A few days ago, I was watching a documentary on King Remses II, who is regarded as Egypt's greatest and most powerful pharaoh. He lived well into his 90s, more than 3 times the average life expectancy of his people. During his reign, he expanded his empire, built himself a series of fancy monuments, temples and his royal tomb to stamp his mark as Egypt's greatest leader.

This is the man who built the magnificient Abu Simbel and Ramesseum temple. To learn that his people accomplished such gargantuan feats of engineering even by today's modern standards despite having only basic tools and minimal understanding of science and mathematics further adds to his mystic glamour.

Dictators and empire builders of old, from Ramses to Caesar to Genghis Khan to Emperor Qin Shih Huang and even Adolf Hitler, they all have one thing in common - their massive egos and the need to stamp their name on the history books.

At the same, I have been noticing that a different sort of empire builders live in our current time and age. No longer are empire builders leaders of nation states as military expansion have all been outlawed and any form unjustified military excursions will only raise the ire of the global society. But rather, empire builders of our world reign from corporate board rooms. Empire expansion is done by means of controlling the markets and finances of the world.

Lurking beneath the attention line of the general public, a different sort of empire building effort is underway, escaping attention of all but those who are within the industry. Its means of empire building might be different but its motivation is still the same as that of those leaders who reigned 5000 years ago. I guess men don't change don't they?

In the 2007 Internationalen Automobil-Ausstellung (IAA) or more commonly known as International Frankfurt Motor Show, the CEO of Volkswagen AG Dr. Martin Winterkorn has publically announced that Volkswagen, the world's 4th largest manufacturer will be challenging Toyota Motor Corp, the world's second largest car company after General Motors. But given the sorry state that GM is currently in, the industry frequently considers Toyota to be world's largest as it is no longer a question of whether can Toyota beat GM but a question of when. Toyota's market capitalization - it's financial war chest is more than all of that of Daimler AG (Mercedes Benz), Ford, Chrysler and General Motors combined. If it wants to, Toyota can easily buy out the top 3 of the main car manufacturers in the world. Think of it as the Goliath of the auto industry.

Very bold, and arrogant statements but humility is not a trait that many German bosses are known to have. But then again, believe me that when I say that Japanese bosses from VW's rival Toyota are no less arrogant. When it comes to the real corporate culture, away from the pretentious act for the media and the overly rated write-ups on the virtues of one company's management style, you may forget about all your assumptions that Japanese are courteous and very humble. That maybe be true if you are a visitor or a tourist, but not a co-worker or staff. It's just that Germans are a lot more direct and the Japanese tend to beat around the proverbial bush too much.


Flags of nation states and empires of old have been replaced by today's corporate emblems. VW Group's brands include Lamborghini, Bentley, Audi, Seat and Skoda.

Anyway, to hear such bold public statements of intent from a "smaller" company is akin to the biblical story of David challenging Goliath, or should I say the Godzilla from Nagoya? But this is where things start to get more interesting. You see, the REAL challenger to Toyota is actually Porsche, a tiny but highly profitable sports car company that compared to Toyota, is nothing more than a mosquito. But do not be fooled by its size as Porsche is one of the world's most profitable companies and it holds the industry benchmark to make the most profit per car. If Toyota is a Godzilla, Porsche is the virus! Both can kill you very fast. Porsche has recently bought majority share holding rights in VW, and thus is using VW as a mass-market brand vehicle / proxy to challenge another mass market company like Toyota. Thus, protecting the exclusivity of the Porsche brand while allowing it to move downmarket where the volume is.



Wendelin Wiedeking of Porsche and Katsuaki Watanabe of Toyota.





The story of this whole empire building effort is worthy of any Korean or should I say German soap opera.

Character 1 : The story begins all the way back to 1930s, in a Austria where a young boy named Ferdinand Piech was born to Louise Porsche and Anton Piech. Louise was the daughter of Ferdinand Porsche and sister of Ferry Porsche. Thus, he was the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche and nephew of Ferry Porsche. Ferdinand Porsche was probably one of the most brilliant automotive engineers ever. His greatest success was creating the famed Volkswagen Beetle, a people's car project commissioned by Adolf Hitler. The Volkswagen brand is loosely translated into the "people's car."


