On March 1, 2008, then Cabinet Minister Rafidah Aziz said this about PAS’ calls for a debate with Abdullah Badawi on their election manifestos:

Rafidah also said that it was unnecessary to accede to a PAS suggestion for the party to have an open debate with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak because it was irrelevant in terms of the culture of Malaysian society.

“The BN track record is there for us to scrutinise and appreciate. We do not emulate the American style of open debate,” she said.

The right way would be to debate with the people themselves, and discuss the issues with a view to resolving them immediately.

“We debate with the villagers. We debate with the urban folk. That’s our way. Debating here means holding ceramah (talk), discussions and question-and-answer sessions on local issues,” she said.

Things have changed indeed! Shabery Cheek, the current Information Minister, agreed to debate Anwar himself over the rising oil prices, and the papers reported this:

Information Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek today expressed the hope that debates between two sides with differing views would become a culture in Malaysian politics.
“These (debates) have yet to be institutionalised in our political system and last night was the beginning,” he said in reference to the debate on the fuel price increase between him and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) advisor Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Hari Ini Bentuk Kerajaan, Esok Turun Harga Minyak

I actually missed the hour-long live telecast (because of you Marv :< ), but I wasn’t too worried because I knew it would be on Malaysiakini and Youtube :). And sure enough it was. I’ve just watched it and here’s my blow-by-blow. Spoilers, obviously, so you might want to go watch it yourself if you haven’t already. The Youtube vid above is the first of eight parts. I also ripped the audio out and made an mp3 of the debate (right click, save as; 23MB ).

Let me state here though that I am NOT a diehard Anwar fan, in fact I’m quite the skeptic when it comes to him. It’ll take a bit before I’ll be 100% convinced he’s changed his spots. So bear this in mind (oh did I just spoil it for you??).

Opening statement

Anwar started off with the main points he would reiterate throughout, starting with his proposal to reduce oil prices by 50 sen, which would cost the govt RM 5 bil. He criticized the lopsided contracts given to IPPs, and stated that if TNB reduced its power reserve from 40% to 20%, RM2 bil would be saved. He points out that corruption and “leakage” contributed to the situation; bailouts of Perwaja amounted to RM 13 billion.

Shabery’s starts off strongly with a statement that a 5bil estimate was outdated, oil prices have risen so high that we would now need 50 bil to finance that reduction.

He then follows up with a personal attack (first of many) on Anwar, reminding him that he led protest against price increases during the Yom Kippur War in the 70s, and accusing him of being a “populist”.

Round Two

The moderator then invited comments from both speakers on this statement: Given that Petronas only owns a 40% share of the local fuel market, a govt subsidy affects foreign conglomerates like Shell and Exxon-Mobil as well.

Shabery replied first by stating subsidies needed to be pulled back so the govt could spend on the people. He attemped to rebut Anwar’s claim of wastage by pointed out that even developed countries like Norway and Finland had raised prices. (This led to applause from his supporters, but I couldn’t see the connection).

Anwar then addressed Shabery’s personal attacks by going for the high road, stating wryly that this was not a debate about “Anwar and Shabery” and he wouldn’t, for example, bring up Shabery’s previous involvement in Semangat 64. He then jumped on Shabery’s weak rebuttal, saying that Norway’s GDP was 10 times Malaysia’s (wow, preparation!), and said there was no basis for a straight comparison. He took the chance again to point out the hardships of the poor (stressing that the majority of the poor were Bumis) and that the increase showed the govt was out of touch. He said that when money was given to industries and projects, it was called “incentives” or “bailouts”, but when given to the people it was negatively called “subsidies”.

Panelist questions (first round)

A representative from each side then posed a question to the opposing.

Shabery’s rep quoted figures stating that local oil operations represented only a small portion of Petronas’ profits, and got a carried away into a speech accusing Anwar of being like a child who was using his dead father’s inheritance to distribute, so that he could be popular.

Anwar answered that Petronas was only in the top 100 oil companies, but it was in the top ten based on profits. He said that he would not touch Petronas’ profits directly, but took issue with the profits that was given by Petronas to the govt.

