Death by law

I'm rather suprised at the chorus of outrage and disbelief that has greeted the vicious attack on Chang Jiun Haur. Not that outrage isn't the right response for what happened. Even when attacked, it is the responsibility of the police to uphold the law. That means using minimal violence, sufficient to restrain, no more. There is no possible way that the police can claim the use of legitimate violence. The ludicrous attempt to claim that the four occupants of the car were involved in 'attempted murder' is just that - ludicrous.

What suprises me is the disbelief, the suprise that our police officers could be capable of such brutality. The disbelief has to be the result of a fairly wilful refusal to look and see what our officers (or some of our officers, let's not forget that there are good cops, and that they have a difficult time) have been doing for some time.

Even if we forget the 'small fry', the obviously overlookable detritus of society that we seem to think can be deprived of human rights because they are foreign or because they are poor, there are plenty of high profile cases that should have warned us of the nature of our cops. Top of the list, of course, is that a convicted thug was head of the police force for five years. Lest we forget, the judge who read out the conviction said "His action was inhuman. This is the worst act of indiscipline". He got a grand total of two months' imprisonment - and after his release, there were a slew of sympathetic news stories about how he was a 'broken' man.

Police officers have testified that they have seen other officers with detainees who were naked, and thought nothing of it (the officer in question was later found guilty of rape). There have been students, doctors and engineers who have complained of police brutality. At public assemblies, police have repeatedly been found guilty by the Human Rights Commission of using excessive force. Yet I can think of not a single incident where a police officer was charged.

Is it that suprising that the police behave with impunity? Is it that suprising that they think they can assault a young man and get away with it? Why should this case be any different?

The real world

Apologies for the long hiatus. I think I was getting unemployment blues, falling ill to every small germ that I perceived to be hanging around. These blues no longer linger. I am, once more, an officially productive member of society. I am working in basically, a call centre. While the work was quite interesting for the first few days, it is excrutiatingly dull now - largely because the sector I'm working for had been inundated with work, so went overboard and employed three casual workers where one was necessary.

It is, however, interesting in some ways to be at the bottom of the employment pile (in terms of office employment). The assumption is, of course, that I have barely scraped through secondary education, and am bereft of any intelligence. There are people who treat you as barely human, those who feel that it isn't worth wasting their time on you (to be fair, probably the category I fall into in the reverse situation) and the few who judge you on how they find you. And it seems to be that the higher up the pecking order, the more likely you are to judge on ability, not appearance - the most judgemental of all being one of my 'equals'.

Hm. Maybe I'm just bitching.... but I'm generally really glad to be back at work. All that stuff that lefties spout about ppl, generally, wanting to work has a fairly solid basis!

Stiiiillll, if anyone knows anyone who can offer me job in academia, I'd be very grateful!

Another NS death

My youngest sister has been chosen to go for National Service. It worries me. But I was worried about the National Service scheme from the first day it opened, if not before.

The cavalier attitude that was taken from the first with our children astounded and still astounds me. The buildings hadn't been finished, there was a strangely relaxed attitude to the recruitment of staff and even the programmes seemed a bit half-arsed. The argument was that they didn't have time... so rather than delay the precious programme, they decided to go ahead, regardless of the harm it did the kids.

It worries me that these decisions were signed off on by those who are still the leaders of our country. It worries me that they are still the ones in charge of the NS programme. It worries me that there is no transparency on what happens in the camps, or how it happens. And I am exceedingly relieved that my sister is studying overseas, so postponing (hopefully till the programme is dissolved) her recruitment to boot camp.

Illness and work rights

I've not been well. I don't like the cold. I don't like the heater. And my head seems to hurt all the time. BUT I do at last have the right to work here in Melbourne, so have started job hunting, and things are looking vague but promising.

One of the more interesting discoveries is the homophobic policies of Exabytes.com, who, I was reliably informed, have taken down the Ben's Bitches (www.bensbitches.com) site because it is on the Disarseter Records site which also hosts the Panda Head Curry (?) site *and* PHC have lyrics in one of their songs that touches on the issue of homosexuality.

The lyrics include the concern, for example, facing every young male, that if you ride on the LRT you are obviously gay because it is phallic. The song warns homosexuals not to go near the singer or he'll be mean to them. Or somesuch. But such is the level of homophobia at Exabytes that they've taken it down. The most ludicrous thing about this is that they've taken it down on the basis that the lyrics were somehow *adult* content, rather then puerile nonsense. Ah well.

Biking in Bright

Just had a wonderful weekend away, my first cycling holiday . It may not, and really isn't, sound impressive to the ardent cyclist, but I managed about 25km in an afternoon. I'm proud of myself.

Free health service

I received an appeal yesterday for funds for a friend who needs chemotherapy. The total bill comes to about RM30,000 for six sessions of chemo.

When I visited the Publications and Al-Quran Texts Control Department of the Internal Security Ministry in Putrajaya, I counted approximately 30 staff employed to censor reading materials. I don't know how many more are employed in departments elsewhere across the country, or the numbers employed in broadcast, film and audio censorship.

How much are we prepared to pay to help sustain life in Malaysia? I wonder what the comparative costs of maintaining the death penalty, of maintaining censorship, of employing people to spy and monitor the behaviour of fellow Malaysians engaged in political action is, in comparison to the amount spent on our public health services.

