disallowing me from speaking in English thenceforth.

Are We Alone in the Universe?

By Kenny Gan

Starry, starry night! Away from bright lights of the towns and cities at the beaches and the countryside, one can look up into the clear night sky to marvel at nature’s glittering light show; dense clouds of sparkling diamonds scattered liberally across the inky dome of the sky, each point of light a fiery sun with its own worlds, its light has travelled countless miles of space and eons across time to reach us. Are there beings in other worlds looking at their own stars and wondering the same thing?

The thought of life on other worlds makes our fights and quarrels seem small, our fears and our tribulations seem trivial. The cut and thrust of politics seem to pale into insignificance and our differences seem to melt away into a “united planet” instead of fragmenting into national boundaries. How will extraterrestrial life look like? Will they be more advanced than us and able to teach us a thing or two about living in peace and using our planet in a sustainable way?

Thinking of Confucius, Sophocles, Kubler Ross, Tolstoy, and Rinpoche……on a lazy Malaysian Sunday

By Sim Kwang Yang

Confucius asked rhetorically, how can we know about dying and death, when we do not know about living a life?  Generally, Chinese people agree with him, and do not think much about death and dying.

By and large, all peoples of the world believe that life is good, and death is bad.  That is why people try to live as long as possible.  But there are people who do not agree with Confucius.

In ancient Greece, the great tragedian Sophocles told of the story of Midas who tried to pry away the greatest secret about what was best for man from Silenus, advisor and instructor to Dionysius (Oedipus at Colonus 1225).

Now for something different…..

Monty Python was the most entertaining comedy group in the late 60s and the early 70s. In fact, some critics have claimed they redefined British irreverent sense of humour. Their Philosophers Song reproduced below must be learned by all who are interested in philosophy.

SKY

Bruces’ Philosophers Song ( Video Inside )

also known as

The Philosophers’ Drinking Song

Letter from Semenanjung? Notes from Nowhere?

By Bunga Pakma

Even as we lie asleep in our beds or sit in our chairs we are moving, carried by the earth’s rotation at a thousand miles per hour. Then too, we all ride on the earth as it swings around the sun, the sun orbits the center of our galaxy, and the galaxy itself is moving out from some unknown centre.

We do not merely directly observe the first two of these grand circles, the deepest part of our beings are directly tuned to them.  A rhythm of day and night cycles inside us, and the seasons of the year touch instincts in us in the tropics or the higher latitudes just as they do in animals

So one might say that the normal condition of life, whether we like it or not, is motion.  That life is a voyage is one of the oldest metaphors.

A Plague on All Our Houses

By Pak Bui

The burgeoning H1N1 flu pandemic has cast a little light on our Malaysian society. Many Malaysians are anxious. They scan the news sites and newspapers, looking for some clue that they may be the subjects of tomorrow’s headlines. A few are panicky.

Some are irritated and grumpy. They complain endlessly about travel restrictions, about queues to have their temperature tested, about schools being closed, and especially about being quarantined.

People are furious that the number of visitors to hospital wards was limited. It was reported that one visitor to a hospital in Sarawak grabbed a scrawny security guard by the lapels. He was shouting, “If I get sick it’s my own business! What’s it to you?”

MP Sivarasa granted Leave for Judicial Review

By HU Editor

In a decision delivered in Kuching High Court this afternoon, Justice Datuk Linton Albert granted leave for Sivarasa A/L K. Rasiah, to commence judicial review proceedings pursuant to his Application made in March 2009.

In his Application, the Parti Keadilan Rakyat Vice President and Subang MP Sivarasa Rasiah applied to the High Court for an Order of Certiorari to quash the decision of the First Respondent refusing the his entry into Sarawak by the issuance of the Notice of Refusal of Entry dated 14^th February 2009 against the Director of Immigration Sarawak.

The Keadilan activist lawyer also asked for a declaration that the decision of the Director of Immigration to refuse his entry into Sarawak by was mala fide unlawful unreasonable and or irrational and or ultra vires the Immigration Act and Immigration Regulations, is in excess of his jurisdiction and in breach of the Applicant’s legitimate expectation to enter the State of Sarawak.

Granting leave for the Application, the High Court Judge ruled that the application is by no means frivolous and that there is clearly an arguable case which ought to be heard on a full inter parte hearing.

Mr Baru Bian and Mr See Chee How acted for Sivarasa while Senior Federal Counsel Puan Azizah Nawawi represented the Attorney-General’s Chambers

Click here for the full decision in pdf format

Contra racism

By Sim Kwang Yang

When the DAP Kuching Branch was first established in 1978, the party was a new kid on the block.  For many years before that, the SUPP was seen to be the sole representative of the Chinese in Sarawak.

The most effective tactic of the SUPP in demonising the DAP at that time was to call the DAP as a traitor to the Chinese race, out to divide the Chinese community, and to destroy Chinese unity. The SUPP needed the united support of all the Chinese, in order to negotiate and compromise with other race-based party.