Anwar’s representative then posed his question. He stated the govt had claimed the RM4 bil saved from the 2006 fuel hike would be used to improve public transport, but only RM 900 mil had actually been spent.

Shabery sarcastically said that if he were in the opposition, “bagi free pun boleh“, but oil prices had doubled. He then went off on a tangent reiterating that other oil producing countries had high inflation, and brought in the govt’s ability to offset the food crisis (Huh?).

It was quite obvious though that Shabery had failed to respond to the query on public transport.

Panelist questions (second round)

This time the reps asked their own side questions.

Anwar was asked about his efforts to establish a Tabung Warisan ala Norway. He briefly touched on it but then devoted the remaning time to rebut Shabery’s statement on inflation, saying there was no logic in pointing out that low oil prices led to inflation, since it didn’t follow that high oil prices would lead to less inflation.

Shabery’s rep again went off into his own speech, but was basically “asking” why Anwar had not focused instead on decreasing tax, or inflation, but chose oil prices instead.

Shabery chose to go back to Anwar’s earlier speech, but amazingly decided to wave off Anwar’s statement about only taking from Petronas’ profits (Anwar had said Petronas was among the top 10 oil earners). He said our oil would soon run out, and made time to praise Mahathir for his handling of Petronas.

Cross-examination

The next round, Anwar reiterated that his main points were the sudden spike in fuel price and the wastage of funds, and why the govt, after having promised not to raise prices before the election, had now raised prices and manipulated the media against reporting opposition points accurately.

Shabery pointedly refused to address the question directly, repeating instead that oil prices were a global phenomenon. He tried another ad hominem attack, accusing Anwar of having brokered unreasonable deals with IPPs in the first place, and brought up the old “Anwar wanted to sell us to IMF” argument from 1997.

Shabery then asked Anwar what would be done when the country runs out of oil in 2015.

Anwar parried the attack by reminding us that the 2015 estimation is only based on Petronas not finding any more oil fields by then, and that it had once been predicted that Malaysia would run out of oil by 2005. He praised Petronas for its resourcefulness. He rebutted Shabery’s personal attack by announcing that he had, in fact, actively opposed the terms of IPP agreements along with the former TNB chairman, who resigned over the issue, and this would be backed up in the records (oo burn!). He said he would debate the 1997 crisis in any forum in the future. He then takes advantage of the recent announcement by Petronas that an additional RM 6 bil would be given to the government - saying that if a billion of that were to be given to the public it would benefit them greatly.

Conclusion

The time given for this round was short: 90 seconds each. Anwar quickly summed up his points again. Shabery continues making personal attacks, painting Anwar as a rebel, and saying that Anwar had once praised Mahathir to the heavens.

——————————————

What I think

It was sadly obvious that Shabery simply wasn’t in the same league as Anwar. DSAI was persuasive yet affable and hit the right tone at the right times, and had ready answers for nearly everything Shabery threw at him.

Shabery came across as confrontational, mocking and sarcastic. The brunt of his argument comprised personal attacks which may have entertained supporters in the elections, but were conspicuously vacuous in a debate setting. He didn’t have answers to key questions.

This is not to say that Anwar was 100% right - it is true that he had been using the fuel hike to his advantage even before it took effect, knowing that it was inevitable. But he whipped Shabery good in the debate, and while people are comfortingly saying everyone came out winners, the debate was a big step forward, etc; I don’t think there will be another debate featuring DSAI soon. It’s pretty obvious why the government is scared stiff of him.

Popularity: 48% [?]

I’d actually heard of gold dust and teeth making an appearance way way back but I didn’t know it was making a return to Charismatic circles until I heard a sermon about it on Sunday. A lady went up after and said gold dust had appeared on her during the sermon.

My first thought was “why gold fillings or gold teeth?” Heaven is supposed to be paved with gold - now why would God fill your tooth with pavement? Why not just restore the tooth? Aren’t gold teeth status symbols of the rich? Strange that what is termed a “spritual revolution”; faith in the unseen, makes great weight of teeth bring turned into gold or gemstones appearing from nowhere. From several accounts, the people had specifically prayed for teeth fillings to be turned into gold - why pray for something of zero practical value, and something that could have been easily put in by a dentist?:

Skeptics can also point to Dick Dewert, president of CJIL-TV in Lethbridge, Alberta. Dewert claimed during a fundraising campaign that God had given him a gold tooth. But he retracted his claim March 25 after his dentist, Jack Sherman, reminded him that he had given him the filling 10 years before.

