Goodbye, St. Louis!

Dreaming of change.

I'm beginning to grudgingly accept that all that psychobabble about dreams is true. About how dreams provide insights into the workings of our subconscious and all that jazz.
I've been having some very vivid dreams lately. They range from idiotically bizarre (playing football in a condominium construction site built in - get this - outer space!) to the poignant (mending bridges with a recently deceased, estranged aunt) to pretty fucking terrifying (can't remember the dream, thank goodness).
The dream I had last night though, is the one that really makes me wonder whether my subconscious mind is trying to tell me what my conscious mind refuses to accept.
This is what I dreamt about.
I'm driving a car up a steep, winding mountain road. On my left is a wall of rock. On my right, a sheer cliff with an endless drop. The road basically corkscrews its way up a mountain. It's dangerous and full of gravel. My car doesn't have traction.
Yet, I'm pressing on, full steam ahead. Tyres screech as they fight for purchase. My heart pounds away in fear as time and again I almost fly off the road.
I'm getting closer and closer to the top and I gun the accelerator even harder. Eventually, the expected happens. I lose control and veer off the cliff.
I plunge down into the murky depths. And I wake up. As I wake up, I realise that my last thought as I'm falling is not one of fear or terror. As I fall, I'm thinking that this was expected. That I knew I would fall from the moment I began the ascent.
That dream sums up my fears and insecurities pretty well actually. Let's face it. I'm doing very well, career-wise. In fact, I think it's fair to say that I've never been in better shape as a journalist.
The problem with that is that every mountain I climb, every small triumph I savour, is replaced by an even bigger mountain, an even greater challenge.
Before I came on the AFPF fellowship, the fear was whether or not I was only a reporter who could cut it in his own backyard. That I wasn't really as good as I imagined myself to be.
Coming here, I proved to myself - as well as to the folk back home - that I may actually be a half-decent journalist. Well and good. But now that I'm going home, it means that I'm going to have to take everything I've learned here, all the stuff that I've picked up and somehow try to apply it to a Malaysian setting.
I've got to go back and be an even better reporter than I am now. After all, that's the entire point of the fellowship, isn't it? The mere thought of it tires and depresses me. Won't there ever be a time when I won't need to prove myself to the world, and more importantly, to myself?
The nagging thought at the back of my mind though, is whether I'm actually doing any good at all. Whether my work is, even in a small way, changing the world.
That's all I want in life. I don't really care about money or fabulous things or whatever. I just want to, corny as it sounds, make the world a better place. Even if it's just one tiny little piece of it. I want to be remembered one day as somebody who made it just a wee bit brighter.
I was listening to Playing For Change's cover of Peter Gabriel's Biko in the car today. The song, about the martyred South African anti-apartheid activist, was one I've been listening to over and over since coming here.
I don't know why, but when I heard it today I got goosebumps all over my skin and tears just sprang to my eyes. I mean, think about how great a person has to be to inspire people to write and sing songs about him? How tremendous must his impact be for folk to still be recalling him more than 30 years after his death?
As a journalist and a writer, I have the opportunity to make an impact too. Most probably not the kind of impact the Steve Bikos or the Mahatma Ghandis of the world. But an impact nevertheless.
The question though is, am I doing so? Or am I so afraid of moving out of that cocoon of financial and career security that I want to challenge and change neither myself nor the world around me? If that's the case, wouldn't it mean that my life has been a wasted life? After all, what good's a life if a person has come into and left the world without making even a little bit of a dent in it? Surely as humans, as the stewards of this realm, we have been entrusted with greater responsibilities?
Even as I ask myself these questions, I know that I know what will happen in the future. I'll go back to Malaysia, surround myself with people, places and things comforting and familiar and slowly but surely slip back into the old routine.
I'll tell myself that all this idealism is not practical, that I'm a poor boy with aging parents and no silver spoon in sight. I'll tell myself that the responsibilities to family and self come before any notions of honour, nobility, glory or martyrdom.
Eventually, I'll euthanise myself into actually believing most if not all of it. And the only place where I'll face the truth is in my dreams.

