“That is when the Malay language ability and proficiency by Malaysian citizens is being questioned.”
As far as I know, anyone born in Malaya after Aug 31 1957 (now malaysia) is a citizen, if their parents are malaysians. Speaking melayu has nothing to do with it.
language shaming is just a minor inconvenience and would only hurt people with low self esteem. The cry for granting of citizenship only to proficient malay speakers is a totally different thing – it violates basic human rights and also the consitution of Malaya (malaysia)
But who am I to complain (English purist, please pardon me for starting a sentence with “but”), human rights or any other rights carry no meaning to the 15th century, Taliban mindset.
Regardless of whether Orwell was right or wrong at the time he wrote, and regardless of what particular definition of “fascism” he had in mind when he denigrated its worth as a term of “political” analysis, the fact remains that the term “fascist”, like “Hitler”, has become primarily a tool of propagandists.
When Sadam is “Hitler”, Madeleine Albright’s assertion that half a million dead Iraqi children were a price worth paying, not to mention Gulf War II and all those deaths and all that destruction, is contextualized in such a way as to make murderous American militarism look good.
When Gaddafi is “Hitler”, the ghoul that grinningly exulted “We came, we saw, he died” in the act of using a man’s having died being sodomized with a bayonet as a campaign ad looks good.
Similarly, when the junta, which is just a slightly amped-up version of the usual Thai state authoritarianism, is labeled “fascist”, the “democratically-elected” Thai administration that let loose death squads and murdered over a thousand citizens looks good.
Also, regardless of the fact that the majority of disappearances logged by NGOs and the HR community since 2000 took place under the “not-fascist” Thaksin administration, we will be asked to subscribe to the Rumsfeld doctrine that holds that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
We will also be asked to believe that even though the PT administration under Yingluck could have signed and ratified the UN Convention, it is the evil junta who is refusing to do so. The rather astounding fact that neither the US nor the UK , those upstanding examples of liberal democracy, has signed or ratified the same document means nothing in Jim’s fantasy bubble.
The fact that not one Asian country has does not mean that Thailand is a normal Asian nation regardless of whether it happens to be in one of its periodical moments of “democratically-elected” government, it just means that at this particular moment in time, Thailand is under the sway of vicious fascists who insist on continuing to not do what their “democratic” predecessors insisted on not doing.
It is good article but having a flaw at certain aspect.
First, in the case of Faiz Subri and Zahid Hamidi, they are being bashed for inability to speak proper English (which is not their first language). In the case of Rais Yatim, he is bashing the journalist for not speaking Malay language at all (which is the national language of Malaysia). Hence it is two different scenarios.
Second, the writer just considered Malay language as nationalist medium of propaganda. He is not considered the historical aspect which deeply rooted in Malay language. He is not considered that Malay language used to be the lingua franca of this region. He is not considered that in the past the non-ethnic Malay ruler of this region using Malay language to communicate with foreigner. He is not considered that Malay language is being chosen as the base of Indonesian language to unite variety of ethnics in that country.
Third, the writer considered Malay dialects is similar with Chinese dialects. Most Malay dialects especially Malay dialects in Malay Peninsula have high degree of mutual intelligibility. Therefore people that speak standard Malay can understand a bit if someone speaks Loghat Utara or Base Tranung. Chinese dialects have a low degree of intelligibility. Someone who only knows Cantonese will not be able to understand someone which spoke Mandarin. If we want to compare the Malay dialects with Chinese dialects, it is more comparable to compare the variety of Mandarin dialects which Beijing dialect is being chosen as the Standard Chinese language.
Fourth, the writer considered that there is sub-imperialist motivation in making Malaccan-Johor-Riau dialect as standard Malay. The writer not considered the influence of Malay language in development of ethnic identity which the feeling of togetherness lead a group of people unite under shared common standard language. Although Malaccan-Johor-Riau dialect is being chosen as the standard language, other dialects such as Loghat Utara or Base Tranung are still spoken widely in their respective region. Mat Dan is speaking Base Tranung and most of standard Malay speakers understand him.
