2013

Hello, 2013. The world didn't end.

Nous Sommes Christmas

Happy holidays; to the ones holidaying of course.

Life Goes On

-Maka, dunia berterusan. Palestin meskipun diiktiraf masih di bawah penaklukan, Afrika masih kebuluran, UMNO terus berkuasa di Malaysia, masalah kewangan dunia masih melarat. Kewujudan dunia ini sendiri adalah masalah. Tidak, bukan dunia, manusia.

Euforisme

Palestin telah diiktiraf sebagai sebuah negara, kalaupun hanya sebagai sebuah negara pemerhati. Itu lebih baik daripada menjadi satu wilayah yang tidak punya sebarang kedaulatan yang diiktiraf oleh dunia, wilayah yang menjadi mangsa pendudukan dan penjajahan oleh negara asing-Israel-yang tidak mempedulikan tentang anak watan Palestin, melayani mereka ibarat mereka boleh diketepikan begitu sahaja. Setelah bersabar puluhan tahun akhirnya warga Palestin boleh meraikan kemenangan yang begitu sukar dicapai ini, dengan sokongan dunia dan juga dengan keimanan dan keyakinan mereka terhadap satu daulat Palestin yang merdeka.

Tapi kita tahu dan senantiasa gusar bahawa apa yang kita capai hanya buat sementara sahaja. Ada sahaja masalah dan faktor-faktor yang boleh menjadikan harapan kita untuk satu daulat Palestin menjadi satu lagi hasrat yang dihampakan, sama ada oleh keganasan bergolak, kebencian mendalam, kegagalan diplomasi ataupun kedegilan ekstremis dari kedua-dua pihak. Segalanya boleh berlaku dan kerana itu, aku cuba untuk tidak terlalu optimis dengan proses mencapai keamanan yang stabil dan hakiki. Aku hanya seorang yang berada di luar konflik, aku tidak boleh berbuat apa-apa. Apa yang aku boleh lakukan hanya bantuan kewangan yang sedikit dan terhad kepada aktiviti pro-keamanan, doaku yang barangkali tidak didengari kerana keraguanku, dan luahan-luahanku, sepertimana yang tertulis ini.

Jangan ada peluru dimuntahkan dari mana-mana senjata.

Breathe

-After slightly more than a week of bombing, the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel takes place. That's good news.

Gaza on Fire Tonight

The bombings of Gaza has been going on for a week. No signs of truce; Benjamin Netanyahu and Khaled Meshaal both are right-wing politicians who distrust and hate one another, and the chance that they are going to have the political will to stop this madness is slim. No truce means more rockets fired from Gaza-more wasted rockets that doesn't do any damage on Israeli military force, as it keeps on getting intercepted by the Iron Dome, just making the life of Israelis miserable, with incessant sirens, and civilian premises targeted, angering the Israelis more-and more of Israeli shelling of Gaza-with the population of Gaza being 1.5 million, compacted in a tiny piece of land just around 10 km(more or less) wide, the inevitable civilian casualty is going to be heavy and heartbreaking-and more of the bad news that make up the majority of my information source.

Israel, with its heavy-handedness that is apparent each and every time, tries to smack Hamas out of Gaza and out of the equation; a very 'original' and 'great' solution (they tried that last time in 2008...or 2009?) which can be greater if not for the fact that Hamas has been really dedicated towards serving the Gazans, and thus enjoys considerable support from Gazans especially, not to mention their allies who can be found all around the world, in the form of al-Ikhwan. Israel, as usual, mentions that Hamas is a terrorist group (this is an ambiguous term at most-but I don't argue that Hamas can be really murderous, racist, extreme and bigoted sometimes in their actions and rhetoric) that fires rockets at Israeli cities non-stop since 2001 (so effing long ago, and as it happens nearly all the time, it's not even newsworthy) , and that according to them, justifies the bombing of Gaza.

Hamas, of course, mentions the Israeli siege on Gaza (I did one post about Mavi Marmara, you can find it yourself; my political position has changed a lot since then) that has been really suppressing the Gaza people's way of life; no mobility, no supplies, no money for the last I-don't remember-anymore-how-long-it-has-been few years. And that justifies firing rockets as a sign of protest and resistance against the bloody siege in particular, and the Israeli occupation in general. Yeah, that's how Hamas sees it; "We didn't start it, it has been Israel's fault all this time, for Allah's sake, are you blind?"

Meanwhile, being the slow, ineffective peace-broker as they usually are expected to be, the UN has tried to bring a not-going-to-last-for-long temporary ceasefire between both sides. The post-revolution Egypt, under the leadership of President Morsi, has tried for a few days to moderate between the two sides, but is troubled by the fact that Egypt can't do as much as it would like to do, given the agreement between his country and United States, also the peace agreement between his country and Israel that he has (being forced to) pledged to uphold (if not, no foreign aid that your desperate land desperately needs from the States). Also, United States has also expressed their belief in Israel's rights to self-defense (it's so routine, it's to be expected), but cautioned against further escalation (you know that Obama is not much of a friend to Netanyahu).

And hence the bombing should continue for a few more days. That's the routine, that's the ritual. More casualties, more hatred, a harder way to peace.

(Update; as of now (11/21/2012, 1.49 am Japan Time), there seems to be an agreement on ceasefire between both sides)

This may be offensive to many of my friends. Sorry for that. Freedom of speech is exercised here; bear with it.
Perpetual violence is what the right-wing politicians at both sides need to stay in power and stay popular. The right-wing hawkish politicians, like any other politicians, need to be relevant to be revered. They are most relevant at times of conflict. Then the right-wing, being generally

 militaristic, can show that they matter by bringing out their rockets, showing their prowess, all in the name of 'defense of our people'.
Some might then say, "It's the religion." I have read both the Bible and Quran thoroughly, and well-people pointing out that religion might be at fault is pretty justified; some verses in both books justify violence in the name of God, for the defense of the name of God, sanction holy wars and total hatred towards the enemies. And plus Abrahamic faiths all have some sort of eschatological beliefs (Messiah, Second Coming, Antichrist, Four Horsemen, Final War) and that doesn't help; the Messiah that everyone-Jews, Christians, Muslims-believes, needs a very destructive war in the Middle East as a prerequisite for him to manifest; of course religious Jews would love the Messiah to redeem his people, the religious Christians would be eager to witness the Second Coming of Jesus, and religious Muslims would love the Imam Mahdi to appear; what wouldn't the believers give to witness the human representation of God's Truth, the One True God's ultimate Sign? Armageddon is a highly self-fulfilling prophecy, which is the reason I really wish it isn't true.
But maybe it isn't the religion, it is just the people fighting over the (obviously worldly) residential, economic and political rights over the Holy Land, which is not any different from any other effing land, except that it is the land of the Prophets of God, and both sides say they are equally native to the land, and of course they both would want to keep the Land of the Prophets pure-from the other side's influence, of course.
Or maybe it is that scores have to be settled. The famous 'one eye for an eye' rule, which is both Biblical and Quranic. Jews killed Arabs, Arabs killed Jews; Jews chased out from both Europe and Arabic countries, Arabs chased out of Israeli territories; As long as scores aren't settled, there'd be no peace.
Or maybe it is the nationalist aspiration of both sides; Greater Israel versus pan-Arabic caliphate, and both require the whole Holy Land under its control. And Israel have to be a Jewish state; Palestine have to be a Muslim state; Zionists wouldn't want Jews to be a minority again, as minorities are always at risk of discrimination, and Muslims being the historically dominant one, would not trust the Jews to be the dominant ruler.
It's so pathetic, it's so laughable. And yet it's so sad, no one would laugh. People are killed. Doesn't matter which side suffered more casualties; for every soul killed, the path to peace becomes harder.
Or maybe the politicians, they don't want peace; or they define peace not as two nations living side by side harmoniously, but as one nation covering the whole Holy Land, and another nation can go fly anywhere, for they couldn't care less.
Is there any compromise possible? If one follows either holy scriptures literally, it seems not possible. Bible said that the enemies of sons of David should be wiped out and not be made peace with; Quran said that Jews will be the Muslim's archenemy and should not be trusted. But there are lots of ways to read both the scriptures and perhaps one can pinpoint at the positiveness as a way to peace.
Compromise is made possible only when both sides recognize the fault within their own selves and not just pinpointing the fault totally at the other side. But maybe it is too late; maybe my voice won't matter. Maybe I'll even be chastised for being critical of religion or nationalism.