The Demonisation of Islam.

These days, it seems that for every column I write, there's one that gets rejected. Why is this happening? Am I getting too radical, starting to think that I can write whatever I want just because I'm a columnist? Am I getting too big for my britches?

But then again, isn't that what column writing is about? Airing your opinions? As long as it's not libellous, seditious or otherwise illegal and damaging, shouldn't the column be the voice of the columnist? If only. Newspaper writing in Malaysia has never been that straightforward.

So, once again, thank God for this blog, where I can rant the rants that would never otherwise see the light of day. This is another one that didn't make the cut:

It was just one of the many forwarded emails a person gets on any given day, with the “Fwd: Fw…” heading, familiar to email users, indicating that the message has been passed around to many people.

I would have deleted it, if not for the heading, which piqued my interest. The email was titled “Eye Opening and Mind Shocking: Mass Marriage in Gaza.”

Since it was in a region of the world that interests me and from a friend who doesn’t usually send me rubbish, I opened it.

Pictures of doe-eyed Palestinian brides greeted me. Their faces were expertly made up, hair prettily coiffed, white gowns resplendent and hands protectively enveloped by their grinning husbands-to-be.

The girls looked like they were between 6 to 10 years old. The grooms, on the other hand, were strapping young men in their 20s.

Yes, it was disturbing. But what was actually more disturbing was how this unsettling event was used, along with other carefully picked pieces of information, to launch an attack against Islam.

The article, apparently written by a PhD. holder, accused Islam of encouraging pedophilia and the Prophet Muhammad of being a child molester because of his marriage to Aisha.

It’s at points like these that I wish cursing were allowed in columns. I would have a few very choice phrases to throw at the author of this particular piece of excrement.

All around the world, there are people who dedicate their lives to promote better inter-faith understanding and greater tolerance between religions. People make all sorts of sacrifices, sometimes even their lives, just to make the world a better place for all faiths.

And while these unsung heroes go about their Herculean labours, there are others who make it their life’s work to tear down other people’s faiths.

Very often it is Islam that is on the receiving end. Almost every day emails are circulated among millions of people. They denigrate this religion, painting it as being a vile and evil belief practiced by bad people. Almost every day, some new condemnation is cooked up and hurtled at the believers of the religion which’s name means peace.

People often forward these emails without even trying to ascertain where they originate. After all, with our busy daily schedules, who has the time to do so? But sometimes, it pays to see whose message it is we are spreading.

This email was originated from an American-based anti-Muslim website that spews venom, oozes hate and calls for violence against Muslims. All those who don’t subscribe to this stance, including the F.B.I. and even President Obama, are considered enemies.

To put it simply, it is the American-Christian equivalent of Al Qaeda’s propaganda machine and recruitment spiel. “It’s us against them. We are on the side of God, they are the evil Satan. It’s a Holy War. Defend your faith against these infidels, blah, blah, blah.”

Isn’t it amazing though that these defenders of the faith, be they Christian or Muslim or whatever, are always eager to point a damning digit at someone else but ready to make excuses for their own skeletons?

Take this crusader for example. He’s so eager to point out that Muhammad married a child bride. Does he mention that Mary, the mother of Christ, was married when she was about 13 or 14? Granted, Christian dogma states she was a virgin and remained one till she was assumed into heaven. The point, though, is that she was a child bride too, right? What about King David,
who sent a man to his death simply because he coveted his wife? Not very nice, is it?

The email also spoke and criticized the fact that the Prophet had more than one wife. What about King Solomon, who was said to have had a thousand wives and concubines? What about the Mormons of today, who believe in polygamous marriages?

Islam was spread through the sword? What about the Spanish Inquisition? What about the great Hindu empires of the past? What about the pilgrim fathers in America, who brought Christianity, disease and big guns with them on their boats to the New World?

Many of the practices of yore seem weird, barbaric or inhumane by today’s standards. The Egyptian gods and pharaohs married their own siblings. Hindu widows would commit sati, immolating themselves on their husbands’ funeral pyres. Pagan Romans used to serve lions a diet of Christian du jour.