In conclusion, the development of both English and Malay language in this region tied up with complex aspects of history, religion, culture, ethnic identity, worldview, the concept of citizenship and the others. Without understanding all of this and just emphasizing language shaming, oppression and domination, it will be counterproductive and we will be unable to come up with comprehensive solution. Bashing someone for their language proficiency is bad. But “language shaming” cannot be used just to label someone that emphasized the importance of speaking the national language.
Note: I considered language shaming for someone that cannot speak proper Malay is a counter reaction for the language shaming for someone that cannot speak proper English. Lee Chong Wei and to certain extent Mark Adam are the figures which not fluent enough in Malay language but they are rarely being bashed for that. The issues of Malay language proficiency and inability to speak Malay language only started when figure like Faiz Subri and Zahid Hamidi being bashed for their inability to speak English. That is when the Malay language ability and proficiency by Malaysian citizens is being questioned.
Dr Taylor is welcome to subscribe to the myth of JFK’s “learning curve” and how it enabled his “handling” of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but from a more realistic perspective it was Kennedy’s anti-communist macho posturing and typical American hyper-paranoia that led to the crisis in the first place and only a carefully hidden and indeed lied about “crawl down” on Kennedy’s part that enabled Kruschev to solve the problem.
Kennedy’s decision to send some 15K troops to Vietnam to demonstrate the size and reach of his and America’s “balls” set in motion a tragedy for the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and eventually drew Australia, Thailand and South Korea into a racist war for no other purpose than to put on a show for allies and the home audience.
So, Trump’s “not being a Kennedy” might be a good thing for the Asia-Pacific.
And all the handwaving about Trump’s announced intention to revisit the so-called One China Policy and Beijing’s “ire” in the press is a measure of how incredibly craven the whole western capitalist imperium can be when the size of a country’s potential market allows it to punch so far over its weight on the world stage that we have to believe the referees have been bought.
It is time for a rethink of all the policies set in motion by the Wall Street-Walmart Clinton cabal to pretend China is something other than an authoritarian Special Economic Zone thriving off the backs of 750K impoverished and oppressed people whose greatest hope is a job assembling iPhones for “progressives” whose idea of economic justice is keeping consumer electronics prices low enough that poor Americans can afford midrange Samsung products.
I have friends in Taiwan who are not fond of the idea that their sovereignty and their democratic desires are little more than a concern for Australia’s bottom line as a primary resource provider for the CPC.
And speaking of myths, it is very much disingenuous of Masturah to continuously attribute the concept of Chinese privilege to Sangeetha Thanapal and Adeline Koh. Prior to them, dozens of scholars have already traced and explored the contours and mechanics of racial privilege in independent Singapore.
Why Masturah remains fixated on Thanapal and Koh remains a mystery, considering that New Mandala has just published a historical piece by on racial privilege in Singapore written by another writer.
Perhaps, Thanapal and Koh serve as convenient straw-men?
“Alatas framed his critique of colonial capitalism that exploited the image of the lazy native with economic and sociological analyses. Indeed, he called it “colonial capitalism” and not white capitalism. And nowhere in Lazy Native does he blame the other ethnicities of Malaysia—the Chinese or the Indians—for the condition of the Malays.”
Just because Alatas didn’t explicitly invoke race doesnt mean colonial capitalism was a non-racial project. In contrary, scholarship has decisively proven, as well as the many memoirs of colonial administrators, that British colonialism was at heart, a racialising and racist endeavour.
Furthermore, to imply that an economic and sociological analysis cannot touch on racial issues is theoretically misleading, as if both frameworks are somewhat antithetical to the examination of race.
“It is important to understand this to distance the kind of critique Alatas performs in Lazy Native and the language he uses from, say, rants about “Chinese privilege” in Singapore, in which the term itself makes a direct link of ethnicity—one ethnicity in particular—to majority class and political privilege, and abuse of power. If Alatas has tried to help us see the wrongness in the ideological necessity of giving laziness a Malay face, we are invited to think about the wrongness in the ideological insistence of giving a Chinese face to privilege.”
