The sad story of Sufiah Yusof made me thought a bit on the state of our world's unfortunately shallow understanding education and what it means.

Sufiah Yusof; the math prodigy who once hit headlines for securing a placement at Oxford at a tender age of 13 has been revealed in an expose that she is currently working as a £130 per session prostitute. A one-time darling of the Malaysian mainstream media by virtue of her Johor born mother and to a certain extent, that she is a Muslim.

Beneath the image of a too picture perfect family painted by the media 10 years ago, is a seriously dysfunctional family. Her Pakistani born father Farooq considers himself a prodigy. He began to hit the headlines when he pioneered "hothousing" (whatever that means) - a concept of intensive personal tutoring of young children which he believes is able to tremendously accelerate a child's learning process. Farooq's 5 children are the subject of his experiment and he is all too keen to show off his results. Iskandar and Aisha were admitted to Warwick University before the age of 15. However despite his children's amazing academic feats, Farooq attributed all that to his tutoring techniques and was particularly adamant that his children were not gifted in any particular way.

Farooq's training regime would involve putting his children through a daily routine of morning prayers were followed by stretching and breathing exercises. The house's temperature is kept low to ensure their attention. Television, pop music and anything else that might lead to "shallow thinking" was banned. They would all then be expected to train for tennis with the same sort of intensity. Last week, Farooq was jailed for sexually assulting two 15-year-old girls while working as a personal their tutor.

Following her husband's guilty plea, Sufiah's Johor-born mother Halimahton has filed for divorce from her husband.

Prior to Sufiah's entry into Oxford, she had twice attempted suicide at 11, and at 15 she sparked a massive nationwide manhunt when she ran away from home. She was later found in an Internet cafe.

Read more here :
Sufiah Yusof - child genius revealed as prostitute - Safe for work version.
Genius on the game - Not Safe for Work (Contains mild nudity).

OTHER CHILD PRODIGIES - WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Ruth Lawrence
Graduated aged 13 from St Hugh's College, Oxford, with a first-class degree in 1985. Now lives with husband and two children - whom she is determined to allow to "develop in a natural way" - in Jerusalem and teaches maths full-time at the Hebrew University.

John Nunn
Went to Oriel College, Oxford, in 1970 aged 15. Got a first in maths at 18, a doctorate at 20 and became a chess Grandmaster three years later. Lives with his wife in Surrey and makes a living writing books about chess.

Adam Dent
Started reading chemistry at St Hugh's College, Oxford in 1994 aged 14. Left the following year, having been accused and then acquitted of sexual assault on an older pupil. Did an Open University degree and got a job stacking shelves at Iceland. Later went back to Oxford (this time to St Catherine's) and graduated with a first in chemistry in 2002. Is now an IT consultant.

James Harries
Presented himself on television - most memorably on Terry Wogan's chat show in 1990 when he was 12 - as an entrepreneur and child prodigy with an encyclopaedic knowledge of antiques. Had a sex change operation in 2001. Now called Lauren, she is a counsellor and also teaches drama in Cardiff.

Terence Judd
Made his first appearance as a classical pianist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra aged 12. Won the British Liszt Piano Competition at 18. He committed suicide in 1979 at the age of 22 by throwing himself off Beachy Head.

I wouldn't call neither Farooq nor Sufiah as well educated individuals. I have come to the conclusion that being intellectually brilliant / gifted and being educated are two mutually exclusive matter. I have come across numerous First Class graduates but yet can still be amazingly clueless about life and make ridiculously less-than-wise decisions. I have worked with MBA holders who are suspiciously lacking of any business sense.

The story of the Farooqs is a classic example of how has the current generation of educators have completely lost the understanding of education. I am reminded of the best group of educators I have ever come across - the late Brother Ultan Paul and the followers of John Baptist De La Salle, I wonder what would they say about this. I was educated in a school planted by promising young men who gave up their comfortable lives in Europe to setup a school in South-East Asia providing free education at a time when reading and schooling are the preserve of the rich and privileged. The leaders of my school staunchly rejected the popular notion of streaming students according to their academic ability, because they believed every student, irrespective of their learning ability deserves equal attention. Adopting an elitist path to produce the maximum number of straight-A scorers was beside the point. On hindsight, I appreciated that. Because I believe characters of young boys are not moulded by keeping them within a cocoon of goody-two-shoes nerds.