“The media tend to hit on the ones that are questionable, unfortunately. But this is why we want to move carefully, and to seek medical verification,” says Rev. Dr. John Roddam of St. David’s Anglican Church in Tsawwassen.

There was also the usual scoffing at skeptics who would rather question than believe this phenomenon; I wonder what the reaction is then for the “miracles” seen on the other side of the demoninational divide, e.g. visions of Fatima , or statues weeping tears of blood, or Hindu statues lapping up milk (I spotted posts on Catholic forums mocking this as “theology for gangsta rappers”).

Reactions from Christians themselves range from the amazed to the cautious, and the outright disbelieving. An observation I found stood out in my mind, and pretty much summed up my last thought on the matter as well:

Questions are raised in our minds about God’s goodness and open-handedness when, on the one hand, he seems unwilling or unable to prevent Auschwitz or the contemporary tragedy of Kosovo, but seems both willing and able to adopt the role of a modern dentist and provide not only cosmetic wonders, but phenomena more in keeping with the Fortean Times than the Bible.

Popularity: 43% [?]

Last week’s TIME had an article about the diary of Rutka Laskier, a Polish Jew whose diary had been found and kept by a friend for 60 years. It outlines four months in 1943, before Rutka and her family were sent to Auschwitz and killed.

If you’ve read the diary of Anne Frank, you’ll find haunting parallels between their lives: the innocence, the despair, the first glimpses of romance.

People were thirsty, and there was not a single drop of water around … Then … it started pouring. The rain didn’t stop. At 3 o’clock Kuczynsky arrived and the selection started. “1″ meant returning home, “1a” meant going to labor, which was even worse than deportation, “2″ meant going for further inspection, and “3″ meant deportation, in other words, death.

Then I saw what disaster meant. We reported for selection at 4 o’clock. Mom, Dad and my little brother were sent to group 1, and I was sent to 1a. I walked as if I were stunned … The weirdest thing was that we didn’t cry at all, AT ALL … Later on, I saw many more disasters. I can’t put it in words. Little children were lying on the wet grass, the storm raging above our heads. The policemen beat them ferociously and also shot them.

I sat there until 1 o’clock at night. Then I ran away. My heart pounded. I jumped out of a window from the first floor of a small building, and nothing happened to me. Only my lips were bitten so bad that they bled … When I was already on the street, I ran into someone “in uniform,” and I felt that I couldn’t take it anymore. My head was spinning. I was pretty sure he was going to beat me … but apparently he was drunk and didn’t see the “yellow star,” and he let me go.

Around me it was dark like in a closed cabin. From time to time flashes of lightning lightened the sky … and it thundered. The journey that normally takes me half an hour I did in 10 minutes. Everybody was at home except Grandma, whom Dad released and brought home the next day …

Oh, I forgot the most important thing. I saw how a soldier tore a baby, who was only a few months old, out of its mother’s hands and bashed his head against an electric pylon. The baby’s brain splashed on the wood. The mother went crazy.

I am writing this as if nothing has happened. As if I were in an army experienced in cruelty. But I’m young, I’m 14, and I haven’t seen much in my life, and I’m already so indifferent. Now I am terrified when I see “uniforms.” I’m turning into an animal waiting to die …

Now to everyday matters: Janek came by this afternoon. We had to sit in the kitchen … I told him that I had given away all my photographs. He got very upset. We were joking around; we spoke about “Nica and the gang.” While we were talking he suddenly blurted out he’d like it very much if he could kiss me. I said “maybe” and continued the conversation. He was a bit confused; he thought I was Tusia or Hala Zelinger. I would have allowed [myself] to be kissed only by the person I loved, and I feel indifferent towards him.

