Home Thoughts From Abroad

Malaysia has suffered a severe blow to its national pride with the loss of MH370 and all its 239 souls on board. Although tempers have flared and accusations have been fired at the end of the first month little has helped the friends and families of those aboard to understand not only what happened, but why Malaysia allowed it to happen. The plane left its scheduled flight path. It flew back across Malaysian airspace.

Would the military authorities who are tasked with the oversight of Malaysian airspace have allowed the plane to fly into the Petronas Twin Towers without questioning its altered flight path or seeking to intercept its flight? Doesn’t their lack of knowledge indicate a huge failure to exercise their responsibility? And if they did know that the plane deviated from its path but didn’t let other nations know, doesn’t that make them responsible for allowing other nations to conduct a fruitless search in the South China Sea for a week at the cost of millions of dollars and precious time wasted while the black box pinger lost battery life?

Acting Transportation Minister Hashammuddin has been doing a creditable job in dealing with the fallout on national television every night. He is thoughtful and compassionate, and – most unusual for this country – he can think on his feet and respond to questions without having to refer to the government approved script. But Hashammuddin shouldn’t be in a hurry to leave his day job, for while he is Acting Transportation Minister, his permanent ministerial job is Minister of Defense, heading the same department that either failed to notice or failed to notify other nations that the plane had left its course and had flown back over the country!

Now there is an encouraging lead regarding the black box pinger. If the plane is found as a result of this lead, it would be a most fortuitous event for the pinger is due to expire any minute. It would allow families to gain some closure for their grief, and perhaps might even allow the rest of us some insight into why this plane went missing in the first place. For my speculations on what happened – and I caution that they are just that, speculations and nothing more – read my post from a week or so ago. I would be interested in your thoughts and speculations as well. See: https://spwise.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/mh370-flight-plan/

I had occasion to pay my respects yesterday at the wake held in the home of Irene Fernandez just around the corner from the College. It was touching to see and read all the comments left, especially from the Bangladeshis who are most shabbily treated in this country. They considered her their ‘mother’ and wonder what will become of them now she is gone. I can think of no finer tribute to this heroic human spirit than to republish her last article on the issue of domestic labourers, written just a few months ago:

December 23, 2013, The Malay Mail.

“By agreeing that recruitment agents should be given the power to resolve the deep-rooted issues surrounding the recruitment of domestic workers, the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia have demonstrated that they believe that the lives, dignity and rights of Indonesian women should be placed in the clutches of agents and recruitment companies whose main purpose is to maximise the amount of profit they can make through the trade of women’s labour. According to the reports in the Malaysian media both governments maintain that market forces should determine the recruitment and wages of domestic workers, and that the details of the process should be handled by recruitment agencies.

“The end to forms of slavery and violence against domestic workers can only be realised when governance of recruitment and placement of domestic workers is determined by recognising domestic work as work, by protecting fundamental rights of domestic workers and by ensuring a system of employment where there is decent wage and decent work with respect for dignity of all persons. Women’s bodies are not commodities to be traded. The work of domestic workers needs to be valued, respected and protected. Governments which fail in doing that must face the severest consequences of their actions.”

New York Times tribute: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/world/asia/irene-fernandez-champion-of-oppressed-dies-at-67.html?_r=0

Malaysian human rights activist Irene Fernandez died this week. You can be forgiven for not hearing about this among all the news coming from this country about flight MH370, but it is significant nonetheless. She was important not just for who she was and what she stood for, but as an important marker in this country’s long and difficult road towards decency and fairness.

Ms Fernandez was born shortly after the war and grew up in the heady days of Malaysia’s independence from Britain. Believing in the power of education to change lives and develop the young country she loved, she became a high school teacher, and would perhaps have remained so had the country continued in a humanitarian and positive direction. Unfortunately that was not to be the case.

The ruling Barisan National Party or BNP was determined to maintain its hold on power and determined also to use its new found offshore oil to become a wealthy nation. Importing cheap migrant workers to work the rubber and oil plantations seemed like the way to go. Using the same policies that has seen the country blacklisted by all its surrounding neighbours for its abuse of domestics, Malaysia not only allowed widespread abuse of these migrant workers, but through their iron grip on the media forbade the reporting of that abuse.

Irene Fernandez, a devout Catholic who cared deeply about the less fortunate, was herself the daughter of an Indian migrant, who had come to Malaysia seeking work in the rubber plantations. Sensitized to the issue from her own heritage, Fernandez became aware of the abuse of foreign migrant workers under BN rule and sought to relieve their distress. Her Christian compassion led her to social action, as all truly Christian conviction must, and setting aside her own educational ambitions, left teaching to form Tenaganita (Women’s Force). This group, formed in 1991, advocated for the rights of migrant workers, victims of domestic abuse, trafficking victims, refugees, and asylum seekers.