An early model Volkswagen Beetle prototype.

The most amazing thing was that Ferdinad Porsche never received any formal engineering education. But he was said to sneak into a local university whenever he could. After World War 2, Ferdinand Porsche's role in assisting Hitler landed him in prison for 20 months. His son, Ferry Porsche continued his work and laid the actual work of creating the first car to bear the Porsche name - the Porsche 356. Ferdinand Porsche died shortly before seeing the actual car that bore his name could be built. Ferry would later continue his father's legacy, culminating with the 901 Carrera, and the rest is history...

Thus, Ferdinand Piech came from a family line of highly brilliant technical minds. In 1972, the supervisory board of Porsche AG decided that to avoid conflict of interest, a new policy was drafted to bar any member of the Porsche family to be involved in the management of Porsche AG. Thus, Ferdinand could no longer be actively involved in Porsche and left for Audi, where again his technical brilliance was shown when he created the quattro all-wheel-drive system that would later be instrumental in the legendary Audi Quattro's dominance in 1980s world rallying. He would later serve as CEO and later chairman of Volkswagen AG, where he orchestrated some controversial projects like the way over-budget and overdue Bugatti Veyron, the financial sink-hole Volkswagen Phaeton and also the fight with BMW AG to purchase Rolls-Royce and Bentley.

In Piech's eyes, Volkswagen and Porsche should be united due to their common family heritage. It is also said that Ferdinand Piech never liked the fact that he was always compared to the legacy of his grandfather and thus had to work very hard to get out of the shadow of his illustrious grandfather Ferdinand Porsche, the creator one of the most successful car in history (Bettle) and built many famous Auto Union racers, and also his uncle Ferry Porsche who founded the world's most admired car company.

End of character one.

Character 2 : Back in 1993, Porsche AG was in a very bad state. Sales were in a negative spiral and the quality of its products were below par of many Japanese competitors and certainly does not justify its high price. In comes Wendelin Wiedeking. Wiedeking recognised the strength of the Toyota Production System, dubbed by a study by MIT as "The Machine That Changed The World". Wiedeking sought assistance from Toyota and Porsche engineers were frequently sent to Japan to be trained by Toyota. Back in Porsche's nerve center in Stuttgart, Porsche factories were gradually been reconfigured to apt that of Toyota's factories. The results appeared fast. Porsche is not only the most profitable car company, it is also the only independent sports car manufacturer in the world, bucking its doomsday prediction by many "analysts" in the light Ferrari's sale to Fiat, Lotus to Proton, Lamborghini to Audi etc.

Today, Porsche's quality levels is on par to that of Lexus, and certainly far ahead of its German competitors including Mercedes and BMW. However, Porsche is currently facing a different sort of challenge. The car industry in many developed markets where Porsche sells has matured and growth potential is limited. Cost competiveness in the car industry is not for the faint hearted as development cost for new models can run into hundreds of millions. Porsche desperately needs to enter into new market segments - which explains the existance of SUV Cayenne and Panamera sedan project. They would also need to achieve far higher volumes that their current output in order to achieve sufficient economics of scale to offset the high cost. Thus the Cayenne was developed with VW's Tuareg. Moreover, new EU environmental regulations are forcing car manufacturers to cap CO2 emission of their vehicles and punitive taxes are levied onto car manufacturers based on the average CO2 emission of all their cars. This puts high performance car companies like Porsche at a disadvantage while companies like Volkswagen can spread out its CO2 emission over its smaller economical cars like Polo and Golf.

