Happy 50th Birthday, Malaysia!

Greetings from Cambridge to all Malaysians!

Finishing the last mile...

Colour printing at the Printing Area, Engineering Dept. Sent to the binders last Friday, hoping to get it back on Wednesday. Can't believe hard-cover binding is so expensive here! I ended up paying 31quid (from the cheapest 26) to get it hardbound. But it's okay. I just want to finish and get over with it.

So, that's it...after handing in my dissertation on 31 Aug, I'm done in Cambridge...

A Unique Article

I like reading the Financial Times because they always surprise me with articles that I don't expect. They are unconventional and they rock! Today they published an article written by a former terrorist in Palestine, Amitai Etzioni, who is now a professor of international relations at The George Washington University. Now, how strange is that!

Amitai gave a very different perspective about this whole terrorism thing and an insight of effective ways in tackling them. One of them, he suggested, "the first goal in dealing with terrorists must be prevention, not prosecution, which takes place after the act has been committed and is the way society limits criminality". This, he pointed out that grouping terrorists as criminals is merely an act of "changing label rather than the content of the bottle".

The root cause of terrorism must be known. What are they fighting for and most importantly, why are they using the more aggresive means to solving problems? To gain international attention? Or merely an act of retaliation from the suppressed hatred of their targets?

Amitai did not pretend that solving terrorism was easy either. One of the ways that he suggested was "prevention that requires questioning and even detaining people who have not yet violated any law." Now this statement struck a chord with the Internal Security Act (ISA) that has divided nationalists, policymakers and politically-interested people in Malaysia since the time of Mahathir and spilled over to the present administration. While the imbroglio of the ISA has caused discomfort to certain quarters of Malaysians, I suspect that this is more likely a dissenting sentiment of enforcement rather than the Act itself. The controversy of the ISA is closely associated with human rights. While Malaysia is fortunate that it is not a hot target of terrorists, the existence of the ISA has become a big question mark. The people now ask: "Do we need the ISA then?"

Personally, I see this more of a question of: "Why has the ISA become such a big issue that people want it abolished?" I did a quick search on matters pertaining to calls for the abolishment of the ISA and found that most of the reasons were centred on loss of human rights. If I can even bring it to focus, the main problem is the "misuse" of the Act.

Photo of Al-Maunah leader from BBC

Now, if the problem is misuse of the Act, then we should gear our solutions towards eradicating the misuse of the Act, not the Act itself. I am neither advocating for the preservation nor abolishment of the ISA but it's only logical that for once, we call a spade a spade. Repealing an Act is easier than bringing it back later. We really have to think hard. Do we repeal the ISA because it has been used too frequently where the line between political foes and threats to national security has been blurred or cannot be distinguished? Or because it's the right thing to do? Ultimately, we need to ask what was this Act for in the first place? Has it solved past threats effectively? Would the incident that the Act was meant to solve likely to recur in future? And if it would, why take it out when it has proven to be effective?

Amitai's testimony has only made me imagine, what if one day Malaysia is being infiltrated by terrorists or attacked by them and the ISA has been abolished, how then could we tackle terrorism through "prevention"? I think Amitai has the answer...

おめでとう誕生日育美さん！！

The Nakata family

Ikumi is my Japanese host mother. I used "is" because she has sort of "adopted me" into the family. She jokingly suggested that I should take the Nakata surname as well! We were choosing between Aruden Nakata or Nakata Yap. Somehow, we never got passed that before I left. I will just keep it that way for now so that when we meet again, we can continue our conversation from where we left off.

Today is Ikumi's birthday. I feel very glad that I still have somebody to keep in touch with in Japan. I don't know about my other classmates but I have stayed in contact with my host family even though we are now as far apart as I am with my family in Malaysia! Three things will always make me smile when I think about the Nakata family;

The three children showing off their junkfood

1. My first day in homestay. The three children bought loads of junkfood - the craziest Japanese junkfood you can think of e.g "mouth explosives"; beans that pop/explode in your mouth when they get in contact with the saliva! They divided the junkfood equally among themselves. Then I saw them whispering among themselves and re-arranged their junk food. The youngest came to me and said, "Aruden, this is yours!", as he handed me my share of junk food! Cute!

Unexpected appearance at the public presentation

2. My Japanese public presentation was filled with jitters. Ikumi and her children emerged from the crowd and surprised me. She said, "We are here to support you! Ganbatte ne!" They traveled 60km to do that and my presentation lasted only 20minutes or less. I am still very touched by that.