In 1995 two investigative reporters from a local daily, barred by a craven press afraid of government reprisals, came to Ms Fernandez with a carefully detailed and researched story about the systematic physical and sexual abuse of migrant workers in detention camps. Malaysia has not yet signed the 1951 United Nations Agreement on the treatment of refugees, so migrants, although useful to the Malaysian economy, have no legal status in the country. Ms Fernandez agreed to help. Using her position as co-founder of Tenaganita as a platform, Fernandez began denouncing the policies and practices contained in the report. Local papers, using the formula “Ms Fernandez says…” were then able to report the news.

Rather than address the issue of widespread migrant worker abuse that had begun drawing worldwide condemnation, Malaysia opted to persecute Ms Fernandez instead. Beginning a legal process that was to last 13 years, the BN government charged Ms Fernandez with “malicious publication of false news” under the draconian Printing Presses and Publications Act of 1984. Although eventually cleared by a judiciary as craven and supressed as the local media, the harrassment of Ms. Fernandez never abated. She stood for justice and the rights of the oppressed. Worse still she was a Christian. That is plenty of justification for a lifetime’s worth of persecution in Malaysia.

Further afield the situation was different. Irene Fernandez was recognized internationally for her compassion for the oppressed and her gentle, yet firm resistance to authoritarian tyranny. She was the recipient of the Human Rights Watch award in 1996, the Amnesty International Award in 1998; the International PEN Award in 2000; the Jonathan Mann Award in 2004; and the Right Livelihood Award in 2005.

She came to speak at our College last year in our Hear Us Out conference. Crippled and walking slowly with a cane, Irene Fernandez looked the least likely advocate for human decency. But once she was seated comfortably her kind features and warm smile led you irrevocably into her world of compassion. It was a world populated by the most despicable treatment of other human beings possible. Make no mistake; the government didn’t persecute Ms Fernandez so relentlessly for sport. She was clear-eyed, articulate and fearless. She took all the worst abuses that this country perpetrated upon its most vulnerable and held them up for all the world to see. No wonder the government hated her so. No wonder her death merited less than a hundred words on its official news organs.

Her death, and the way this government has failed to honour her life, speak volumes about its true nature and its treatment of migrants, refugees, orphans and indigenous people. Irene Fernandez was one of Malaysia’s most admirable citizens; a champion of all that is decent and worth valuing in life. The fact that her own country so devalued her life is a stronger condemnation of this country than the nightly parade of misinformation and incompetence we see on the news regarding the disappearance of flight MH370. Those 239 passengers are not the only ones who have gone missing in this increasingly intolerant country. Now one who championed their plight has passed away as well. The country is a poorer place without her.

Anwar Ibrahim was former Prime Minister Mohamed Mahathir’s Finance Minister and the man most widely credited with the Malaysian economic miracle that took this country to a solid Second World status, where it has unfortunately been stalled for the last dozen years. Once Time magazine’s Asian Man of the Year, Ibrahim is not only Malaysia’s most able economic and political force, he is the ruling Barisan Nasional party’s greatest threat. So potent do the ruling elite consider him, that they have found it necessary to pursue him through the courts for a dozen years, perverting the justice system of an entire nation to see him jailed for hysterically contrived offenses.

Offended by all this decidedly less than First World behaviour, the significant Chinese minority – amounting to some thirty percent of the population – have abandoned the BN in droves pushing them to the edge of the political wasteland in the last election. Only skillful gerrymandering of electoral districts saved them from certain defeat. Rather than be chastened by such wholesale rejection, the BN has retrenched and renewed their legal assault on Anwar, resulting an unprecedented appeal against the Supreme Court decision that exonerated him from the latest charade of charges. Significantly he was hauled off the jail – again! – one day before MAS flight MH370 went missing. The two, it seems, are not unrelated in the surreal world of Asian politics.

As offended as are the Chinese by the corruption and incompetence of the BN party, there is another group that are equally if not more offended: devout Muslims, who see the venality and blatant corruption of the current government – all neatly wrapped in a veneer of official Islamic prose – as a grave offense to the purity of their beliefs. Such a man was Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, a pilot of impeccable credentials and considerable experience who is said to have attended the mosque five times a day for prayers. This is almost certainly Muslim hyperbole, but even taking that back a peg and allowing that the man prayed five times a day puts him among the devout elite in this still predominantly liberal Muslim country. And devout Muslims regard the ruling party in this country about as highly as devout Christians regarded that hypocritical scoundrel Ronald Reagan. But I digress.

