Thursday, November 27, 2008

60 years of forgotten genocide of the Palestinians.

Throughout history, we’ve seen that the world has triumphed in stopping the gravest crime against humanity. The world stopped Nazism, and the world stopped Apartheid. After 60 years of mass killings of the Palestinians by the Zionist Regime and its allies, can the world stop this crime against humanity as it did before?

As I was blog-hopping, I stumbled upon a blog (http://toadexodus.blogspot.com/) where the writer vehemently expressed his resistance against the 60 years of mass killing of the Palestinians by the Zionist Regime.

I was enlightened to learn that Mahatma Gandhi (who inspires me tremendously on civil disobedience) had written a letter in reply to Martin Buber’s letter on Israel issue.

After reading his letter, all that I could say is, Mahatma Gandhi indeed was a great man, a man with a clear conscience, a man with a clear conviction as to what is right and what is wrong.

Something for us to reflect upon.

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"Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and the persecution of the Jews in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this very difficult question.

My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews.

But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.

The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French in precisely the same sense that Christians born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords a colorable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews.

But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which many inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province.

But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is being committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claims to stand for justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemy of both? Or is England drifting towards armed dictatorship and all it means?

Germany is showing to the world how efficiently violence can be worked when it is not hampered by any hypocrisy or weakness masquerading as humanitarianism. It is also showing how hideous, terrible and terrifying it looks in its nakedness.

Can the Jews resist this organized and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who has faith in a living God need feel helpless or forlorn. Jehovah of the Jews is a God more personal than the God of the Christians, the Musalmans or the Hindus, though, as a matter of fact in essence, He is common to all the one without a second and beyond description. But as the Jews attribute personality to God and believe that He rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment . And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the god fearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.

It is hardly necessary for me to point out that it is easier for the Jews than for the Czechs to follow my prescription. And they have in the Indian satyagraha campaign in South Africa an exact parallel. There the Indians occupied precisely the same place that the Jews occupy in Germany. The persecution had also a religious tinge. President Kruger used to say that the white Christians were the chosen of God and Indians were inferior beings created to serve the whites. A fundamental clause in the Transvaal constitution was that there should be no equality between the whites and colored races including Asia tics. There too the Indians were consigned to ghettos described as locations. The other disabilities were almost of the same type as those of the Jews in Germany. The Indians, a mere handful, resorted to satyagraha without any backing from the world outside or the Indian Government. Indeed the British officials tried to dissuade the satyagrahis (soldiers of non-violence) from their contemplated step. World opinion and the Indian Government came to their aid after eight years of fighting. And that too was by way of diplomatic pressure not of a threat of war.

But the Jews of Germany can offer satyagraha under infinitely better auspices than Indians of South Africa. The Jews are a compact, homogeneous community in Germany. they are far more gifted than the Indians of South Africa. And they have organized world opinion behind them. I am convinced that if someone with courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in nonviolent action, the winter of their despair can in the twinkling of an eye be turned into the summer of hope. And what has today become a degrading man-hunt can be turned in to a calm and determined stand offered by unarmed men and women possessing the strength of suffering given to them by Jehovah. It will be then a truly religious resistance offered against the godless fury of dehumanized man. The German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted that latter to an appreciation of human dignity. They will have rendered service to fellow-Germans and proved their title to be the real Germans as against those who are today dragging, however unknowingly, the German name into the mire.

And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart, who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown in to the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in the their favor in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them.

I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.

Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every country is their home including Palestine, not by aggression but by loving service. A Jewish friend has sent me a book called The Jewish Contribution to Civilization by Cecil Roth. It gives a record of what the Jews have done to enrich the word's Literature, art, music, drama, science, medicine, agriculture, etc. Given the will, the Jews can refuse to be treated as the outcaste of the West, to be despised or patronized. He can command the attention and respect of the world by being man, the chosen creation of God, instead of being man who is fast sinking to the brute and forsaken by God. They can add to their many contributions the surpassing contribution of non-violent action".
Justify Full

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

I suddenly become a gutless being today...gotta get myself together and i'm hopping that i'll be brave again, at least by 630 pm today.

thanks friends for the moral support!!:P

you know who you are.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008


The weak and the powerful

I watched this movie last night

What do I have to say about this movie?it was hilarious!
And this particular part really made me laugh my head off:

"My name is Moto Moto, it's so hot you have to say it twice"(btw, Moto means hot)

There was this part in this movie where Makunga (the power-hungry lion) had forcefully seized Zuba's reign as King of the wilderness. Makunga ruled the wilderness in the truest meaning of dictatorship. Whoever opened his/her mouth would end up being kicked and land on the other part of the world.