Apologies but this is just a statement of false extrapolations, false equivalence, inappropriate linkage, and reductionist thinking. To reduce the notion of race to matters of class and demographics will require us to ignore the vast amount of evidence proving otherwise.
Chinese privilege may have origins in colonial racism, but it is a modern phenomenon. To use Alatas’ reasoning towards colonial racism as a tool to dismiss current analysis of race in modern independent Singapore is fallacious at best, and amateurish at worst.
This entire article of Masturah’s reminds me of the litany of scholars who claim to espouse the true or appropriate interpretations of seminal works.
Should one writer (Masturah) seemingly claim a monopoly on interpreting Alatas’ work? That would set a dangerous precedent.
What is tragic here is that Masturah’s article will undoubtedly be used to dismiss the racial grievances of both minorities in Singapore and Malaysia.
I made one comment, only one, about 10 years ago, after I read the Malay translation of the book titled, “Mitos Pribumi Malas” the very first time. It was about the author’s choice of the word “mitos’ which he took to be the Malay version of “myth” which I disagreed. “Mitos” is actually not “myth” in English (in the real sense), it is “mythos” and I believe, everyone knows the meaning of that word. “Myth” in Malay is actually “mempercayai sesuatu yang tidak betul atau tidak tepat” or “kepercayaan salah”. I am not able to find a word (one word) in Malay for that so, the closest I have ever come to are those two words.
There are many words in Malay taken from the English language that are wrongly translated, and some ‘translations’ ended up with the wrong tenses, the most common being “symbol” (noun) which is commonly translated into Malay as “symbolic (adverb) and not “simbol”.
Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers is infamous. It is certainly not ‘civilized’. Myanmar is 88% Buddhist. ‘Rohingya’ are Bangladeshi economic migrants.
‘Karma’ is perhaps the most advanced subject in Buddhist philosophy. ‘Sin’ is a doctrine of the Abrahamic religions.
America’s elite should have seen this coming. Way back in 1992 in Hat Yai, Thailand, I had an enlightening conversation with an American, about Pat Buchanan’s “Asian capitalism is eating my lunch” platform.
Good to see Nixon’s “mad man” strategy mentioned. I’ve long waited for this. It needs to be noted however, that the strategy did n’t work : North Vietnam’s leadership correctly, calmly, calculated that it was a strategic ploy. They saw through Nixon’s bluff. Probably ditto the Chinese now re. Trump.
A sin or against karmic benefits? if it is a sin many millions of Burmese Buddhists who have killed, cattle, chickens, spiders etc. are sinners – the majority (90%?) of Buddhists in fact.
If it is karmic retribution, those poor Buddhists face terrible returns in their next lives.
Some Burmese Buddhists have been very violent, it has been well documented, whether against Muslims, in ethnic wars and many other areas of life.
Ninety percent of the ‘offenders’ in Australia are not sent back home, they are eventually resettled, possibly the same in Indonesia and Malaysia. This is the more civilized approach to asylum seekers.
I think Burma is probably closer to 60% Buddhist, 99%. You must account for animists, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, atheists and others.
Not every Buddhist is peaceful, because Buddhist like every other human being are only humans.
However, whether you want to admit it or not, Buddhist teachings are peaceful. Why? Because in Buddhism…. if you kill any life, human or non-believer or animal …with intent …it is a SIN.any Buddhist killing any life will pay for his sin. Killing is not rewarded with 500 virgins.
Killing of any being is a sin. BUddhism doesnt discriminate whether the BEING is a “kafir” which in islam can be killed…. if they are kafir( non-believers) .So thats the difference.
It is revealing that the author of this post has been the first Australian commentator, at least the first whom I have noticed, to point out the Indonesian origin of ‘Pancagila’.
If Australians, either in uniform or not, can creatively come up with phrases like ‘nafsu kebejatan dlm persekongkolan dan kepura-puraan’, reinforcing the message with an attack on ‘kaum kapitalis’, we have an answer to those lamenting the decline of Indonesian language study in Australia. Sure, there may be fewer Australians learning Indonesian nowadays, but when they do they really master it.