We are rich enough to give away land in Johor for the construction of amusement parks, but not rich enough to adequately fund our health service. Perhaps we should restructure our priorities before restructuring anything else.

Living rough

Last night, on the way to my Bollywood dance class (!), there was a woman crying in the middle of the street. She was drunk, she was cold, and she was extraordinarily skinny.

When I sat next to her, she was murmuring that she had been brought up to be strong. She has been suffering ten years of domestic violence, her kids aren't with her, and she feels a failure. She's survived heroin addiction, but still can't seem to make life work for her. She wants to have girl friends that she can talk to and confide in, but I suspect she makes it hard work, having been hurt, she's inevitably suspicious.

She said she'd been turned away from women's shelters, they were all full. In the end the police came, her (abusive?) partner came, and she went off with him. She'd told me that she was worried that if she stayed with him, she wouldn't last two months. But she was more scared of the police than she was of him.

What can be done? I do think society has a responsibility, but how can it be fulfilled? Certainly not the way it was handled last night - the cops know her, know she's trouble and are just waiting for her to mess up once more.

There seems to be no support for these women, hardly any community support, no structures, nowhere for them to stay, nowhere they can go. It's a terrible indictment on this society - and I wonder how well we'd fare by comparison in Malaysia....

Wings of Desire

Dorian and I watched 'Wings of Desire', the original German movie behind 'City of Angels'. It was remarkable how Hollywood could take such a nuanced film of the joy and fragility of life, set against horror and tragedy, and turn it into a sentimental love story. A good sentimental love story, but with as much depth as your average puddle.

I was talking at the shop today with a sales assistant, about kids and the dangers facing them as they grow up. She seemed to think that one of the main problems is a lack of discipline, that kids just aren't disciplined either by teachers or parents the way they should be. The papers seem to back her up - the dangers of treating children like 'little adults'. Hm. I wonder. Personally, I've never gone for the disciplinarian approach, either as a lecturer or as a bossy elder sister. I've gone for the idea that children (and young adults) are 'little adults'. This doesn't mean they should be exposed to all the nastiness of the world, or that there aren't things that are beyond their understanding - though I did explain basic atomic theory to my youngest sister when she was about three. She seemed to grasp the basics.

What it means is that I've always (tried to anyway) treated children with the respect I'd treat an adult - explaining why things are not right and so on. Whether I'll manage this when I'm a parent remains to be seen - but I think that the problem is not that we're treating our children like adults. I think the problem - as exemplified in 'City of Angels' vs 'Wings of Desire' - is that adults are treated as though they are children, unable to cope with anything deeper than sentimentality and/ or violence. Hardly suprising, if this is all that we're expected to be capable of, that we fail to pass on any meaningful values to our kids.

Yes, this is another rant against the commercialisation of the media, and the dumbing down of the populace. But at least I managed to smuggle *some* personal details about what I'm doing in here .

The joys of exercise

No, I am serious. I went for a proper cycle this morning and I feel great. Which reminded me of a caller to the Talk Back with Attitude show on 3CR last week. They were saying that rather than pumping money into a public dental service, the Government in Victoria should make toothbrushes, toothpaste and similar dental care essentials free (fancy stuff you pay for!).

I don't think this is a bad idea - but I don't see why it should be restricted to dental care. Public gyms and other health care activities help to make society healthier - and are probably more cost effective than large anti-smoking campaigns.... oh, and free tampons too, please!

Malay unity

Once again the clarion call goes up - at least it wasn't from a politician this time.

The Malays, we are told, must stay united. It makes me wonder... why? Who gains from unity, what is the benefit? After all, the ruling ethos of democratic Malaysia is one of market supremacy. And the fundamental principle behind that is that competition rather than cooperation is the way to go. Hard to compete when there's unity. Thus we are privatising our essential services, to help foster competition, in other words creating DISunity.

La la.

Protecting our people

Last week a few Malaysian activists were arrested in Indonesia. They had been there as part of an international 'Save Our Rice' campaign, trying to encourage support for small rice farmers, rather than for genetically modified, pesticide-intensive large scale rice farming, as a solution to current and potential rice crises.

It wasn't only Malaysian activists that were arrested. But the reactions of the Malaysian and Filipino embassies showed a stark contrast. For the Filipinos, the main concern seemed to be the health, well-being and release of the activists. For the Malaysian embassy, there seemed to be no concern at all.

Even if a Malaysian is arrested for murder, it is the duty of the consulate, the embassy, to provide support and assistance. Because the person arrested (under both Malaysian and Indonesian law) is innocent until proven otherwise. This courtesy, this duty of care extends as much to activists as it does to those accused of actual crimes.

Perhaps if we're trying to build a people-centred democracy, this is an area where reform could be undertaken quickly and comparatively painlessly - in the support offered to Malaysians by their embassies when overseas.

Visit www.pan-ap.net for more info on the arrests, the campaign and outcomes.

Practical things to stop the Kelau dam

Presuming that my last post had some resonance with you, you may want to take action. Obviously, the first thing to do is write to your MP, your State ADUN and to the newspapers, television or radio shows to say 'you're gonna do WHAT?', and express your concern. Make sure you check out the COAC website first, or take a look at the SOS Selangor website, or both, so that you know what you're talking about!

