Professor AK-47

ADOPT THE POWER OF THE PAST, OUT WITH THE FUTURE

Looking at the state of the world now one wonders what works and what won’t. Where do we look for solutions? While many say the future has much in store many believe however the answers for the world’s ills are rooted in the past.

But first let’s take stock. If the solutions we are seeking out lie in ideology, then democracy has proven it has failed. So are the others: totalitarianism, fascism, socialism, Fabianism, Nazism etc. If it is economics, then we are also witness to the demise of the market-controlled economy, centrally-planned economy, and the capitalist-based economy together with the socialist-based political order. If it is the form of Governments, then the one-person Administration has shown more resilience today as compared to the present collegial or two-party governments in existence in many countries. In theoretical terms as well the power matrix still holds sway in international politics. The approaches of post-structuralism have not caught the interest of scholars.

What of the future? Very much of what the past had to offer? Communism will become fashionable once more. Dependencia will attract and imperialism and hegemony will strike out once again. Once-renowned globalism will make way for uni-individualism and religion will assume a more local character: no more the universalism but more the quest for interest-groups looking for an ideology to guide their struggles or causes.

In the final analysis history will prove itself right after all! 

CLIMATE CHANGE: MAN-MADE OR NATURES NATURE?

I had the opportunity to listen to Dr Smoot a Nobel Laureate speak on the birth of the Earth at a forum early April.

Two things caught my interest. 

First his studies confirmed that Man will soon have the ability to create a new galaxy if the ingredients are available. Indeed according to Dr Smoot, you must build the structures then the web, then the filaments and finally the galaxy or galaxies. All the four must be in sync befire a new galaxy can evolve. Their studies have confirmed that this is possible given that there are now vastly-improved ‘hubble-sattelites’ that can helped in the process.

Second given the impact of his studies Dr Smoot contend that the Earth is forever expanding thus warming up the globe especially in the middle belt. The impact for us humans is that global warming has another culprit besides us humans, the continuous expansion of the Earth. 

How true this is will depend on how prepared we are to accept the realities of science or return to Nature to look for answers for solutions to our present-day problems.

MUST THERE BE A MUSLIM POSITION ON ALL ISSUES IMAGINABLE?

Muslims all over the world are suddenly conscious that their voices are not being heard. Hence the widest possible ways that we see them pursuing by all means available all the avenues that can help them close the gap.

I was in Bangkok recently to participate in a Consultative Meeting of several Muslim NGOs from Asia to consider the Islamic response to Climate Change. In the first place, I asked them whether there has to be an Islamic response to such an issue. As far as I know, Islam has a very general thing to say on the environment but nothing as specific as Climate Change. Islam is very clear on Man’s role towards nature and how the relationship between man and nature should be a balanced and harmonious one.

Above all Islam enjoins its followers to become Khalifas upon Earth. This demands the role to assume the stewardship of Nature. It also means that the relationship has to be based on the principle of equity, maintaining the natural order of things and generally observing the sustainability of all living things.

Being aware about the above is the only thing that separates Muslims from the others. We are supposed to return back what we have taken from the earth. Our actions as stated by Fazlun Khalid, are predicated on three other principle besides that of the Khalifas, Tawheed, Fitra and Mizan.

Tawheed is the main concept held to by all Muslims which holds up the oneness of the Creator and from which everything else follows. Fitra describes the primordial nature of Creation itself and locates humankind in it. Finally the Mizan is the principle of the middle path.

As good Muslims, it is required of us to engage, to involve and to lead in all the ways possible to safeguard Nature and the sustainability of all things created.

 

The final reminder that must lie at the beginning of all future Muslim actions on the environment is that we need not react to every piece of activity planned by other people and faiths. The agenda must remain ours to shape and mould. 

LETTER FROM THE FUTURE

Dear fellow Malaysians

I am addressing this letter from a place outside Malaysia trying to inform fellow Malaysians the reasons why I left the country and stayed abroad.

