THIS IS A BATTLE WE WILL WIN

With every passing day we see more and more cases of Indian Malaysians being denied their fundamental rights by those in power. Every visit to the HRP website shows us that the objective of bringing the working class Indian to the mainstream development of Malaysia, is not a small or easy undertaking. And these cases are just the tip of the iceberg.

While we go to the field and experience for ourselves the frustration and pain that are the constant companions of the poor Indian Malaysian; there will be times when we will question our ability to achieve what we have set out to do. Our numbers are small, we need to find our own resources and make do, we have no allies to speak off, and we have many enemies, not all of them readily visible.

But we will win this battle.

We have no choice but to succeed in what we have set out to do. And while the challenges may come to us thick and fast while we walk this path, while we may wonder how on God’s green earth we are going to turn around 52 years of government enforced marginalisation, while we experience first hand the racism that has been bred and entrenched into every sphere of Malaysian life, while we lie awake until dawn wondering what to do next, while we see the apathy of even friends and family, let alone strangers; come what may, we will win this battle.

Allow me to state why I know we will succeed. The answer lies in the forgotten pages of history, a history that tells us why our names are Hindu to this day. This has nothing to do with whether our ancestors were great or whatever, but everything to do with the knowledge that we have overcome greater threats before, threats that not only threatened the livelihood of Indians, but their very way of life, nay their very lives itself.

Imagine a force greater and more successful than that of Alexander the Great. A force that did not turn back at the Ganges as Alexander did, but one that was stopped only when it reached the River Krishna.

In modern India, the area south of the River Krishna covers parts of Maharashtra and Andra Pradesh, and all of Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and that island we call Sri Lanka today.

When the threat posed by this force became evident to the ancient kingdoms that ruled that part of India in 1336, these ancient kingdoms of Pandiya and Chola pooled their strengths and gave that strength to a minor principality called  Anegundi at the banks of the River Krishna, a dominion that became the empire we know today as Vijayanagar.

The defence of our way of life as we know it today, of our languages, our culture, and the religions we call Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism was a war that lasted not for one or ten years, but one that lasted 250 years.

The attack into India began in 1001 A.D and came to a halt in the year 1344 at Vijayanagar. Islam took over all of India north of the River Krishna, but for ten generations, mothers sent their sons into battle to defend and protect our way of life. And they succeeded, which is why our names are what they are.

The Buddhist kingdoms of Sri Lanka, and the Jains, Jews and atheists were also protected from forced conversion, and this defence allowed Hinduism to spread to the north again in later days. This defence ended in the year 1565. This defence also indirectly protected China from the sword of Islam, as the disappointed invaders at one time decided to change tack and sent 100,000 soldiers to invade China and bring it under Islam, only for this depleted force to lose its numbers to the Himalayas.

Our forefathers had the knowledge of warfare, of politics, of forethought, the capacity to sacrifice for the greater good, of sticking to the mission for generation after generation, and the strength of character to never give up or surrender.

At one point in time their soldiers numbered 1.1 million, and this was 700 years ago, and if we compare that number to the largest standing army today, of 2 million, that China has, we see the magnitude of the resolve that we have running in the blood that we call ours.

We will succeed. Failure in not an option. Easy is not an option.

The needs that brought those 100,000 souls to the streets on the 25th of November, and the countless others that could not be there has not been met yet, and do we have a choice other than to keep on going until those needs are met? You tell me.

Jeevindra Kumar Krishnan
Human Rights Party Malaysia
{You can find the historical work here,  [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3310]   A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): a contribution to the history of India}

State of Tamil schools

The first time formal Tamil education was conducted in this country was in 1816, at the Penang Free School. Subsequently the Labour Ordinance of 1912 compelled estate owners to set up ad-hoc schools for the children of the labourers.

In 1930, there were 333 Tamil schools in Malaya, increasing to a maximum of 888 Tamil schools with 50,766 students in 1957, the year Malaya gained independence. In 2007, there were 523 Tamil schools with 105,618 students.

Under the 6^th Malaysia plan (1990-1995), 2.14% of the total allocation for education was for Tamil schools, the highest ever, amounting to RM 27,042,000, or about RM 45,000 per school. Under the 7^th Malaysia Plan (1996-2000), the budget for Tamil schools was 1.02% of the total allocation for education, or RM 10,902,000. The reason for the increase in allocation under the 6^th Malaysia Plan was because an Indian based party was part of the opposition coalition, which later returned to the ruling coalition after the election in 1995.

You are walking in a rural or even an urban area. You see a small, run down school with no facilities to speak of, and then you see a signboard that says Sekolah Rendah Jenis Kebangsaan (T), so you stop reading and continue with your walk, not giving it another thought.

Or will you stand there shocked?

The Indian government declared Tamil as a classical language on the 7^th of June 2004, making it the first living language of India to gain that status. Even if they did not do so, does that take away from the importance of ensuring that Tamil education must be accorded the same right to funding and support as any other?