Among Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s many interests – including his helpful videos on air conditioner repair and a state of the art flight simulator in his house where he plotted out his route that fateful night – was a deep interest in the plight of Malaysia’s embattled Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim. He attended the trial throughout, which in itself is a political statement in a country that takes an interest in what its citizens are interested in. Surely Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah knew which way the political winds were blowing in this trial, which might have been a factor in formulating a plan. A by-election was on the horizon; one that the ruling BN could not afford to lose. Anwar was contesting the seat; BN’s defeat was inevitable. Anwar had to be removed from contention. Nothing as insignificant as a fair trial would stand in the way; the judge had already been bought. Five hours before he boarded flight MH370, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah sat in a Malaysian courtroom and heard Anwar Ibrahim sentenced to a further five years on trumped up charges that no one in the country believes are true.

What will be the outcome of what is now being called a “pilot hijacking?” What was the purpose? The purpose is being played out each night on the television sets of this nation, as Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah knew it would. A whole succession of Malaysian bigwigs, including the prime minister himself, has been parading in front of the international media making absolute fools of themselves contradicting whatever the last guy said and falling all over themselves in their incompetence which has roused the just wrath of China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and everyone else who has had the misfortune to have to deal with them. The Malaysian military knew within minutes that the plane had changed course. Rather than admit this, the Malaysia government had surrounding nations spend millions looking for where the plane was not. The Malaysian police knew within hours that the pilot – who had moved his entire family out of his house the day before the flight to protect them from arrest and media scrutiny – was the one responsible, yet they waited a week for others to point out the obvious.

All of this and much, much more will be the outcome of this sorry affair. Nor will it be the last embarrassment this government faces. As long as there is trouble in Europe and a war in the Middle East, Malaysia will be spared the kind of scrutiny which it by nature abhors. But this is an enduring mystery, and the devout and canny Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah  has done more to highlight the shortcomings of this incompetent and corrupt government than a planeload of Anwar Ibrahims. Welcome to your nightmare, Barisan Nasional. The world is watching.

Ever since we lived in Bangladesh in ’86-87, we have loved the sights and sounds of the monsoon rains which create a virtual wall of water that marches across the landscape refreshing and cleaning the air. It is a sound that we will never forget. We were even looking forward to sharing that with Greg and Liz while they were here in January. Unfortunately, not only did it fail to rain the entire time they were here, but it has not really rained since then either and we are feeling the effects of it big time.

It has been incredibly hot, humid and still, making it oppresseive to even venture out. The government began rationing water in some parts of our province in early February and some areas have gone days at a time without water, playing havoc with small businesses like food stalls and laundries. This week we were warned that we our water rationing would begin, two days on and two days off so we have full containers all around the apartment. Although we have been careful with our water useage, we have actually not yet been cut off.

However, what has been far worse is the air quality. The Air Pollution Indexes have reached as high as 365 ppm is some surrounding areas when anthing above 100 is considered hazardous. This week the air is positively smokey and it burns your eyes and throat to be outside.  We even recieved an advisory notice from the Canadian High Commission here in KL; I guess that is how the Canadian government justifies withholding 25% of my meager pension at source, This morning we were delighted to wake up to sunshine and clear skies and treated ourselves to an hour or so at the pool. This evening we had the first taste of rain and now we sit enjoying some cool evening breezes once again.

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics has been over for almost a week now and we miss them.

It is clearly not that we are or aspire to be athletes or have a major fascination with sports in general. What the Olympics provide for us is a connection to home and our home country. Astro, our cable provider had two channels dedicated to the games which allowed for pretty decent coverage and we spent as much time as we could afford glued to the TV.

The sportsmanship of our fellow Canadians and of course the medals they that won, gave us a great sense of pride in our country and lets face it, a fair bit of homesickness. What reminds you more of friends and family that a good rousing hockey game?
We even had the opportunity to join with about thirty five other Canadian expats at a bar to watch the Men’s gold medal game. It was awesome but I did feel a little sorry for the small contingent of Sweden fans in the audience.

What is it about Phil Everly’s death that has such a grip on me?

It is not just that I am getting old and all the people I grew up listening to are dying. It is more like a way of life is passing. I know this will be hard to capture in this post-modern age, but there was a time when Western culture wasn’t fractured. Could you imagine the tsunami that the Beatles caused happening today? It would be impossible. It was impossible even for the Beatles themselves towards the end of their career, because what I am referring to had already passed by the end of that decade.