It would be good if, when writing, you could also list things that you personally have done to help cut water consumption. Some ideas:
a. Collect rainwater for watering plants, cleaning cars, mopping floors and the like
b. Get a small plastic bottle (like a small mineral water bottle). Fill it with water, and stick it in your toilet cistern. It saves that amount of water with each flush - and you'll find there'll still be plenty in the cistern for your number two's! Do the same at your office, give decorated bottles to your friends, became a toilet cistern fanatic!
c. Turn off the taps - when cleaning your teeth, when soaping up in the shower, when lathering the shampoo. Whenever you can, save that water!
d. Report leaks - in my experience PUAS is a lot more efficient now that it was a few years back, help them cut water consumption too.
e. Fix leaks in your own home. Stopping a dripping tap by fixing the O-ring is a simple job (just Google it and I'm sure you can do it yourself), and then you get that warm glow of having done your own fixing and mending.
f. Tell others (particularly restaurants!) to turn off their taps too....

Doing this, and then being sanctimonious about it, helps spread the message! Be a saint, then tell the papers, MPs, ADUNs, radio stations etc etc....

Kelau

How much water does the Klang Valley need, and how much are we prepared to pay for it?

The last stats I had (2001), the amount of water consumed per person (including industrial use and leakage and all the rest) was 525 litres. In Melbourne, they use less than 400 litres per person. According to the authorities, as expressed in their EIAs for the Kelau dam, this amount is NOT expected to decrease - not absolutely but not per person either. It is, in fact, going to GO UP. This is despite attempts to repair leaks, and all the rest of it.

Let us pretend for a moment that this is true. That in order to lead a decent life in the Klang Valley, you, personally need, say, 500 litres of water.

The question then becomes, how much are you willing to pay for it? Do you think that for your car washings, and twenty showers a day, and leaving the taps on while you brush your teeth, that it is worth evicting others from their homes? From their traditional lands? Desecrating their graves and sacred sites? And do this FORCIBLY? Not offering them the right to negotiate their own terms, but telling them, take what you're offered and basically keep quiet?

Because it really really doesn't have to be this way. Even if, even if we say that we in the Klang Valley are desperate. We NEED to have the water. It has to be done. There is still the possibility of entering into an agreement with those who are kindly making way for our 'needs', with the indigenous people of the area. We don't go in, plans in hand.

The first step would be to humbly and with full knowledge of customs, constraints and potential problems (by both the affected people we are asking to move for our benefit and the negotiators) to ask the people 'what would you like, to give up this land'. That's the way it works in business, ain't it?

The second would, um, be to give it to them. Think about what it would take for you, you personally, to give up your land, your livelihood, your graves, and to some inevitable extent your culture (because it is tied to specific sites). You're giving up tens of thousands of years of site-specific information, rendering the equivalent of PhDs of years of study practically worthless.

And if you think that no price would be sufficient, why is it that you're prepared to countenance that for other people? Just because they're Orang Asli?

And why should they be prepared with what the EIA's supplementary documents acknowledge to be an uncertain, harsh and inadequate livelihood (oil palm smallholdings), when they have given up... most everything.

Visit www.coac.org to make a difference.

New hope for Doha?

It seems, according to some of the Melbourne newspapers, that there may yet be a round of free trade agreements that come out of Doha. These will, they say, help the world's poorest people. So, at least, the leaders say.

Now, in theory, free trade works well, at least the way it was taught in uni. But there is a real problem with the way it was taught at uni - what free trade does is it increases the total amount of 'utility'. It doesn't say anything about how that utility is distributed. For the best outcomes, you need to start with a largely level playing field. And economics doesn't take power into account at all.

This isn't an easy issue, and it's easy for it to get really emotional - discussions about child labour, for example, often miss the point. There are different types of child labour - Jomo's book on child labour in Malaysia makes that clear. The work of kids in flour factories, where they can do nothing else, is fundamentally different from the apprenticeship children serve in a motor repair workshop, particularly if it is family-owned. The former denies them the right to education, to play, and to meaningful work prospects. The latter doesn't. It is often combined with formal education, as well as serving as a career path of its own, enabling the adult to follow open an independent business etc.

What robs children of their childhood is not child employment. This is a symptom of child poverty, excruciating in some instances. And this is what needs to be tackled.

It is the same with free trade. The problem is not free trade. The problem is imbalance of power, and in particular, money (not wealth, some of the poorest countries are some of the wealthiest in terms of natural resources). The current free trade system is not helping. It needs to be seriously revived - in the interests of all. Because the economist's arguments about protectionism are sound, to some degree - driven a Proton lately?

But they should only have force in as far as they've shown themselves able to fulfill their promises, particularly the promises that they make to the poorest, the worst off. And right now, they're failing badly.

Tackling serious crime...

The police force, it seems, is finally ready to crack down on serious crime. They're starting this crackdown with (shock!) yet another crackdown on 'illegal immigrants'.

This is, because, they say that illegal immigrants are involved in 'a lot' of serious crime. Such as murder. Now, I remember seeing statistics a few years back when we had another 'argh they're out there' scare - foreigners attacking our way of life. And in terms of crime, foreigners were under-represented in convictions. The stats I found today only had the number of prisoners - around 40% were foreigners in 2003, but that includes those who are in detention camps for illegal migrant workers which pushes up the number tremendously.

Illegal immigrants, or preferably, undocumented migrant workers tend to be among the worst off in any society. They have no protection against exploitation and abuse, they tend to have to work on daily rates of pay with no job security, and the last thing they want is the police on their backs. Yes, they operate outside the law (but, according to a lot of the undocumented workers, so do the police who harass them). This doesn't make them violent or evil. It tends to make them desperate.

