I am not sure what is the background to this picture. Neither do I know who was the photographer / media organization to give credit to.


But it's powerful enough to capture my unusually short attention span for Internet forums.

I happen to be in Osaka during Japan's 62nd anniversary of Hiroshima Bombing. Japanese news channels were airing re-runs of Prime Minister's Shinzo Abe's speech in some idyllic surrounding reiterating its stance against nuclear proliferation.

The irony is that months before the Hiroshima memorial, Abe's administration has been pushing for a "reinterpretation" of the Pacifist Constitution - a set of documents drawn up by the victors of World War 2, particulary the USA to ensure that Japan does not go into war again. The constitution laid grounds for a democratic government and it limits Japan's military activities. Technically, Japan is not allowed to have an army. The constitution only allows for a "Self-defence force" whose international role thus far has been confined to peace-keeping and providing engineering and logistical support to the US military forces. The Pacifist Constitution was drafted in English and subsequently translated into Japanese. The early generation of post-war Japanese government bureaucrats had intentionally translated the documents such that certain key areas were "lost in translation," thus allowing some room for future "reinterpretation."

Japan is land of great oppossites and hypocrisy. This is a land where salarymen in their Toyota Corollas jostle for space with monstrous thousand horsepowers Nissan Skylines. Its supposedly devout Shinto-Buddhist society calls for piety and moral restrain but it is also one of the largest exporter of pornography in all nature. I am not kidding you but in big Japanese cities it is not uncommon to have school girls in their itsy bitsy short "sailor-moon" skirts after their school doing some Konichiwa-ing to salarymen offering companionship in exchange for some money. It is not always that the companionship is sexual in nature.

In a land that is increasingly losing its soul and identity against the changing tides of globalisation, Abe's move to drum up Japanese nationalistic pride is welcomed by many. Of course, that is if we put aside his recent corruption charges and his more recent defeat to control the Lower House. But for the short period of his political fame, Abe's recent play of nationalistic emotions among the Japanese public gave the world a strong reminder on the new generation of Japanese youths who have no inkling of Japan's brutal history and its massare at Nanking; War crimes that Japan consistently deny and refuses to apologise till today.

Its youth are not any wiser no thanks to a systematic removal of all references to Imperial Japan's role in World War 2 in their school history textbooks and a lack of exposure to Western intellectual writtings due to the language barrier. As they say, history is written in the eyes of the victor, or in this case, the writer. Then again, our Malaysian government is equally guilty of rewritting history as well. Do you seriously believe what you read about May 13 1969 and separation of Singapore from Malaysia in your Sejarah textbook?

As I write, our world is raging a different sort of war, not the usual ones motivated by nationalism or political ideology as in the previous decades, but one of political-theology - of Islam and the rest of the world, or is it the rest of the world against Islam. At the end of the day does it matter? The Church, in all its humanly imperfection and foolishness has waged over 200 years of crusades against erm...the mosque? One millenia later, we have still yet to move beyond our theological adolescence. Funny how we Christians happily use "The Church" as a sort of derogatory reference against institutionalised religion but the same can't be said about Muslims. I wonder if the religious historical phase of separation between Church and State and the inter-relation between Islam and nation politics has anything to do with it.

In every phase of history, whenever somebody rises up from the masses of delusioned mediocre minds with a high sense of injustice around them, it always end up in tragedy of catastrophic scale. Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich, Mao Zedong and his commies, Pol Pot, Taleban and their brand of corrupt-morals-is-the-source-of-world's-problem-Islam-is-the-solution nonsense, the strings of African leaders who come and go - all of them promised an utopia where justice will be preserved, the weak and poor will be defended. And it always, always end in more bloodsheed and another series of coups.

Morality aside, can world peace be practically attained? Or should I rephrased it - can the world AFFORD world peace? I have mentioned this before in my previous more brash blog, that global military defence spending contributes a significant amount of capital to the world's financial markets. These billion dollar military contracts provide millions of jobs in along the entire supply chain of the weapons industry. Boeing's main source of income is the US Air Force, same goes to its European equivalent Airbus under the umbrella of European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company. Ericsson sold its handset manufacturing business to Sony to concentrate on the more profitable back-end equipments, which indirectly implies military customers. Heck the Internet you are using now is an offspring of a US Defence Agency project - DARPANET. I am not sure if the global economy can compensate for the crunch should the entire defence industry collapses and grinds to a halt. I suppose most people should have a certain level of intellect to expect the direct relation between military spending and global conflict. Read this for a better understanding of defence industry as a tool of political leverage.