-In remembrance of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, and their failed Oslo Accord-

Anti-Messiah

-Messiah is antithetical to modernism, humanism, liberalism, pacifism, globalism, progressiveness virtually everything that should be fought for; equality, justice, positivism. Why would I say so?

-Because Messiah is the reason for our backward-mindedness, racism, religious discrimination, wars, killings, conflicts, proselytizing, suppression of religious freedom, suppression of free speech, suppression of free thought, dictatorship, religious right-wing ideologies.

-It is so evident, how the belief in Messiah has generated wars, fueled authoritarian regimes, led to prejudice, suppressed attempts at much-needed reforms, given rise to xenophobic attitudes.

-Why would then people believe in Messiah anyway? The answer is not something I can say right away.

The One Who Created The Mirror

Palestine. Israel.
From the time I began to remember things, they have always been in conflict, war, hatred against each other.

Frankly, I am tired of that fucking conflict. Seriously, who in their right mind can keep on this hatred, this conflict for so long? Perhaps, both sides are crazy. They have suffered too long, being in war for way too long, that the idea of peace is scary to them. No, it is not the peace that scares them; it's the realization that they are in fact mirrors of each other. They refuse that, and keep on smashing the mirror, hurting themselves in the process; but the mirror is unbreakable, for it is not a mere objective mirror, but Reality itself; How can one then have peace?

We the spectators don't help at all. We try to help, but in doing so we fall into the trap of 'I am doing the right thing' and become a part of the problem itself; yet refusing to help, the problem keeps escalating. Because everyone has lost himself in the eye of the storm, no one knows who are they fighting against; they keep on yelling 'God destroys the enemy,' but with everyone shouting the same thing at the same time, can God help anyone and still be a fair God? After all, He made promises to both sides.

Maybe the problem lies with that God Himself. He was the one who created the mirror...

Stranger In Your Own Land

-Was it totally my fault, that I am now a stranger in my own land, where people talk of religion as if everything that is touched by its near-sacred fingers turn to solid gold signifying happiness, where people who choose to be idiots rule over people who have no say in their choice of being idiots or non-idiots, and where a few people trying to assert their rights to be less idiotic gets oppressed like they're a bunch of stink-of-hell heathens?

Liberalism Is My Path

-As a liberal, I am always afraid. I am afraid of living in a world full of conservatives restricting my freedom on everything. I am afraid of all the rules that dictate my life, the rules that I have absolutely no say in, the rules that wasn't done with my consent. The rules that are enforced in the name of the so-called 'God', the rules that are enforced in the name of tradition, the rules that are enforced in the name of religions-I am afraid of them all, for the effect they have on my life, my intellect and my spirit.

-But I think sooner or later, there will be one day when I can declare my real faith, my real conviction, my real honest confession without fear. And how I wish I can be part of the progress myself, how I wish for friends who will help me toward this goal, how I wish for change that will progressively improve my life and expand everyone's freedom in their intellectualism and passion.

-I long for a day in which a Muslim can pursue his or her dream as a musician or an artist, without fear of censorship or judgmental crowds. I long for a day when a Malay and a Chinese can marry without the issue of their offspring being neither. I long for a day when people will value others the way they should be valued; by their compassion towards each other rather than by their individualistic and judgmental piety. I long for a future in Malaysia, where people won't ask about race, religion or beliefs; where one can really decide for themselves what is the best for them without any unnecessary bindings of religion and tradition. I long for a Malaysia that is progressive in its truest form; secular, liberal and dynamic.

-Malaysia without multiculturalism is no Malaysia. Malaysia without tolerance is no Malaysia. Malaysia without progression is no Malaysia. Malaysia has to be liberal. Malaysia has to be intellectual. Malaysia has to be secular. Malaysians must stop dividing themselves along the lines of race and religion, as both are superficial; instead, everyone must be allowed the chance to be true to themselves, not being pressured to join or participate in anything. Just because one is born Malay, doesn't mean he or she has to be a Muslim; that is totally up to the individual oneself, and there should be no limitation as to how one chooses to follow his or her path, as long as the path doesn't involve intolerance, bigotry, discrimination, bullying, peer pressure, or infringement of one's rights and privileges.

-There has to be a future for Malaysia. And that future involves lots of changes.

ということで、今年は3年目ですね、日本にいるのは。

It ain't that impressive, though. Lots of guys-lots of rich guys-do it all the time. What's more impressive is doing something that can get you famous, for instance, streaking on the campus...not for me, though; I am a social conservative, largely; although I do support LGBT rights, freedom of religion (that means going in and out of it, not just being different-Malays don't get that), I still consider myself a moderate social conservative (with variations from time to time). But let's not consider that for a moment; what I really wanted to say here is to wish a happy Eid to myself again:

عيد مبارك مني اليّ و اليكم في العام. و نسئال الله ان يتقبل مني م منكم دعاءنا فإنّه سميع الدعاء

God, you listening?

旅の途中

知らない内に、僕は２２歳になってしまった。とは言え、実はそんなに熟成してきたとは感じられない。旅に出たのが、５年前のことだとは意識しているが、心の中では、どこかでそれが嘘っぽく聞こえるのだと思ってしょがない。現実とはそういうものだ;身近なのに…いいえ、身近だからこそ気づくことができないのだ。

故郷には帰りたいけど、決して過去には戻れない。哲学的に考えてみると、故郷には、実は戻れないところである。なぜなら、すべてのものは毎秒変わっているから。だから、違う時点にあるものは同じものではないと言ってもおかしくないということだ。僕の生まれ育った町はもう存在しない。もう時間と一緒に去って行いたものであり、例え同じ名前が付けられていても、決してそれが僕の本当の故郷だとは、完全に言えないのである。

平凡の人々には決して大きな問題ではないと思うけど。僕もある意味で平凡人である。来日して留学を３年間もやり続けてきたからといって、それで僕は他の人間と違い、特別な人なのであるとは全く関係のないことだ、むしろ証拠のない、わけの分からない自慢話に聞こえるしかないのだと自分でも強く思っている。まあ、唯名論者たちは「人間」などの普遍性を持つ区別を認めないとはよく分かるが。つまり、「平凡」というのも、ただの実在しない人間が勝手に作った概念だと言うことだ。まあ、僕にとってはどうでも良いことなんだけど。

旅はまだまだ続く。随分と疲れてきちゃったけど。

Economy

-I am no fan of economics. I have never been one. Economics deal with some of the things I loath the most: namely, greed, materialism, survival of the fittest and money. I hate money, and I really despise the idea of a human system that runs on money, as it is a very fragile system that is prone to crashes, corruption and creates division between humans, dividing them along the lines of income and anything that comes along with it-education, welfare and mobility.

-Yet I grew to understand that economics play a large role in our lives as we humans are not just a social species; we are also an economy-oriented species. We categorize people as being rich and poor, we determine what we can and cannot have based on the amount of money we have, we exchange things with money, etc. Economy is a big issue in our increasingly global society; maybe it is the biggest issue, and it gets bigger and bigger as our human society gets more and more global each and every day. We have to keep an eye on a country far away from ours to see whether their economy is having problems or not, as in this era, a change in the economic situation in one country will have lots of direct and indirect effect on other countries, and it is not a matter of distance; Greece's economic woes affect the whole Europe, which in turn affects America, which again affects Asia: it it like a Domino game, only this time it concerns economy, not communism; and this time it is real.

-A lot of guys out there blames our capitalistic system as the source of our economic woes. Many others say that it is not the system that should be blamed; it is the participants who ought to be blamed for not taking their fiscal responsibility properly, while others point out to some of the bigger corporate players for being enormously dismissive and apathetical of others' plights, taking everything that they can and leaving a very tiny share left for other less competitive, or less lucky ones to share; and these less competitive participants in our economy tends to form the majority of the society (and as far as I can tell, it has never been the other way round, in any circumstances ever in our history), which accentuates the problem and adds injustice element to our economic woes worldwide.

-As I said earlier, I am no expert on economics. Therefore, from my position as of now, with my mediocre understanding of the dynamics of the economic system we have now, I don't think that I can even begin to provide a suggestion as to how we are going to fix our economic problems, much less producing a sure-fire, brilliant way to solve to problems we are facing now. But I do believe that somehow, the way the economics are being run now, there's something wrong in there; I wish can pinpoint the bug out, and I believe that there are lots of them, which is the reason why political leaders all around the world have, at times, again and again, failed to solve the problems we are having; the problems move from states to states, from nations to nations; all the leaders are doing, as of now, is to try and make sure the problems don't come to plague their constituencies, and if the problems come, they try to drive the problems away-yet to another constituencies; that is not solving the problem at all, that just perpetuates the whole thing.