If we are serious about tackling the crime that involves undocumented workers, we could try having more humane policies. First off would be signed the UN convention on refugees. At one sweep, this would help 10s of thousands of undocumented refugees. I know one case where an engineer and his family are living on their life savings, which are almost exhausted. They have been granted refugee status, but desperately need a country to take them. They haven't resorted to crime, but are in the unenviable state of being reliant on the goodwill of others - for a place to live, for medical care. They are just one family among many. I'm amazed how many refugees and other undocumented workers resist the temptation of petty crime. It must require huge will power. After all, they're already on the wrong side of the law... going to jail isn't really a deterrent, they're faced with that every day anyhow.

Second would be stronger protections for migrant workers, and more transparent processes on visas, stronger penalties for agents who abuse migrant workers... a whole host of recommendations that human rights and workers' organisations have been recommending for years. Refugees are just one category of 'illegal' workers. There are those who came over knowing it was against the immigration laws, and there were those who came over because they were tricked into coming. Either way, they face the same problems.

Third, and this has been discussed by the Government, could we have some laws to protect those who are actively trafficked, please?

Though, to be honest, none of these is the ultimate change that we need. Ultimately, the problem lies in an economic disparity. We have free movement of capital, but we don't have free movement of labour. If people could come and go as they wished, it would have beneficial impacts all round. People who have to undergo lengthy migratory regulations etc are more likely to engage in fraud, to want to move to the country they go to, more likely to be exploited etc. Probably not a move Malaysia is going to make unilaterally, but one we really should be discussing....

PS... Came across an interesting related statistic, we have the highest number of jails (in absolute terms) of any of 62 nations surveyed by NationMaster - and 5th in terms of jails per capita. It works out at about one jail per thousand people.

Corruption

The disappearance of papers from the Penang State Government building leads me to some very unsavoury conclusions.

If all had been well within the hallowed halls of government, the former state government should have left all in good order. It is one of the hallmarks of both good governance and good grace (though maybe this is where the other state ADUNs were when Lim Guan Eng was being sworn in as CM!). IF you have faith in your own abilities, there is no need to sabotage the new government - they will do a good enough job without your help.

But if you lack confidence in what you did, or worse still, if you deliberately misled, deceived or abused the public and their trust, you would want to hide the evidence.

Which is why it is a shame we don't seem to have great laws on corruption. Now, I'm no ACA expert, and I don't understand all the definitions of corruption - but it seems to me that it is possible that a contract could be legally granted, without pay-offs, bribes or other overt methods of corruption, without being in the public interest.

In the Philippines, they account for this. Alongside extensive definitions of what constitutes proper procedure for the awarding of contracts, freedom of information legislation and a comparatively free media, they include in their definition of corruption signing a contract or award that grossly or manifestly disadvantages the Government. I can think of whole swathes of contracts (privatisation awards in particular) which have this trait.

Until we can declare that such a contract - one that is grossly to OUR, the people's, disadvantage - is a sign of corruption, and therefore null and void, all our Governments seem to be likely to be locked into deals that prevent them from serving the public interest, and instead serving private purses.

Ooo, the excitement

So we have new governments in some states. What difference is it going to make?

Well one factor is going to be how far the new governments - including those of Perlis and possibly Terengganu - can show independence from the Federal Government. It's interesting that a key debate is centring on the choice of MB - whether the PM's choice or the Sultan's. It shows the slavishness of UMNO's candidates and members that the PM is considered to have paramount power to appoint a MB, regardless of the wishes of State legislative members (as in the case of Perlis).

Looking at other Federal systems, it is clear that at the State level, it is possible for the party to act (to some extent) independently of the Federal level party. Obviously, there are areas where both should be expected to act in concert. But surely, in choice of leadership, the role is for the elected State representatives, not for either PM or Sultan? This is why Terengganu is particularly interesting - it follows none of these models. It would appear the Idris has the support of the majority of his fellow ADUNs (22 out of 34). Yet the Sultan is refusing to appoint him MB. Any alternative would be almost by definition a lame duck Minister.

What, I wonder, does the public in Terengganu make of all this? Do they wish Idris or Ahmad to lead their state into the next decade? Or do they feel, as those who stopped the buses entering into the state presumably feel, that their voices are muted and irrelevant? That perhaps their votes haven't been reflected in the make-up of the State legislature and whether Peter or PAul is chosen by the Sultan, neither reflects the choice of either ADUNs or rakyat. Idle speculation I'm sure - but I can tell you that if I was an UMNO supporter in Teregganu, I would be seriously annoyed at the Sultan's actions. Unless, unlesss... weird how we've seen no UMNO Youth rallies of support for Idris, when they've been so quick to act elsewhere. Speculation, speculation.

This was going to be a post on corruption... but that can wait till I get my books in front of me... Till then.

More details: The wedding

For friends that missed my wedding, first off, don't worry! We'll be having a ceremony/ party in KL next year, hopefully around July.
In typical Sonia-fashion, things were a little topsy-turvy, and rather last minute. We had problems booking a venue - having tried various places that seemed incapable of returning phone calls/ sending menus/ keeping appointments, the whole schebang. We finally settled on Dante's, a restaurant on Gertrude Street. I'm afraid I can't tell you much about the food - what I had was good, but I just didn't seem to get anything!