I guess there is just something dirty in our human blood that we simply cannot attain a clean and just society. I leave with this piece of writting by by Haris Ibrahim. I have to admit that my preconceived notions against Muslims caused a great surprise to myself that this came from a Muslim, a fellow Malaysian.

Differences in societal-corporate culture is something I have been thinking of lately. To be more exact, how much longer can the Europeans continue on with their laid-back working culture?

And then I came across this article from IHT. It proves the same doubt that I have suspected all along.

The usual stereotypical Asian employee is a typical Chinese / Korean / Japanese salary man who puts anywhere from the minimum 12 hours to 16 hours at work. The Asian communal mindset, which calls for strong team work and bonding would mean that a customary session of Sake (for the Japanese) or Soju (for the Koreans) is necessary before these salarymen retire to their homes, before repeating the whole cycle again tomorrow. The only time they take vacations is during summer holidays, which is only about a week. In extreme cases, Asian staffs maybe given official paid leave, but there is an unwritten rule that they are expected to "burn" them away.



On the other hand, the stereotypical Caucasian / European worker is already deciding which tavern / pub to chill out after his "hard day" at work by 4.30pm. I was so surprised to find that there exist an organization in the EU that actually works to look after the welfare of employees. And we are not talking about the usual environmental, health and safety EHS policies. But about work-life balance!

I quote from this report by IHT, Take Magnus Engren. After spending three weeks in July split between a summer cottage and a hometown visit, he is now back at his work as an investigator at the Swedish tax agency, "completely rested," he said.

But he is far from done vacationing. This autumn, Engren, 41, will go for two weeks to Spain with his family. Then there is another week around Christmas. And another in the spring. But Engren is no exception. According to a recent EU study, carried out by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, he is the rule. Swedish workers topped the European vacation rankings, entitled to an average of 33 paid vacations days in 2006 - close to 7 weeks, not counting public holidays.

Europe has long been the world leader in officially sanctioned time off, so Sweden's top ranking in the Continent likely means it has the most generous vacation entitlements in the world.

But with the circle of influence in the global economy slowly tilting in favour of the Asian tigers, I wonder how long can the Europeans maintain their laid back working culture. Labor market in a capitalistic society is structured in such a way that payscale are benchmarked against the lowest denominator.

Thomas L. Friedman gave a very good illustration in his book The World Is Flat on his advice to his own children on globalisation - "Girls, when I was growing up, my parents used to tell me, "Tom, finish your dinnner - people in China and India are starving." My advice to you is : Girls, finish your homework - people in China and India are starving for your jobs." And in a flat world, they can have them, because in a flat world there is no such thing as an American job. There is just a job, and in more cases than ever before it will go to the best, smartest, most productive, or cheapest worker - wherever he or she resides. Powerful statements.

Already premier Asian universities like Peking University and Fudan University are rapidly catching up with MIT and Caltech in terms of patent applications. The Indian Institute of Technology has been long regarded by many in the IT industry to have a far more rigorous admission standards compared to MIT. And the only reason many of these patents have not seen as much commercial success as that in USA or Europe is only because these countries are still fairly underdeveloped in their capital markets and regulatory framework on protection of intellectual properties. Similar stories are echoed all across the Pacific from South Korea to Singapore. So we are not dealing with just an army of cheap blue-collared drone workers, but white collared workers comprising of brilliant engineers and suave investment bankers who are able to innovate and sell.

And why are IT jobs increasingly being outsourced to India? It's the simple fact that Indians work longer for cheaper rates. Which brings us back into the question? How much longer can the Europeans leverage on their vibrant intellectual and capital market strengths to hedge themselves against the tide of hardworking and innovative Asians? How much longer can Sweden maintain its generous paid leave. The German government are lobbying to reform its labor laws to revive its economy by reducing its overly generous unemployment benefits and allow easier firing of employees in low performing businesses and increasing minimum working hours.

Personally, I am already clocking 14 hours - 16 hours work day. My weekly working hours easily go up to 80 hours as my company struggles to adapt to its rapid global expansion and chronic shortage of manpower. I can't keep this up for very long. And the unwritten rule among bosses of major corporations, especially American corporations, is that executives who talks about work-life balance are quickly relegated aside.

