2011- HOW THE YEAR WENT

It was the best of years, it was the worst of years.

I think that's how I'll remember 2011. It was a great year, no doubt about that. In fact, on a good day, I might even call it the best yet, of my 18 years. Even so, it wasn't exactly a bed of roses, and shit did happen. Anyway, on to the nitty-gritty. 

Kolej Yayasan UEM, Lembah Beringin. This place, more than
any other, defined 2011 for me.

Going to college, which in my case, was Kolej Yayasan UEM, was doubtless the biggest experience of the year. I was introduced into an entirely different academic system, which, among other things, told me that much of what I'd learned earlier were half-truths, at best. A-Levels proved to be a formidable academic challenge; I've enjoyed the mental workout a lot. Especially Biology. Awesome stuff. (Thanks, Ms. Yati and Mr. Vroege)

I met loads of awesome people at KY, too. Some were upfront and extroverted. Others took some time and effort to get to know. You know what? I don't regret that at all. Thanks to KY's population, I had lots of fun (crazy CoD and Battle for Middle Earth sessions) and interesting, insightful conversations (Carolyn, Alia, Raehan, Rachel, Sharavana Vel). KY's people also introduced me to awesome new experiences. Special thanks to the Debate Club for the education in British Parliamentary Debate. Hats off to Carolyn (again) and Amir Rozlan for the introduction to Model United Nations. 

Mos Def and Talib Kweli, the rappers who make up Black Star.
This group inspired me; they're my soundtrack to 2011

Other things KY did for me was giving me an excellent library (I could live there if I had food, a bed and shower), cool places for walks (Saad Square, and the walkway roof), and the chance to represent it in the KDU Interschool Debate (quarter finals, and 5th best speaker; thanks all our debaters and esp. Raehan, Carolyn and Ms Rena). I'm also very glad for all the eye opening rap music I listened to; I learned a lot and got to relax too.

I wasn't an angel this year, far from it. I could have been a lot more perceptive to others, not blindly blundering on with what I wanted. I could have trusted more carefully. I could have controlled my tongue. I could have worked harder, and delayed less. To all the people I hurt and offended, in various ways, Mea Culpa. I'm sorry. To the personal demons I've faced down- this year was a draw. You will never win. (Some people will know what I'm talking about here).

My grandfather's death impressed on me just how important it is to know the people you love. I really wish I got to know him better, but in the end, he taught me a lot, both from his old encyclopedias and his slow, musings on life and his past. Thanks, Tata. We miss you.

This is the Ipoh Railway Station, where my grandfather used to run a bookstore.
I still have some of his old papers, marked with the shop's letterhead.

Above all, thanks to all the people who were just there, as ears and shoulders. Por Yin, James, Syahira, Jered, Thaanesh, Aina, Vivian, Raehan, Vivek, Syed Johan, Sharavana Vel, Mayuri, Shermaine, and of course, Carolyn. This year wouldn't have rocked without you guys. Thank you.

A good year, this.

(P.S- If there's anyone I left out, I'm so sorry. I love you all, and you have a special place in my heart)

QAT OFF

It is a given fact that every country has one curious feature, which, to foreign observers at first seems jarring, then becomes so normal that it fades into the background, like bold wallpaper at an acquaintance's house. In Yemen, this feature is qat (also spelled khat or gat), a mildly stimulative leaf chewed by nearly everyone.

Like many curious features though, qat is slowly, but surely, killing Yemen.

Terraced qat fields near Wadi Dhahr

Economically speaking, it's never a good idea to plant a crop that's banned in most developed countries, and hence, is only purchased by locals, who are, in any case, poor (Yemen has a GDP per capita of just 2600 USD). In 2005, the total area under cultivation was 123, 933 hectares, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. Given the MoA's estimate that this area grows by 12% a year, by the end of 2011, this area could be 244, 622 hectares! Such an extensive area would be of better economic use if dedicated to cash crops like coffee, of which Yemen used to be a major producer. It would be even better if the land was directed to construction of factories and other economic infrastructure.

Using this area of qat cultivation and Ethiopian production estimates, 244 622 hectares of land could produce over 100 000 tonnes of coffee a year. Assuming Arabica coffee beans are used to replace qat, this amount is currently valued at 218.7 million USD, translating to substantial profits for rural farmers.