3. My last day in Japan. I was already in the bullet train waiting for it to depart. Then Ikumi and her children emerged from the escalator and were running frantically on the platform. Obviously they were looking for me. Imagine trying to look for someone in one of the platforms in King's Cross. You don't know which coach, which train and which platform. But they were lucky, I spotted them instead. I waved to get their attention and the eldest son spotted me. Then I stepped out to greet them. I looked at the overhead clock; 1 minute to departure. Ikumi apologised profusely that she was late even though she didn't need to. We didn't even plan to meet! "The kids couldn't wake up. That's why we were late. We came to see you off and wanted wish you a safe trip back to Malaysia," she said.

"You didn't have to do that. You could have just called," I said this to Ikumi while ruffling the children's hair. I was overwhelmed with guilt especially when I saw them panting and gasping for breath. The kids were still in a daze. Obviously they were. It was 6am for goodness sake, and it must have taken at least an hour to reach the train station. I would have cursed and sworn if someone dragged me out of bed at 5am to see someone off for a minute! The train was about to leave in less than a minute.". Ikumi said, "It's okay, don't worry about it. Even for one minute, it's worth it." I stepped back into the coach when the final boarding announcement came. The train departed and as I looked out the window, the kids were running and waving goodbye until they could no longer match the speed of the train. It was a touching finale.

It's easy to lose touch when you're no longer living in the country-now I don't talk, speak or read the language anymore. If there's any indicator to tell, my Japanese is getting from bad to worse. I have even forgotten the appropriate verbs to use when I wrote an email to Ikumi recently. It used to take 5 minutes getting a simple email across. Now it takes 15 minutes and most of the time were spent on deciphering the right verbs and words to use. More time are spent if I needed to check with the dictionary. Saying the wrong things to an old friend is the last thing you would want, especially if this old friend is also your host mother! That's why I go the extra mile to counter-check every verb I use when sending a Japanese email to her. For example, I nearly missed out on the verb "sending" an email or "submitting" an email. But that's not as serious as "doing" something and "dying" now, which I nearly made yesterday! It would have been a grave mistake to send an email like this on a birthday, wouldn't it!

I dedicate this page to Ikumi Nakata and wish you a very Happy Birthday!

Friends-book

It was only recently that I got active in Friendster and Facebook, as the workload gets lighter by the days.**Fingers crossed, I hope nothing major will come up anytime soon. At least until I hand in my dissertation!**

It was only yesterday that I had the opportunity to look at what Friendster was all about even though the craze started years back. I did a profile check of myself; "member since 2004"?! Wow...one of the early adopters of Friendster?! Haha..

I was merely a dormant member until yesterday. Looking through "my friends", I realised I have 18 friends! Woohoo...I have friends.

Obviously I didn't know who added me but I can only remember clicking "Yes" most of the time for friends request whenever a message pops into my Yahoo Mail account. And am sure I didn't add anyone! Oh! I also had the first snow in Cambridge photo which I must have uploaded when someone asked me to. I just read I had three birthday wishes dated 25 November 2005 and 1 in 2006. Aha! So, somebody did remember my birthday! I still have 5 friends request pending approval, which I must have overlooked, with two dated back to January 2006 and the rest some time early this year. Yay, I am back at speed with technology. Ta da! Now I have added 9 photos of myself and picked a dozen of common friends from my friends' friends to be added into the list.

So what got me into this Friendster frenzy suddenly? Facebook.

It's strange. When I was back in Malaysia in May, I spoke about Facebook. Not many Malaysians know about it. Most of them only knew about Friendster. Almost no one in my course knows about Friendster either except the few Asian students. So I guess Friendster is the network tool for most Asians, as what Facebook is for the Westerners.

I hardly update Facebook either, until recently. I started exploring what it has to offer and was really amazed at what it can do! First of all, Facebook puts my friends into a network e.g Cambridge, Chevening or Malaysians. The simple stuff. Then, I am able to tag photos, meaning people can do more than just viewing the photos. They are able to mouse-over the person's face in the photos that I tagged and the person's name will appear! This is useful when someone wants to make sure if that person in the photo next to me is a common acquaintance, a Jessica Alba or a look-alike! I haven't fully explored Facebook but if I am able to explore these few things in a few minutes, then I think it's quite user-friendly. I feel Facebook is more organised and do smarter things than Friendster.

Facebook vs Friendster

Friendster is too transparent e.g you can even know who viewed your profile. To put it bluntly, Friendster has more kiddie functions. It puzzles me and I am still clueless about the purpose of that function. Is that to make members feel that they are a hot shot and many people are viewing him/her? I just don't get the point.

Nevertheless, I will still update my Friendster account regardless of my preceding comments because that's where my friends from the other side of the globe are. So, that's going to be Friendster and Facebook, or more appropriately, Friends-book, for now. Until they are fully migrated to Facebook, I will keep the account. Moreover, I am little flattered now, after knowing 216 people have viewed my profile in Friendster when I only have 38 friends! Hahahahahahahahahaha.......