But there was a time shortly after the war and lasting for perhaps twenty years at most, when Western culture was unified. We all listened to the same music, read the same books. When Catch 22 came out in ’61 we were all reading it. You’d ride on the subways with people reading the book, listening to them laugh out loud. It was like everyone was in on the joke. We all knew what they were laughing at. West Side Story came out the same year. Everyone was humming along. There were no country music stations or alternative rock stations. We all listened to the same music.

There was a good deal of schlock back then, for sure. Not everything was good. There was a veritable deluge of ‘Bobbys’ for a couple of years and most of them died deservedly quick musical deaths. But there was a brief spell, from maybe 1955 to 1965 where there were incredibly good songs by gifted musicians, and The Everly Brothers were among the best. Elvis was king, of course, and there were as many as two or three dozen solo, quartet and group artists that could compete on any one song. But no other group were anything like Phil and Don.

To my mind they had not only the best sound – pure, sweet, full of soulful longing – but they were the best ambassadors of that age; sweet boys who really seemed to care for the music they were making, with the most delicate harmonies that matched meaning, cadence, intonation, phrasing, tonality and musical colouration in a way that none of us had ever heard. It was like there were two people with one soul, breathing perfectly in harmony.

If you think I am just being nostalgic, have a listen and especially a look at this video of their 1983 reunion concert at Albert Hall. I am happy to admit that the first half of the concert is a little ragged (although you may not be as much of a perfectionist as I am and not notice), but the last half is a close to musical brilliance as you are ever likely to hear this side of glory. Watch how carefully Phil pays attention to every phrase that Don sings, matching and soaring above in absolute harmonic perfection. I read one comment on this YouTube page likening Phil to a human Stradivarius. That’s a pretty good metaphor for his technique. That sound didn’t just happen; they were singing harmony on their father’s radio show when Phil was six.

This sweet sound and thoughtful care for one another characterized the age in which I grew up. We wanted to have a little fun, to be sure, but we were good kids, and we seemed to share a culture of caring for one another. Something happened to fracture that. Perhaps the cracks were already evident and I didn’t notice. We had gangs, or there would have been no West Side Story that sought to portray them. There were even drugs back then, but so marginalized as to be almost insignificant. There was the threat of polio, but that was being beaten back. There was even the threat of nuclear war. But leaders of courage and integrity were facing the threat. I suppose that came to end in on Nov 22, 1963, although perhaps we didn’t know it at the time. Somehow with Kennedy’s death we were aware that dark forces were at work in our world to shatter our innocence and thrust us into the fractured and cynical age which we now struggle to make sense of.

With Phil’s death I am confronted by the sweetness of a world that is long lost and largely unknown by most of those reading this blog. My memories of its loss are bittersweet. I long for those days, as one might long for a glimpse of heaven. It was a kinder world: gentle, melodic and sweet. I will never see it again in this life. And neither will you. Here is a taste of what it sounded like:

Although Steve is technically on break as the college is closed for the holiday season, the university is still going strong and the project doesn’t move forward unless Steve is there, so we have been staying close to home. However, this past weekend Steve had a work based commitment down in the south outside of Johor Bahru.  Since it is a four to five hour drive we decided to make the trip count by spending the weekend there.

We stayed at the Pulia Springs Resort which is a little down at the heels but has some lovely architecture and is located on a gorgeous golf course. It was nice to walk in the quiet, coolness of the evening and spend some time with a book in hand enjoying the greenery and sound of the birds. Subang Jaya is noisy all the time and you forget how restful the quietness is.

On Saturday we drove about forty kilometers out to Ulu Tiram to connect with a potential partner for the university. Kampung Temasek, The School Of Doing, aims to provide experiences that allow people to experience the kampung days of their youth.  The curriculum is geared at equipping future leaders “with the 5Cs of Courage, Curiosity, Creativity, Compassion and Collaboration,” as they explore nature and sustainable technologies. They have a great ten acre site, adjacent to the river Sungei Tiram. Groups are encouraged to go there to work with local facilitators and experiment on any sustainable project from gardening to renewable energy.

After a very nice home grown lunch and some stimulating conversation with Singaporean, Professor Tay Kheng Soon and members of the Buckminister Fuller Club, we headed out to the east coast for the afternoon. It being monsoon season the winds were high and the waves, pretty wild but we relaxed in a hammock, with our books on our laps and watched the waves crash on the shore.

We broke up our drive home on Sunday with a short side trip to the west coast town of Muar. Grabbed lunch at the Elephant Café and stocked up on a couple of kilograms of our favourite Malaysian Elephant coffee. Still beat the rush hour traffic and got home in time for Steve to set up a three time zone, Wise Boys, Red Alert 2 online game with Jon, Ben and Dave. Steve is not much for online games but when your grandson turns seven it is time to learn so you can play with him.

Happy Birthday, Ben