One day, every one started freaking out as the land's water supply was drying up. There would not be enough water for every one. Makunga arrogantly announced that whoever wanted to have the water would have to fight for it.

A little deer stepped forward and said that it was obvious that he (Makunga) would win because he was the most powerful of them all. Every one else would eventually die.

My summary on Makunga's perspective on the crisis-Too bad that you were born weak. Life is unfair, deal with it or just drop it!

I would have to admit that this part of the movie was intriguingly provocative. It deals with the relationship between the weak and the powerful.

To state the obvious, this is how the world works. We have the poor and the rich, the weak and the powerful, the fortunate and the unfortunate. When we talk about economic, social, political and cultural development, the main goal must be towards bridging the gap that keeps on widening in the name of modernity. The formula must always be the enforcement of rule of law and principles of justice and humanity.

These rules and principles never change. Only human beings do. It’s like conscience. Conscience will always be there, at the back of our heads, but it all depends on the individual whether he opts to acknowledge it or ignore it.

Some say there is no such thing as absolute rights. Some say there is no such thing as absolute freedom which justifies the true meaning of democracy to continuously derogate. And that some people forget what those words mean.

The term human rights mean the minimum standard of protection of basic human rights and freedom to which all human beings are entitled to as a human beings. The word "minimum" and "basic" should be given emphasis as to comprehend what human rights is all about, and to deny the "minimum" and "basic" rights and freedom is nothing but absolute injustice.

For human beings to continue to flourish, it is mandatory that this rule of law must be adhered to unconditionally. A country will not collapse and come to its doomsday by upholding these unconditional, inalienable, God-given basic rights. A country will not collapse by defending those in need against those who would always have the upper hands in economic domination. A country will not collapse by defending the refugees in the name of humanity and brotherhood. A country will not collapse by giving decent wages to the workers. It’s a matter of faith. And only faith can bring us all to heaven.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Whitewater rafting!

On last weekend, I had the opportunity to go for whitewater rafting in Sungai Kampar, Gopeng. It was such a fun adrenaline pumping experience. It has always been something that I always wanted to do. I was so thrilled that I managed to make time to do this despite my busy schedule on weekends.

Before every one got in the water, the trainers gave a briefing as to the do's and the don'ts of whitewater rafting.

"if you get thrown into the water, do this instead of doing that"
"if your raft capsizes, do not panic"
"do not injure your teammates with the T grip of your paddle"

Seriously there was too much information to digest in 5 minutes...I could hardly focus on the instruction as my attention span will automatically shut down when i got overly excited to do this kind of activity.

"agak bahaya, buat dulu and worry later" principle applied.

It was so much fun. Our team did a pretty amazing job! Our raft didn't capsize and no one got thrown into the water! The experience was something to die for.

I just can't wait to do it again.I'm looking forward to doing flying fox, next week in Bukit Cerakah.

Agak bahaya, buat dulu and worry later lah!:P

with lotsa things that are happening, lotsa things to do and lotsa places to go, it is indeed a really good way to de-stress.

Bungee jumping and sky diving are definitely something that i will do, hopefully, one day.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Public Lecture: Asia-Europe Lecture Tour

“Perspectives on Freedom of Expression in Asia and Europe ”

Kuala Lumpur

11th November 2008



Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM) and the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) cordially invite you to a public lecture on “Perspectives on Freedom of Expression in Asia and Europe”.

Speakers:
Prof. Kevin Boyle (Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, United Kingdom)
Prof. Cherian George (Head, Journalism & Publishing, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)

11 November 2008 (Tuesday)
7.30PM – 10.00PM
Kuala Lumpur & Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall,
(No. 1, Jalan Maharajalela, 50150 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
http://www.scah.org.my/uploads/img44332581a36cc.gif)

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Of Odd Conversation

As I was queuing up to pay my phone bill, I had a rather odd conversation with a stranger :

Stranger : Is that your engagement ring?

Me: No. No.

Stranger: I would like to have one, I'm getting engaged soon.

Me : Really? Good, Good.

Stranger: How old are you?

Me : 25, and you're?

Stranger : 23

Me: wahh..still young.

Stranger : I want to get married before 25.

Me : ah.......(I seriously had no idea what to say)

..paid the bill.

Me : Congrats!

Stranger: thanks!

.......

On a different note, as I was flipping through the pages of today's Star, read about a local actor's marriage that is on the verge of divorce, well, the husband has/had another woman, and this is the second time.

My take on this whole unfaithfulness thing, is, once a man cheated on you, or lied to you, or is /was unfaithful to you, there's no such thing as a second chance.

It's a breach of trust. A breach of marriage covenant.Period.