حق برسوارا

مسلم تيدق فهم دڠن مندالم تنتڠ کبيبسن برسوارا. ساي مڠرتي سببڽ. اين کران امة اسلام بلوم ڤوڽا  ڤمهمن دان ڤڠالمن يڠ چوکوڤ تنتڠ اڤ سبنرڽ ارتي کبيبسن برسوارا. ارتي کبيبسن برسوارا اياله کبيبسن مڽاتاکن ايسي هاتي دان ڤنفسيرن کيت ترهادڤ اڤ جوا يڠ کيت راسايٴ دان سبارڠ بندا يڠ کيت تيدق ستوجو, در سودوت دنياوي اتاوڤون اݢام. کيت امة اسلام ماسيه بلوم مڠرتي, کران ايت کيت هاروس بلاجر ﻻݢي, بوکن ممکيق ملولوڠ تنتڠ ساله ݢونا حق برسوارا ممبابي بوتا, بوکنکه بݢيتو؟

Let me get this straight.

Lately, it feels that I have been in a very wrong place.

اکو بارو ممبلي کومڤيوتر بارو

سچبيس کڤرچاياءن

لا اؤمن بالله الذي ارسل الرسل و انزل الكتب من السماء الى الناس, لأنه رب و اله العالم كله, فليس الله الخبير يماز بين خلقه مثل يفعلون الإنسان بين انفسهم .؛

September In The House

September ends, autumn's coming, time's passing by. Don't expect too much out of anything.

The Desire To Speak

-The desire to speak sometimes overwhelms me, and gets the better of me, and yet, usually I end up regretting things that I said when I was overcame with that desire.

-Maybe that's just part of being a largely silent, reserved person. I am not talkative; so maybe when I do have to speak, driven by desire, the speech that's largely suppressed by my personality comes out. And I end up regretting most of my remarks when I am controlled by that desire; I can sometimes say very ill-informed, bigoted, badly-worded, plain stupid remarks.

-I need to monitor the time when I do speak. A Malay proverb says, "Terlajak perahu boleh berundur, terlajak kata badan binasa." (Literally, 'Out-of-course boats can be retreated, but misspoken words can result in destruction of one's body) I really, really need to meditate on the proverb.

Middle

-Observant people will be able to see, how this world has always been full of madness and contradictions. Thus, with all these chaotic events in our world, I wonder how can humans somehow live their lives happily, as if they don't know and don't care about things that happen to others? Maybe it is just that we humans are inherently selfish and apathetic beings that care only for those who matters to us, people who benefit us and serve us in some ways whilst being totally indifferent to those who doesn't matter.

-And yet sometimes, we do show some compassion to others who don't matter, but very often these are sporadic and an exception to the rule. The reason why we show others this kind of compassion and empathy is because we have been taught by the moralistic sages of the past that all humans, important or not to us, deserves and needs the attention and care, and it is our responsibility to try and make sure everyone is cared for. Thus we have people who helps others on regular basis, and we have philanthropic activities throughout the world, which while never enough to solve so many problems in humanity, serve as reminders of how humans can be really great and kind to others, and this is something that is righteous and should forever continue.

-And yet, in the middle of all the enthusiasm of helping others, come the ugly voices of ingratitude and prejudices among human race. Prejudice towards others due to their race, religious professions, economic classes, origins comes in the way of helping others, thus we still have in parts of the world a ridiculous and zealous bigotry that is immune to criticism due to its perceived sanctity and divine aspect, which are derived from mostly the very same sages that promotes the altruistic attitude mentioned above. Intolerance, belittling of others, breach of trust, and occasional, yet almost constant, violence are symptoms that highlight those prejudices that at times turn to hate and savagery.

-The illness of the world today lies mostly in the contradictions of these two overlapping realities, one side of the life that gives to itself the meaning of life, and the other side of life which erases the meaning from life and destroys itself from within. Humanity lives in this irony and duality, a reminder of how God Himself always defies traditional and conventional wisdom and understanding; maybe we should just all be true to ourselves, learn to be more altruistic and leave God as something that is not that necessary in the equation.

الاسرار بلبي

اكتب هذا رسالة في هذا اليوم حزنا. رايت امس صورة قديمة من وقتي في مدرسة ثانوية. ثم فكرت و ذكرت اصدقاءي, كل واحد منهم. ثم فكرت علي: ماذا افعل هنا؟ لماذا اكون هنا؟ و من انا؟

.تلك الاسئلة و المسائل يكونون في فكري. ما السبب؟ لا اعرف

الكتاب المقدس

I bought a Holy Bible. It was a bilingual version of English and Arabic, and I'm kind of fascinated with it.

-Of course I found problems as soon as I started reading it. It's inconsistent; did Noah save pairs of all animals, or did he took seven of the animals deemed clean and took pairs of other animals? (I suppose they're the same animals described as al-An'am) It's also problematic; Noah getting drunk, God accepting Abel's sacrifice only because it is meat compared to Cain's vegetables (strangely, God in Bible loves blood), Moses commanding his people to kill an entire race, men and women and children and goats (why must they kill the goats too?) David and his vengeful songs, Jewish supremacy above every other race...blah blah blah.

-And the fact that Muhammad claims to be a continuation of this. No wonder Muslims have to accuse Jews and Christians of falsifying the Scriptures. It is a necessity to do so; but is it true that the Scriptures have been falsified?

-Who cares; Both Bible and Quran got it wrong on human sexuality.

-But Psalm is really nice.

The Night Before Eid Alone

-This year, I'll be spending my Eid far away from home.

-I wonder whether I can look forward to another Eid, or to another year.

-These few months have been harsh. I have to endure my university life this year by myself, because my friend went back to Korea to fight the stupid Korean war (heck-he doesn't even handle a gun right now, much less fighting the Red Comrades), leaving me to study alone, a foreigner ill-fitted in a university too hard and a culture too alien to him. I am not giving up; but I know that my spirits have been dragging me down these few months; I skipped way too many classes, fucked up my academic achievements.

-I also lost belief in religion. I hardly pray anymore; why pray when one doesn't believe in prayers? I also found out more philosophical problems with the Scriptures; the doubts are getting bigger every day, and I wonder if it is just a matter of time before everyone finds out that I am an agnostic. Losing one's faith is hard; it's like your way of thinking got reset suddenly, leaving a blank sheet that you have to fill again with files that are lost; and yet the files that are lost are corrupt, and the mind doesn't accommodate them as easily as it used to be; sometimes it was rejected outright.

-My life as a man is not progressing anywhere. I am getting tired of the lonely nights, I am getting tired of all the routines, I am getting tired of being myself. And yet I don't desire change too, for I am afraid of changing anything, I am afraid of change. My life is completely in a box right now; There are no new opportunities that matter, no new goals to fulfill, and my old dreams are disappearing with time. Well, Time can as well go to Hell, for both of these don't exist to me.

-I wonder if I can regain my spirit next semester. Well, this semester is lost; I think I am not writing the reports; I am going to let them slide.

A new composition. I wonder if anyone listens.

-Godforsaken Rohingyas

-The Myanmar government doesn't want them. The Bangladeshi government doesn't want them. What option do Rohingyas have? Living in Arakan for years, yet never really welcomed by the native Rakhines, for they carry this stigma of being "Banglas", for they remind the majority Bamars of the dark history of Burma under British Raj--"Foreigners brought by the damned Englishmen,"

-Then we have the Bangladeshi government. They don't want Rohingyas back; yes, Rohingyas speak a language closely related to Bengali, yes, they share a common religion, them being both Muslims, yes, they look similar to each other; but Bangladesh is overpopulated, and there are not enough food, money, and living space for an extra 800, 000 people (not to mention the very real prospective of Bangladesh submerged by rising sea water level in the coming century, the shitty monsoon and the unstable political climate in Bangladesh), and the Bangladeshi government doesn't want Rohingyas crossing the border; they say it is a Myanmar problem.

-Yeah, the responsibility lies in the Myanmar government; that military junta, totally undemocratic, unfair to the minorities (remember, there are Christian Karens and Chins in Myanmar as well, and they too are being persecuted, hence the ongoing rebellion), and totally indifferent of the outside world--it is a hermit country, arguably only less crazy than the North Koreans, and you expect them to do anything to help the Rohingyas, who are not even considered citizens of Myanmar? You gotta be kidding me.