Worse, qat uses up about 30 percent of Yemen's already scarce water supplies. Yemeni agriculture relies primarily on groundwater, as rainfall is scarce. If qat cultivation continues, the lack of good profits it brings will mean that the government and general public will not have sufficient finances to cope with rising water prices, never mind the social and industrial consequences such a rise would entail.

Moreover, qat is chewed in afternoon sessions that begin after the Yemeni workday ends at 2-3 p.m. These sessions last about 3-4 hours and are social events in themselves. Logically speaking, time wasted in this way could be put to better use, mainly for longer (and more productive) workdays. It is difficult to directly connect the national qat addiction to Yemen's lack of development, but a quick comparision of the country with many of it's Arab neighbors is telling indeed.

Men chew qat in a hut overlooking the crop in Yemen.
Qat chewing sessions can last up to five hours a day.

In fact, qat is even regarded in playing a negative role in the Yemeni protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Protesters quietly dispersed every afternoon to chew qat, meaning that the anti-government momentum that toppled Tunisia's and Egypt's rulers was just not there. This despite the fact that economic conditions in Yemen are much worse than those of the other two nations. Yemeni's might endlessly disparage their political leaders at qat sessions, but until tribal militias clashed with government security forces, stunted by qat, that's all many of them do- talk.

Completely eradicating something which has got its claws so deeply sunk into a country is probably impossible. However, once the dust has settled in Yemen, a new government could begin by allocating land to other purposes and extending the workday. Post-revolution, Yemen will face many obstacles to progress. Here's hoping qat won't be a hurdle far into the future.

EQUALITY

Can true equality within a society ever be achieved? People have, for ages, been expressing the hope that we will live in a world where we are all equal, where divisions within society, especially wealth and class based divisions, will cease to exist. Entire governments have staked claims to power on the belief that they can create a truly egalitarian society.

But can true equality be achieved? No.

The reason for this is simple. All men are not created alike. Within a system, there will always be people who work harder, know how to bend the rules or are plain lucky. These people will end up richer and more successful. Inevitably, there will be people left at the bottom of the pile. 

Now, if governments start giving preferential treatment to those left out, that would in itself be a source of inequality, because not everyone is going to get such treatment. In that sense, there is another kind of inequality, in the way the government treats its people, as some people get special protection from it, and others don't.

Even with such handouts, there will be people who know how to put them to the best use, and people who take them for granted badly enough to end up just scraping by. Or even worse than before. Inequality cannot be eradicated, but it can be reduced.

Yet, governments still promise equality when it's impossible to achieve. In Malaysia, politics is essentially a battle of the Equalizers- which party (or coalition, rather) can truly achieve equality in our sorely divided country? Tragically, most of the solutions that would make a strong dent in inequality (improving rural education, eliminating quotas, and workfare instead of welfare) are often not the most catchy of political initiatives. For starters, they take time, and usually involve the disadvantaged community in effort of its own.

So what to do? The closest governments and societies can ever come to true equality is by providing equal opportunities for all. That means improving the standards of the educational facilities offered to the entire population, instead of using government funds to pay for excellent educational facilities for certain groups (i.e. MARA). It means a welfare system that focuses not on handouts, but on handups. It will also require all ethnic groups to do some heavy lifting, like rejecting the primacy of any particular group and eliminating vernacular education (more on that in another post, maybe). 

This is not a diatribe against welfare, mind. Just because inequality can't be eliminated doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Rather, it is a reminder that we can never be a truly equal society, and so the endless pursuit of quotas and other blunt force tools to eliminate inequality should be scrapped, because the harm they bring does not justify pursuing an impossible ideal. And it is an appeal to recognize that equality of opportunity is the best we can provide, and also that most (or all) forms of welfare should aim to put the disadvantaged peoples back into earning their own keep. Tying benefits to eventual employment or food aid to continued schooling are examples.

Inequality cannot be eliminated. But if governments give every person an equal (or as close to equal) chance for personal advancement while steering clear of quotas  and other blunt force preferential tools, we can go a good way to reducing it. 

DURBAN: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

I must say, I was surprised (pleasantly) when I heard of a global climate deal coming out of Durban, South Africa. With the global economic climate being what it is, I hadn't even remembered the talks were on this year! If I had, I wouldn't have expected any sort of deal, because of aforementioned economic crisis.