But upon closer inspection, most of the things that happened then often did so for a good reason, if only people would take the time to learn what those reasons are. For example, women got married younger because life expectancies were much lower. Looking at everything through modern eyes would be to get a cock-eyed view of the past.

What really bites is that it is Islam that continues to be demonized. The responsibility for acts committed by some deluded souls is placed squarely on the collective head of the whole global Muslim community. Muslims and Islam is painted with broad brush strokes as being hate-filled, violent, terrorists and extremists.

Yes, some Muslims are jerks. I mean, we had a whole bunch of them dragging a severed cow’s head on the streets of Shah Alam recently. But some Christians are jerks too. There are also Hindus who are jerks, just as there are jerks in Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism and just about every other religion under the sun. They’d probably be jerks even if they were agnostic!

These card-carrying defenders need to realise that most religions have a spotted history. You can’t go through centuries and millennia of existence without slathering yourself in ignominy at some point or the other. So, for every finger that you point at other people, you’d find four more pointing back at you.

It would be better if these physicians healed themselves.

Pig-headed cow-head protestors.

The idiocy continues.
The Selangor Menteri Besar tried to hold a forum with the residents of Section 23, to discuss the controversial relocation of the Hindu temple to the Muslim majority area.
What was supposed to be the exercise of democracy turned into a farce. The Malay residents turned the proceedings into a mob scene, hurling curses, insults, threats and obscenities.
The Indians, far outnumbered, mostly sat quietly in their seats. The placid and defeated looks on their faces said it all - this wasn't a fight they were expecting to win, or even make an impression on.
Malaysiakini's video of the incident illustrates the whole point better than anything anybody can say.
The worst part of it was when one Indian man stood up to make a point. He drowned out by the jeering boors. That was expected. What was unexpected, and really low, was when he took his seat again.
One of the men in the room - one of the loudest and crassest, I might add - snuck up behind him and pulled the chair from right under him.
That moment said it all. That moment was a snapshot of the childishness, the cowardly belief of their strength in numbers and the complete lack of respect and understanding these residents displayed.
The Malaysian Insider published an interview with these people, asking them why exactly they didn't want a temple near their homes, which they had previously attributed to "Muslim sensitivities." (I wonder if any of them realised the irony of their insensitive behaviour in the name of their sensitivity) None of the interviewees could give a decent reason for their stubborn resistance.
One said it would "disrupt traffic flow". Others said it was the "smell" and the "noise".
Traffic flow??? Hindus, unlike Christians or Muslims, do not have strict worship schedules. Devotees go in drips and trickles to perform their obligations. The only time Hindus cause traffic congestion is during Thaipusam. And that too is only in certain spots, like Batu Caves, around the country.
Smell?? Since when has the smell of incense permeated an entire neighbourhood?
Noise?? Are temple bells really louder than the call of the azan five times a day?
Why don't these people just come out and admit it. They are religious bigots. They are racist pigs. They are bullying cowards.
And their arguments don't make sense. Going by their twisted logic - which is that there shouldn't be a temple there because it's a Muslim majority area - there should not be a single temple, church or tokong in the whole country, since it's a Muslim majority country.
Likewise there should not be a single mosque in China, in India, in America, in the UK or anywhere in the many countries where there aren't at least 51% Muslims.
While we're on this tack, these Section 23 Muslims really should only be eating Muslim food, wearing Muslim attire, listening to Muslim music, trading with Muslim businesses, working for Muslim people, going to Muslim schools, learning Muslim curriculum, etc. After all, God forbid that their Muslim sensitivities be offended by Miley Cyrus's latest song or Nike's latest line of shoes.
I mean, once you start down this line of thinking, where does it end?
I'd call these folk "pig-headed", but we wouldn't to offended their sensitivities, would we?

The Column That Never Was.

It can be very frustrating writing for the mainstream media in Malaysia. Stories have been killed because they're too "sensitive". Articles have been made to disappear sometimes because the of the subject's friendship with the higher-ups in the company. Worse still, reporters are sometime made to write stuff because of connections certain people have.