Which explains why Porsche has set its eye on VW. Porsche's ambition was finally realised when the EU court finally allows Porsche to increase its voting rights in VW. The fact that a tiny company like Porsche is buying into Volkswagen is already a David-Goliath story on its own. However, this is nothing simple about this takeover. It has been widely speculated that the takeover has been engineered by VW supervisory board chairman Ferdinand Piech. In a riveting board room drama, VW's former CEO Dr. Bernhard Pischetsrieder was forced to resign after a no-vote of confidence by the supervisory board. His ally and VW group brand chief Wolfgang Bernhard was also forced to resign. In their place, Ferdinand elected his portege and then CEO of Audi AG Dr. Martin Winterkorn. Bernhard and Wolfgang's departure was done despite the fact that the two had achieved considerable success in trimming VW's inefficient and bloated workforce. But being the hard headed man that Ferdinand Piech is, this is hardly surprising. Ferdinand is known to be a technical genius but a his reputation as a manager is far from exemplary. Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see how will this "drama" develop.


The victims of the coup : Wolfgang Bernhard and Dr. Bernhard Pischetsrieder.


The victors of the coup: Martin Winterkorn and Ferdinand Piech.

Being the brilliant man that he is, I am sure Ferdinand Piech recognises the shortcomings of VW against Toyota, which has set the various benchmark for profitability, model life cycle, profitability for the industry to follow. Afterall, Piech was awarded Car Industry Executive of the Century. Piech's plan is to bank on Wiedenking's deep understanding of the Toyota Production System and to capitalise on his experience to replicate the same turnaround he did for Porsche on VW.


"We believe that if anybody can stand up to Toyota, it is Volkswagen," Wendelin Wiedeking


As expected, Toyota simply ignored the recent events from Stuttgart. What do you expect them to react anyway? That they are scared? You could almost hear them silently mummering "We could bury you if we wanted to."

VW has since announced they will be launching a series of new models and strengthen their position in developing markets with the objective of toppling Toyota by 2015. Bold words, but I have my own reservations. Though a financial blackhole, the Bugatti Veyron is a pet project is Piech. So was the commercial flop Phaeton. But Wiedeking has stated that there will be no sacred cows and all models within the VAG must churn profits or they will be discontinued. Piech is a brilliant engineer but he lacks the tight cost control of Wiedenking, who is also an engineer by training. Development cost could be an area of conflict for the two. Piech is an engineer who thrives on accomplishing great technical challenges, whatever the cost maybe. He is a firm believer of the mantra that if a superior product is in built, everything else will fall into place and he expects customers to pay a premium for it.


The Phaeton project was an example, and certainly not the only example of this. Piech wanted to make a point to VW's other German rivals that it too could built a highly sophisticated car if it wanted to. But as expected, the car was a commercial flop. Common logic will tell us that not many will pay Mercedes S-class price for a car with a VW badge on it. Piech argued that the purpose of the Phaeton is not to make a profit to prove a point of VW's engineering superiority.





To push things further, the Phaeton was not built in a conventional factory. It redefined the term "manufacturing" as the car was built in VW's Dresden famed Glass Factory. The Dresden factory resembles an art gallery more than a car manufacturing plant. It is also a famous tourist destination in Dresden. VW never recouped the investment on the Phaeton its future is uncertain.


Not satisfied with building the world's most accomplished limousine, Piech wanted to built the fastest car in the world. So he bought the Bugatti brand and initiated the 1001 bhp Veyron project, which quickly balloned way over-budget and its development was way behind schedule due to the scale of the technical challenges facing the engineers. Again, it was a financial blackhole. The car kept sucking money in and never churned profit though VW claims that it is a making "good progress" on the financial side.









"The most pointless exercise on the planet has got to be this four-wheel-drive 1000 horsepower Bugatti. I think it’s incredibly childish this thing people have about just one element—top speed, standing kilometer or 0-60. It’s about as narrow minded as you can get as a car designer to pick on one element. It’s like saying we’re going to beat the original Mini because we’re going to make a car 10 mph faster on its top speed—but it's two feet longer and 200 kilos heavier. That’s not car designing—that just reeks of a company who are paranoid," Gordon Murray, former F1 engineer and creator of the McLaren F1 roadcar.


Porsche's chairman Wiedenking has made it clear that there will no more expensive "toys" in the new VW group and that every single model must generate profit. How does this go down with Ferdinand Piech and Martin Winterkorn is still left to be seen.