Anyway, what do we have here? The negotiators at Durban agreed on a format for a fund to help poor nations tackle global warming. Details are sketchy at the moment (at least for non-journalists like me), but with luck, the fund will focus more on fine-tuning existing technologies as well as paying for their implementation in developing countries. It should also allow for some form of overseeing body to ensure funds are not wasted, especially by trying to force technologies into areas where it can't work, or where the adoption of one 'green' technology causes some other form of environmental destruction. (Hydropower and non-cellulosic ethanol come to mind). Most importantly, the fund must provide means for poor people to adapt to the effects of climate change.

The COP17 pleasantly surprised most fence-sitters with what came out of it

But that's the small fries of the talks. The talks far more significant achievement is this: that the Kyoto Protocol be extended until 2017 (previously set to expire in 2012), that a new legally binding deal be negotiated next year, and that developing countries accept legally binding emissions targets in future.

On the face of it, this is simply standard UN kick the can down the road behavior. But look closely. For starters, developed countries have accepted, more concretely, that they do need to help poor countries in tackling the problem. Since rich nations have historically caused much of the warming that we're now experiencing, that is fair. But since developing nation emissions have now surpassed that of developed countries, they should be legally bound to cut emissions too. And this new agreement finally gets them to do that, after years of insisting they should have the right to develop as they wish.

China and India agreed, with no small measure of reluctance, to commit themselves to cuts in future. 

Still, it's not all roses. This agreement is most definitely not the urgent action the Earth needs, as nations threatened by rising sea levels note. Scientists point out that delaying a deal for yet another year (with the prospect of more delays) means that it will be harder to keep the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, as stipulated in the Copenhagen accords. Then there is the downright ugly news. Japan, Russia and Canada will pull out of the extended period for the Kyoto Protocol, and that Australia and New Zealand might not join in.

Uglier still was the delegates focus on the exact language and phrasing of the various parts of the agreement. To quote, they were not free of the obsession with detail by which mediocre men think they are influencing events.

The delegates at Durban will have to do a lot better next year if the successor to Kyoto is going to have real meat to it.

All in all, to me, this is a moderate deal. The successes of having a climate deal after 2012, and of having developing nations commit to legally binding carbon cuts are important. Still, this deal will not go down as revolutionary (or even as particularly significant) because it is just too little. Too little decisive action, too little conviction, and too little financing..Hopefully, it will not be too late.

CLEANING HOUSE

The BERSIH 2.0 rally in Kuala Lumpur, scheduled for tomorrow could have represented a welcome change in Malaysian democracy. The organization, now banned, has some very legitimate criticisms of the Malaysian electoral process, which, if acknowledged, could reduce some of the endless mud-slinging by defeated politicians and focus more attention on more pressing issues.

BERSIH's demands are not confined to elections either. They include several demands to implement the very foundations of a modern, open democracy that Malaysia lacks, either completely or to a worrying degree. Among these are demands to strengthen public institutions, stopping corruption and stopping dirty politics.

The ideas offered by BERSIH, by and large, are what is needed to make Malaysian politics cleaner, more mature and more substantive.

These last three demands are probably the most important, mainly because putting them in place largely clears up the whole vote-fraud she-bang. In addition, they also ensure that other aspects of Malaysian political life, like the courts and media remain impartial. This impartiality is important to ensure that people who could shake up Malaysian politics are not discriminated against, and also so idealistic youth are not discouraged from entering politics.

Even if none of BERSIH's demands are heeded by the Electoral Commission, the rally would still be a welcome exercise in free speech, and freedom of expression. It would show that there are people whose brains are not stultified by the constant lack of depth of Malaysian politics. And it raises uncomfortable questions that must be addressed sooner rather than later, instead of simply sweeping them under the carpet and maintaining a false image of a united, peaceful and progressive society.

Unfortunately, it is this lack of depth that causes Malaysian's politicians to think rally = chaos. And also to believe BERSIH is Communist, when opportunistic groups (unaffiliated with BERSIH) simply distributed pamphlets in support of the MCP.

Idiots like Ibrahim Ali, Pasir Mas MP, are the ones who have jeopardised Malaysia's democracy by threatening confrontations in response to legitimate exercises of free speech.