I feel it a little more now that I've become a columnist. There are certain "no-go" areas, certain things we're not supposed to write about. One of these things is the recent spate of religious fucked-upness that's been going on in the country.

Thankfully, I still have this blog. So, here it is, the column that never was:




When I was a child, my favourite song at church used to be called Pass It On.

It had an opening line that I really loved, which went, “It only takes a spark to get a fire going.”

A very positive message indeed. But those same words can be used to describe the possible outcome of the repeated poking and prodding of the religious hornets’ nest that is being carried out by some elements in our country.

I refer to the increasingly shocking cases of religious baiting that have suddenly become the “in” thing to do for protestors who want to make a splash, people who want to make a flashy point or journalists that want a cheap headline.

In January, a student found a pig’s head on a PAS flag in a surau at Universiti Malaya’s Islamic studies academy. A month before that in Malacca, a wild boar head was found hanging next to a banner highlighting issues concerning Malays there, including that of a pig farm in Paya Menkuang.

Then, a couple of months ago, there was the case of the two crusading journalists from Al-Islam magazine that “infiltrated” a church hoping to land a story about Muslims being surreptitiously converted to Christianity. When they didn’t find any, they decided that they would partake of the Holy Eucharist – the holiest of Catholic rituals. They then spat out the sacred wafer, took pictures of it and published the story in their magazine.

And now, we have the case of Shah Alam’s Section 23 residents who were apparently so angry at the relocation of a Hindu temple to their area that they thought it warranted a cow’s head being dragged and defiled in front of the state secretariat.

All it takes is one spark to get a fire going. These insensitive actions are being uneasily tolerated by the larger segments of society. But, it’s impossible to expect that cooler heads will always prevail. It’s inevitable that the more people tear down each other’s dearly held beliefs and values, the more likely it is that we will eventually arrive at a disastrous flashpoint.

We’ve seen it happen over and over again in many countries around the world. The Bombay race riots of the 90s. The lynching of blacks in America’s Deep South. Hitler’s persecution of Jews during World War II. Time and time again blood has been spilt because insular and chauvinistic beliefs have held sway. Time and time again evil has flourished because good people have done nothing.

What if one day, some decide they’ve had enough? What if they decide to strike back? How long will it take for it to descend to all out racial and religious warfare? How long will it take for our streets to become as troubled as those in Sri Lanka or Gaza? How long will it take for Malaysia to literally become tanah tumpahnya darahku, spilt by our own brethren?

It’s not as farfetched a scenario as you can imagine. After all, the instigator behind the cow’s head incident proudly told the media that the residents will not budge an inch, “even if lives are lost and blood is made to flow.”

In To Kill a Mockingbird, lawyer Atticus Finch, in an attempt to divert his children from his town’s bigoted worldview, tells them that they can never understand a person until they consider things from his point of view, until they climb inside his skin and walk around in it.

These people would do well to do the same. The protestors, who say they are residents of Section 23 insist that there shouldn’t be a temple there because 80% of its population is Muslim (reports vary on the actual demographic mak-up). They would do well to put themselves in the skin of the remaining 20% and ask if they too deserve a right to have a place to worship. How would they have felt if residents in a non-Muslim majority area were to have paraded a pig's head in response to reports of a mosque being built?

The reporters from Al-Islam should ask themselves how unhappy they were when the caricatures of Prophet Muhammad appeared in Scandinavia. Or, closer to home, when The Herald used the word Allah in a Christian context?

The culprits who put the pig’s head in the surau should do well to ask themselves if they’d like their house of worship desecrated in such an awful manner. Is it too much to ask for everybody to just treat others the way they themselves would like to be treated?

What can the larger populace do about this though, is a question that still boggles many. A veteran reporter I was talking to about this voiced his own dismay and confusion at the terrible turn things are taking.

“It doesn't go away any more. It goes everywhere, immediately, and stays forever,” he said. “What do we do? Forgive them, for they know not what they do? Or crucify them? Make examples of them?

“In the past, education was always the answer. One learned. One understood. One figured things out from the facts - even the facts of others' myths. Understanding wasn't impossible. I'm sure this still holds true for many but, I fear, not for most,” he told me.