-But of course that is how the world keeps on rolling; keep problems unsettled, so that once in a while, some shitty, opportunistic politicians can make noises and get elected, by using these problems as their "issue that they'll attend to," or perhaps we can expect some celebrities to go and adopt a child/ donate a big fat check so they will appear as being conscious of the world's malaise, or perhaps some religion can use these as a sign that Armageddon is near, the Holy War to End All Wars is near, and then use those thing to recruit as many believers as they can, and perhaps sacrificing a few dedicated, zealous believers in the process, just to make sure that the religion's fame spread far and wide, as we all know that GOD LOVES EVERYONE!

Homosexuality

-My mind has been plagued with the dilemma of sexuality in general, and homosexuality in particular for the past 2 years.

-One of my closest friend here in Japan is bisexual. He described his attraction to men to me in detail, details that I won't disclose here because for me as a heterosexual it is gross to think just about them, but nevertheless, I can relate to the pain of having the feelings that you can't disclose, having the feelings that forever remains unrequited, the pain of being abandoned by God, this time due to His Biblical (He was a Catholic) condemnation of homosexuality.

-At first, when I came to Japan, I have this spirit of "I want to convert at least one person into the faith of Islam." Who better to convert than some depressed dude who is close to me? But when he disclosed his sexuality to me, I am bummed out. How am I supposed to introduce this man to Islamic faith, which as most probably know, is fiercer on homosexuals than Catholicism? He knows about Islam, he knows about this attitude; how can he be attracted to it?

-I read the Quran again and again, I tried to find a loophole that might allow for homosexuality. Of course, personally I found it; there was no direct mention of homosexuality in Quran, it is not explicitly forbidden, the interpretations regarding homosexuality are all inside brackets (which mean they are not part of the Arabic original text). But then I see the Muslim attitude towards homosexuality; can one change this hardened attitude, can one offer alternative explanations of Quranic interpretation without risk being shunned, excommunicated or even get killed?

-This in turn has distanced me from the Islamic faith, and also from the Quran; after all, the story of Lot is there, and due to the presence of the story in Quran, Quran is bound to come to the same conclusion as the Bible, which concludes the story with God's wrath towards the homosexuals. The continuation of Biblical narratives in Quran is questionable for me; why should Islam claim to be a continuation of Judeo-Christian prophethood? It is just going to inherit the same problems that way; as if God Himself doesn't learn from history.

-But then maybe, Quran ain't no Word of God; That makes it totally a Muhammad's innovation, and therefore Muhammad may be mistaken in his attitude towards homosexuals; After all, he didn't know better, didn't he? Him being human, from a very unscientific age, never learned in schools, never encounter homosexuality-he can't know better, he ought to harbor prejudices and these prejudices are then spilled inside the Holy Book.

-But of course harboring this thinking will kick you out of your Muslim faith, for this faith demands absolutism in your belief. There is no maybe; just "it has to be it" and "it can't be it; impossible!" And due to certainty, Muslims are happy, but their intellect worsens and their conduct on others suffer from faithful arrogance; do I want to be part of that? No. I'd rather suffer due to my acknowledgement on reality, than escaping to some belief system full of promises of better afterlife. It is more ethical, it is more responsible, it is more heroic.

-But this makes being Muslim more difficult; you don't feel like you belong there anymore, because of some gay stuff that makes you ponder about what this faith is really about and whether it still holds to its claims of being the solution, the answer, the truth; and this in turn has make me think a lot, think hard; but I don't know what to do. Atheism will not work; for the faith is not merely a personal thing.

Rants

See the video above? (I'm assuming there are viewers)

This is a way to mobilize Muslims, by saying that Christianity threatens Indonesia's demographics. I wonder, if it is true.

-People don't just leave Islam for Christianity just because they have unhappy lives. They leave Islam for Islam doesn't provide them with solace. What Islam provides? An untranslatable holy book, that one can hardly relate too, as it is full with wars, laws, threats to those who believe less; no body who do believe less will want to pick it up, unless they want to clarify the contents for themselves.

-What Islam provides? Laws; whenever one enters Islam, they have to subscribe fully to the laws, which came in full set, all the way from the ways to have sex with your wife up to whether one should live in a Muslim country or a secular country. Too much laws will prevent people to fully make sense of what the faith is really about, as they focused way too much on laws.

-What Islam provides? A shallow understanding of God; a God who won't listen to your prayers if you don't pray enough times a day, a God who insists on you admitting your wrongdoing and repenting regularly, a God who insists that His laws be the order of the nation. a God who insists! And we in Islam are just slaves to Him, no argument, no blaming the God, no complaints; do these and be an ungrateful slave. After all, it is God who lets you breathe.

-Well, I am not defending Christianity either. It is a stupid naive faith (pardon my language) who thinks that God would love you even if you sin, it really believes that somehow God can appear in human form and tells people you need to eat my flesh and drink my blood if you want salvation; Now in Christianity, we have a God who self-sacrifices Himself for Humanity! Such a Great God, innit? Except that it is really not logical to have a suicidal God. And their Scriptures are patchy; one moment the Scriptures tells you God loves everyone, another moment it tells you that the Jews are the Chosen People; one moment it teaches compassion, another moment it tells of prophets being merciless on an entire race-as God ordered them to do so. So it is not logical to have a God that behaves like a bad father in the first half of the Scriptures, only to have Him sobered up in the second half. It is almost as if there were two Gods. (Heck, maybe there ARE two Gods)

-But who cares? Nobody really cares about God; they care about themselves! Regardless of whether you are Muslim or Christian, your goal is the same; to save YOURSELF! You don't really enter these two faiths in God's name for your love towards God, you enter it for your selfish desire to be IMMORTAL and HAPPY in PARADISE!

-Ultimately, I think that both of these faiths are selfish faiths. That is why they will fight each other.

Seriously

-Seriously, what are we heading towards? Are we heading towards denying the existence of the Other? Denying the existence of the Other is the beginning of the Destruction of the Self, as the Self cannot be sustained by its own will. The Self needs the Other. That is why God created Creation: God can't really exist without Creation, for the absence of Creation means that no one is going to verify the existence of God, and God in all of His Arrogance, will not accept this absence of Verification, for He is Arrogant and Insecure, and trust me, this is a compliment. God is Insecure, that is why He won't forgive any deviation from His worship. He is Arrogant, that is why He punished Satan at His full Will with the most twisted punishment ever: Postponing of Banishment to Hell, and Condemnation to being the Enemy of Men forever.

If even God needs His Creation, why would we as the tiny Self, deny the existence of Others? For Existence only achieves its full blossoming, the beauty of Existing, by this verification from the Others.

العقيدة الابراهيمية

العقيدة الابراهيمية هي اقيدة بالله اللذي معبود و مأمون ابراهيم . من هذا ابراهيم؟ هذا هو  رسول اللذي فكر الفكرة التوحد الله. و هذا الاعتقاد اصبح الاساس الايمان بالاديان اليهودية, المسيحية و الاسلامية. لكن, لماذا من عقيدة واحدة يأتين ثلاثة اديان؟

السعادة

ما السعادة؟ يقول انسان "نريد سعادة في حياتنا في الدنيا و في الاخرة, فإن الانسان يحب السعادة." كل انسان يريد السعادة. لماذا يريدونها , ولو هذه الفكرة, يعني, العقيدة بالوجود السعادة ليست صحيحة , ليست هي الحقيقة ؟ هذه العقيدة وهْمة فانية و كذبة كبيرة. ولكن لا يفهمون انسان هذا الحقيقة, لانّ هذه الحقيقة قبيحة و مؤلمة . يعيش الانسان في الكون من امرالله (هذا هو الله ربنا, و ليس الّا هو الرب الخاص في الاسلام ) , يعني , نعيش من ارادة الله و من قدرته, حتى موتنا. ثم لو الدين الاسلام حقيقي او صحيح , سيذهب كل انسان الى الجنة او الى الجحيم. لانّ يكون ذلك السبب , ليس عندنا الحرية, و ليست الوجود السعادة حقيقية, لانّ تخرج السعادة من الحرية, ولكن لسن الفكر حقيقية.ـ

Sérieusement. c'est une langue difficile. Entah betul entah tidak tatabahasanya. 