Rallies are peaceful things, if controlled by the police and kept violence free. What's made this one potentially chaotic is the threat by pro-government rowdies (like UMNO Youth and Perkasa) to have counter rallies and confrontations. And this lot, being uneducated and uncouth, are the violent ones. But the government lacks the brains to distinguish this and has used them as part of the excuse to ban BERSIH.

The government response has also jeopardized Najib Tun Razak's efforts to paint his government as open, liberal and moderate. Equally bone-headed has been the suggestion to BERSIH to mass in a stadium, knowing full-well no municipal government will allow a rally by a banned group in any of it's stadiums.

Najib Razak's efforts to win back the electorate with moderate politics coupled with economic transformation has foundered thanks to his administration's poor response to BERSIH.

The government should recognize it is to it's advantage to heed BERSIH's demands. If not, the target's it has set itself under the GTP and ETP become very much harder to achieve, especially the ones regarding foreign investment. And it will find itself booted out of office at the next election, Najib's popularity notwithstanding.

HELPING HANDS IN AFGHANISTAN

As Afghanistan, with the fresh encouragement given it by the death of Osama bin Laden, seeks to haul itself out of chaos, it cannot escape an observer's notice that there are many players vying to claim some sort of stake in the country's future. For the most part, this, in keeping with the trend of global integration of economies, is beneficial to the country, but must also be managed properly.

The most prominent international player would no doubt be the US, but not only because of the American combat brigades stationed there. American businesses are also viewing Afghanistan as a location ripe for investment, albeit with increased security needs; as of September 2009, there were 10712 Defense Department security contractors in the country. The fact that the Afghan economy grew by 13.5% in 2007 has assured investors that Afghanistan can be a viable business opportunity.
PepsiCo's planned plant in Afghanistan augurs well for Afghan employment, as well as the Afghan consumer products market.

That is why PepsiCo, in April 2011, signed a deal with Dubai-based Alokozay Group to manufacture and distribute Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, 7 UP and Mountain Dew in Afghanistan, via a $60 million bottling plant in Kabul. The plant, expected to come online in 2012, is estimated to create 3000 direct and indirect jobs.

But it's not just business that attracts Americans to Afghanistan. The Department of Defense Education Activity programme recruits and sends teachers to Afghanistan. Non-profit education outfits are also in the game, such as the American University of Afghanistan, which operates on the US liberal arts model and has 780 students as of 2011.The hope is that Western educational efforts will develop strong human capital in the country, as well as a generation of tolerant and open-minded youth to lead Afghanistan in future.

Afghan girls in an American run school. Focusing on education would provide better alternatives than the Taliban to Afghanistan's youth, and liberate oppressed communities like the Hazara.

Another major player in Afghanistan is India, whose efforts have been met with contempt by erstwhile rival Pakistan. Since 2001, India has given about$1.2 billion in aid to Afghanistan, in addition to undertaking several major infrastructure projects, like the construction of the Afghan parliament (scheduled for completion this year). Bilateral trade between the two countries stood at $358 million in March 2008.

The killing of bin Laden on Pakistani soil tarnished Pakistan's image in both Kabul and Washington; India, seeking to press this advantage, pledged on 12^th May to bring total aid up to $2 billion, while also beginning to train Afghan police and forming an Afghan female police battalion.

The problem with India's dreams is simply that Pakistan would not like it. The fact remains that the Taliban was created, funded and armed by Pakistan to gain leverage in Afghanistan, which it hoped would then be an ally against India. After all, Pakistan never purged the Taliban on its soil until strict demands by the US. At the same time, one recalls Baitullah Mehsud's 2008 pledge to fight alongside the Pakistani government if war broke out with India. An Indo-Pakistani power struggle over Afghanistan would further destabilise the country's safety, and hence, its economic prospects.
Though Baitullah Mehsud is no more, the Pakistani-created terror network he helmed, the Taliban, continues to ravage Afghanistan.

Inevitably, China is also looking to boost its profile in Afghanistan. Chinese companies go about winning resource contracts in the country in much the same way they have been doing so in Africa. (In fact, the method is actually called the Angola model). For example, in February 2010,China Metallurgical Group Corporation won a contract to mine Afghanistan's Aymak copper mine with a $3.4 billion bid that included a commitment to build a power plant, a railway that will link the mine, the smelter and China (!), schools, roads and mosques. The deal also promised that all non-managerial staff will be Afghans in five years.
China's method of securing contract's in resource rich developing countries creates indirect GDP growth by bringing with it roads, schools and, in Afghanistan, mosques.