Having tackled Indonesian studies in an earlier, less talented era, I have never been able to get ‘persekongkolan’ to roll smoothly off my tongue when I have been trying to speak broken Indonesian.
It is also revealing that no Indonesian commentator has pointed out the authentically Indonesian feel about ‘Pancagila’. Does Australia seem more provocative or insensitive if the impression is given that it was some witty, anti-capitalist Australian SAS member, no doubt a closet Marxist, who dreamed up Pancagila rather than, for example, a leftist Indonesian NGO activist?
Anything Red Cross and UN even at better time are just leeches profiting off the most vulnerable one they were so called helping, more like lining their pockets consider just the amount of $$$ they spent to reside in Yangon.
If less than a penny out of every dollar allocated for aid to refugee can make the west claim helping, high time to look for others, local groups that have only over heads of at most 20% to do same work or better with or w/o military approval.
These local organizations provided most to all the crises caused by nature and the west.
Excellent. Thanks Bradley for in-depth insight into the real issues, instead of superficial Oz media reportage of ” yet another” Indonesia-Oz relationship breakdown.
Andrew MacGregor Marshall – can you explain to me why the (then) Crown Prince should have paid Harrow’s exorbitant fees, when his sons had apparently chosen to shirk even ” minimum royal duties” ?
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Language shaming in Malaysia
“That is when the Malay language ability and proficiency by Malaysian citizens is being questioned.”
As far as I know, anyone born in Malaya after Aug 31 1957 (now malaysia) is a citizen, if their parents are malaysians. Speaking melayu has nothing to do with it.
language shaming is just a minor inconvenience and would only hurt people with low self esteem. The cry for granting of citizenship only to proficient malay speakers is a totally different thing – it violates basic human rights and also the consitution of Malaya (malaysia)
But who am I to complain (English purist, please pardon me for starting a sentence with “but”), human rights or any other rights carry no meaning to the 15th century, Taliban mindset.
A response to the Thai government
Regardless of whether Orwell was right or wrong at the time he wrote, and regardless of what particular definition of “fascism” he had in mind when he denigrated its worth as a term of “political” analysis, the fact remains that the term “fascist”, like “Hitler”, has become primarily a tool of propagandists.
When Sadam is “Hitler”, Madeleine Albright’s assertion that half a million dead Iraqi children were a price worth paying, not to mention Gulf War II and all those deaths and all that destruction, is contextualized in such a way as to make murderous American militarism look good.
When Gaddafi is “Hitler”, the ghoul that grinningly exulted “We came, we saw, he died” in the act of using a man’s having died being sodomized with a bayonet as a campaign ad looks good.
Similarly, when the junta, which is just a slightly amped-up version of the usual Thai state authoritarianism, is labeled “fascist”, the “democratically-elected” Thai administration that let loose death squads and murdered over a thousand citizens looks good.
Also, regardless of the fact that the majority of disappearances logged by NGOs and the HR community since 2000 took place under the “not-fascist” Thaksin administration, we will be asked to subscribe to the Rumsfeld doctrine that holds that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
We will also be asked to believe that even though the PT administration under Yingluck could have signed and ratified the UN Convention, it is the evil junta who is refusing to do so. The rather astounding fact that neither the US nor the UK , those upstanding examples of liberal democracy, has signed or ratified the same document means nothing in Jim’s fantasy bubble.
The fact that not one Asian country has does not mean that Thailand is a normal Asian nation regardless of whether it happens to be in one of its periodical moments of “democratically-elected” government, it just means that at this particular moment in time, Thailand is under the sway of vicious fascists who insist on continuing to not do what their “democratic” predecessors insisted on not doing.
Are we ready for “Orwellian” yet?
Language shaming in Malaysia
It is good article but having a flaw at certain aspect.
First, in the case of Faiz Subri and Zahid Hamidi, they are being bashed for inability to speak proper English (which is not their first language). In the case of Rais Yatim, he is bashing the journalist for not speaking Malay language at all (which is the national language of Malaysia). Hence it is two different scenarios.