The authorities are quick to come down hard on civil rights’ protestors. They’re quick to use the various laws of the land to incarcerate those who are deemed to be disturbing the peace. They’re quick to come up with harebrained ideas to censor the Internet (and equally quick to dismiss them when they see that they don’t find favour!). Why can’t they be equally quick to do something about this, be it through education or enforcement?

At the same time, the rakyat these days are becoming increasingly aware of their rights. They’re becoming increasingly effective in finding ways to air their grievances. Isn’t it time for people of all stripes to get together and tell those among us that would sow strife and discord that hate will not prevail, that we, as a nation, want peace, love and harmony?

It’s impossible to expect Malaysia to be a utopia of rainbows and daffodils, where everybody loves each other. But is it too much to ask that we at least respect each other?

Notes from St. Louis.

I've always loved books and reading. It's unsurprising then that one of the first things I did when I came here was to enroll in the local library.

It was one of the best moves I made. The library system in St. Louis is wonderful. The books, the CDs, the DVDs, the programmes - they're fantastic and the perfect example of the gulf between a developed country like the United States and a third-world country (I will not call it a developing country until I see signs of development in the mentality of its people) like mine.

The Central Library on Olive Street is a thing of beauty in itself. With it's massive arches, vast marble floors and beautiful stained-glass windows, it has a cathedral-like grandeur that takes my breath away every time I go in.

With all the time I spent in the library, it was inevitable that I would eventually end up writing a story about it.

Fact is, my article on libraries was a labour of love from start to finish. I conceived the idea, wrote the story, took the pictures and got the graphs and statistics. Seeing it published has got to be one of the most satisfying moments of my time here. It's not the biggest story I've ever done, but I just loved this one a lot.

That being said, work recently has been a curious mixture of triumphs and disappointments, of satisfaction and frustration.

The library story was definitely a triumph. The disappouintment was my story on human trafficking, which I was really keen on. Human rights coverage has always been my area of interest and one of my early forays into contact building was with the International Institute in St. Louis. The Post-Dispatch already has a reporter, Doug Moore, working the beat. So, finding an untapped angle and not stepping on his toes was the key. I thought I had managed to do that with the human trafficking story, which was basically about people being brought to the US under false pretexts and being made to work in slave-like conditions.

It was not to be because my contact person at the Institute said the victims were unwilling to be interviewed, even after I offered to not take pictures or use their real names.

I could deal with that. After all, this kind of rejection is part and parcel of every reporter's life. What annoyed me was the unprofessional way in which the person at the Institute handled it. She promised to get back to me after I had gone to see her and discussed the story with her. However, two months and several emails and voicemails later, she still hadn't told me what the situation was one way or the other. I hate being left hanging like that and really expected more. Oh well...

Work on the whole has been good though. I've had stuff to do regularly and that's always good for my mental health.

That being said, I have been getting a little frustrated at the number of parades/fairs/street events I'm asked to cover. Sometimes, it feels like all I'm doing is parades. In the past month alone, I've done stories on Baden Taste, the Corvette caravan and Festival of Nations. It's nice to attend these events, but I'd really like to get a greater diversity of coverage while I'm here. I don't mean I want to be assigned to all the front page stories. What I do mean is that I'd like to not be the "intern" that's given the stories that can't be screwed up.

It's galling also because I've been getting compliments from my editors and colleagues on the quality of my work, which makes it hard to understand why I'm not getting more challenging stuff to do. Well...at least they're receptive to the ideas that I pitch.

However, it is this that I feel is one of the weaknesses in the fellowship. While we have mentors - and I have a great one in Elisa Crouch - it appears that in my case at least, the higher-ups in the newsroom don't really seem to be on board with the fellowship's ideas and ideals.

Don't get me wrong. They're all fantastic people and have really made me feel welcome at the Post-Dispatch. It just seems that they often don't know what to do with me. For the benefit of future fellows, it might be a good idea for the foundation to work with the higher echelons of the company and come up with a work plan based on the fellow's goals.