Strangers in our own house

I left because I felt I was no longer welcomed everywhere that I went. I want to feel free to choose where I go, buy whatever I can pay for and enjoy when I can find the time. But to no avail, there are only certain shops that I can frequent a majority of them owned by just one race. I have the money to spend but I can only go to certain establishments that do stock the ‘good’ items, again monopolised by just one race. I like to travel around the country but what do I see? Interspersed between the old and the new are the living monuments that only one race dominates in Malaysia. The countryside belongs to one race and the urban centres to another.

Skewed Affirmative Action

Since the troubles of 1969, the Government has taken steps to redress the imbalance between the various ethnic groups. Not all the policies have reached its targets. Many have been replaced by newer ones that perpetuated the gaps between the citizens. The idea is not to rob Peter to pay Paul. But what has happened is that the richer gets richer and the poorer becomes poorer. Anew elite has emerged that obtained the best of the system. This ‘new’elite has now clamoured for change and has made their votes count in the last General Elections of March 8. Both within and outside the Government they have been vociferous in their demands. Things are now more openly discussed. Every single understanding and agreements tacit or otherwise, are being questioned and willingly overturned to suit the new situation. Again only one race seemed to be benefitting eventually.

What defines modernity?

Over time one starts to question where are the Bumis now? We talk of the Malay Diaspora and the Nusantara Diaspora and wonder whether these are not the result of feeling as complete strangers in one’s own house? The progress we see around us surely is not enough to say that our country is now a modern nation. For in modernity it is more than just the tangibles. In the intangibles, the world of values, mores, value-added, we get to see what matters to the people. We want progress but it must not come with a cost on our future. It must also not merely come in the form of an epoch or a period of history. Modernity is a drive for sustainability. It is borderless and timeless. What we must strive for is a complete change of mindset to allow for acceptance that everybody has a place in the sun. No one should be made to feel that they are strangers in their own house.

Wishing all Malaysians a fruitful year ahead.

Bye.
A Malaysian Stranger

RELIGION IN THE QUEST FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE

Participants in an international conference on the topic of religion in the quest for justice and peace heard speakers saying that we are facing a derailment of faiths in the present time.

Filled with hopes we searched in our faiths for alternatives. We found despair and desperation. We met with a multiplicity of new approaches, from inter-faith dialogues to a desire for letting distinctness in our faiths to remain.  “Who has the right to speak for the different religions” still remains a big issue. A realisation dawned after a while that if religion does not provide the answers then what will?

Inter-faiths dialogues is already one alternative. In their workshop sessions, the participants pondered on the role of education, the new media, governments, the community and the family. A special emphasis was put on getting the youths involved. They also moved to us the medium of the performing arts to transmit the messages of peace further afield. The conference agreed on a 12-point Plan of Action that is going to involve all levels of the society.

The poem below encapsulates the sense and the drift of the discussions:

OUR QUEST LAY NOT IN THE
CLOSING OF MINDS
BUT IN THE OPENING

ALONG THE WAY WE WITNESS A DERAILMENT
RECOGNISE MULTIPLICITY
DISTINCTNESS
HOPES

WE LOOK AT THE EYE OF OUR SOUL
WE SHOWER FLOWERS AT THE FOOT OF OUR ENTERPRISE

DEAR GOD
TIP THE BALANCE IN OUR FAVOUR
FOR THOU ART ALL FORGIVING

SMART PARTNERSHIP AND THE SHAPING OF MALAYSIAN FOREIGN POLICY: IS IT GOING ANYWHERE?

Ever since Smart Partnership became the catchword for describing all forms of cooperation among the countries of the South including Malaysia in the late 1990s, Malaysian Foreign Policy has never been the same. For many its introduction marked the beginning of an active period in Malaysia’s foreign relations as Malaysian diplomacy tried to match the leadership’s commitment to make it worked. Like the distributed network it was made out to be, it laid down the basis of South-South cooperation.

Smart Partnership came to represent the whole challenge mounted by the South countries to meet the forces of globalization head-on. From Langkawi in 1995, Malaysia, then to South Africa in 1997 and later on to other countries in Africa and even to Europe and Asia,               

Malaysia’s participation and strong leadership at these International Dialogues, replicated the Langkawi experience. But to what extent has the idea really caught on and there are results to show that the cooperation has actually been concretized between the participating countries, have still remained unexplored and not least its impact on Malaysia’s foreign policy as a whole analysed.