We had about 50 people, so it was fairly small by Malaysian standards, but large by Aussie ones, and it included various people I hadn't met before. My mum, R (the best man), D and of course me all gave speeches. There was dancing until the end of the night (with friends, D and me making up the hard core!), and a small soiree of the hardcore dancers afterwards - minus sis, who had made a less than graceful exit!

The room was decorated in a theme inspired by 1920s Shanghai - a lovely tacky purple door curtain, fake cherry blossom on the walls and tables, a few posters of seductive Chinese girls touting products... (thanks Mum!) combined with more traditional red Chinese lanterns, 'double happiness' symbols and other wedding paraphernalia (thanks J!).

There was also, perhaps inevitably, some last minute panic - needing to make alterations to my dress, finding that the amazing wedding cake would only JUST fit into the car (!), and there being an event in the room at Dantes that afternoon (we had thought it would be empty from Friday afternoon).... but all was smoothed and sorted.

On Monday, we had the wedding itself. As a wedding present,some friends had given as a night at the Adelphi, a hotel in Melbourne. This was convenient, not least because D could go and change there, while I got ready at home. It also led to me being concerned about him making it to the Registry on time! My mum, sis and I arrived first, then the groom and others arrived together.

Again, there were a few things that didn't quite work out - I couldn't make an entrance to 'Here Comes The Sun', as we couldn't plug Sharon's iPod in to the sound system, so we had to make some last minute choices from the Registry's CD collection. NO, we did not choose any of the 569 Celine Dion songs that were on offer! Half of these, if not more, were versions of that Titanic song. Pah. Not sure what it was in the end we did have, but not quite at upbeat as what we'd wanted... then actually got married to some nice Chinese flute music.

Friends who are interested can get in touch with my mum for a copy of the order of service - we wrote our own vows, with D doing the design n layout of the souvenir leaflet thing. After the wedding, we went to a small bar for drinks, then we bid goodbye to the guests and went off to the hotel.

And after that, boys and girls, the shutters go down for the night :P

And what gives you the right?

It's been a momentous while since I updated the blog. Apart from the earth-changing events of my marriage and ill-timed honeymoon, I understand there have been a few changes in the Malaysian political landscape .

It is the right time for all those who wish to say 'I told you so', to do so - I do stand by my earlier comments on flawed electoral systems, but gleefully admit I was wrong about the 2/3 majority being unshakeable.

One person who doesn't seem to get it at all, though, is Dr Mahathir.

I am fed up with his 'I chose the wrong person', 'You were supposed to step down' carping on.

He doesn't seem to realise that his mistake was NOT in choosing the wrong person. It was in thinking that he had the right to choose in the first place. Yes, yes, he had the power to choose - due to manipulation of the UMNO electoral system. But power and right are not the same thing.

Dr Mahathir is still labouring under his most precious delusion - that he and he alone knew how to govern the country. And that he, and he alone, could choose his successor. If he hadn't been so arrogant, perhaps the people would have chosen wiser, and possibly sooner as well.

So the wedding bells chimed

On Saturday night, D and I held our wedding reception, and yesterday we actually got married. Some people say this was tempting fate, others sigh and resign themselves to the idea that we enjoy doing things topsy-turvy.

There are photos available, so I'll try and post some soon... but generally a good time was had by all, much was eaten, much was drunk, and there were many murmurs of something that through the haze of wine and other alcohol could be interpreted as interpretation of the fake cherry blossom adorning the walls.

These electoral days...

It was fun watching the Aussie elections. I think my favourite comment, however, came afterwards, when the business community expressed their concern that the Rudd government would keep its electoral promises. The premise being that promises are merely for getting elected, when the election starts, the real business of ruling begins.

After all, Rudd and his friends have got five years before they need to defend themselves at the polls. It's a long time between now and then, and if they break their promises, what can the electorate do? Very, very little. As Howard showed, repeatedly.

In Malaysia, we've refined this process. Rather than having the Government make promises that they won't keep, our politicians, at least publicly, seem to not bother making them. The headline of the manifesto for BN, 'Security, Peace, Prosperity' says it all to me.

Let's take security. Why is security a problem? Or is this a crime issue? Ah, and well, we've seen the BN track record there... After all, has crime or has crime not grown under this, and the last, regime? Have they shown their ability to tackle it? And yet, they want us to elect them on their track record...

Peace? Are we about to be invaded? Are there troops poised on the border? If not, why is peace a problem?Whoops, silly me. We're talking about INTERNAL conflict. One again has to wonder why this hasn't been addressed sufficiently over the last 50 years.

Prosperity. Hm. For who? We've seen, as the manifesto says, 6.3% in 2007. Doesn't mention decreasing income gaps (maybe cos they aren't decreasing), but forgetting that, obviously minor, point, how much of this has been eaten away in inflation? Whoops, I"m obviously getting old. Inflation isn't a problem! The price of ordinary goods may be going up, but inflation isn't. I can't help wondering what the 'basket of goods' used to calculate this inflation index is - the percentage of imported goods, that would help to keep the official inflation rate down, while reflecting the fact that cost of living, for those living on imported goods, isn't rising. While for those who shop in non-air-conditioned markets, prices keep going up.