Then Dad sent me to deal with something. I had to leave. Janek accompanied me. While going downstairs I asked him, is kissing such a pleasant thing? And then I told him that I had already kissed before, what a taste it has (that’s completely true). He burst out laughing. (He has a nice laugh, I must admit.) He said he was curious too. Maybe, but I won’t let him kiss me. I’m afraid it would destroy something beautiful, pure … I’m also afraid that I’ll be very disappointed.

Ahmadinejad should get a copy of her diary.

Six million Jews died in the Holocaust, a testament to how much ideology can shape humans. How could there have been soldiers willing enough to carry out those orders? It might be a bit twisted, but I’m glad to see the human race has come far enough that the thousands who have died in Iraq have a much louder voice. I hope that there will never again come a day where we lose sight of our conscience or take lightly a human life.

Popularity: 58% [?]

I think PKR’s call for a minimum wage of RM 1,500 is ridiculous and unrealistic. Yes, we need minimum wage and perhaps unions even, but considering that a typical worker at McDonald’s earns only RM4/hour right now, their target makes them look silly. I also think that their “promise” to reduce the price of petrol - along with Anwar’s “On March 9, I will reduce the price of petrol” ditty - to be shortsighted. Yes we are an oil exporter and we have Petronas. But our black gold will run out in less than two decades so a little less reliance on it please?

Similarly, I was surprised to read about DAP’s proposed “bonus” - again, by divvying up Petronas’ profits - to middle income families. Surely the solution to Malays relying on government handouts is not give handouts to everyone instead. At the very least credit it into EPF.

Certainly I’m no economist, but the point here is that yes, our Opposition is relatively weak and inexperienced in some areas. I will still cast a vote against BN, and I believe everyone should too. There are many reasons, valid ones, why you would do so: blatant corruption, a shackled media, draconian laws, arrogant leaders, a stronger opposition voice.

Here’s mine:

I finished my secondary education in Penang Free School. I wasn’t an especially enthusiastic student, but did well enough to be in the bottom of the first class. There was a certain amount of prestige attached to being there: to get in, you usually needed straight As in the UPSR ( Primary School Evaluation Test ).

I used to look down a little on the people I knew who went to vernacular schools. They had more homework, they looked like convicts (mandatory crewcuts), they had bad England, and I didn’t like the whole industrious Chinese thing. Besides, I went to a Sekolah Rendah Kebangsaan and I quite liked it.

In my final year in school something became noticeable though: after being streamed, most of my class were Chinese students. At the time I don’t think how much we appreciated how “lucky” we were that we could be there purely on merit. (And I want to take time here to state that the few Indians and Malays who were in my class were positively brilliant).

After I left, I heard that changes were being made to the school. Specifically, rumours of a quota for Malay students, and a rapid succession of Malay headmasters that barely spoke English and were more interested in using their position as a stepping stone to “bigger” things. Recently, the unofficial word was that the ratio of Malay:Chinese students should be 2:1. And this is now displayed beside our (once-)beautiful school gate:

Needless to say, you rarely hear about any achievements from PFS any more. It took less than a decade to undo 185 years of excellence.

PFS isn’t alone. Statistics now show that 95% of non-Bumi students go to vernacular schools, a letter to Malaysiakini mentioned. 95%!!

Are students expected to mingle only with the people of the same race for 11 years, and suddenly come out and “integrate”? Or worse still, join the MCA/MIC and continue to fight for more Chinese/Indian schools, and perpetuate the cycle.

Pak Lah himself recognized the deterioration of the national school system back in 2004:

“Surely, this kind of racial exclusiveness will sow the seeds of misunderstanding and mistrust later in life. If this trend continues, we may well drift apart, only to have few superficial commonalities between us, and few genuine ties that bind us together in a common destiny,” he said.

Nothing has actually been done of course, and the mainstream media recently fawned over our Education Minister DS Hishammuddin Tun Hussein for building more Chinese schools to keep the Chinese happy. Taking a look at one of MCA’s campaign videos gives you an idea of how they still think of themselves:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1LzRtKJtEo]

It has of course been pointed out how ironic it is that Hishamuddin is the grandson of Dato’ Onn Ja’afar, one of the first to see what Malaysia should be.