The purpose of education is not to turn every young mind into an Ivy League school material, simply because the bell curve distribution of human intelligence will tell you that not everybody will be a rocket scientist. The purpose of education is to turn people into civilized, well-mannered contributors to society. A bus driver and even a humble street cleaner and garbage collector is still a contributor to society. But what we have today is express tutorials promissing to turn a 5-year old into the next music or math prodigy. Anything less than that and the child is deemed a failure. Remember that the Steve Jobs and Richard Bransons of our time would never have been produced under such a regime.

The result? We have schools of mass produced academic and sporting drones who lacked any sense of creativity nor having strong characters. In a few more decades, our universities will be filled by a generation of shallow character straight-A drones who think alike and lacking in principles. We live in a time of increasingly brilliant academicians who are worryingly lacking of ethics.

The measure of a person's education received is not by his academic papers, but the way one carries himself in public and the depth of one's character. Character, I just wished that word receive a bit more attention from parents and educators than the monosyllable 'A.' Character should be the target of education, not the 'A' grade. But as with all things human, we set ourselves against the easier target, which unfortunately is the later rather than the former.

It was worth making the trip back to Ipoh. It was heartening to bump into a friend who made a trip all the way from Singapore, with a baby in tow, just to cast that ONE vote. That ONE vote to make a statement of principle, a statement of intent, a statement to stand by the universal appreciation for all that is fair and just.

It is that ONE vote, our ONE vote that makes all the difference.

I also believe it was the Internet who acted as a major catalyst in the brewing of this socio-political uprising. No longer are people buying the kind of nonsense that are being reported daily on The Star, NST, and Media Prima channels. Our numbers are small, but nonetheless sufficient for a near-perfect storm.

Denying the incumbent political Big Blue 2/3 majority was the easy part. As the joke goes - politicians are like diapers, they need to be changed regularly for the same reasons.

If the new Barisan Rakyat screw us over, we the loose coalition of NGIs bloggers; non-governmental individuals, will whack the daylights out of them. 5 years down the road we will again exercise our rights.

Politicians, being politicians have to reputation to be vocal when they are out of the system that allows them to profit themselves. They will make a lot of accusations that the system lacks transparency, accountability, rigged elections etc etc. But upon being granted the elite membership of being in the system, watch their silence and the ever present smile as they plunder the country.

Case in point is Anwar Ibrahim. Remember that he was acquitted of sodomy charges and other sexual misconduct, but he served time for corruption and abuse of power. Remember that Anwar, by virtue of his tenure in UMNO is merely a reflection of the system that he was once part of. A system that he is now so vocally against.

But in a non-ideal world, at times we will have to make alliances with the "devil" himself. Machiavellian practices is what they call it.

But the toughest battle for the people of Malaysia has just begun. Never let your guard down. We will continue to hound these elected "civil servants" till they leave their office term.

By the way, to the rest of you stayed at home on March 8th, while the rest of us took 15 minutes off to cast our votes, you can sit back, act stupid and shut up on all matters pertaining government policies and its impact to your daily life. It is we who voted that will have the right to speak-up and complain for the next 5 years.

I was browsing through Wired magazine when I came across this article How Good People Turn Evil - I never really thought something like this could be a subject for serious study in psychology. It was even more interesting to find out that psychologist Philip Zimbardo had a theory on this; it's called the Lucifer Effect, named after the Biblical fallen angel.

Wired magazine had an interview with the founding psychologist Philip Zimbardo. Read more on the interesting interview here.


What makes some people to respond to difficult situations as heroes, while others resort to evil? What leads to the "perfect storm" of socio-psychological concoctions to lead seemingly good men to do evil? We are all too familiar with the quiet, goody boy next door who one day becomes the national news headlines for violent crimes. Remember the Columbine High school massacre? How is it possible a well educated and upper-middle classes of German and Japanese doctors can believe that they are doing a great favour to their race / mankind from their works at Auswitchz and Unit 731 in conducting biological experiments with life humans! Sometimes the more I read history the more I understand why God had to at one time destroyed the entire world in a great flood.