Indeed so little has been said or discussed after the retirement from office of its main proponent, Malaysia’s fourth Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, in October, 2003 that one would have thought the idea came and gone with Dr. Mahathir Mohamad In fact it was Prime minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad who had broached the idea at a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in New Delhi, India in 1983. Of course things have changed so rapidly in the international system that had seen the best and the worst of globalization and witnessed the onset and retreat of empire, in the case of the United States’s unilateralist foreign policy, to make a reexamination of the relevance of smart partnership a useful exercise.

The idea that we wish to put forward is that smart partnership is relevant in the context of the changing role of the state like Malaysia in meeting the challenges of globalization and the new geopolitics.

A related question is whether smart partnership as an instrument of Malaysia’s foreign policy in the next fifty years will make any sense given the new international dynamics present today?

THINK ASIA

THINK ASIA is a novel idea to some. But for many it is something that is assumed to exist without any need to make others aware of it. Academics are the chief culprits. They refuse to see anything useful in belabouring the fact. It is already there. Why do we have to publicise it. Not quite.

Consider the needs of countries in Asia now that are undergoing various stages of transformation. For them there is certainly a lack of role-models to follow. Do we follow the flying geese model? , Or the bottom of the pyramid model? Or do we cite specific country case-studies. In any case Asia can boast of many such cases, from Japan to South Korea and Taiwan. Then there are the smaller cousins like Malaysia and Singapore. Each of these countries is unique in their very experience of transformation and mobility. These cannot be copied in its entirety of course but still aspects of their success-stories can be emulated.

The point was made that there is nothing new that we can fashion out anymore in the quest for knowledge. What remains is to ensure that the digital divide for instance in most countries in Asia is not widened. Given the technology that is advancing forward day by day even this will probably render itself obsolete in years to come. The new technology will replace the present impasse in the generation of ideas for a new Asian spirit and the next round of intellectual enterprise. It is in the hands of Asians to take the lead. By all accounts the so-called decline of the West is set to continue on its rightful path in every dimension of human progress. The centre of gravity has indeed shifted to Asia in countries like India and China and the mini-economies of the ASEAN countries for example. What will be the impact of this development on THINK ASIA?

Taking a futurist perspective on developments in Asia within the next decade or so, the trends seen in population growth, internet use, nuclear proliferation, medical and healthcare boom, corporate ownership and human capital needs, will necessitate a gravitational push towards THINK ASIA.

SEVEN GENERATIONS OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

I read with interest the lucid argument for sustainable development as presented by Tan Sri Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, the Vice Chancellor of Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, in the Insight column under the title "$2.30 African and the $2.20 EU cow" (New Sunday Times,, June 15, 2008).

I agree that for sustainable development to take roots there have to be a realization in us that what we do today will have an impact on future generations after us. I recalled the belief held by some Native Americans that they have identified seven generations as the length of time by which they can determine in all seriousness the idea of sustainability. In our calculation this will take around 140 years (if one were to count 20 years to comprise one generation).

If one were to follow this logic to its conclusion, we will certainly need a lot of futures thinking to appreciate what Tan Sri Dzulkifli meant by 'sustainable development' being the "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations".

In the meantime, what do we do to get out of our unsustainable lifestyle? I offer the idea developed by Ivan Illich (1974) in his book, "Energy and Equity".

The idea is based on the observation that once you are dependent on something you will always do your utmost to sustain that dependence. There is therefore a correlation between dependence and sustainability. It feeds on one another.  What he says can be summed up as follows:

If you have it, you depend on it;

It then becomes a habit to you and it starts to control you;

You tend therefore to lose your sense of values on the important aspects of life,

In the end you enslave yourself to it;

The choice is no longer yours to make,

You are in fact poorer than before.

Illich was of course referring to the excesses of the transport industry in the United States of America when he wrote the book. Today the Americans have built a whole civilization based on the automobile and oil and they are in fact overwhelmingly dependent on both in order to sustain their present lifestyles. For them to sustain their global economic, social, political and technological leadership they require more oil and new energy sources which are getting less and less.

The road to our future sustainability lies in us resurrecting Buckminster Fuller's "more for less" idea and the giving up of our dependency and sustainability lifestyle.