The Audi R8 is challenging Porsche 911 and Lamborghini Gallardo, it is threading on dangerous grounds as all German car manufacturers abide to an unwritten law that no German car company will launch a model that will challenge the superiority of the Porsche 911 due to reasons of national pride. And how different should you position the Golf GTi from the Audi S3? Same thing goes to Seat and Skoda models. The Volkswagen Group's existing product line-up is in a complete mess, cannibalizing sales from each other without making any significant threats to high volume models like Toyota's Camry and Corolla. Then there is the issue of managing in-fightings between bosses from all the VAG group companies; Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Skoda, Bentley, Lamborghini and now Porsche. Do remember that every single one of these bosses are highly ambitious individuals with an equally large egos to match. Any efforts to limit their autonomy currently enjoyed will not go down well with them.

Toyota's strength in the market has largely been supported by its success in developing markets. In almost every Third World country, it would seem that the national car is a Toyota. Hiluxes and Hiace vans mobilize the entire Third World communities while VW is virtually non-existant in developing countries outside South America, China and Eastern Europe. But the signs of widending focus is clear. VW's interest in Proton alone is telling enough. In both the Frankfurt and Tokyo Motor Show, VW has unveiled the Space Up! concept car, the first of the many cars that VW will use to challenge Toyota in developing markets.


Volkswagen's Up! concept car hints at the future models VW plans to wield against Toyota.


Artist rendition of a VW truck, a type of vehicle VW desperately needs should it desires to challenge Toyota.

As powerful as Toyota is, it is not infallible. After more than a decade of rapid global expansion under the guidance of Hiroshi Okuda, Fujio Cho and now Katsuaki Watanabe, Toyota is begining to reveal some kinks in its armour. Rapid expansion has placed tremendous amount of strain on its manpower and facilities. 2007 saw the highest number of safety and quality related recalls on Toyota group cars ever. The launch of its highly anticipated Tundra full-size truck in the USA has been plagued by reports of camsharts failures leading to serious engine damage, that coupled with automatic transmission problems on US market version Camry has caused some very embarrassing moments for Toyota's most important market outside Japan. From its high profile success of the Prius, Toyota suddenly found itself the target of various environmental groups for not supporting their cause.

Within the span of 3 months, Toyota USA has lost 3 of its top executives. Jim Press, former president of Toyota Motor Sales USA and Deborah Wahl Meyer, VP of marketing for Lexus has defected over to Chrysler while James Farley, VP of Marketing has defected to Ford.

When placed in the context of this eventual showdown between these two giants of the auto industry, you see how pointless it is for our government to keep dragging its feet in the negotiations for the sale of Proton to VW. There is no place for a national car industry. With all due respect to the excellent job of the new CEO Syed Zainal Abidin in turning around Proton with the Persona, the hard cold truth is that Proton is nothing but a pawn in the grand scheme of things Porsche, VW and Toyota has in plan.

The consolation fact is that VW have a much better success story than any other car manufacturer in turning around ailing car brands. They lifted the dowdy Czech brand Skoda into a name synonymous with value for money and Audi level quality, ironed out Lamborghini from being a quirky Italian supercar that could fall into pieces anytime and only starts if you beg enough into a reliable everyday supercar. They have moved Bentley from being a brand known for making cars in time warp stuck in the 60s bought only by old Englishmen into a avant-garde modern GT cruiser bought the celebrities and footballers. And the best thing is that VW has done all these whilst maintaining the key charaters that make a Lamborghini a Lambo and not a Ferrari, a Bentley and not a Roller. Their track record is certainly better than GM, which massively screwed up brands like Saab.

Many times I have wanted to blog about the negotiations between VW and Proton, but now it just seems so stupid and pointless to even spend time collecting my thoughts on it.

In closing, I guess empires of old are built with one strong headed dictator at the top, commanding an army of slaves and foot soldiers to do his bidding. Empires of today are actually not that much different after all. Just that slaves and armies go about their duties in suits and ties, and instead of carrying medieval weapons, they now carry a combination of calculators, notebooks, cellphones and PDAs. Question now is, are you wasting your life away building someone else's vision of grandeur or are you living a life you are happy with?