What’s happening in our schools is a microism of what our country is like. The economy is treated like a zero-sum game - too many rich Chinese? They must be taking the Malay share, so slap on bumi quotas. Election seats are strategized based solely on racial composition. We fill in our race on examination forms.

As I penned last May, we MUST stop telling Malaysians to identify themselves by race. That is the only way we will move forward as a country. As Raja Petra so astutely put it: MIC claims to defend the rights of the Indians; MCA, the Chinese; UMNO, the Malays. But from what? The Communists? The British? Surely if UMNO does not defend Indians that is a greater threat to national security than people handing roses to the PM. And in the aftermath of Hindraf why did MIC tell Gerakan not to interfere in the welfare of the Indians?

Race and religion are the two biggest dividers of the human race. But you get to decide your religion (eventually, at least), while racism tells you to identify yourself and others through accidents of birth and geography. UMNO, MCA, and MIC are founded on racism, on the fear that the “other races” will cause “your race” to lose out. It is very effective for vote buying but you just cannot build a nation on racism. It is what holds Malaysia back. I don’t expect Malaysia to change overnight - it took the US more than 200 years to elect its first black President ( going out on a limb here :P ) - but change has to start somewhere.

And that is why I am voting against BN.

Popularity: 30% [?]

Recently I was participating in a discussion which touched on “Christians and the State”. I was disappointed at the direction it went because it ended up being the typical assertions of “God is in control” that has been regurgitated many times - we didn’t manage to discuss the practical issues that concern all of us today.

I took issue with one point in particular: the pastor wrote on the board that governments were “appointed by God”. I pointed out that if I were to vote for the opposition, knowing full well that the current ruling party would return to power anyway, then that’s saying I’m going against what God wants. To which the other side backtracked and said that God grants us free will to choose, but will use whatever government that is in place to carry out his plans. The pastor also added that we should pray that we choose according to God’s will.

The root issue here is free will. In fact, the pastor adhered nearly exactly to an earlier post that I made, the Superlative God.

First you have an argument along the lines of Calvinism: God appoints the government. This would, of course, be very attractive if you are in government yourself.

Next you have the Arminian-influenced belief: God has granted you the “free will” to choose, but we should all try to choose our candidate according to His will.

The last alternative is in the fashion of Open Theism: People do indeed freely elect their own governments, based on the qualities they want in the candidate or party.

Many, if not all denominations will say they believe in “free will”, but I’ve realized that most of the time it starts and stops with the Garden of Eden. Just far enough to blame Eve for the apple.

The rest of the time what most people do is “pray” that they will “follow God’s will” - often I wonder if they really mean what they say. I have never, for example, seen a patient just diagnosed with cancer immediately ask whether it is God’s will for them to be cured or to seek treatment; but (if) the patient passes on everyone says it was God’s will and part of God’s plan. On an exam graded according to a bell curve ( where a fixed percentage of students will get a certain grade ), you won’t find any students - or their parents - thinking that it’s God’s will for them to NOT be at the top.

The most cynical interpretation of this phenomenon is that people use God’s mandate for their actions. Mike Huckabee, for example, claimed divine intervention when his poll numbers unexpectedly improved. And of course we have Rafidah Aziz - Malaysians saw a weak PM not daring to fire her, while she claimed a mandate from God.

A more empathic way to see this, which is probably closest to the truth, is that humans will usually only leave it “up to God’s will” when they are unable to help themselves or have no other recourse. The more devout will seek God’s will to override their own, the egoistical claim that whatever they do is by God’s will.

Here the questions arise: how sacred is free will to God, and how important is it to you? There are plenty of instances in the Bible, for example, where God manipulates man’s will, the most famous being the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart [Exodus 7:1-3], followed by horrific plagues upon Egypt because of his refusal(?) to let the Israelites go.

How important is free will to you? I can already imagine some looking up a rebuttal to the verse I quoted; it might save you time if I gave you the typical answer: “Pharaohs heart was already hardened, God merely completed the process”. To which I would reply: how receptive would you be if your neighbour came up to you and demanded that you release your Indonesian maid? More to the point, what decision would Pharaoh have made if God hadn’t hardened his heart? If Pharaoh would have decided to let the Hebrew slaves go anyway, why did God harden his heart and kill the firstborn of all Egypt?