Second, the writer just considered Malay language as nationalist medium of propaganda. He is not considered the historical aspect which deeply rooted in Malay language. He is not considered that Malay language used to be the lingua franca of this region. He is not considered that in the past the non-ethnic Malay ruler of this region using Malay language to communicate with foreigner. He is not considered that Malay language is being chosen as the base of Indonesian language to unite variety of ethnics in that country.
Third, the writer considered Malay dialects is similar with Chinese dialects. Most Malay dialects especially Malay dialects in Malay Peninsula have high degree of mutual intelligibility. Therefore people that speak standard Malay can understand a bit if someone speaks Loghat Utara or Base Tranung. Chinese dialects have a low degree of intelligibility. Someone who only knows Cantonese will not be able to understand someone which spoke Mandarin. If we want to compare the Malay dialects with Chinese dialects, it is more comparable to compare the variety of Mandarin dialects which Beijing dialect is being chosen as the Standard Chinese language.
Fourth, the writer considered that there is sub-imperialist motivation in making Malaccan-Johor-Riau dialect as standard Malay. The writer not considered the influence of Malay language in development of ethnic identity which the feeling of togetherness lead a group of people unite under shared common standard language. Although Malaccan-Johor-Riau dialect is being chosen as the standard language, other dialects such as Loghat Utara or Base Tranung are still spoken widely in their respective region. Mat Dan is speaking Base Tranung and most of standard Malay speakers understand him.
In conclusion, the development of both English and Malay language in this region tied up with complex aspects of history, religion, culture, ethnic identity, worldview, the concept of citizenship and the others. Without understanding all of this and just emphasizing language shaming, oppression and domination, it will be counterproductive and we will be unable to come up with comprehensive solution. Bashing someone for their language proficiency is bad. But “language shaming” cannot be used just to label someone that emphasized the importance of speaking the national language.
Note: I considered language shaming for someone that cannot speak proper Malay is a counter reaction for the language shaming for someone that cannot speak proper English. Lee Chong Wei and to certain extent Mark Adam are the figures which not fluent enough in Malay language but they are rarely being bashed for that. The issues of Malay language proficiency and inability to speak Malay language only started when figure like Faiz Subri and Zahid Hamidi being bashed for their inability to speak English. That is when the Malay language ability and proficiency by Malaysian citizens is being questioned.
US vs them
Dr Taylor is welcome to subscribe to the myth of JFK’s “learning curve” and how it enabled his “handling” of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but from a more realistic perspective it was Kennedy’s anti-communist macho posturing and typical American hyper-paranoia that led to the crisis in the first place and only a carefully hidden and indeed lied about “crawl down” on Kennedy’s part that enabled Kruschev to solve the problem.
Kennedy’s decision to send some 15K troops to Vietnam to demonstrate the size and reach of his and America’s “balls” set in motion a tragedy for the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and eventually drew Australia, Thailand and South Korea into a racist war for no other purpose than to put on a show for allies and the home audience.
So, Trump’s “not being a Kennedy” might be a good thing for the Asia-Pacific.
And all the handwaving about Trump’s announced intention to revisit the so-called One China Policy and Beijing’s “ire” in the press is a measure of how incredibly craven the whole western capitalist imperium can be when the size of a country’s potential market allows it to punch so far over its weight on the world stage that we have to believe the referees have been bought.
It is time for a rethink of all the policies set in motion by the Wall Street-Walmart Clinton cabal to pretend China is something other than an authoritarian Special Economic Zone thriving off the backs of 750K impoverished and oppressed people whose greatest hope is a job assembling iPhones for “progressives” whose idea of economic justice is keeping consumer electronics prices low enough that poor Americans can afford midrange Samsung products.
I have friends in Taiwan who are not fond of the idea that their sovereignty and their democratic desires are little more than a concern for Australia’s bottom line as a primary resource provider for the CPC.