Wired: But not everyone at Abu Ghraib responded to the situation in the same way. So what makes one person in a situation commit evil acts while another in the same situation becomes a whistle-blower?

Zimbardo: There's no answer, based on what we know about a person, that we can predict whether they're going to be a hero whistle-blower or the brutal guard. We want to believe that if I was in some situation [like that], I would bring with it my usual compassion and empathy. But you know what? When I was the superintendent of the Stanford prison study, I was totally indifferent to the suffering of the prisoners, because my job as prison superintendent was to focus on the guards.

As principal [scientific] investigator [of the experiment], my job was to care about what happened to everybody because they were all under my experimental control. But once I switched to being the prison superintendent, I was a different person. It's hard to believe that, but I was transformed.

Noticed how easy it is to become an evil person? Don't be too sure of yourself when you are placed within a system that pushes you towards this sort of behavior.

The 1971 prison experiment at Stanford University had to be shut down in just a matter of 6 days as the "prison guards" whom days before were your average undergraduates at Stanford University had become alarmingly brutal and the "prioners" were suffering mental breakdowns.

If you were a white person in the Southern belt of USA in the early 19th century, how sure are you that you will not condone black slavery? Afterall residents of the Southern always have the impression of being a devoted church-goer type. Heck, blacks aren't even allowed in many churches. Nevermind the fact about what Jesus preached.

If you were an "Aryan" in 1930s Germany, will you treat a Jew indifferently? Environmental influence and the collective psychology of a community is a powerful tool in shaping one's opinion. Which is why I have always placed a high premium on the ability to think independently. But then again, we are always never as indenpendent of a thinker that we always assume we are.

Wired: Do you think it made any difference that the Abu Ghraib guards were reservists rather than active duty soldiers?

Zimbardo: It made an enormous difference, in two ways. They had no mission-specific training, and they had no training to be in a combat zone. Secondly, the Army reservists in a combat zone are the lowest form of animal life within the military hierarchy. They're not real soldiers, and they know this. In Abu Ghraib the only thing lower than the army reservist MPs were the prisoners.

Wired: So it's a case of people who feel powerless in their lives seizing power over someone else.

Zimbardo: Yes, victims become victimizers. In Nazi concentration camps, the Jewish capos were worse than the Nazis, because they had to prove that they deserved being in this position.

Wired: You've said that the way to prevent evil actions is to teach the "banality of kindness" -- that is, to get society to exemplify ordinary people who engage in extraordinary moral actions. How do you do this?

Zimbardo: If you can agree on a certain number of things that are morally wrong, then one way to counteract them is by training kids. There are some programs, starting in the fifth grade, which get kids to think about the heroic mentality, the heroic imagination.

I particularly liked his choice of words in the next section, heroes are "deviants"...

To be a hero you have to take action on behalf of someone else or some principle and you have to be deviant in your society, because the group is always saying don't do it; don't step out of line. If you're an accountant at Arthur Andersen, everyone who is doing the defrauding is telling you, "Hey, be one of the team."

Heroes have to always, at the heroic decisive moment, break from the crowd and do something different. But a heroic act involves a risk. If you're a whistle-blower you're going to get fired, you're not going to get promoted, you're going to get ostracized. And you have to say it doesn't matter.

Most heroes are more effective when they're social heroes rather than isolated heroes. A single person or even two can get dismissed by the system. But once you have three people, then it's the start of an opposition.

So what I'm trying to promote is not only the importance of each individual thinking "I'm a hero" and waiting for the right situation to come along in which I will act on behalf of some people or some principle, but also, "I'm going to learn the skills to influence other people to join me in that heroic action."

I can immediately think of a few parallels now. Real heroes are nothing like Hollywood's shallow potrayal. Real heroes are everyday people with everyday problems that you and I face, people like the passengers of Flight 93, the firefighters and NYPD officers in 9/11, the volunteers at the various NGOs, the late Mother Teressa, the everyday men and women who took unconventional career paths like teaching, nursing.