Back in July '06, this guy basically gate-crashed the security barriers of the ASEAN Ministeral Meeting attended by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. And so...the justification that this was a legalised gathering was because...? That it was organized by the Prime Minister's son-in-law? That it did not challenge the current ruling administration? Never mind the fact that anyone worth an iota of intellect will be able to see through these amateurish antics as nothing more than a cheaply orchestrated public relations exercise for the rising star of UMNO Youth to get extra political mileage. If these people are so concerned on the welfare of the Palestinians, why aren't they volunteering at refugee relief or medical aid organizations? Why picket via UMNO Youth? I have said this many times before, Muslim countries speak at great ends about defending the rights of the Palestinians, but no country, not even the neighbouring Arab countries are opening up their borders to shelter these refugees. Be it the West or the Muslims, they are all the same self serving politicians.

Anyway back to the boy. "Come out now! Be man!" Bwahaha, LOL! I am pretty sure the US Secretary of State does not respond to such crude high-school level challenges. The thing that ticks me off the most was his outmost disrespect for my country's national flag. Did you notice how he cooly draps our flag on his shoulders!


One year later he is at it again, this time raising himself on the moral high ground, vilifying those who are taking part in the BERSIH rally, as monkeys crossing the streets.

Much has been commented on the BERSIH rally by the thousands of internet blogs and alternative media sites. Below are some links :
Photos and videos of Nov. 10 including the now infamous Al-Jazeera clip.

The Other Malaysia : Malaysians want their country back.
Yet the mind boggles at the logic of such arguments, when it should be clear that what is deterring investment into the country is not public demonstrations but rather mismanagement of the economy, allegations of corruption and abuse of power by the elite instead.

Malaysian Bar Council On Observing Bersih Assembly
In political reality, however, the public expression of views by persons in large numbers, especially if coupled with a free media, is often a real threat, not to public order or security, but to the continuing maintenance of control by those currently in power.

There is no valid reason of principle to deprive citizens of their right of peaceful assembly. But there are powerful political reasons why those in control would want to do exactly that. These reasons are, in truth, self-serving, though they wear the false name of public order or security.

Haris Ibrahim, We, the people, shall be heard and we shall prevail
Finally, before I forget, to all those who did not attend the rally and march yesterday because you thought that there would be no need to as you were sure there would be others to make up the numbers, you owe a big ‘Thank You’ to Amri of Shah Alam. - Amri is a disabled man whose photos of him participating in the walk with his crutches have been widely circulated on the net.

I myself did not make it to the rally as I could not leave until 4pm, which by then all the roads leading into KL have been roadblocked and LRT stations around Dataran Merdeka have been closed by security forces. Amri put us all to shame.


Watch your elected Minister of "Misinformation" making a fool of himself on an international news network. I am so ashamed of my government....

I have heard various responces to BERSIH, some claim that it only serves the purpose of the opposition parties. Government controlled news dailies were publishing complaints from the "public" who said their right of a peace and quiet Saturday were infringed upon. Like this and this chap. While I do not wish to engage much time on such low-level discussions, it amazes how some people can be totally ignorant that there will be a rally on Nov. 10 and thus did not make any adjustments to their travelling arrangements. One has to wonder on what else are these people being ignorant on? I believe that alone says it all on these people's ability to look at the long term and the big picture, beyond the daily routine of their pathetically ignorant lives. I am quite sure they are not aware that the constituency of Ipoh Timur, which is also my constituency has seen a sudden increase of more than 8,000 voters.

Also, on the claims that the rally was largely a PAS or PKR event, to me that is missing the point. The point of the rally was to push for a fair election, something that is only morally right and just for the people to defend. It is as simple as that.

If supporters of DAP, PAS or PKR formed the majority of the rally attendees, does it detract from the objective of the rally? Blame on the apathy of your own respective community for not attending the rally in greater numbers, and not to hold those who were able to unite their own members guilty of hijacking what is largely civics right movement issue. I am not a supporter of PAS, but in the grand scheme of things, this is the time when we are required to adopt a dangerous but necessary Machiavellian approach to raise the influence of our collective voice. Remember that the US and Russians have to put aside their ideaological differences to fight the Nazis and the Japs in World War 2.