URGENTLY NEEDED: A BOMOH FOR UMNO

 

Getting it back into shape?

Going by the more popular Malay pastime where a bomoh (shaman) is called in to initiate a propitious and better time for all including UMNO, one wonders whether this has not been done or if one had been identified he or she has not been the right person for such a heavy and burdensome task.

The practice has been that there is always a bomoh for the asking. Each of them with their own special areas and one needs only to state one's price. The best it seemed come from Indonesia. It is a known fact that before every general elections, prospective candidates and wannabes from UMNO will make a bee-line to the island of Java to seek their services. This time around however, bomoh-ism has not been discussed very much at least not in the usual places!

Perhaps UMNO's problems have been too much to handle this time around. For once the problem with UMNO is not its members or its leaders. It has to do with its structure, its organization and administration within the National Coalition set-up. Historically when UMNO was first established it was only to be a wake-up call for the Malays to rise up to fight for their rights. Independence came later. The British colonial masters saw it fit to latch other agendas on to the fledgling party: other political parties representing the other ethnic groups in the country then. This created a sense of patron-client relationship between the so-called Malays that have the powers to decide how much could be shared with the other races. Thus began the "social contract" that has characterized the smart partnership between the major races in the country till today.

With the 12^th general Elections over, the partnership structure has no longer become effective with the emergence of new groupings from among the races particularly the GERAKAN and the DAP among the Chinese, the PPP and the IP among the Indians and the other splinter groups in the states of Sarawak and Sabah. These groups are also clamouring for their voices to be heard through their electorates. UMNO has not been able to anticipate this development much to their disappointment. As a result when the people decided UMNO was caught and now ended up in disarray.

As a leader-party UMNO must lead but it has not and the failure lies in its outmoded structure. It could not respond when it was called to do so. Indeed the rules have changed and UMNO should have been prepared to open up the National Coalition to the newer parties.

It is still not too late for between now and December when UMNO meets to have its General Assembly and elect a new Supreme Council, President, Deputy President and Vice-Presidents, a good and reputable bomoh from within can be found to look into the right course of action to take for the leadership

STAYING AWAY FROM DICHOTOMIES

By force of habits we are always want to stay with dichotomies. This tends to limit our choices to just two options. Failure to think out the third option may result in us being unable to engage ourselves fully in our daily lives.

The present demand of us is really to get involve in what we are doing. We are expected to make a difference by applying the extra 'mile' to our endeavours. It is important that we resolve this conflict within us so that we can enjoy life to the full. It is not always the best way to reduce everything to the factor of two.

What really have been the origins of this 'dichotomies'? In part this has been cultural-based. To the Western mind, there is the factor of 'agency'. Western civilization has been built on the notion that Man has to conquer the self and move on to overcome nature to realize his place on Earth. Western progress has documented all this to the point that there is nothing left for Man to explore on Earth but to go out into the cyber-sphere. In contrast an Asian is always reminded to preserve 'harmony' in whatever that he is doing for fear that going against Nature will upset the balance on Earth. We have therefore talked about the 'yin-yang' harmony and the need to allow for the Tao or chi top take its normal course. Thus Nature is said to bear the best guide for how humans must conduct their lives.

The solution in the West has always been to seek the winner: there must be an adversary, a competitor, an enemy, the unbeliever, you and us or the 'Other'. Never in their minds has there been an inkling that life is never black or white but comes in shades of grey and blue. Upon this philosophy the Western enterprise has gone on to build political, economic and social institutions that pit David and Goliath, fight to the end and the ends justify the means. It is as if for the Western mind they can never be free from the clutches of Scylla and Charybdis of Greek mythology.

Win-win has been a modern invention indeed. Before this there is no middle way or the third option as the means towards a solution. Hence relationships have been established on adversarial terms instead of a partnership.

There is reason here to expect this new paradigm to assist us in our efforts at getting to full sustainability. We have to get out of thinking in terms of dichotomies and strive to move from 'this' or 'that' to 'this' and 'that'. The emphasis is on 'or' and 'and'. Only then can Man hope to challenge their biases, beliefs and hang-ups and finally to become involved in the process of living once again.