People like this friend of mine who brave enough to forgo a conventional path of a promising career in IT for a life of meagre salary to challenge and build-up young people for Christ. And how about this Vietnam war helicopter pilot who upon witnessing his own American troops killing unarmed Vietnamese civillians, landed his helicopter to shield the villagers from the American GIs, threatening to shoot any American who opens fire at the villagers. Only to return home to risk court martial and ridicule from self-serving politicians.

Interesting further reads : Celebrating heroism and Dehumanization.

Our increasingly empty and shallow society can do with less One In A Million or American Idol finalist. But we need more heroes of today.


This has been one of my favourite song lately; Bryan Adams, Never Let Go. The lyrics speaks a lot about the issue of hero-ism, or should I say our lack of heroes. I believed the ending pictures were taken during Hurricane Katrina's disaster.

Economics 101, as understood by a non-practising engineer ;
1. The value of any material is determined by society. A cow would have a much higher value in a predominantly Hindu society than say... a pig would in a predominantly Muslim society.

2. Value is a variable sum, determined by the basic laws of supply and demand. Or to put it in simpler terms - scarcity.


Now apply those understanding in Hollywood context. Exclusive rights to photos of a pregnant (with twins) Jennifer Lopez is understood to being bargained at a region of over USD 5 million. People magazine reportedly paid USD 4 million for an exclusive photo of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt with their daughter Shiloh. Christina Aguilera too was reportedly paid USD 1.5 million for exclusive photos of her baby.

I am really having trouble understanding this - are we so hungry to see photos of celebrities with their bulging bellies? I can understand the value of some scooped paparazi shots but come on just because some star is popping out a baby soon is enough to make their value shoot through the roof? I can accept the usual Lindsay Lohan or Britney looking really horrible without their artifical make-ups, Prince William with some hot chic, Edison Chen in his Asian male version of Paris Hilton's sex-capades etc etc. But having their value shooting up by virtue of a pregnancy?!

We love to see famous, pretty, hunky perfect looking people fail. We thrive on these news as if they were an antidote to our pathetic, sad, meaningless lives. There is actually an industry that is making a lot of money by focusing how celebrities are screwing up their lives, despite all their fame and wealth - the very things that many of us are chasing after. It's defies my logic how people understood the fact that physically perfect, famous and wealthy people still lead very unhappy lives, and yet after reading over every juicy bits of celebrities' sad lives we put down the glossy magazines and continue slaving ourselves to chase the very things these people are chasing. And the worst thing we all know what will the outcome be!

Why are there even people dedicating their lives reporting and spending time reading about the lives of others who don't even care about them? Have they no pride about themselves? I won't give rat's ass about anybody who doesn't know me nor has contributed anything to make my world a better place.

The constant bombardment of pregnant celebs and celebs mum put an unnecessary pressure on new mums to look "thin and perfect" after pregnancy - which goes against the natural course nature of changing body shapes to support and nurture a newborn life. Soon we not only have to deal with a bunch of dumb teenage airheads who is constantly discussing about their overweight bodies but also a new generation of mums who would do almost anything to shed their baby belly in doubly quick time. Celebrities do nothing much other the usual stupid things to get some cheap publicity, wasting earth's resources and little else to contribute to the development of society. They have more money than brains. Thus they are able to devote an amazing amount of time and resource for a military-like, single minded determination for an amazingly shallow cause of losing post-natal weight, which is just not possible for the average mum who has to make a living.

The fact that we live in a world that is willing to put a million dollar price tag on a picture of a pregnant celebrity says a lot about the sad case of people that dominates our current generation. Sometimes I randomly browse through blogs of young guys and girls - makes me wonder; the Internet and its little brother Web 2.0, the most powerful tool ever to be given to the everyday man in history and these are the contents the next generation are coming up with....what kind of character will the next generation form or even carry? The most eloquent materials were created in pre-Internet times. Times of famous poets whose name I can't remember because I am poorly educated in that area, but I do know speeches from Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, even the perpetually drunk Sir Winston Churchill rants a lot more eloquently than most us with the Internet. People are supposedly less educated and exposed back then. So what is happening here?