Moreover, who is to say that any movement is void of any selfish agenda? Every Malay, every Chinese, every Indian, every Muslim, every Christian, every Hindu will have their own agenda. Even within each of these sub-communities, there will be left-ist and right-ist views. You will have your own agenda and I will have mine. It's always so. And it is only logical to expect some of these agendas to conflict with that of others. We live a in a globalised world, so we learn to deal with it. And the first way to deal with it is to have a platform where people are free to voice their grievences and then providing the community with the right platform and means to work it through amicably. At least that's the theory. But it's the only one we know best.

And speaking of apathy, I get very upset whenever I look at those within my own social circle - specifically twenty-something Chinese, and Christian communities in Malaysia. The former lacked any from of strong conviction to stand up for all that is right and just. All their lives Chinese kids have been conditioned to study hard, work hard, make big money and mind our own business. If you are not happy with this country, you can always migrate to somewhere else after you have made your millions. It's a typical mentality of the Chinese. I guess its a natural thing to do when you have no country to call your own. The overpopulated Communist China will not be interested in receiving a bunch of "traitors" who left the country for evil bourgeois pursuits, while our birth country Malaysia wants us out to make way for the ultra-Malays.

Maybe it is also the experience of our forefathers going through decades of poverty and war and the difficult life of minority migrant workers in a foreign land called Malaya that cultivated such selfish mentality. As a friend once told me, Chinese once fought for all that is right and just - they ended up putting someone named Mao at the top. But we have to move forward - and stop being such an inward looking community. Why shake the comfortable status quo? Because of the next generation! Because this is your home country and nothing you do will change that! That's why! My cousin who lectures international politics in Sheffield have very little sympathy for the discrimination against the local Chinese. He often quipped - they brought it all onto themselves. For the sake of the cheap security of being free to make money everyday, they are ready to sell their principles on what is right and just. How many of them even bother to vote?

And then there is my other social circle - the local Christians. How about attending a civil rights or inter-faith dialogue / movement instead of waiting for the spritual-emotional "high" from another Hill Song concert? How about living out your faith in the Malaysian context, in the real world rather than in your tiny little cocoon community of equally disillusioned people waiting for the promised after-life? How about putting your convictions from your daily "quiet time" in context with what is happening around you? The kingdom that Christ speaks off starts right here right now, not in some imaginary misty supernatural realm. Maybe you should read this.

On hindsight, the Internet could just be the tool that challenged the present administrators of this country to get their act together or leave the office. The worldview of the Malaysian public is no longer limited to the state controlled media. I myself have stopped buying newspaper regularly for the past 4 years or so. I rely mainly on the Internet for my daily news feeds. The entire Lingam-gate scandal was exposed thanks to the power of MMS and Youtube. And it all culminated with the unprecedented march by lawyers from the Malaysian Bar Council, where the Ambiga, the President of the Bar Council will go down in history for her famous quote; "When lawyers walk, something is wrong."



A certain Michelle Lee made a very good point here. But on the day of the march, when I saw the sea of faces outside the Palace of Justice, I felt that we were all replying in unison, “Enough! No more to apathy and self-centeredness that lives under the delusion that injustice and corruption will not affect our glass houses! Our children and our children’s children deserve a nation which has an inner moral fortitude forged by events such as these.”

The BERSIH message was spread mainly via the Internet. So is the call to sign the petition to the Agung, which yours truly, although remained skeptical still lent his name and signed anyway.

I will end with a short lesson in history on the fall of the Berlin Wall that divided the communist east Germany (GDR) from the democratic west Germany. It was good example of the collective power of individuals that resulted in the collapse of a regime. I was told of this event by a German who attends my church.

Back in the days of communist east Germany, all formal organisations except for churches were directly controlled by the East German government. Churches were permitted to operate more or less free from government control, as long as they abstained from political activity. Thus, the church was the only "free space" for the people.

Central to the story is St. Nicholas' Church in Leipzieg (Nikolaikirche in German) and Rev. Christian Fuhrer. In the preceeding events, tensions were high as Germans from both sides were protesting on stationing of medium-range missiles in their land. From September 1982 prayers for peace were held in St Nicholas’ church — the Nikolaikirche — every Monday, with the words of the Beatitudes were read.