The fact that these countries are willing to make huge economic bets on the future of Afghanistan augurs well for that future, as well as American efforts at maintaining security in the country. Whatever the case for foreign investment, eventually Afghanistan must be strong enough to prioritize domestic investment, sales and consumption. For now though, here's to Afghanistan's future, to the continued growth of its people.

STAY THE COURSE

The ongoing quake-and-tsunami caused nuclear crisis in Japan has stoked fears in Malaysia over whether Malaysia should build a nuclear power plant. Currently, under the government’s Economic Transformation Plan, such a plant aims to become reality by 2021 (2016 at the earliest).

Here’s why we should stay the course.

From an energy point of view, the fact remains that come mid-decade (worst-case scenario), fossil fuels will become uneconomical as a power source. Nuclear power plants are the most powerful of the other energy options out there- producing 3600 kW per acre, while solar produces between 74 kW and 222 kW of power per acre.

A conventional nuclear reactor. The public's misconceptions concerning the safety of nuclear power should be countered with the facts- France produces 80% of it's power from accident-free nuclear energy.

Other fuel sources have much bigger failings. In Malaysia, strong breezes are to be found only at the coasts and in mountains. Building wind turbines in such areas would hurt tourism revenues and contribute further to the loss of Malaysia’s forest cover, of which only 56% remains. The same argument goes against hydropower. Remember, Malaysia has a pledge to maintain 50% of her forest cover under the Rio Earth Summit.

Wind turbines would ruin tourism to Malaysia's beaches and hill getaways. At a time when new tourist destinations are popping up with alarming speed, we do not need more turn-offs.

Solar power will continue to suffer from the problem of overcast and night-darkened skies for a while yet. Technologies like heated salt and MIT researcher David Nocera's fuel cells are on the horizon to mitigate this, but logically speaking, hinging a country’s electricity generation on the weather doesn’t seem very wise. Solar can and should play a major role in Malaysia’s energy future, but shelving nuclear power in favour of it is the wrong move.

Nuclear power’s safety issues are decisively handled by several new technologies on the horizon. The first of these are the fourth generation nuclear reactors, scheduled to be able to go online by 2021. One model, known as the Very High Temperature Reactor, uses unreactive helium as a coolant, and has a graphite composed core, meaning a high heat capacity and structural stability at superhigh temperatures.

A scaled model of a Very-High Temperature Reactor, one type of Generation 4 nuclear power plant.

Moreover, Toshiba Corp. and NuScale Power have both come up with what are best called nuclear batteries. Mini power plants buried in the ground, these cheap reactors can produce 10-45 megawatts of power, with Toshiba’s reactor lasting 30 years. The best feature? They are safe, one because the whole system is submerged under water, the other because it has no moving parts and a dual mechanism to prevent meltdown.

These mini nuclear reactors offer exciting possibilities for power in remote areas, as well as a putting less strain on fragile electrical grids in developing nations.

It is plain here that the options for Malaysia to keep her power plant plan on track are available. The question here is whether the Malaysian government has the political will to slug it out with the opposition, and the eloquence to explain the facts to the public. The facts are with us. Let us keep the faith.

THE EFFECTS OF THE ATTACK

There can be no real doubt that today, multiculturalism is under attack from the forces of integration and plain racism. All over the West, the powers that be (even in normally mild-mannered states) have begun a massive crackdown on the freedom of migrants to express their cultures, whether by banning burqas, minarets or outright deportations of minorities (as in France’s campaign against Gypsies)

It is not very difficult to ascertain the causes of this reprehensible behavior. In Europe, politicians are desperate for votes following the global recession, and the Euro’s current troubles. To that end, they have made attacking migrants (and their culture) a political staple to win over voters on the far-right. These attacks also have an appeal to those mainstream voters who mistakenly believe that migrants ‘steal’ local jobs.

In America, the vitriol hurled by right-wingers against Muslims has its’ roots in the Sept. 11 attacks, which (more or less) turned the word ‘Islam’ into mud. The recent proposal for a Muslim community centre a couple blocks away from the site of the WTC, Newt Gingrich’s crusade against ‘sharia’ and a growing sense that moderate Muslims do little to oppose their radical co-religionists have rekindled the old xenophobia.