There are, of course, some specific promises in this 5plus MegaByte document (along with all those memory-heavy pix that mean that on your average Streamyx connection, you're probably still waiting for it to download). Eradication of hardcore poverty, for example... which is easy. You just keep the definitions static, and wait till inflation (or hunger) eradicate poverty. There are figures given about the decrease in hard-core poverty - which look great, until you look more closely. Last time I looked closely, the decreasing percentage of hard-core poor masked a *rise* in the absolute numbers, covered by the increasing size of the population.

So we have promises. What we don't have is:
a. Information. BN can tell us all it has done, but without freedom of information and the power to look into the public archives, we have to rely on them to tell them the truth of their achievements.

b. A free media. We don't have people who can ask the hard questions for us, and then publish them, or better yet broadcast them. Until then, we can't trust figures, either numerical or biological.

c. Freedom to discuss. The ISA sees to that.

d. Freedom to learn. UUCA.

e. Freedom to vote - which follows from the others.

So, again, I wouldn't bother. I hate being the party pooper - but without the first, the last isn't going to happen. ANd given how our electoral system basically guarantees a BN victory - all voting achieves is to strengthen the status quo, to allow BN to say, 'we have a mandate'. Make your vote mean something. Bin it.

A different version...

A slightly different version of my monthly Sun column...

Keeping the slaves in check

A partial review of James C Scott 'Domination and the arts of resistance'

By Sonia Randhawa

Keeping subjugated populations under control is not easy. Imagine being the sole white family, overseeing a couple of hundred black slaves on a West Indies cotton plantation. Sheer force would never be enough to keep control – you could be overpowered at any time by those you 'owned'. A whole panoply of devices, devices that monitor the lives of the slaves at any and every point of time, have to be employed.

Control begins the moment a slave is born. In their own interest, their parents teach them to 'yes massa, no massa', to keep their heads down and only say what their masters want to hear. There are two ways of seeing this. It could be an astute strategy for survival, or it could be internalised inferiority. It could, of course, be both.

James C Scott has explored the way in which subjugated societies deal with subjugation, through contrasting 'hidden' and 'public' transcripts, exploring a range of societies from colonised Burma, to Malay peasants, Black slaves and rural serfs and tenant farmers in Europe. He finds that there are common themes running through methods of both domination and subjugation, for example that people feel humiliation and denigration as keenly as they feel physical assault. And that rulers rely on abjection and apology as much as they do the exercise of violence, in order to retain control.

One of the themes running through his analysis of the dominant classes is the fear of organisation by the subjugated masses. In the eyes of the dominant, there should be no horizontal links between their slaves or serfs. The slaves and serfs should only be linked through their master. This translated into concerns about slaves and serfs coming together, even for authorised festivals and religious services. For example, in the Southern United States, it was illegal for five blacks to come together without a white present. They were forbidden from holding religious services outside officially sanctioned ceremonies and times, and even then all sermons had to be officially sanctioned, with a white pastor present.

This was not, according to Scott, paranoia, it was completely justified. There were, again, various facets to this. First, there was the public display of the ability to organise. If the slaves could organise, it showed intelligence and ability, a public rebuttal to the assumption of ignorance and stupidity.

Second, there was the justified concern that if they started to talk, they would start to organise, and for activities other than praise of God.

This was not just a concern about rebellion, it was also concern about public ridicule, the sharing of information that might make the 'master' seem human, prone to foibles and capable of making mistakes. If they were openly seen as human – whether this was overly cruel, overly kind or just fallible – it could incite rebellion.

I find it amusing the irony that this provokes. In order to disguise their intelligence, while still expressing their resentment, still forming relationships and engaging in the activities that make us all human, the repressed have to use more intelligence, double entendre and sophisticated imagery and wordplay to hide their intentions to the oppressor while making the intentions clear to the oppressed. The most extreme example of this was the development of an entirely female language by women in Hunan, taking to great lengths the almost universal differences between the language of men and women. However, we can still see this today. During the year that the Nepalese king assumed complete power, broadcasters in the mountain kingdom were banned from reading the news. So they sang it instead. They weren't allowed to use the names of political parties, so they talked about symbols representing political parties. They weren't allowed to call for the king's removal for power, so they talked about the need to 'change your socks'!

A key lesson that Scott teaches us in his book is that autocratic power always incites rebellion. The further below the surface that the rebellion has to hide, the more likely it is that it explodes in violence, the more it engenders fear, the more it causes both the dictator and the dictated to be confined into roles and masks.

Note: James C Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, Yale University Press, 1990

GerakSikh

GerakSikh is an organisation set up to try and persuade young Sikhs to vote. I still can't work out how this works...

Tan Sri: You should vote!
Young Sikh: Why?
TS: It's important!
YS: Why?
TS: Because it's your chance to have a say in how the country is run.
YS: How does that work?
TS: Well, you cast a vote for the party that you think is best to govern the country...
YS: Hold on, but I don't want them to just govern the country, I want them to listen to my say on how the country should be governed... what if I vote for PArty X and they don't do what I want?
TS: THen you can change your vote in the next election!
YS: So, basically, I give someone the chance to govern this country, in my name, for five years, do what they like, and my only recourse is to NOT vote for them next time round?
TS: Well, yes.

YS: Okay, let's say I agree to this blank slate of power. How do I find out what the party in power has been up to...
TS: You read the papers.
YS: But all the papers are owned by the party in power....
TS: Ah. Yes. Well, you can go online.
YS: But we're told that all bloggers are liars, and how can I trust their information?
TS: Look at the Government websites!
YS: But they don't tell me anything.
TS: Ask your MP
YS: But when Samy Vellu was asked about Tamil schools, he refused to answer, and that was in PArliament!
TS: Well, that's his privilege....
YS: What are my privileges?