The MCA used the same tactic against the Peninsular DAP and they were quite successful at that time.

During those early years of the DAP in Sarawak, the voters did buy the SUPP’s fare of Chinese unity.  I doubt they will continue to do so blindly, 30 years later.

Gobbledegook and regurgitation galore

In the 2 Written Judgments of the Court of Appeal in Zambry v Nizar

By NH Chan, retired Court of Appeal Judge

This post is reproduced from Loyar Burok

Prologue

I shall start with an aside on the dictionary definition of the two words which feature in the title of this article.

Gobbledegook means unintelligible language.

Regurgitate means repeat information without understanding it. Regurgitation is the noun.

After you have read the article you should have an inkling of what I am trying to suggest with the words. You can then judge for yourself.

What if you have only 7 more days to live?

By Sim Kwang Yang

If you are told by your doctor that you have been stricken by an incurable disease, and that you will die in seven days, what are the things that you will do first?  This may be a hypothetical question, but give it a try.  See whether it will make you think about changing life’s priority.

This is a trick question I used to ask my philosophy class in the New Era College.  The diverse answers I got did show the different personality of the students.

People live their daily life without thinking about death and dying of course.  In fact, many people live as if they will never die.  The subject is so tabooed that whenever it is brought up, everyone will hush you down.  They think that life is good and death is bad.  They think that even talking about death and dying may bring bad luck.

A tribute to SJS Kuching and the La Salle brothers – Part 2

Kaypo Anak Sarawak is a Columnist  of  Hermit Hornbill at The Borneo Post Online , His article is  published  in The Borneo Post every Sunday. (Used by permission of the Author )

STUDYING in St Joseph’s Secondary School was an exciting experience that would probably remain with you for life.

Sarawak under the British colonial rule was in a state of emergency fighting a communist armed insurgency in the 1960s. Newly formed political parties were something new and confusing to our parents.

A struggling self – Sharing and Reflecting on a “lost” journey

By Apang

I have been absent from HU for a while, not to my own liking though. It is a constant struggle to pinpoint what to write, to share, to provoke or just to give meaning to my thought. Unlike SKY, Pak Bui and Bunga Pakma, who all write fluently and comparatively easily, l struggle to put my thoughts, my concerns, my state of confusion into words, and to express them in a language in which my ability is neither here nor there.

There has been some discussion in HU about this blog being pro-PKR etc. That kind of limiting thought is reflective of Malaysia, truly Malaysia (not Asia) indeed. Writing about Malaysian party politics is also so dry, so backward and so typical of Malaysia and the Malaysian media. Except for the intelligence found in a few online news portal and blogs, Malaysian writings on politics are just so dry, devoid of substance.

But as SKY says repeatedly, party politics are but a necessary evil. In our supposed democracy, the might of governments are unleashed after each election. The BN continues to use elections and election results as legitimacy to do, and not do, what thinking Malaysians already know too well. The BN does not know that one doesn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that even Hitler also had held elections to legitimise his rule of terror, not just against Germans, but against the whole world.

Letter from Sarawak 4 – Concrete boxes we call home

By Bunga Pakma

The last time you saw me, reader, I was zooming through Kuching to catch a bus. As I watched shopping complexes, flyovers and houses whizzing by, my mind snapped back to a memory of a trip to Kuching six months before.  At that time I was with a friend.  We looked round at the new buildings going up, and looked at each other.  “I am so bloody weary,” he sighed, “of seeing nothing but this damned concrete.”  Yes, then, and now, Kuching is stuffed with concrete, hectare after hectare of it.

Concrete is inherently no more ugly than any other thing to build with.  It’s gray, but so is granite and slate.  Concrete is simply everywhere, there is no relief, and the lack of variety struck me as dreary.

There’s plenty of concrete in the US, but the US has been building nearly 300 years longer than has Malaysia, and the legacy of structures is impressive.  In Connecticut, 18th century houses are not rare.  Most are of wood. The best timber—chestnut, for example, as lasting as belian—was once plentiful and cheap.  Beautiful brickwork exists from all era, and many large public

Dying and death of philosophers

What better thing is there to do to do on a lazy Malaysian Sunday than reading a book review article from the New York Times?  The following is an article reviewing a book that talks about philosophers’ dying and death.

SKY

Dying and Death: When You Sort It Out, What’s It All About, Diogenes?

By Dinitia Smith

Heraclitus, who believed that everything was in a state of flux, died, according to one account, of drowning in cow dung. The philosopher Francis Bacon, that great champion of the empirical method, died of his own philosophy: in an effort to observe the effects of refrigeration, on a freezing cold day he stuffed a chicken with snow and caught pneumonia.

THE BOOK OF DEAD PHILOSOPHERS