I guess in life, there are certain choices to be made. Certain sacrifises to be made. But make no mistake, the competition is only going to heat up more. Remember, for a good chunk of the world's civilizational history, the center of power has been on Asian side of the world. The last 500 years of Euro-American influence is all but a blip in our 5000 years of civilizational history. While the Swedes were still primitive plundering Nordic Vikings and the Europeans busy executing ugly women as witches, the Indians, Chinese, Egyptians and Arabs were busying themselves with sciences and mathematics, poetry and music. The tide is returning, but it might not necessary be a good thing for you and me. Socio-economic mobility and democracy is not something that originated from the East.

I just love the literary works of Farish A. Noor. If you are a Malaysian and have not heard of him, many would not blame you as his writtings would barely stand a chance to be published at our government controlled mainstream medias. Do head over to The Other Malaysia to read some of his works.



His recent articles have really provoked my mind, especially in the build up to our 50th Merdeka celebration. Especially on the Myth of Tanah Melayu Part 1 and Part 2.
They Have Taken Our Malaysia From Us

His articles offered a short respite from my rising temper as flip through the daily newspaper. Maybe there are more like-minded Malays. Maybe there is hope. Or so I wished.

Our judiciary system is in bins; amateurish handling of critical evidence, judges not making written judgements, botched handling of critical evidences leading to failure of prosecution. Corrupt cops making a mockery of our justice system. UMNO politicians with their usual jaguh-kampung sandiwara. Parlimentary proceedings look more like stand-up comedies rather than intellectual debates. Our schools and universities are an embarassment to the world. Universiti Malaysia and National University of Singapore, Malaysian Airlines and Singapore International Airlines – they both share a common history. It still baffles me how in just a little over a quarter of a person’s lifetime, how the differences in their current standings can be so glaring? In the midst of all that shallow surface level glamour of our 50th Independence Day celebration, all our PM can say is that he is upset that the public is not flying the national flag!

Oh yea, let’s not forget the talks about replacing our English Common Law with the Islamic Syariah Law. And why did I woke up one fine morning to realise that my DPM has declared that my country is an Islamic state?. It’s literally a "Dude! Where is my country?!" morning.

Does anyone still remember Revathi?. Since when did my country had re-education camps? I thought those only existed in Russian Gulags of the former USSR or communist China? Not Malaysia! Dude! Where is my country?! There are many more similar cases that are left in a limbo, no thanks to our equally “limbo” secular-Islamic defination of our State. Does anyone still remember Lina Joy? Moorthy Maniam? Subashini Rajasingam?

My country is like an airplane that has been hijacked by a terrorist organization. They have ousted our captain and founding father Tunku Abdul Rahman, who fought for this country’s independence to be a secular state where everyone has their right to believe in their own faith and to pursue their own dreams, as enshrined in the Constitution. Yes that big C word. CONSTITUTION! Do you know what that means? Shame on you calling yourself a Malaysian if you don't. Aren't we suppose to have a sense of respect and reverence to it. It's more than just a word. It's THE document that protects your freedom, my freedom, our children's freedom damn it! In the captain’s seat now is a generation of ultra-Malays who wants to take this plane to somewhere far beyond the intention of our founding fathers. These people are banking on the public's ignorance, short term memory and a general lack of public will, particularly among minority races to defend our Constitution, to allow them to rewrite history. Our education system and history has been held hostage, selectively edited and certain personalities criminalised like Chin Peng while the contribution of others vastly diluted, like Dr. Burhanuddin al-Helmy, while certain uneducated amateur terrorists overly-glorified. May 13 1969 is constantly being used to as a tool to threaten the Chinese than as a reminder of the tragedy of disunity. Never mind the fact historians are hard-pressed to find any credible documents to backup the "official" version of the May 13 story. Myths of this land called Tanah Melayu were propagated to justify the special rights of a newly defined race called Bumiputera, nevermind the fact that in practise its definition has more to do with Islam than ancestral roots.

Can anybody do something to rescue my country? Please? My parents who were born before our Independence are already saying that they barely recognise this country now. I wonder if I can still recognise this country in another 50 years time.

I have a hundred and one things to rant about for this coming Merdeka. A thousand and one frustrations and hope for this country that I wished to write down. A million other things I wished every other Malaysian sees, beyond the controlled media and the UMNO-agenda driven education system. But this will do for today.