The young SIkh's only privilege is to put a little mark on a little slip of paper once every half decade. Sometimes more. In exchange, she gets to give the Government a percentage of her income in tax (but doesn't get to know how the money is spent), she gets to be arrested arbitrarily, is allowed to read censored news in the papers, and be subject to harassment if she starts dating someone from the 'wrong religion'. Ain't she just the luckiest person in the world to be born in a 'democracy'?

I say, boycott the elections. The Opposition may put up a good fight. But the system is so flawed that they need a stupidly huge majority just to cut the BN 2/3 majority. And most people are only given information through BN-controlled media, operating in a climate of fear.

In 1999, I helped to legitimise a BN majority. I voted. If I voted again, it would have the same result. With the guaranteed victory, despite barely scraping a majority of the vote, our PM (not this one, t'other one) went on to trample human rights, media freedom and the judiciary, as he had been doing before. And defending his actions by saying, oh but they voted for me.

I refuse to be a pawn of a system which conspires to make me legitimise the ISA, the PPPA, the Sedition Act. So I'm not voting. It is a political act, a refusal to allow the BN government to use my vote (either way) to say that the system is legitimate, that it must be fair because otherwise people wouldn't bother voting.

Why the gripe?

So last weekend, Dorian and I, with his brother Jimmy and sister-in-law Mickey, went to the St Kilda Festival. Now, I can't say I'm a fan. I think I'm just too old. And unimpressed by queues to toilets that go round the block. The music was good, but it was hot, and there seemed to be just too many drunken people around. Great if you like that kind of thing.

What really bugged me though, was the level of unnecessary rudeness. Maybe this is the Brit in me coming out, but this couple walked straight into me, stepped on my foot, and said 'We're not bloody apologising to YOU'. Which is merely indicative. In the UK festivals I went to, there seemed to be a lot more unnecessary hugs, washing of feet, smiling and general happiness. And giving away of money to nice people like Greenpeace and Oxfam...

My suspicion is that this isn't a UK-Australia difference. Nope, this is the effect of 11 years of neo-conservatism. The festivals I attended in the UK did come just after the Thatcher years, but I think the Howard years were like the Thatcher years on speed. This was no experiment, this was catch-up. And the people are all the more brutalised for it. Individualism, the demise of society, the rights of business (let's all hail Exxon-Mobil for refusing to give into those greedy Venezualans, making the world safe for poverty and want...).... none of this really seems designed to give you what some happy drunken sod in the UK claimed was 'the Glastonbury glow', even if the weather is better.

Or, of course you could just say I'm willing to blame the neo-cons for just about everything. Right down to some bastid standing on my foot and refusing to apologise.

More aches and pains....

While Drusilla and I appear to have reached some sort of truce, possibly aided by the fact that she's getting more exercise, Dorian's physical fortunes have taken a downward turn. He's torn a muscle in his calf. Which of course gives me a good excuse - if I needed one - to be bossy and authoritarian. He he. BUT he has overcome RMIT's administrative hurdles and been offered a place in their architecture school. Yay! He starts some time in March, which means we'll be quite tight money-wise until I get a job, but he'll still be working part-time, so all should be fine.

Politically, I'm bored by both the US and the Malaysian elections. I do support the Toni Kasim campaign, because I think that she is highlighting important issues. This has nothing, of course, to do with the high esteem I have for Toni, oh no, but is purely about the issues - but seeing as they're part of the reason I hold Toni in high esteem... yes, needlessly circular.

I'm spending more time thinking about the issue of land ownership. And genetically engineered mosquitos (coming to a hypermarket near you!). But one or other of these is likely to be the basis of my next Sun column, fingers crossed, so let's see.

My contribution to New Malaysian Essays 1 has been reviewed by Joe Toscano from the Anarchist Media Institute, and the review is generally nice. What's a bit wierd is how he sees so much censorship in my piece. A Malaysian reading it probably wouldn't see any at all. For myself, it means that I am so accustomed to writing within the parameters, even when trying to push them, that I'm no longer aware of it. I'm not sure how to assimilate this information... I shall mull on it for a while longer before deciding!

And I'm still working on the Pisco Project. Expect to hear more about Pisco, pissoirs and pissants soon!

Bells and all

As most of you (three) may have heard, Dorian and I are getting married, with the ceremony on 3 March, but the reception will be on 1 March.

More pertinently, I've got a friend who's helping to raise money for some rebuilding work in Pisco, Peru, following the earthquake there. For more information, visit here. They need money and they need it really quickly!

Cuts and bruises

Today was the first day for Drusilla (my vampire, blood-sucking bike) and I to encounter that great international phenomenon, RUSH HOUR. We both survived, but having got through that comparatively unscathed, I took her out for a spin down by the Yarra Bend park. Now for those of you in Malaysia, this is one of the delights of living in Abbotsford, a green stretch of parkland, with a real river (not those drains that run through central KL) running through the middle of it. We rode up to the bridge, but then I ignored the injunctions to *get off the bike* and continued riding. It was, quite literally, my downfall. So new scrapes and bruises, for once on my arms. My legs, at least, are relieved.