Ramalan Cuaca Politik

-I don't know exactly, but there is always something that is saying to me that Malaysia, as a unified country, cannot stay united. And it feels real, given the fact that the Islamisation that has taken place involves only the Muslim community, and draws minimal participation from the non-Muslim citizen~the minority in their own country. The Islamisation of Malaysian education affects only Muslim students; and these students, with their Islamised minds, think differently, live differently, dream differently from the non-Muslim students, who despite their same age, has different thoughts, ways of living and dreams for the Malaysian future.

-Can these differences be reconciled? It is very hard to say, given the fact that the non-Muslims are mostly Chinese and Indian in ethnicity~and thus, to some extent this divide is not only a religious divide, but also a racial divide, and racial divide is hard to bridge; different cultures, facial attributes and languages emphasize the differences on a daily basis.

-How about the native Borneans, Dayaks, Kadazans, Melanaus and Bajaus? Bajaus tend to embrace Islamisation and Malay-fication, due to their less-than-desirable, purportedly recent, Filipino origin; Melanaus are also welcoming of these two changes, albeit with less enthusiasm, given the religious trinity of Islam-Christianity-Likou that still shapes the Melanau identity, making them, to some extent, more secular, together with their enthusiastic Melanau linguistic conservatism, Melanau language being a symbol of their pure heritage of the land of Sarawak, them being no Malay which is considered, to some extent, a foreign entity. On the other hand, Christianized Dayaks and Kadazans are less enthusiastic about Islamisation and Malay-fication; these are viewed as a silent, subversive, indirect attack on their identity, and of course they are not complaining: the Malays have always been a superior race culturally and politically, with their Srivijaya-Malacca legacy very much alive in the present-day Malaysia, and they are also more numerous, which makes the Malays more dangerous.

-This Malay-Islamisation is going to be a key factor in the shaping of Malaysian society. That's all, I am not jumping to any radical conclusion or suggestion.

يا الهي

,يا الهي
:اسألك هذا السؤال
,لأن رأيت الدنيا
,والله تعالى
:لا أفهم إرادتك
ماذا كتبت في اللوح المحفوظ؟
,و ماذا تريد من كل شيء
,و من كل نفس
و مني؟
,لأنك ربي و رب العرش العظيم
اسألك يا لطيف, ما السبب وما المعنى؟
,لأن قلت في الكتاب الكريم
",إقرأ بسم ربك اللذي خلق"
أن قرأت و فكرت
.ولكن لا أفهم إرادتك, يا الهي

W4lr6s's Happy Dreams

Where have all my happy dreams gone? I thought that by now, now that I am 22, I would be in a committed relationship with a short yet lively, smart, musical, cute girl , living a great life as a youth who discovers the world as a bright place full with love and joy, excelling in my studies and having a great self-esteem, and also an able leader for people of my age, living up to the expectations they have of a bright Melanau boy, living my musical dream by being in an alternative rock band which is open and eager for musical experimentation, openly espousing liberal ideas that would change and shock the nation of its racist slumber, and despite all that glory, still remains a humble, shy boy who remains loyal to his old, close friends and hopelessly in love with his girl, who also loves him back for his gentleness, kindness and selflessness-

-Wake up W4lr6s! You're living in a socially conservative society where your dreams go to die!

Little Girl, Don't Cry

-This world is an awful place to live in. It is, on one level, a reflection of hell: Violence, disasters, injustice, depression, regret, oppression, lack of freedom, limitations-all are familiar symptoms of the malaise called life, which can be viewed in a rather pessimistic (one might even say nihilistic) way of viewing this world, as a sexually-transmitted disease, of which the prognosis is certain death.

-We are both having this same disease, the disease called life. Yet we suffer it in a different way. I suffer from lack of confidence in myself; you suffer from lack of trust in people most dearly to you. I don't trust in myself, hence I want to disappear all the time-this might as well be what that insane Jew by the name of Sigmund Freud called by the name of 'death desire', a desire to return back to being something that has no existence, a non-existing being, which goes by no name, has no corporeal or abstract existing elements in it-hence it is ultimately beyond grasp, very much like God Himself, except that God is 1 and the non-existent is 0.

But you on the other hand, want to have a value. You seek that value called existence, you want to grasp it, you want to be the One. And yes, you are the One, for that desire manifests itself, actualizes itself in the most beautiful way imaginable-the word 'imaginable' here does not even portray your beauty, your essence in a way that justifies your existence. And yet you find it perplexing that this existence, this value that you seek, ultimately brings pain to you, as you found yourself to be surrounded by the Others, the Others that would not help you make sense of what you are, who you want to be, and what you can be.

-This perplexity in turn, generates the death desire in you: yet returning back to being a non-existent being scares you; and that is why we both met each other, to seek solace in one another, in a brother-sisterhood of two Existences, you finding solace in my embracing of 0 and me finding wonder in your embracing of 1.

-I know that you won't read this, and even if you do, you won't understand this bull-crap full with Freud-mimicking utterances: but it's fine by me, as I am 0 and you are 1-we just don't really belong, for 1 multiplied by 0 equals 0: but maybe I am wrong, maybe we are both One, for we are both Existences-who knows but God, the One, the Existent.

Nisfu Syaaban, Anger and Old S**t

-Arafat might have been assassinated.

-What a great news, really made my day! After 8 years since Arafat died, only now people come forward and say such things? That's really great, it is really a great day for both the Palestinian and Israeli folks! Now we can expect more drama again soon-after all it's Ramadhan soon, so this will provide us with real entertainment after iftar and tarawih, by watching the news on internet, and this drama might as well distract pious, sexually active, long-bearded men, from both sides of the war, from their wives (or perhaps...we should never know!) by catering to their secret fetish-so secret that they themselves don't realize it- of bloody scenes! And we might as well drag as many people possible into the whole sitcom-the Turks and the Egyptians are more than happy to rehearse their new found role in the drama, and I am sure United States will reprise their role with more glee this time, while European, Latin American, and Muslim nations (we can forget about the godforsaken Asians, as per use) will be in their usual seats, reprising their roles with more or less changes in this sequel to the old drama, and know what? Let's make the drama a religious one too, invoke the name of God of Abraham during the whole season-Hallelujah for the One True God, Alhamdulillah for the One True Religion, that is strangely reliant on the Holy Land like a drug addict!

The Marxist in Me

ظهور اخوان

Morsi has won the Egyptian election for the Muslim Brotherhood or Al-Ikhwanul Muslimin. Which means the politics of the Middle East particularly, and of the whole world generally won't be the same. But who am I to say?
To be honest, I am not a supporter of Brotherhood. For me, they represent the revolutionary conservatism that run against my radical liberalism, the religious determination that over-highlights my philosophical skepticism, and the law and order that runs contrary to my leaning towards individual anarchism.
But I am alone, and there are many of them.

Mudip Jakin

-Telou ih mudip wagen likou a tudip, mei kenah mejuk keman perubahan. Jelau-lau bei mak bareng bertuker; pokok tumbuk, tarikh tuker, pilihanraya. Jelau-lau bei mak bareng nyadin jakin.
-Wang telou mudip alah ih, telou mei seder telou ih makin melai makin lakei. Biah makin lau makin pedes, bajou kian lau kian sebit, kalender kian lau kian tigek. Telou mei seder, telou pilak mak, pasal bareng yin berlaku tiap-tiap lau, tiap-tiap waktu, tiap-tiap saat. Yinlah mun telou seder, selalu telou kelijah. Kelijah mei buyak kik, buyak telou mei perati masa atang-atang. Maka ngak jebulen, maka ngak jeta'un.
-Samah kawak akou. Pilak-pilak akou ih dah lakei, dah teluwes. Umur 22 ta'un, agei bujang, nyin mei merasa nasang lakei, maka umur 22 ta'un ih idak dah kawan ko menikah. Nang selaka kawaklah mun senged hal yin. Maka akou dengah kenaan can agei. Agei jemanak nasang.
-Sekali bei labih berita keman lebuk janek akou ngak betaik. Aish. Nyin marak legah. Tapi mun fikir udik, mei lah legah nou. Ngak 6 bulen nyin menikah sabei. Mei lah legah. Akou mak mei seder. Selaka. Akou ih bavo ka, maka dengah lakei akou ih. Ka akou ngak lakei? Kali.
-Nyabik Allah Taala pilak-pilak tang keluarga akou tan mejuk mak keman matah akou ih. Akou kuduk ted nawan, tiap lau sengsara bak mulik mak nasang. Jiwa terseksa mun ubak tou Melayu. Kuduk wang bilit japah, keman japah, temuk mei temuk debei nawan bak lalek, sakai debei angai. Sakai rapet mejuk, sakai giih akou mei berkenan laus. Nang alah ih ah mudip. Bak komplen nou agik. Ih mudip ji penilik kou. Kou bei pilik sabei, penilik salak kali tapi mei gunah mun penikir didak laus.