Liz Jones, a columnist at the Daily Mail UK calls 2007 Year of the Airhead. And then it dawned on me: 2007 was the year of the airhead, a 12-month period when no bit of female fluff was too fatuous to be brought to our attention.

Want some proof that we women have finally abandoned all pretence to having any sort of gravitas, or moral responsibility, or intellectual debate? How about the fact that Nicole Richie, who, as far as I can tell, is famous for being unable to tip the scales above 75 pounds, graced the cover of British Marie Claire.

Or the mass hysteria that was engendered by the fact that Kate Moss had been given an obscene amount of money to put her name to a whole load of tat for Topshop.

Thanks to last year's bombardment of the banal, to know and care about these people is now seen as normal.

Why do all the glossy weeklies and monthlies make such a meal of these women? Well, first of all, they are easy game. They are rampant self-publicists and therefore easy to persuade to disrobe, or pose pregnant, or divulge their addictions.

The airhead is a needy creature with more money than sense, and she will therefore shore up her self-esteem by going shopping, and wearing the latest ridiculous fashion trend.

Which in turn prompts us, the voyeurs, to want to copy her, and so we buy ever more Louis Vuitton traveller luggage and Marc Jacobs Stam bags (Stam, as in supermodel Jessica Stam; please keep up) and endless bottles of perfume.

In the latest assault against religious and minority rights freedom in Malaysia, the BN government, via its puppet the MPSJ city hall now requires all shop-lot churches within the Subang Jaya municipality to apply for an annual permit costing RM 1000 per year. Kudos to the The Sun for carrying this news, which as expected, has been either blotted out or downplayed by the other MSMs (Mainstream medias).

The implication of this new rule is far reaching, as explained by Bob,
The application for permits and even the registering of religious bodies is a contentious constitutional issue with some legal and constitutional experts opining that by virtue of Article 11 of the Constitution, such bodies can exist by default without the need to register and/or ask permission from any authority.

This would be true of many of the older established Christian denominations like the Methodist Church which doesn't exist because the Registrar of Societies gave it permission too. It merely exists and is totally self governing, ie. there's no need to send a copy of their constitution to the ROS for approval if they decide to amend it.

Let's look at how absurd this would be .. if the ROS registered Church A which have always had a congregational form of church government got convinced that they ought to change their governance to an episcopal form, they would need to convene an AGM to amend their organisational constitution and submit the amendments to the ROS for approval. Let's say the ROS declines to approve the amendment due to the perceived lack of democratic structures (let's admit it, episcopal entities aren't really democratic), does this mean that Church A's theological convictions are now defined by the ROS?

When I first came across this news at I have this mixed feeling of anger coupled with a tiny dose of sarcastic humour - that the churches in Subang Jaya deserve this. In fact, I want to thank God for this recent turn of events. For too long churches in the upper middle class sub-urb of Subang Jaya have been living in their own microcosm, allowing their minds to be manipulated by all sorts of nonsense that is being spewed out countless "Godly people" on Sundays. They closed their eyes to the plight of this world and worrying developments in our nation.

They closed their eyes when a Hindu mother was seperated from her child to be put in a re-education camp, simply because her husband has converted to Islam, they closed their eyes when city hall councils tore down Hindu temples, they kept quiet when Buddhist monks of Burma were shot by the Junta. The only time they will speak out is only when something happens to one of their own kind. And these are supposedly followers of a teacher who began a revolution that turned the Roman empire on its head.

And why does every damn thing has to be either a Malay-rights, Hindu-rights, Christian-rights, Muslim-rights issue?! Aren't all these about Malaysian rights?!

Instead they busy themselves with funny sounding XYZ ministries, their youths are able to remember intricate details of every Christian rock band members but is clueless of their own elected government representatives. My masochistic hope is that there will be more of such removal of our rights to happen.

And you know what's the worst thing? It is that, Lee Hwa Beng, a Christian elected MP in a BN component party that is standing out there defending the regulation that seeks to undermine churches. Read his lame rebuttals here, which is a reply that is as good as nothing. It is another Christian MP, Teressa Kok who is out there sparring with Lee on his nonsense. I know of at least one church in Subang Jaya who makes a point to display their support for Lee Hwa Beng in a very outwardly manner. Well, to that church, here is your reward.