Below are paraphrased from this site and the message from the Rev. Christian Fuhrer himself.

In 1986, though, the Nikolaikirche became a focus of hope through its support of people desperate to leave the GDR, which was forbidden. The church held a discussion as part of the prayer meeting on ‘Living and staying in the GDR’, and hundreds of people came. So the Monday prayers became a place where all kinds of groups came together to express their longing for change.

In January there was the first big demonstration of ordinary citizens joining the opposition groups on the streets. The police responded by arresting opposition leaders and people who handed out leaflets. Tensions rose as week upon week more people came to the Nikolaikirche to find out what was going on. They attended the prayer service, then simply stood in the big square outside the church. Flowers were stuck in the grille covering the windows, with notes demanding the release of prisoners. As word spread beyond Leipzig about the Monday meetings at the Nikolaikirche, the authorities became more unnerved, and reacted in May by sealing off all access roads to the church, including nearby motorway exits. But the numbers of people attending the prayers grew and grew, and the sign outside the church saying ‘Open to all’ became a reality, as members of the Stasi — the much feared State Security Police — gathered to spy on the Christians and non-Christians, regime critics, environmentalists and simply curious who were drawn to the church.

That year, the communist government GDR was celebrating its 40th anniversary celebrations on 6 October, the regime was becoming more and more anxious to calm a situation which was out of control. Thousands of its citizens were escaping across the Czech border to Hungary, which had opened its borders to the West, and attempts to stop this resulted in more angry protests and police using water cannons and batons to drive back the crowds.

The next Monday prayers were due on 9 October, and the numbers of both police and demonstrators had been steadily growing. Both the demonstrators and the authorities knew that 9 October would be decisive. Leaders on both sides began to make preparations. An article appeared in the press saying that force must be used if necessary to put an end to the so-called counterrevolution. Documents from the time reveal that this was not just a threat. A force of eight thousand police officers, soldiers and members of the dreaded security police was assembled with batons and firearms. Specialists in the treatment of gunshot wounds were told to prepare for casualties.

Meanwhile, the pastor at the Nikolaikirche urged three other inner-city churches to open their doors and hold the peace prayers, so that as many people as possible would be inside, protected from the police.And thousands of ordinary people left their homes, said goodbye to children and partners, and converged upon the city centre. Eye-witnesses tell of the turmoil of emotions they felt: terror, as they wondered if they would be returning home, and yet at the same time a determination arising out of the despair of knowing that if they stayed at home nothing would ever change.

There’s an amusing story amid all the tension. The Pastor at the Nikolaikirche, Christian Führer, walked into the church at 2.30 pm to find the nave full with over a thousand people. He recognised at once who they were, and was amused. These were party officials and Stasi members who had been told to fill the pews of the Nikolaikirche where, according to their sources, criminals and troublemakers (the Germans call these Rowdies) were banding together to stage a counterrevolution. Pastor Führer wanted them to know that he knew exactly who they were, so he addressed his impromptu congregation: ‘The Nikolaikirche is open to everybody, and it really means just that, with no exception. You are most welcome. I’m just a little surprised that you are already here at 2.30, when the working proletariat can only come after 4 o’clock, which is why we have the prayers at 5 pm. But still, you are very welcome. But you will of course understand that we are keeping the gallery closed, so that a few of the working population, and a few Christians, can get into the church.’ … And so the party officials and secret police sat quietly in their pews and waited for the Rowdies to storm the church.

5 pm came, and this is what they heard:

Jesus said: ‘Blessed are the poor’, and not ‘Happy are the wealthy.’

Jesus said: ‘Love your enemies’, and not ‘Down with your opponents.’

Jesus said: ‘Many who are now first will be last’, and not ‘Everything stays the same.’

Jesus said: ‘For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose her life for my sake shall find it’, and not ‘Be very careful’.