No More Me

保守主義の危機

母国では保守原理主義が急速に力を伸ばし、社会を占領するのである。特にイスラム教徒であるマレー族の若者たちが、イスラムを再現しようというスローガンで、数多くで宗教団体にリクリートされ、団体に入ったらその団体の考え方を頭に吹き込まれて、視野が狭くなってしまい原理主義者になってしまうと言うケースが多くなってくる。

これは著者の立場から見れば非常に危険性を持っている社会的な現象なのである。マレーシアは独立してからずっと多民族国家、或いは多様性を持っている国というアイデンティティで国家を発展させてきた。しかしながら、マレー族が人口の過半数であるマレーシアでは、やはりマレー族が政治的権力を占領しているのでマレー族の意志にしたがってマレーシアが立国された。

それでマレーシアではイスラム教が国家宗教になっており、その方針があるためマレーシアの文化の発展、そして教育制度がイスラム教から大分影響を受けてきた。学校に通っているムスリムの女子学生がヒジャブを校則としてかぶらせたり、ムスリムの学生がイスラム教学という科目を必修科目として履修させたりすることは、マレーシア人にとって当たり前なことだとみなされ、誰にも反対の声が聞こえない。そもそも反対する人々は恐らくいないだろう。

イスラム教学で学生がイスラム教に関する知識を学ぶことができると言う良い面は事実である。しかも、イスラム教の教えが理解でき、その理解から道徳を持つ人物になった学生達も大勢いる。しかしながら、やはりイスラム教の教えの基で世界を見るようになるので、イスラム的価値観を持っている若者たちが、他の角度から世界を見ることが難しい、ということも恐らく現実である。イスラム教の教えで、イスラム的な考え方で世界を見ないのは恐らくだめなことだと考えられるので、そういう教育を受けた若者たちがイスラム的な考え方を持つことしかできなくなるのである。

これは危険性が高い社会的な現象である。イスラム教学で習った内容は恐らくコンベンショナルな考え方なので、保守主義或いは原理主義には近いものをムスリムの学生達が勉強させたのである。それゆえ、保守主義に近い考え方を持つ若者たちが増えている。で、保守主義的な考え方を持っている団体に入っていてもしょうがないと、著者が思っている。

しかし、世界史をみていけば分かるように、保守主義は個人自由を奪い、そしてアカデミックの自由を制限させ国家の発展を壊してしまう。しかも、保守主義者も恐らく様々な派に所属しているので、派の差異によって競争してしまい、平和を滅ぼす恐れがある。また、ムスリムでない人々もイスラム教の強い社会（国家）に飽きて他の国に移動している可能性もある。これは母国の多様性にとって損である。

それゆえ、著者は保守主義の危機を見逃してはいけないと思う。しかし、著者のようなイスラム教学の教育を受けながら世俗自由主義者である若者たちが恐らく少ない。少数派であるムスリム世俗自由主義者はどうしたら保守原理主義者の力を抑えて、マレーシアの多様性を保障し、なるべくその多様性をより豊かにさせることができるのだろうか、と著者は考えるべきことだと強く思っている。

Gawai 2012

-I'm bummed out. Maybe it's because of the summer. Maybe it's because my Korean friend is in the f***ing army of the beloved South Korea, in the name of the fight against the Northern Red Brothers, that's actually pretty much a dead fight, leaving me here alone to face the life as a student in a very tough university (which despite of its supposed high rankings, is always the subject of criticism by some Israeli student who studies in that very university and he happens to be in a my circle of acquaintance), facing the Japanese people whom I don't get very friendly with and fellow Malaysians whom I don't really enjoy either.

-Maybe it's because last Friday was Gawai and I didn't get to feel the festival feeling that comes with it. Maybe it's because I don't have enough money. Maybe it's because Bashar's regime in Syria is massacring women and children in Houla. Maybe it's because Hosni Mubarak is being sentenced to life imprisonment, and Egypt is now facing a tough time, having to choose between a former general who served in the old guard and a conservative Islamist who didn't seem like a right choice, but who am I to judge for the Egyptians? Maybe it's because I am going to be 22 years old soon.

-Maybe it's because of the fact that I am doing a terribly bad job as a President of MSAJ Kansai, not being competent, creative and assertive enough as a leader, plus my forgetfulness that gets worse as I got older. Maybe it's because I am going to be back in Malaysia in 2014, but this time I don't have a plan as to what happens after that. Maybe it's because more and more of my friends are married. (This early marriage thing sucks, it makes you feel old and unwanted.) Maybe it's because of my tendency towards secularism and apatheism. (Yup, I don't think that atheism is the answer to all our religion-related problems) Maybe it's because the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that doesn't seem to end (but from my observation, it seems that now is relatively calm compared to the early 2000s during the Second Intifada), maybe it's because Malaysian politics is turning increasingly undecipherable to me.

-Amen.

Terlalu mudah bagi sekumpulan insan untuk diindoktrinasi. Apalah yang akan terjadi kepada kita ini wahai kesayanganku.

Biased Malaysia Episode 1

-Some acquaintance asked me about the effect of Malaysian education on the minds of people of Malaysia. He asked this due to the trends of the Facebook updates (which I don't think should be taken seriously; most of the time they're just rhetoric repeated again and again with varying levels of effect) that worries him nowadays.

-Malaysia is constitutionally a monarch. Plus, it enshrines Islam as the official religion. Which I think is quite a bad idea that undermines the ideals of a nation founded in the principles of democracy. But nevertheless, it is the case that Malaysia is a constitutional Muslim monarch which has an official understanding of religion.

-Plus, Malaysia was formed by the right-wing politicians of UMNO (the historical UMNO, not the current UMNO which, while still right-wing, has evolved in nature) and these right-wing politicians felt a need to carve a country equipped with the right education, culture and also the ranks of citizens who are both pro-UMNO and pro-monarch.

-Yet, politics is never that easy. There are always leftist thinkers, those politicians who felt out of touch with both the monarch, the Malay right-wingers (for various reasons) and the establishment of an official religion of state, arguing that Malaysia needs to be secular, and a secular republic at that.

-Yet the leftist are always associated with the ideology of socialism-which is bad luck for the leftists, as this socialism is ultimately linked with Marxism-the ideology of the ultimate enemy of the state. Parti Komunis Malaya. Double bad luck; this party is also heavily Chinese in composition, hence the right-wings which form the bulk of the Government felt that the Chinese population is some form of demographic bomb that would threaten the ideals of Melayu Islam Beraja.

-Hence the Chinese became the target of the right-wings, albeit in a rather soft way. Instead of singling out Chinese as targets of discrimination, the right-wings establish a form of affirmative action called the Bumiputera-favoring policy. They define what a Malay is, they define what Bumiputera and non-Bumiputera is-and they tell everyone that this is for the betterment of the Malaysians. The Chinese are of no help; after the PKM was singled out as the enemy of the state, the rise of Chinese right-wings ("We demand Chinese schools with Mandarin-language as the medium of instruction," sound familiar?) who collaborated with UMNO as MCA has made the integration between Malays and Chinese difficult.

-(Indian and other Bumiputeras are of course in the whole process, but still, they are being left aside by historians and politicians alike, so I can say little)

-But then came the Islamists. Parti Islam Se-Malaysia. This party, influenced by a lot of things (Ikhwanul Muslimin, Iranian Revolutionaries, etc) was formed initially as the voice of those who felt that UMNO was not Malay enough, not Islamic enough, and they gained influence over the years, through their strategies of infiltrating the mosques, the Islamic education classes-all of which has effected the political and societal ideals of Malays.

-And due to these ideals, we have our education today.

To be continued....(when I'm not that lazy)

Life

Life is a constant struggle for survival in the most morally possible way for humans not just as an individual, but also as a whole species. And the survival of human species demand that the human species evolve and reform themselves as part of the collective whole, a collective that extends race, economic group, nationality and religion. Biologically, humans have little need for biological evolution; they are already equipped with more than enough capability to endure not just the hardship and the extremes of the Earth, but also the intellectual capability to plan and enhance their physical capabilities to face even the near-vacuum space.