The Free Will Defense, a term coined by Alvin Plantinga, is a popular argument that tries to explain the problem of evil. The problem of evil has its roots in the very first chapters of the Bible: Why did God place the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden, and allow Eve to eat it? The proponent of FWD argues that humans must have the free will to choose God of their own accord. Here free will becomes a sacred thing.

But the question now is this: what is the “free” in “free will”? The mere ability to choose has no meaning, just like randomly crossing boxes on a ballot wastes your right to vote. Some people misuse the FWD by saying that “God cannot reveal himself to us because it violates our free will; we would have no choice but to believe”. But free will is only meaningful when you acquire or are provided enough knowledge to weigh the pros and cons and make an informed decision - something that comes across as ironic, since Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat from the Tree that would provide them this very ability.

I would like to take time here to discuss whether God himself has free will - if God knows the future, he knows what decisions he is going to make. Even if you bring forward the argument that God is outside time, basic principles of logic dictate that you need to be capable of logical sequences (if A, then B ) - but it’s getting late, my brain hurts, and wills me to stop :).

Popularity: 26% [?]

Have been planning to blog for some time but things keep popping up. Been telling myself “I’ll go home on time from work today!” for the past 2 weeks but wind up going back late anyway.

I blame this on Edison Chen and his horniness - damn network traffic spikes. Pratically half of all keywords searches going through Nuffnang blogs now seem to be some variant of “edison chen s*x sc*ndal”.

But the just-announced dissolution of Parliament warrants an entry.

- I wonder how long the campaign period will be this time. IIRC, the last elections saw a record-short time of 7 days.

- AB was splashed all over the papers today claiming that he wouldn’t be dissolving Parliament, yet here we are. If he doesn’t take the elections seriously I wonder what he thinks about other things.

- Asia Times has an excellent take on the image campaign that AB has been on (is anyone sick of the newspaper articles blaring “so and so: Up to the PM”?)

Brilliant quote:

And so the excessive use of his portrait would seem almost counterintuitive, even in the runup to general elections, which are expected to be held in March. “For those who feel deprived it would seem to have the opposite of the desired effect: ‘He deprived me and now he’s smiling at me’,” said the president of Transparency International Malaysia, Ramon Navaratnam.

After all, when Dr. M was president did you see posters of him everywhere? Dr. M was a slimeball too, but at least he didn’t need an image campaign, his achievements were clear. AB hasn’t DONE anything, so an image campaign is all he can do.

- The sudden “fund allocations” that go around during election time are really, really insulting to the rakyat. And I don’t mean because they are little more than bribes. You can’t even call them bribes, because this is taxpayer money. OUR own money. Why are you throwing our own money at us? We should be even more pissed off! You insult our intelligence.

It’s even more demeaning when they expect the Chinese to vote for them just because they build Chinese schools. But then again, they’ve been thinking along racial lines for so long. The Deputy Education Minister, an MCA vet who is stepping down, even boasted that his achievement was building more Chinese schools. And we wonder why Malaysia isn’t racially integrated?

- Today’s paper had AB giving HIMSELF a favourable report on his performance since the last GE. No kidding.

- A bit old, but I really had a laugh last week over how the MSM was trying so hard to spin for AB. One day they were saying how much the PM has improved our economy, quoting the Second Finance Minister saying that our GDP increased by 55% (yes, 55%. Don’t waste time trying to find this story in an international paper though):

“If we compare in terms of US dollar, the per capita income has risen by 55% due to the depreciation of the dollar against the ringgit.

“The Barisan Nasional Government is confident that we will get the people’s mandate again based on the improved economic resilience.

Two days later, they ran an article trying to spin how Malaysians only care about the economy, not about govt leadership:

“People are concerned over the rising prices of basic necessities and the high cost of living, especially with the looming global oil prices.

Comedy gold. ( I must take this opportunity to state that I don’t actually buy The Star, I get it from my mom’s office ).

Misc Stuff:

- If you haven’t heard yet, the Sun is being bought out. An obvious ploy to snuff out the only paper where the journalists haven’t prostituted themselves to the govt. If you haven’t taken out a Malaysiakini sub yet, you’re an idiot. Freedom of speech under Pak Lah my ass.