Four decades of a Malay myth
And speaking of myths, it is very much disingenuous of Masturah to continuously attribute the concept of Chinese privilege to Sangeetha Thanapal and Adeline Koh. Prior to them, dozens of scholars have already traced and explored the contours and mechanics of racial privilege in independent Singapore.
Why Masturah remains fixated on Thanapal and Koh remains a mystery, considering that New Mandala has just published a historical piece by on racial privilege in Singapore written by another writer.
Perhaps, Thanapal and Koh serve as convenient straw-men?
Four decades of a Malay myth
“Alatas framed his critique of colonial capitalism that exploited the image of the lazy native with economic and sociological analyses. Indeed, he called it “colonial capitalism” and not white capitalism. And nowhere in Lazy Native does he blame the other ethnicities of Malaysia—the Chinese or the Indians—for the condition of the Malays.”
Just because Alatas didn’t explicitly invoke race doesnt mean colonial capitalism was a non-racial project. In contrary, scholarship has decisively proven, as well as the many memoirs of colonial administrators, that British colonialism was at heart, a racialising and racist endeavour.
Furthermore, to imply that an economic and sociological analysis cannot touch on racial issues is theoretically misleading, as if both frameworks are somewhat antithetical to the examination of race.
“It is important to understand this to distance the kind of critique Alatas performs in Lazy Native and the language he uses from, say, rants about “Chinese privilege” in Singapore, in which the term itself makes a direct link of ethnicity—one ethnicity in particular—to majority class and political privilege, and abuse of power. If Alatas has tried to help us see the wrongness in the ideological necessity of giving laziness a Malay face, we are invited to think about the wrongness in the ideological insistence of giving a Chinese face to privilege.”
Apologies but this is just a statement of false extrapolations, false equivalence, inappropriate linkage, and reductionist thinking. To reduce the notion of race to matters of class and demographics will require us to ignore the vast amount of evidence proving otherwise.
Chinese privilege may have origins in colonial racism, but it is a modern phenomenon. To use Alatas’ reasoning towards colonial racism as a tool to dismiss current analysis of race in modern independent Singapore is fallacious at best, and amateurish at worst.
This entire article of Masturah’s reminds me of the litany of scholars who claim to espouse the true or appropriate interpretations of seminal works.
Should one writer (Masturah) seemingly claim a monopoly on interpreting Alatas’ work? That would set a dangerous precedent.
What is tragic here is that Masturah’s article will undoubtedly be used to dismiss the racial grievances of both minorities in Singapore and Malaysia.
Four decades of a Malay myth
I made one comment, only one, about 10 years ago, after I read the Malay translation of the book titled, “Mitos Pribumi Malas” the very first time. It was about the author’s choice of the word “mitos’ which he took to be the Malay version of “myth” which I disagreed. “Mitos” is actually not “myth” in English (in the real sense), it is “mythos” and I believe, everyone knows the meaning of that word. “Myth” in Malay is actually “mempercayai sesuatu yang tidak betul atau tidak tepat” or “kepercayaan salah”. I am not able to find a word (one word) in Malay for that so, the closest I have ever come to are those two words.
There are many words in Malay taken from the English language that are wrongly translated, and some ‘translations’ ended up with the wrong tenses, the most common being “symbol” (noun) which is commonly translated into Malay as “symbolic (adverb) and not “simbol”.
Reality check on Islam, Buddhism in Myanmar
Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers is infamous. It is certainly not ‘civilized’. Myanmar is 88% Buddhist. ‘Rohingya’ are Bangladeshi economic migrants.
‘Karma’ is perhaps the most advanced subject in Buddhist philosophy. ‘Sin’ is a doctrine of the Abrahamic religions.
Four decades of a Malay myth
True enough
US vs them
America’s elite should have seen this coming. Way back in 1992 in Hat Yai, Thailand, I had an enlightening conversation with an American, about Pat Buchanan’s “Asian capitalism is eating my lunch” platform.