Yet, humans are in a very deep need to reform their moral sensibilities.

引き篭もり

今日は引き篭もりをし始めてから三日目となっているのだ。
全然喜ばしくない事実である。
ずっと頭が痛い。体もだるい。肩も凝った。睡眠時間もおかしくなっちゃった。夕方に就寝したら深夜に起きたりしていて睡眠時間がばらばらとなっているのだ。
知り合いにも会いたくない。誰にも顔を会わせないように、部屋から出かけたくない。
うつ病になったかも。精神医学者のところに診断を半分の気持ちで受けてもらいたいけど、お金がかかっちゃうからやらない。

Daylight

There is no Day, there is no Night. There is no Up, and there is no Down. There is no Life, and there is no Death, there is no Black and White, there is no Left and Right, there is no Brightness and Darkness, no Cold and Hot, there is no Past, Present and Future, there is no Time, nor there is Space, there is no Self, there is no Other, there is no Knowledge, Wisdom and Strength, there is no Rich and there is no Poor, there is no Lucky nor there is Unlucky, there is no Freedom nor there is Slavery, no Choice nor Predestination, there is no Noise, nor there is Silence, there is no Love, there is no Hatred, there is no Justice nor there is Injustice, no Inside, no Outside, everything we see, feel, taste and love is not there, everything that seems to be there isn't really there, there is only Nothingness, and yet, there is no Nothingness, for there is no Beginning and there is no End, yet no Perpetuation either, every part of the world that we perceive is just what it is--what we perceive, and we can never verify its Truthfulness or Falsity, as there is no Truth and there is no Lie--and nothing really exists, but it exists, full of Contradictions and yet there is no Contradiction.

There is no God Here and yet Here He is.

Belief, Faith, Trust and Desire

We humans are a weird species. We have imaginations, we have thoughts, we have linguistic ability which is very complicated and hard to understand when analysed, despite the fact that we use it every day in communication, in forming our thoughts, in our various and many attempts at understanding the world, either for trivial purposes, or for big purposes, for instance, in order to deepen our religious understanding, to make this world a better place, or simply to further our own achievements as a person.

With language ability, capability for imagination, and logical thought, we start organizing the perceivable world, that is the reality perceivable to us, into categories in order to make our life much easier. We do categorizations so that we may distinguish edible food from inedible rocks, we may tell the difference between 1 and 2, we will not mistake our wives for our refrigerators. This ability to categorize between things have enabled us to survive and pass our genes to future generations. thereby making it possible to humans to maintain their existence.

Yet, those three abilities demand from us something else, apart from just categorizing external world. They also demand us to distinguish between our own selves-our own egos-and everything else. And this ego wants to live, it wants to survive, it wants things. These wants ultimately form desires, that is the desire to survive as an ego that is our own identity, the ego that is us.

The ego demands survival. Hence it requires a future, the future in which the ego can somehow be sustained, despite the knowledge that our bodies will decay and die-a knowledge that is deducted from our logical observations of the physical world. And the same logical deduction deducts that there is a future in which the ego will not survive-which is against the ego's desire to survive. And this causes despair in the ego, the ego is tarnished, it will not accept its own logical prophecy that it will not survive.

Hence, the imagination which serves to make the ego sustainable, creates its own dimension of future, in which the ego can survive death. And the imagination makes it real. It becomes so real, that it fits the physical world so perfectly, as the Unseen. And the desire solidifies to become Belief, a belief in a perpetual future that will fit the perpetual ego.

The future becomes real, as Faith has come into being. And Faith has in it Trust, the trust that the ego puts in its own imagination. It becomes logical, that the ego has to survive, that the ego will bring with it both the good things and the bad things it is affiliated with, the blessings and the sins. The blessings demand rewards, the sins remand paybacks-in the form of Redemption or Retribution, which will suit the sins, and makes the ego full as a real existence, knowing that it is acknowledged not only by its own self, not only by the physical world, but also by the alternative dimensional future in which it survives as a perpetual being.

It is the desire that demands that we have a belief in God, Heaven or Hell. It doesn't matter how the concepts of God, Heaven, Hell, or anything Unseen is somehow illogical in a purely faithless perspective-Faith is a Desire, and Desire demands that the Ego that is us, be acknowledged as a full existence, an existence that has God's imprints in it, the blessing from Heaven, and the retribution from Hell. In that the Ego finds its solace, and puts its Trust.

Your Dreams (Ku Mahu Hilang Dari Dunia).wmv

A new song.

Pictures of Reality

Is there a truth? Is there a salvation? Is there an escape from reality that turns worse each and every time we check it? Is there a God? Is there a reason to believe, to worship and to trust in His existence? Is there a reason to believe that everything we see has a deeper, hidden meaning that is real? Is there freedom? Is there responsibility? Is there hope? Is there a reason to have faith that things will be good in the end? Is there a meaning whatsoever to these series of unfortunate events? Is there a reason to be good and to avoid evil? Is there peace? Is there anything at all that's worth believing?

By Grace of Natural God, I do not know, nor do I believe, and yet nor do I reject. Amen.

Si c'est la verité, je n'accepte pas: Je ne peux si terrible verité accepter pas plus. Jamais!

If it weren't for a Babylonian named Avram, a Jew named Moshe, and a Galilean named Yeheshua, we wouldn't have what we call Islam today. Stop being anti-Semitic, this just fuels the Israelis' anxiety that Palestine as an independent state would be an enemy state, and hence must be prevented.

お忙しいのところです

今月はやばい。仕事がいっぱい。大事な仕事はなかなか済ませれない。送歓迎パーティの準備の作業はなかなか進まない。俺が悪かったと思う。早めに大使館や観光局二招待状を出せばいいのに。後輩達が皆日本にいればいいのに。俺が会長として選ばれなかったらいいのに。銀行口座で預かったお金もだんだんなくなってきている。来月分のクレジットは高すぎ。明日弟の高校の卒業試験の結果の発表日だ。弟はどうなるだろう。俺には関係なし。今仕事中で多忙のはずなのに。俺はだめな人間だ。今夜は早く眠れないだろ。再来週はもう授業開始。3回生になるんだ。時間は早すぎ。俺は怠け者でしょうがない。腰が痛い。腹減った。頭の中は空っぽだ。完全に空っぽだというわけでもないけど。

これが終わったら嬉しくなると思う。一時的でちっちゃい喜びだけかもしれない。それでもいい。

アメン。

作文1

神戸でのバンド練習を終えた後、満員電車に乗ってて帰宅した。電車の中にいる時、電車の窓から見えた関西の夜の景色を眺めながら色々考えてきた。

今年は来日してから二年間が経った。「時間って早いもんだな」って改めて思っていた。今年の夏に22歳になる僕は、これから先どうなるのかと、満員電車の中で思わず考え始めた。

これから先どうなるのかっていう質問は、今夜初めて考えたわけじゃないのだけど、来日してからずっとその問題を頭の中に考え、うつ病になっちゃったほど日常的に悩んできた。しかも、大学での勉強にはなかなか慣れなくて、単位がやばくなってきた僕が、計画通りに卒業はできるか、そして卒業できたらどうすればよいのかを毎日考えて、なんか自分がアホだと思うようになってきた。

この文章を作成しているうちに、つまり今こそ僕は悩んでいる。なんと言うアホなやつだな、僕。正直に母国に勉強している恋人のいる友達のことをうらやましく思っている。このうらやましさは、言葉の形に変えて表現はできない。そもそも表現する意味はない。だけど僕は、心の底から何らかのこの現実への怒りを誰かに叫び出したいのだ。「神に叫べばいいんじゃん」と思う敬虔な人達はたくさんいるけど、僕は正直、神様のことを、信頼できない。その神は嘘をつけているかもしれないからのだ。だってなんだってできる神のことなのだろ。なんだってできると言うのは、嘘を勝手につけたりすることが可能だと言うことと同じなんじゃない？

僕の頭は狂ったかも。

In The Room

-My new room is pretty big, for Japanese room standards. So far, there has not been much difficulties in getting used and settled in this room. Good God.

Au Revoir, Ma Chambre

-For nearly 2 full years, I have been living my life inside this claustrophobia-inducing room. It is dark, smells of cigarette, packed, dirty and tiny. But I am going to say goodbye to all of this.