- Almost all my old schoolmates aren’t registered voters. Good at complaining though.
-
- A little bird told me that the PFS Board of Governors is suing the current HM of PFS.

2.30 am already! This is why I don’t blog as often, Malaysia is just full of so much crap. Ta.

Popularity: 17% [?]

What I realize from the Chua Soi Lek scandal is how immature Malaysians are when it comes to sex. He hit the nail on the head when he commented that Malaysians “have a holier-than-thou attitude“; the same attitude that sells those Malay tabloids you see on newsstands which are filled with nothing more than sex scandals and celebrity gossip.

At the end of the day we elect ministers to do their jobs and to serve the rakyat. I’m not exactly the most ardent MCA supporter, but from most accounts he has done his job and done it well. His extra-marital activities don’t affect any of us; only his family, who have accepted his apology. Judging from an accompanying insert in the Star, our so-called “Asian values” don’t include forgiveness.

Ironic, isn’t it? Within days of it being highlighted in the papers, he steps up to clearly admit and take all responsibility, and resigns. 20+ years of public service down the drain. He even states that there is unimportant who took the video clip (but come on lah, this is Malaysia). Meanwhile, issues like the judiciary scandal, the AP scandal, Hindraf, and the myriad cases of public fund mismanagement - all of which affect the rakyat in major ways see people falling over themselves to blame someone else and no one getting the boot.

On a lighter note, four cameras? You have to admit that his enemies are thorough. And isn’t the Star’s front page today misleading?

Popularity: 19% [?]

I don’t think I’m alone when I say I’m not at all proud of our looming foray into angkasa. Would we be as proud of Datuk Azhar had he “sailed around the world” in a Russian cruise ship?

The papers have dramatized the selection of the first angkasawan as well as “rebutting” claims that they are space tourists. A writer from the Star even went so far as to claim that we would be adding to the celebrations of Man’s first trip into space 50 years back, along with other inanities:

The adventures of our Angkasawan will not only add to the celebrations of the country’s 50 years of nationhood but also man’s golden anniversary in space.

…

Many jokes have been made about the Angkasawan bringing Malaysian food to space but that simple act will enable local scientists to determine how well our local food travel in a vacuum.

No other country is going to carry out such a task for you and this research can enable exporters of our foodstuff to come out with different packing.

Ever wondered why satay in London does not taste as good as that in Kajang. Our Angkasawan may bring back the answer and further research may ensure that the taste stays the same in the future.

But I thought vacuum packaging had been discovered decades ago!

The simple fact is that we are space tourists. This has been known since last year. The decision of which tourist to send up was already known then (they chose the model). Wikipedia has already added an entry for us in their list of space tourists!

So no, tomorrow I won’t be cheering as we send a tourist into space.

Popularity: 15% [?]

What is it about religion that makes it seem impervious to scrutiny? In many conflicts in the world today: Palestine/Israel, Ireland, Thailand, Iraq, Pakistan, Darfur, etc, a lot of awareness is raised of the violation of civil rights, women’s rights and needless deaths - but you’ll hardly ever catch people criticizing religion. And while none of these conflicts stem wholly from religion alone, when you tiptoe around it or dismiss it as “personal beliefs” or “sensitive” you’re ignoring the elephant in the room.

Take Elizabeth Wong’s post (and I wanna make clear I love her blog) on the Lina Joy case :

To kill two birds with one stone is to have the majority view advocate for jurisdiction be placed in the realm the Syariah court, and the dissenting view aim at satisfying the detractors.

This is, after all, an election year.
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There were no winners on Wednesday morning, unless we include the Islamophobes who gained an additional dart or two.

Many are saying the Lina Joy decision is a violation of civil rights, which guarantees freedom of religion. And it is, indeed. But few are pointing out that the verdict was hardly political, or what the verdict means. The two Muslim judges voted to reject her appeal, with the non-Muslim judge the sole dissenter. There were hundreds of youths outside the courtroom shouting Allah-o-Akhbar (God is great). The motivation behind the decision isn’t rocket science.

