What they see

Most of the time, you just have to let it be
That you just have to stop justifying the resonance within you
Ignoring the piercing stares
Pleasantly surprised that it does not bother
Even when the world stands together
In condemnation
In retaliation of your solitary resistance
Standing still, content
Clinging onto the irony
Of uncertain victorious destiny and definite despair
Devastated
Can you still win?
Breathing upon your own death
Letting the world through their science
Dissect your sanity
It doesn’t matter does it?
What they see.

Bukit Gasing

Photo from here.

After completing our weekend ritual of climbing Bukit Gasing last Saturday, we decided to walk on the reflexology stones to see whether we could endure the pain while contemplating where to hang out since Raju's was close due to Deepavali long break.

Kak Lat was busy catching up with this one guy, reminiscing their meeting during Bersih Rally. I was busy looking at the tree that has always been there, amazed by its existence, its height and its beautiful leaves. Eric was busy looking at this plant near the tree, asking whether it was tumeric plant. Murnie and her sister were busy enjoying their cold plain water.

Me : Look at the tree, I never noticed how beautiful the leaves were.
Suren : You know what, I planted this tree, its name is Bogambo. It can get higher than this.
Me : oh....
Eric : Hey, is that pokok kunyit?
Murnie : It looks like it.
Eric plucked the leaf and smelled it: No, it's not kunyit.
Me: It's not kunyit, it's Bogambi.
Suren : Your Swahili is good.

Murnie just laughed. Kak Lat was still talking to that guy.

Eric : Hey, there's this one place for rent, it's really cheap, it's 1k per month.
Us : really? that's great.
Eric : You know why it's so cheap? It's above this one psychiatric clinic.It's cheap because people think it's jinxed.
Me: Ha? There's nothing wrong with it lah.We can visit the clinic if we need to!hahaha.

There was this sudden silence. I wonder why.

Suren : Hey, why is every one looking at Fad?

They all laughed.

Me : Hey! What's that supposed to mean????

Selvach's case and 1984

Following the police report lodged by Selvach's wife, Saraswathy, her statement was taken by the Police yesterday afternoon. Saraswathy's neighbour who was also there on the night Selvach was cursed at while he was opening the front door, beaten up while his two hands were handcuffed, dragged down the lift in front of his wife and his neighbours, kicked into the van, in front of his two children was with us for the statement taking.

The cursing and the anger seemed unearthly. "I can see one of the police officer was shivering in anger, cursing at Saraswathy and Selvach, while he was trying to open the front door to let them in", the neighbour recounted to me what happened that night after the statement taking was done. I was listening to him while my mind kept thinking about 1984. A sudden numbing fear crawled all over my skin.It is 1984.

The ideal state of police coming to someone's house, knocking the door, informing the person that he is arrested on this and that ground, keeping the person in the lock up, bringing the person to court court is nothing but a devious imagination.

After I was done taking down a few details for the habeas corpus application, Saraswathy asked me whether I can provide her the reported stories about the Saturday protest at Bukit Aman.

The neighbour said "I'm so happy that we protested on Saturday, that was my first time that I got to witness something like that, I see hope". "I never knew any lawyers before, but after the Saturday protest, I'm so happy that I know a few lawyers who stand up for her, thank you".

I can see Saraswathy's smile, she shook my hand and she said "thank you so much" and then she hugged me before we said good bye.

The Buzzing Sound

As I was listening to him this morning, I believe that he does not want it to be over analyzed nor over interpreted according to what he meant by it.It's crime against art they said. So this whole search on what he meant should just be abandoned and replaced by how do we relate to it,to make sense to what we feel and what we see. Trust me, it will make sense, if you have faith in it.

Odd he said, the buzzing of a detuned radio and a fridge in a hotel room. It then becomes funny and he just has laugh about it.

Yes, the oddness that is bordering funny ha ha, ended by the feeling of letting it go, not so much out of frustration, rather to leave it be as it's not worth grieving over.

They buzz and buzz and buzz and buzz.As if the longer the buzzing continues, the stronger their faith and conviction get. Amusing isn't it?. Life will be much simpler buzzing than trying get rid of the buzzing sound and get down to what life without it would be like. That's the difficult part of this whole endeavour. No wonder people will always choose to buzz, it's convenient.

So, I decided to ignore the annoying buzzing sound and try to look out my window to find out whether faith is still there. Oh, there you are. Standing proudly with people who never second guess you, people who never buzz.


While human rights activists in Malaysia protested the beating of Selvachandran & his arrest under the ISA, which it seems to be, fellow Malaysian held a similar powerful protest against the draconian law in front of Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board at Trafalgar Square London, last Saturday, Oct 30.-photo and caption by Ginie Lim

And now you, the buzzing sound, you can just go away, evaporate, just like you always do.

Police Brutality : Nothing Unusual

After some time, I just have to tell myself that I have to learn to get used to hearing cases on police brutality, no matter how repugnant and how unbelievable they can be.

The recent case of the beating and abduction by Police of K.Selvachandran, a key witness who testified against the police in the recently concluded R.Gunasegaran death in custody inquest bears testimony to the state of fascism and lawlessness of the highest degree.