US vs them
Good to see Nixon’s “mad man” strategy mentioned. I’ve long waited for this. It needs to be noted however, that the strategy did n’t work : North Vietnam’s leadership correctly, calmly, calculated that it was a strategic ploy. They saw through Nixon’s bluff. Probably ditto the Chinese now re. Trump.
Language shaming in Malaysia
I believe it isn’t so common on a daily basis. But at a national/official level, non-Malays being shamed for not speaking Malay or speaking bad Malay is pretty ordinary. Here you have a UUM professor asking the government to restrict IC from students who can’t speak Malay: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/academic-restrict-mykads-from-kids-who-cant-speak-malay
Reality check on Islam, Buddhism in Myanmar
A sin or against karmic benefits? if it is a sin many millions of Burmese Buddhists who have killed, cattle, chickens, spiders etc. are sinners – the majority (90%?) of Buddhists in fact.
If it is karmic retribution, those poor Buddhists face terrible returns in their next lives.
Reality check on Islam, Buddhism in Myanmar
Some Burmese Buddhists have been very violent, it has been well documented, whether against Muslims, in ethnic wars and many other areas of life.
Ninety percent of the ‘offenders’ in Australia are not sent back home, they are eventually resettled, possibly the same in Indonesia and Malaysia. This is the more civilized approach to asylum seekers.
I think Burma is probably closer to 60% Buddhist, 99%. You must account for animists, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, atheists and others.
Tough year for human rights in Southeast Asia
‘Grab-them-by-their-pu$$@’ groper-in-chief Trump would pay the least attention on human rights abuses anywhere in the world.
Like the million women’s anti-Trumpism march in DC and around USA, the world must be prepared to oppose the worst of Trumpism yet to come.
Reality check on Islam, Buddhism in Myanmar
Not every Buddhist is peaceful, because Buddhist like every other human being are only humans.
However, whether you want to admit it or not, Buddhist teachings are peaceful. Why? Because in Buddhism…. if you kill any life, human or non-believer or animal …with intent …it is a SIN.any Buddhist killing any life will pay for his sin. Killing is not rewarded with 500 virgins.
Killing of any being is a sin. BUddhism doesnt discriminate whether the BEING is a “kafir” which in islam can be killed…. if they are kafir( non-believers) .So thats the difference.
A matter of principles
It is revealing that the author of this post has been the first Australian commentator, at least the first whom I have noticed, to point out the Indonesian origin of ‘Pancagila’.
If Australians, either in uniform or not, can creatively come up with phrases like ‘nafsu kebejatan dlm persekongkolan dan kepura-puraan’, reinforcing the message with an attack on ‘kaum kapitalis’, we have an answer to those lamenting the decline of Indonesian language study in Australia. Sure, there may be fewer Australians learning Indonesian nowadays, but when they do they really master it.
Having tackled Indonesian studies in an earlier, less talented era, I have never been able to get ‘persekongkolan’ to roll smoothly off my tongue when I have been trying to speak broken Indonesian.
It is also revealing that no Indonesian commentator has pointed out the authentically Indonesian feel about ‘Pancagila’. Does Australia seem more provocative or insensitive if the impression is given that it was some witty, anti-capitalist Australian SAS member, no doubt a closet Marxist, who dreamed up Pancagila rather than, for example, a leftist Indonesian NGO activist?
Race to the bottom
Anything Red Cross and UN even at better time are just leeches profiting off the most vulnerable one they were so called helping, more like lining their pockets consider just the amount of $$$ they spent to reside in Yangon.
If less than a penny out of every dollar allocated for aid to refugee can make the west claim helping, high time to look for others, local groups that have only over heads of at most 20% to do same work or better with or w/o military approval.
These local organizations provided most to all the crises caused by nature and the west.
A matter of principles
Excellent. Thanks Bradley for in-depth insight into the real issues, instead of superficial Oz media reportage of ” yet another” Indonesia-Oz relationship breakdown.
Old men and the abuse of Thai youth
Andrew MacGregor Marshall – can you explain to me why the (then) Crown Prince should have paid Harrow’s exorbitant fees, when his sons had apparently chosen to shirk even ” minimum royal duties” ?