And the reason the Lina verdict is devastating is not just because she is denied freedom of religion - indeed, I think that it is obvious even to the judges that you can’t control what people think or feel - it is because that to officially deconvert, she will have to go through the Syariah court. Islam carries heavy penalties for apostates. In more fundamentalist countries, this means death or imprisonment; in Malaysia it means a jail term or “rehabilitation”.

But because religion is “sensitive” and a “personal choice”, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone willing to point out that the root of the problem is how Islam handles apostasy. And so time and time again we get trampled by the elephant in the room.

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Unless you’re completely clueless about theology, you’ll know what Pascal’s Wager is: A “gamble” whether to believe in the existence of God.

It states that

1. If God doesn’t exist:
   • Not believing in God will gain you no additional benefit (negligible gain)
   • Believing in God would lose you nothing (negligible loss)
2. If God does exist:
   • Not believing in God means you will be sent to Hell (infinite penalty)
   • Believing in God means you will go to Heaven (infinite gain)

So the natural choice is to believe in God. Seems like a pretty solid argument - to a seven-year-old.

We’ll never know whether Pascal was just being tongue-in-cheek with this proposal. But if you ever hear a religious “apologist” invoking Pascal’s Wager, it’s a sure sign that either his arguments are weak, or he’s out of touch with the world. The deficiencies of the Wager are immediately obvious.

More than one way

There are myriad religions in the world. This was true centuries ago and still is. When you factor in the possibilities of every god existing - Thor, Jupiter, Krishna, Allah, etc; and the fact that most religions will punish you for believing in other gods, then blindly making the Wager will considerably shorten your odds.

This also doesn’t take into account religions that don’t have a deity (Buddhism). It also assumes that all religions send nonbelievers to Hell - which is not the case (Judaism).

It doesn’t consider that if your life is indeed all you have, then spending your time and effort on a false religion wastes it.

And more damningly, it assumes that belief - even blind belief will get you into Heaven.

Blind faith

Pascal’s Wager plays on one of our most basic fears - the fear of death. It strips from religion any pretense of humanity and reason; basically demanding “believe, or die”.

Deathbed conversions are a prime example. One wonders how a such “conversion” can be real - surely a person should die as (s)he lived. I hear stories of families saying, with relief, “Oh, we told him to nod his head if he accepts God, and he did. Praise God!”

This cheapens both man and religion. If one can get religion just by paying lip service (or in this case, by nodding your head) only when there is nothing to lose; without ever pondering over its validity, its doctrines, or its historicity; without ever spending any effort on it; then it’s safe to say that the patient would have “accepted” whatever religion thrust at him. If he was unfortunate enough to have relatives of differing religions than I pity the poor thing. Or who knows, the patient could have been saying “Yes, whatever, stop annoying me!”

And you wonder who the conversion was meant to benefit - the “convert”, or the people doing the converting, to give them peace of mind.

To a lesser extent this applies to some who convert only after a near death encounter, where religion becomes the ultimate health insurance.

Belief is not a Choice

Can you “choose” to believe, like the Wager says? Can you “choose” to believe in Santa Claus, or “choose” to disbelieve in gravity? If I pointed a gun to your head and asked you to “believe” that my religion is true, and you said yes, does it mean you believe? If, like in Indonesia, the state rules that it is a crime not to “believe” in a religion, does that mean that Indonesia is the most religious country in the world?

We can never “choose” to believe - for anything worth believing in, it is not lip service or self-delusion that determines belief, but whether we accept the premises and rationale behind it.

Later today, the Federal Court will pass judgement on the Lina Joy case. This is about more than religious freedom - it is about your very right to think for yourself. She needs “certification” from the Syariah Court to renounce Islam. A New York Times article quotes a senior fellow at the Institue of Islamic Understanding saying that “If Islam were to grant permission for Muslims to change religion at will, it would imply it has no dignity, no self-esteem”.

If religion is automatic, then surely heaven will be filled to the brim! In fact, I’d say that if Islam were to force “Muslims” to “believe”, when they so obviously don’t, it is that which implies that Islam has no dignity, no self-esteem! Anyone wanna place a wager on the outcome?

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