I guess it's pretty normal for me to be confronted with the never ending accounts of police brutality, given the nature of activism I'm currently involved in. After all, according to the then Commissioner of SUHAKAM, Dato' Siva, 70% of cases referred to and dealt with by SUHAKAM involved police brutality.

So, it's nothing unusual isn't it?

People get beaten up in lock ups, people died in custody, people get shot at without justification. Police are getting away with all these things, no oversight mechanism set up despite repeated demands by the civil society. And we got and IGP and a Home Minister who would always side with the police over the victims which can be clearly seen in their response to public uproar on the lawlessness of their agents and the police institution. To expect them to announce that the matter will be investigated is nothing but an erroneous wishful thinking which will never match the current reality.

No accountability whatsoever. Like it or not, we are living in a complete state of lawlessness, surrounded by material development where one can brag on and on in the hope of becoming world's most developed country.

How strange that things that happen almost like a routine still affect one's mind as if they never happen before. The frustration, the anger, the disbelief, the feeling of hopelessness would always be there,hanging at the back of one's head, in utter disregard of the frequency of such happenings that would normally attract the 'normal' reaction which gradually turns into silent approval.

One gets upset. One starts to question the feeling. One even goes further to question is this wrong a right thing? Battling with a distant perspective drawn from of a foreign land where the grass is definitely much greener than the grass in the land of ours.

A quick observation on the statistic below:-
Death by police shooting in England and Wales in 2009 = 2 deaths (investigated)
Death by police shooting in Malaysia in 2009 = 39 ( no investigation)

This kind of observation would always make me wonder, why can't we be like them?

Is it right for a suspect, a criminal, an innocent man, a man, a woman, a teenager, a human being to be assaulted, murdered, humiliated while being in police custody? If it is, I am such a total failure in search of its permissibility.

Then why are there so many people conspiring to insult justice? One question after another.Is it me or everything around me is falling apart?

Then why do I still hear people, 'educated' people, with CGPA of 3.95, graduated from an institution that taught rule of law think that this is okay? Does reading KOSMO with the headline "Pelakon filem susuk bercerai" have something to do with this?

Is it too wishful of me to ever think, for one second, that we can have the same green grass we are talking about in the foreign land, here in our country?

Or we should just leave it well alone? Can we?

Me, me, me syndrome

As we were having dinner last night, talking about getting older-immaturity-a lorry driver who just disappeared after banging PUSPAKOM's wall-you can never win an argument with conservative parents, and somewhere in between this conversation, a usual high pitched voice of Far suddenly hit my ears! "why did you stop writing your blog?".

And I replied "I'm scared that I would become self absorbed/obsessed (the me, me, me syndrome as KL put it), that it will annoy me and others to death, just the way I get easily annoyed when YBs tweeted about "I just crossed the road-I visited surau A and then surau B-I missed my lunch and my stomach is killing me".

The reply : "Hell no! you write something on how you feel about things, not what you just do!".

Point noted. Hence this entry.

Merdeka

Gambar oleh Zunar

Fakta Merdeka :

1)Perjuangan merdeka diasaskan lebih lama oleh Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya, Kesatuan Malaya Merdeka dan Parti Komunis Malaya.

2)Merdeka dengan darah rakyat, bukan janji manis UMNO dgn British.

3)Selepas merdeka, UMNO masih menggadai kemerdekaan dengan menggadai 60% hasil kekayaan negara kepada British hingga tahun 1970an dan askar British masih menceroboh hingga tahun 1971.

Peculiar

It was as if the world stopped spinning for a while. The quietness left nothing but a distinct feeling, peculiar. The busy worldly routine nobody seems to escape all this while did not seem to take its ordinary course.

Quiet. That you can hear the clock was ticking, and the ticking sound was getting closer and closer, closer than you to your own self. Peculiar. Yes, it's here, as it has always been.

Here not to be remembered. Here not to be paraded. It's here to remind. The things that we, forget easily, most of the time, forgetting that it has never been gone.

Quote

I just couldn't contain myself from laughing my head off reading the Catcher in the Rye which Eric gave me as a birthday present.This particular part is extremely hilarious that I personally think it shouldn't let pass unquoted:-

"That's just the trouble with all you morons. You never want to discuss anything. That's the way you can always tell a moron. They never want to discuss anything intellig___"-Holden Caulfield.

Anti-ISA Candlelight Vigil-01.08.2010

Photo by Aina Sayuty

Despite the brutal and violent crackdown by the fascist police personnel on the peaceful anti-ISA protesters last night, the conscientious people stood still in opposition to the draconian act that has been in existence for 50 years, the lawyers stood still at the police station for 8 hours until 5am in the morning in defence of the people's constitutional rights to peacefully assemble and to be given a fair trial in court.

To know that there are still people who would give their hearts and souls to fight for what is right is extremely inspiring.I couldn't be more honoured to be standing next to these freedom fighters and to be associated with their undying struggle for justice and humanity.

Blessed.