Lee Hwa Beng's responce is typical of many Christian MPs within BN who professes that they seek work for a change within the system. But everytime something that is obviously not right in the spirit of all that is fair and just, they just keep quiet and toe the line with their UMNO colleagues. I guess they don't want to rock the boat that feeds them nor antagonise the one that keeps them in power.

Sometime back The Star had a dialogue with a few Christian leaders, which is exactly where I had lost a lot of my respect for the secretary-general of NECF, Rev Wong Kim Kong, because this is what he uttered in the national news media;
Kim Kong: I think the Bible is very clear – the church has to be apolitical and not be involved in the political process directly. The church is a neutral institution; we cannot take any political inclination towards any particular party or candidate. However, the biblical value of good government can be taught.

To me, his words implied that he is folding his arms, before giving a pat on the back to Christian MPs like Teressa Kok to stand for all that is right and just - and everything else that Christ thought us to do.
Kok: Not only in the past few months. All this while, we have been concerned about subtle religious persecution issues. We take the initiative to meet with the religious councils, especially when (former Prime Minister) Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad declared Malaysia as an Islamic country. Sad to say, when I approached pastors back then, some of them said it was the job of the NECF and they did not want to meet us. They did not want to be involved in politics. I said it was just a closed-door dialogue but they still refused.

Sivin has posted an interesting series of the same interview, with an added "twist;" Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Some of the rebuttals to Rev. Wong Kim Kong;
Chun Wai: In one particular church in Petaling Jaya, we have received feedback that the person concerned had been bringing up strong political views which some in the congregation perceived to be anti-government. And sometimes, the members feel uncomfortable because when they go to church, they want quiet time with God to unload their burdens, but they end up hearing political views. Does this kind of orientation fit in?

Steven Sim: I guess we have to relook at going to church for “quiet time with god”. I think that’s important but more than that we need to realize that the church is not an escapade to go into some sort of religious state of denials and god should not be made to be an excuse to run away from the problems of the world. Christians are called to groan with the suffering world. St Paul said that the Church needs to identify and suffer with the world where it is at pain. And while we are at this, god through his Spirit will groan in us and through us.

Pastor Raj: Going to church is not just for quiet time with God. We are called to carry the needs/pains of the people to God, and this is where being aware of situations in our nation is important. As we go to God in worship, we also bring the needs and pain of our fellow citizens to God. We reflect on God and the situation and that should inform us on how to respond as followers of Christ to the situation in the nation.

Kim Kong: I think the Bible is very clear – the church has to be apolitical and not be involved in the political process directly. The church is a neutral institution; we cannot take any political inclination towards any particular party or candidate. However, the biblical value of good government can be taught.

Steven: While we may mean other things, to me using the word “apolitical” is like putting an apathetic period to the issue. I think what is clear in the Bible is that Christians are called to be utterly biased for justice, peace and truth. In this sense, we are never to be neutral. Of course, I can agree that the church as an institution cannot be partisan, but we are never to be passive and neutral, and still less apolitical. We have to differentiate between being political and being partisan, that’s important.

Whom did the ancient prophets addressed? Usually kings, rulers, lawmakers, policy makers, community leaders, land owners, employers. And what issues did the prophets raised? We’ll be surprised, they were usually on good governance, justice, tax laws, trade, exploitations of workers and foreigners.

Hermen: In my 25 years in the ministry, I have been exposed to churches here and in the world councils. Notwithstanding what Rev Wong has said, I think church comprises human beings and human beings are caught in the social context, and much of the politics of the day are reflected in the social context. They always look after their own interests and everything is communal here. Urban constituencies more exposed to a modern way of life will be more interested in engaging different parties.

I guess sometimes God uses different ways to jolt Christians up from their comfy 'lil air-conditioned churches and the series of "feel-good" mission works to "save souls". This will be one of the few times when I don't struggle nor argue with God on something.

I do not wish to see this as a Christian issue. And I am certainly not worked up because this is a church issue. I am worked up because this is a Malaysian issue!

Come March 2008. I will know who to vote. Are you voting? Or you rather sit back and bitch about everything that is wrong?