Jesus said: ‘You are the salt’, and not ‘You are the cream’.
Sidenote : The Beatitudes is a message by Jesus to the marginalized. There is a background to it and you need to take the text in concext, but that's another story requiring another post on its own. So stop analyzing it for hints of socialism teachings or use it to promote mediocrity.

The Reverend Christian Führer describes what happened as the service ended with the bishop’s blessing and urgent call for non-violence:

More than 2,000 people leaving the church were welcomed by tens of thousands waiting outside with candles in their hands. A person needs two hands to carry a candle: one to hold it and the other to protect the flame — so you can’t carry sticks or stones at the same time. Troops and police officers were drawn in and became engaged in conversations. The crowds chanted ‘No violence’, and the police withdrew. The city of Leipzig was literally circled by a massive cordon of peacemakers as the leaders of the demonstration met the tail end on the inner ring road. There were no winners or losers, nobody triumphed over anyone else, nobody lost face. There was just a tremendous feeling of relief.

There were 70,000 demonstrators on the streets that evening and yet there wasn’t a single shattered shop window. This was the incredible experience of the power of non-violence. Within a few weeks of further peaceful demonstrations, the party and ideological dictatorship had collapsed. ‘He hath set down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek.’ ‘You will succeed, says the Lord, not by military power or by your own strength, but by my spirit.’

A member of the ruling party said before his death: "We had planned everything. We were prepared for everything. But not for candles and prayers.".

On November 9, 1989, the East German government were forced to relent to the civil unrest by allowing citizens of GDR to enter West Germany via the Berlin Wall. The communist Soviet block and GDR fell soon after that. The irony is that it was not the nuclear warheads nor the losing the space race or the arms race that resulted in the fall of Communism, but masses and masses of people who gathered to pray. Yes no doubt the arms race and nuclear did much to almost "bankrupt" communist economies but lets just leave that aside and focus on the actions of the people for now.

On November 10 2007, Malaysians from all walks of life took to the streets to begin a long and arduous journey to build a better nation. But as mentioned in my earlier post I remained skeptical on just how much can we rely on a distant monarch to pursue our cause.

To me what matters is not so much about the effectiveness or the immediate results of BERSIH rally, but rather I choose to see it as a symbolic event, a turning point in the civil consciousness of the Malaysian public. Many have finally realized that they have sit back far too long and allowed the so-called "leaders" to rob this country as they wish. It is time to start the process of retaking our ownership of this country.

I don't normally do emo postings.

But I hate my pathetic life. I really do.

I hate being stuck in a hopeless country governed by a incompetent fools.

I hate my pathetic company and the chronic lack of intellectual capacities of my bosses. Still like my job though.

I hate being surrounded by idiots.

I hate my pathetic pay slip.

Heck, I even hate my faith.

Dear God, it's me again. Long time since we last chatted eh. You've said that everything you do, you do because you love us. I have a humble request - love me a little less will ya?

Sorry I can lived up to this burden you've placed on me. Can I live like everyone else? Oblivious and ignorant to everything that is wrong around me?

So I can be less angry. I don't know when will my arteries pop you know, especially at the sad hours I am pulling on the job.

Sorry I have achieved nothing useful in the pathetic quarter century of my pathetic life. Nothing useful in the worldly ways, nor useful in Your ways.

You've played some very sadistic joke on Job. Are you pulling the same trick more than 2 millenias later? How's the score looking? How about I call it quits!

2007 is about to come to a close. 2008 looms near. So what? Another year of pathetic existence with an unknown number of years to go. Sure there is the big fat bonus that will make many green with envy. But other than me, who knows how much have been toiled and sweat over.

What's there to look forward more? More increase in fuel prices? Higher toll charges? My pathetic roti canai dinner at the mamak continues to escalate in prices. Economic meltdown steeming from an overly long sub-prime mortage crisis in the US? Post Olympics economic contraction in China? Sky high inflations?

Keep the new year resolutions please. And I shall try to stay away from those annoying repetitive seasonal songs. I will bite the head off the next annoying caroller that asks me to join his / her celebration.

Why are some people so damn bloody happy? Is there so much worth being happy about? And spare me the annoying holy-moly and shallow feel-good talk please.