Whatever the causes, the stampede against multiculturalism will have numerous ill effects, the first of which is a dangerous increase in terrorist recruitment. It is very easy for the propaganda agents of al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba to use bans on burqas and mosque minarets as propaganda that the West is against Islam. This would obviously succeed in recruiting new radicals willing to strike at civilian targets throughout the West and in Western military bases.

Moreover, it is likely that anti-Muslim policies will put Muslims on the defensive, which would cause them to elect harder-line politicians of their own. Once that happens, cooperation on urgent Middle Eastern and global issues, like Palestine, would become markedly harder, as these politicians shirk from working with the West. The Palestinian peace process does not need more leaders like Ahmadinejad, revered domestically largely because of his grandstanding against the West.

At the same time, it will become harder for Western democratic leaders to speak out against human-rights abuses worldwide, which increases the likelihood of further unrest similar to that of Egypt’s.

These effects would combine to further, significant economic hardship. The fact remains that if America seeks economic growth in an era of high domestic consumer indebtedness, it has to look to exports. There is little point in making consumers in fast growing Muslim countries disdain American exports by enacting anti-Muslim laws and such.

More importantly, the West can ill-afford to alienate its’ migrants, who bolster the falling birth rates in most European countries. With more young workers (both skilled and unskilled), it would be easier to foot the pension and medical bills of graying populations, as well as fill up numerous essential but unwanted jobs. True, at this point in time, there are few countries that beat the prosperity per capita of Western countries, but this being when most growth will come from developing countries (including the migrants own countries of origin), this will change sooner or later. And then, migrants will look for the country that most makes them feel welcome.

THE EFFECTS OF THE ATTACK

There can be no real doubt that today, multiculturalism is under attack from the forces of integration and plain racism. All over the West, the powers that be (even in normally mild-mannered states) have begun a massive crackdown on the freedom of migrants to express their cultures, whether by banning burqas, minarets or outright deportations of minorities (as in France’s campaign against Gypsies)

It is not very difficult to ascertain the causes of this reprehensible behavior. In Europe, politicians are desperate for votes following the global recession, and the Euro’s current troubles. To that end, they have made attacking migrants (and their culture) a political staple to win over voters on the far-right. These attacks also have an appeal to those mainstream voters who mistakenly believe that migrants ‘steal’ local jobs.

In America, the vitriol hurled by right-wingers against Muslims has its’ roots in the Sept. 11 attacks, which (more or less) turned the word ‘Islam’ into mud. The recent proposal for a Muslim community centre a couple blocks away from the site of the WTC, Newt Gingrich’s crusade against ‘sharia’ and a growing sense that moderate Muslims do little to oppose their radical co-religionists have rekindled the old xenophobia.

Whatever the causes, the stampede against multiculturalism will have numerous ill effects, the first of which is a dangerous increase in terrorist recruitment. It is very easy for the propaganda agents of al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba to use bans on burqas and mosque minarets as propaganda that the West is against Islam. This would obviously succeed in recruiting new radicals willing to strike at civilian targets throughout the West and in Western military bases.

Moreover, it is likely that anti-Muslim policies will put Muslims on the defensive, which would cause them to elect harder-line politicians of their own. Once that happens, cooperation on urgent Middle Eastern and global issues, like Palestine, would become markedly harder, as these politicians shirk from working with the West. The Palestinian peace process does not need more leaders like Ahmadinejad, revered domestically largely because of his grandstanding against the West.

At the same time, it will become harder for Western democratic leaders to speak out against human-rights abuses worldwide, which increases the likelihood of further unrest similar to that of Egypt’s.

These effects would combine to further, significant economic hardship. The fact remains that if America seeks economic growth in an era of high domestic consumer indebtedness, it has to look to exports. There is little point in making consumers in fast growing Muslim countries disdain American exports by enacting anti-Muslim laws and such.

More importantly, the West can ill-afford to alienate its’ migrants, who bolster the falling birth rates in most European countries. With more young workers (both skilled and unskilled), it would be easier to foot the pension and medical bills of graying populations, as well as fill up numerous essential but unwanted jobs. True, at this point in time, there are few countries that beat the prosperity per capita of Western countries, but this being when most growth will come from developing countries (including the migrants own countries of origin), this will change sooner or later. And then, migrants will look for the country that most makes them feel welcome.