-Au revoir, ma petite chambre! Actually, saying au revoir might be contextually wrong, as it implies that I am going to see this room again when in fact, I am not going to. This is going to be the last time.

-I am moving out next week. A new place might spell a new start, a new life. But I doubt it; after all, it would still be me, alone, heretic and lonely.

-2 years in Japan! I can't believe that time can fly this fast; all of a sudden I am 22, a third-year student at Osaka University-a university that kills its students; I saw a corpse of a suicide last year inside the campus-and yet I am still single, I am still stuck in an unrequited love which will celebrate its third anniversary this year: Alhamdulillah for that!

-The fact that time flies by without stopping made me think sometimes, that maybe-just maybe-Time is God Himself.

Similarity between Muslims and Jews:

1. Both refrain from pork (and other forbidden food, I am not going into the lists).

2. Both obtain their laws from Semitic-language ancient books.

3. Both are hard-headed when it comes to political possession of Jerusalem.

4. Both don't believe in Trinity.

5. Both segregate men and women.

6. Both pray multiple times a day, in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening.

7. Both hate each other.

Praise the Lord.

-Audite, surdi: Stupidi sunt homines omnes. Sed, humanitaem omnem confido.

Un Dimanche

-C'est un bon dimanche. Il y a du brouillard. Bon weekend.

-Leh. That low-level French mastery makes me feel bad about myself.

و انا من المسلمين

-I wonder whether I am justified in making this claim that I belong to the Muslim ummah, despite my personal beliefs regarding the Muslim faith, and my views on the Muslim law. Maybe I am not justified; maybe having a Muslim heritage, practicing Muslim rites, being used to the Muslim environment is not a sufficient justification of declaring one's Islamic identification. Maybe we are all deceiving ourselves in saying and declaring in each and every prayer, that we are Muslims; Only God knows whether we are really Muslims, or whether, as Quran puts it, we are of those who say "Verily we are only making peace!"

-I don't think this is a good idea, but I have been doubting my faith for a quite long period of time now; I have been doubting myself, too; Whether is it me that has the ability to affirm my Islamic identity, or whether is it ultimately God who decides whether I am one of those led astray, has been on my mind this days. Neither seems to be totally right, neither seems to be totally wrong. Maybe I have been wasting my time thinking about something that is absolutely of no importance whatsoever to my life as a man. Whether Islam is the right answer to every single question that I have been thinking, I am not sure either; from a secular, materialistic point of view, it is rather preposterous to be basing your actions in life based on your desire for Heaven and your fear of Hell, both having no proofs of existence except those laid out in the Scriptures-which may turn to be part of Muhammad's internal delusion. I am not saying that that case is exactly what happened, I am just saying that there is a possibility that that is the case.

-Anyhow, this doubting thing, I suppose is a kind of necessity for me, having grown up and facing lots of different people and way of thinking, having joined the ideologically-charged religious study groups that poses to me a challenge in terms of the view of Islam that I have-not just a religion, but also a culture, a political ideology and a way of thinking that is God-centric. I have to reform my mind, question my mind lots of times, and engage in conversation with people of different thinkings; this tires me, and sometimes I think of just giving up and cease practicing Islam totally, or give up critical thinking and start following people blindly. But that would not suffice, that would erase the purpose of doubt in my life.

-I have been thinking for way too long. But still in Jumaat prayers, I will recite the Iftitah; "Verily my prayers, my doings, my life and my death is for Allah Taala."
I don't know whether I am just lying all this time.

January 2012: A Premature Review

-This month is fairly busy for me. With my new position as the President of the MSAJ Kansai branch, I found myself having a real hard time adjusting to the new position, lacking experience, abilities, and frankly, leadership talent. I also found myself slumped by final reports; I barely understand the things I've learned in class the whole semester, and found myself having a real hard time trying to figure out what to write. Plus, my research is going nowhere without any real progress, and I have only roughly 3 weeks left to conclude it and present the results to the professor.

-I don't know. One month and I am a bad leader already? I'd better keep that in mind the next time such thing presents itself to me.

Limitation of Language

This sentence is a lie.

Pudar

Lagu terbaru.

What Happened To Me?

-2012. What happened to me?

-Where did the past me go? Did he die, in the process of becoming into the today me? Or is he still alive, somewhere in my deepest chamber of memories, buried by more memories?

-Where did he go?

-Am I still a same person? I doubt that I am. And even if I still am, given the fact that the reality around me has changed a lot, I don't think staying the same would be a great idea.

-Is it possible, somehow, in another universe, another possible world, that another me exists, another me that made different choices in his life, another me that made better choices, another me that stayed back in Malaysia, went to Labuan for instance, another me that found another girl to love, and never met Nur Afila?

-Is that person still qualifies as 'me'? Is his existence even possible? Is he even real, or is he just a figment of my imagination, a result of my heavy depression and heavy smoking?

-What is 'me' anyway? What constitutes this personality of 'me' anyway? Am I even real? Do I really exist?

-"Cogito, ergo sum." Is that really plausible?

-I don't know. I don't think that I believe in anything no more, not even in me.

I Hate Umeda

-I hate Umeda.

-It is a place where the robotic Japanese people walk to their place of work, crowding the place with their monotonous robotic faces, filling it with their miseries.

-It is a place where people send their their loved ones off somewhere, be it Malaysia, Korea, Kyushu, Kantou, anywhere, and has to depart from each other. It is a place where separation takes place on a daily basis; and it happens all the time.

-It is a place where, at night, drunkards roam the town; their miseries, kept under their masks in day light, all poured out, resulting in a nasty mix of beer stench, loud screams, miserable laughs and unnecessary tears.

-It is a God-forsaken place, a place where people have to hide their own fears from everybody else. It is a place where the only feeling you can get is loneliness, despite the crowds. At night, it is illuminated by the overwhelming electric lights, yet it is awfully dark and blinding.

-It is Hell on Earth, a Hell full of lying luxuries, luxuries from which I obtain no pleasure. The beer stench, the monotonous crowd, the unholy food, the sickening money, the train noises, the sight of bus departing every single fucking minute; I hate them all.

-How I hated it, to be seeing you board the bus there that night, dear little sister. God bless you.

About Academic Freedom

-I am not one of the supporters of Adam Adli.

-In fact, I am too disconnected from the current situation in Malaysia, that I refuse to support him, being the fact that I don't know anything. Any single thing that I do without me knowing the cause properly, will not be good in retrospective.

-However, when I read one of the articles about Adam Adli, in order to find out what is happening exactly, my eyes are set on this one phrase: Academic freedom.

-Well, the academic freedom, as stated by Adam Adli, is the freedom for students to engage in political activities. I personally don't think this is a good idea yet. The reason is because there are levels in academic freedom, and the freedom for students to engage in political activism must at first, be cemented by a base, that is the freedom to discuss issues that are sensitive, taboos, anti-establishment in an academic way.

-We Malaysians still don't have that freedom of discussion. We are not open in terms of our views on society, history, sexuality, interfaith relations; Let's take Malays, for example. If one tries to engage a Malay student in a discussion relating Islam-Christian relationship, one can still find among Malays, a great number of those who would consider Christianity a bogus faith, a religion that is not really worthy of respect.

-Or if we want to talk about sexuality, one might find among the Malays, an almost 100 percent consensus that homosexuality is a sin, condemned by Islam. While this is true, the fact that homosexuality is due to genetic arrangements and not by an active, free choice makes it hard for me to accept in totality that homosexuality is a sin. It is due to nature, one simply doesn't have much say in his sexual orientation. But the Malays won't have that! "Quran supersedes scientific findings!"

-Academic freedom, for me, is a freedom for students to listen to different sources of different values. There should not be too much censorship, as censorship blocks and retorts the students ability to analyse information. Of course there are dangers to having no censorship at all, but thoughtless, authoritarian and overwhelming censorship should be fought; rather, we should educate the students to analyse information better, not taking everything by face value, and distinguishing between good information, bad information, and fabrications.

-The government censors way too much information, given the fact that it is the age of computers. But the government is not to be blamed in its entirety; the society itself is not helping in this. We are not liberal in our understanding of reality, we simply cannot picture in our mind of the probability that our understanding might be wrong, we refuse to hear from the sides that we hate. And we impose this kind of thinking into students, hence bogging the academic freedom in our society.

-We are told about our history, about our political stances, about religion, about economics, by those in charge; the syllabus is dictated by the authorities. And we cannot challenge the syllabus at all; is this academic freedom? No.