Helped out at 3CR today, first producing the Talkback show - producing being a fancy name for 'answering the phones', then doing reception (answering the phones, slightly differently) and then panelling for another show in the afternoon. The latter was a bit hectic but fun.

It's now getting dark and I'm going out for dinner. Given Dru's vampiric nature, I suspect it best to leave her at home....

Invasion day

Officially, Saturday 26 January was Australia Day. It commemorates the day the Captain Arthur Phillip landed at Botany Bay and instituted 200 years of colonial rule and genocide of the indigenous people - let's PARTY!

Oddly enough, I didn't join in the general revelry, but joined a rally through central Melbourne, then stayed on for a concert in a park at a place called Treasury Gardens. It started with a traditional welcome and a few speeches. One of the things that struck me was a sense of outraged helplessness that the seasoned campaigners seemed to have. Gary Foley, who's been working on these issues for 30 years, talked about how the struggle has become harder in that time, particularly due to the last 10 years of neo-conservative policies under the Howard government.

To me it underlines the importance of articulating as frequently as possible, and drawing attention to, the real costs of neo-con policies - even by their own terms - and, better yet, the alternatives. That these alternatives are not just the ramblings of people bent on securing power for its own sake, but can be seen in practice across the world.

I recently read an article, though, that says we need to examine not just why persistent struggle exists (from research on Malay peasants) but also why it doesn't succeed. I'd have thought that the answer to this was obvious - lack of resources (labour, capital and symbolic), combined with the fact that businesses persist. If I take on a corporation, you can be sure that even if I win, the corporation or the ideology behind it will live beyond me. And it will continue struggling against my victory.

I'm not sure the way out of this - but it isn't going to happen in Malaysia unless we can come together to articulate alternatives, and build new institutions outside the current defunct system. Perhaps what we need to do is boycott the elections AND run alternative elections. Let's see how that works! And have elections that are meaningful - to adopt the phrase from my favourite 3CR show (Anarchist World This Week) direct democracy not Parliamentary rule. What does this mean?

Extend Haris' Parliamentary initiative. Initiate people's councils. And have representatives that can be recalled by the voters if they support actions that 20% or more of the electorate disagree with.... okay, if you insist, 40%. It's the way it works in democracies not too far from us.

So much for avoiding politics. As a counter, I did go for a Bollywood dance thing in the park last night, which was fun. I may even take up Bollywood dance classes. Then went home and was invited to watch 'There's something about Mary' - which I can't stand. For political reasons. La la.


Did the Monday morning brekky show with Damaris and Dave this morning, had fun with the papers, but wasn't too happy with my interview and stuff. Frank Hytten, from Reconciliation Victoria (promoting ties between indigenous, non-indigenous Oz) made lots of great points, but I was not, as I told Zoe, particularly sparkly. One of the good points he made, and pertinent to my earlier rant was that the best thing non-indigenous people can do for indigenous people in Australia is to not interfere - don't think we know best, etc. Now, if we can only get ALL the governments of the world to see the same way.

On air, alone

I've decided to change this a little. It'll probably still be political, but I'm going to try to keep my promise to make this a bit of an online diary. So starting from yesterday...

The day started with me limping up to 3CR, the community radio station where I volunteer, doing the Monday morning breakfast show. For the second time, I was doing the show solo. I'd spent large portions of the weekend preparing for this. I'd done myself a meticulous running sheet, including a good mix of stories, writing the script, just generally doing all the things that my students never did . I emailed the running sheet to myself - and then the Internet was down at the station.

Oh, but wasn't I professional. I panicked for a mere two minutes - until I realised that the Internet really was down and there was nothing I could do. I had to make it up. Fortunately, it seems, none of the listeners would have realised the advance state of panic had I not informed them. Which seemed only fair.

News of the day, as far as I was concerned, was on the expansion of the 'intervention' in the Northern Territory. Which seems to be Aussie for 'coming in and stealing indigenous lands'. The new Labor minister, in time-honored tradition, issued some blah statement saying how we now can all see the advantages of 'income management'. I wrote her a sweet little letter today, asking if she can manage my partner's income, as I fear that he spends too much of this on alcohol... now I'm kicking myself. It would have been so much better if I'd mentioned he was an ethnic minority.... ah well.

Played a few Malaysian bands - Azmyl, Sei Hon and Az Samad as well as Shannon from Poland.

Other than writing to the right hon. Jenny Macklin, today's been spent working on my thesis... which I'm really quite enjoying. And meeting the interesting Nic Maclellan. I interviewed him on the trade agreements that the EU has recently signed with Fiji and Papua New Guinea, which appear to be prime examples of big developed bully-boys roughriding over developing nations in ways that are likely to increase poverty etc etc. So met up with him today to discuss issues Pacific - hope to have him on the Monday brekky more regularly...

Other than that, I am mildly depressed by the number of people that think that voting Opposition will make a difference in the next General Election. Ah well.... I suppose I should celebrate the optimism, but seriously... why? Evidence shows that the Opposition are exceedingly unlikely to break BN's monopoly. I've asked LKS realistically, what percentage of the VOTE does the Oppostion need, and he smiles and refuses to answer... Given the BN strongholds, the noose around the media, the money and the machinery... the smile of course fades...

Am also looking forward to reading James C Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance. Does anyone have copies of his earlier works? And have been reading critiques of Foucault, and the space for emancipation within his theories of power, which is good for my research....

Oh, and rode my bike for about half an hour without falling off!