THE JAIL

Arrived at KYUEM (Kolej Yayasan UEM, aka The Jail) on Tuesday and just finished a hectic week of induction.

The verdict?

If this is jail, I want a life sentence!!!

Seriously, I'm not kidding. Mainly this is because of the great batchmates here: Aina, Jabbar (whom we call Nando's but Aina calls 'girlfriend'), Shawn, Shankar, Aizat (roommates- great guys), Jayson, Alia, Kash (short for Kashiff), Sunny (it's a girl, Michaelians),Vivek, Raehan, Sha, Qistina (Qissy for short), Vivian (these people call me 'Jesus'), Char Siew (real name- Er Wei), Shuba, Loy (cool name, eh?) and loads more. Everyone's friendly, funny and nice.

The induction sessions were quite good. As is customary, there was one touchy-feely session that had most people crying. I wanted to but couldn't, so by this point, I think my tear duct's have burned out due to Ipoh's sun. I'm not joking, it's possible, happened to Mandela.

Food's ok, better than I expected, and if you get bored, just leave the Dining Hall and head to the Cafeteria. The lecturers are mostly awesome, esp. Dr. Foord (Physics), who is surely the closest person to Stephen Hawking I've met. Cool library, with awesome History books and my type of magazines. Nerd stuff, like The Economist, Time, etc!!!

The wifi sucks, partly because my chalet's kinda far from the hotspot, and because there are so many friggin people on it! So does the shower, which is freezing and smells of rust.

To sum up, great people, good sessions, good food, sucky showers and wifi. Not bad for a jail. Will post pics when I can. BTW, Happy Ponggal! (Just realized it was).

PS-If the post looks bad, it's cause I can't beautify it due to the wifi. I can't reply on the cbox either, so I'll answer here.

Mark- I dunno why she became a fan, No solicitation. Taking Maths and the 3 Sciences.
Others- Please chill, do the venting in person...

DECK THE HALLS

I just got back from a medical check up at the government Greentown Health Clinic in Ipoh. Thankfully all my tests were clear, and I certainly didn't test positive for anything (ganja included).

But anyway, as I was leaving, I noticed a Christmas tree in the clinic's lobby. Which was a rather nice nod to the season, though it is coming to a close. The sight sparked a chain of thought in my brain.

Why is a Christmas tree used, and not, say, a Nativity scene? (For those who don't know, it is a scene of the birth of Jesus in the manger, with the baby surrounded by Mary and Joseph and usually some donkeys, sheep and oxen)

Surely the Nativity scene is more meaningful and worthwhile than a Christmas tree? Or, God forbid, Santa Claus?

More to the point, why are the commercial and 'fun' aspects of religious celebrations highlighted by government agencies, the mass media and private corporations instead of the spiritual aspect?

One reason why many Malaysian youth grow up with little understanding of different religions is because in each festival, these bodies emphasize the Christmas carols, rendang, floats, and kolam, all without mentioning the meaning behind these symbols. Some symbols, like Christmas trees, have little connection to the festival's true meaning, and contribute to the fact that many young people see these festivals as occasions for wild partying, noise and excessive alcohol.

The more we refuse to show the spirituality of religious festivals, the more parties like this we will have.

Some, like Malaysia's Islamic clerics, would no doubt object to portraying the religious aspect of festivals in government buildings or the mass media. No doubt they would say that this will overshadow Islam and confuse the nation's Muslims. These statements make no sense, because Islamic religious leaders could also emphasize the spirituality of their festivals, instead of letting radio stations play endless ads about rendang and ketupat.

Moreover, with 60% of Malaysians being Muslim, how would this overshadow Islam? And Malaysia's Muslims surely have a strong enough faith that they won't be confused just by a Nativity scene, or a portrayal of Rama killing the demon Ravana

The display of such religion-centred art during religious festivals would promote interreligious understanding and unity.

If we are truly 1Malaysia, and we really support multiculturalism in Malaysia, then, showing everyone the true meaning of Christmas, Deepavali, Hari Raya, and Wesak Day will not harm anyone except those with backward brains. Surely we have grown up enough?