The politicization of vernacular education must also be stopped. Education, health care, security, means of livelihood and freedom of expression are the fundamental rights of all Malaysians. To politicize the education of children is the mark of an immature country, lacking in common sense, for it is affecting the development of its own human capital.

There is a great ignorance of the wealth of learning and culture that Tamil holds. In a recent talk on Tamil history and literature, Tamil school teachers attending the talk owned up to their own ignorance of the scope of the number and quality of Tamil works available in the language. If the teachers themselves are not aware of the richness that lies at their fingertips, how can they impart it to their students? And how will they be aware, if Tamil school teachers have far less training than even the pre-school teachers of Permata?

That will be similar to an English teacher who has not heard of Oscar Wilde and James Joyce, let alone Chaucer, though we can suspect that such teachers do exist in our national schools, judging by the decline in the standard of English among Malaysians.

When a child walks into school for the first time, he does not know the hardship and the burden that his community has faced to have education available to him. The existing schools, teaching force, infrastructure and student body must be taken as a starting point for improvement, and not merely as reminders of broken promises.

Education is too important for us to wait for political will to improve it. But that political will must be brought into play, by hook or by crook.

The change in the power balance in the country should have meant that there will be more official support and funds for Tamil schools from the Government, but that is not happening, except in a piecemeal manner.

RM 1.5 Million allocation for the 28 Tamil schools in Penang says Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng at about RM 50,000.00 per school. From this amount the school intends to build extra classrooms, buy computers, chairs and tables, and organise UPSR seminars. (Tamil Nesan 7/04/2009 at page 14) Why can’t the Penang government invoke Section 76 of the land code, and alienate the land to the 28 Tamil schools so that they can become federally aided schools? That will ensure the quality of education in the 28 Tamil schools in Penang will no longer be limited by funding. The RM 1.5 million can then be used for scholarships and exchange programmes.

Selangor government will use it’s power by taking land belonging to individuals and companies and giving it to SKJK C Sin Ming for it’s expansion purposes. Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim says the state government has the powers and would surrender the land to SKJK C Sin Ming. He said this at the opening ceremony of the new school building by PKR adviser Anwar Ibrahim. Also present were Tian Chua, Gobind Singh, Teresa Kok (Utusan Malaysia 23/2/09 at page 5) The MB said he would negotiate with the developer who owns the 400 hectares of land next to this school in Puchong. If the developer wants to develop the land (then) the land for this school has to be reserved for the school hall and school field and a few other uses. The MB also donated RM 50,000.00 for school hall building fund. Why does the Selangor government not use it’s power for the 98 Tamil schools in Selangor as well? Why the double standards?

RM 80 Million to build MSRM Parit says the ADUN Blanja Datuk Mohd Zaim Abu Hasan (Utusan Malaysia 23/04/2009 at page 26) A mere ADUN announces RM 80,000,000 for a single Mara school.

RM 2 Million for new Bukit Jalil Tamil schools. The condition of the school was shocking but Deputy Prime Minister (and Education Minister) Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was most impressed with the teachers and students. ‘I feel sad that they have to put up with this old and rundown school which has been around for 75 years. Despite the (RM 80 Million) aid provided by the government, the infrastructure is not that good. ‘The building could pose a threat to the safety of the students and teachers. It’s stuffy and uncomfortable. I am sympathetic to their plight’, Muhyiddin said after visiting SJKT Ladang Bukit Jalil, near Puchong here. The school does not have a field and it’s classrooms are cramped. Muhyiddin announced an immediate allocation of RM 2 Million for the school’s new building to be built on an adjacent 0.3 ha plot of land belonging to Kuala Lumpur City Hall. He said the new classrooms and amenities would be able to cater for about 200 students when completed next year. (New Straits Times 24/04/2009 at page 6) And the Deputy Prime Minister himself announces a mere RM 2 million for Tamil schools in Bukit Jalil. By the way, 0.3 hectares is less than half a football field Mr DPM. No school field, no room for expansion, no area for a community hall; where the school can gain some income from rental for events. What can be built on 0.3 hectares? How many classrooms? A canteen? A 1Malaysia toilet? A bicycle shed for the teachers?

RM 236 million to build campus of UITM, and Polytechnic in Balung Tawau would get a RM 200 million for it’s new UITM branch campus whereas the Polytechnic will be built in Sandakan says Higher Education Minister Khaled Nordin (Utusan Malaysia 22/2/09 at page 12) This is great news. The government is serious about education. But how many non-Bumi’s will enjoy these nearly half a billion ringgit worth of education infrastructure? A ‘cakap kosong’ allocation of RM 100 million for 523 Tamil schools which is yet to be seen, but RM 436 million for 2 campuses for the Bumi’s? Will this happen in any other country?

Dr. Mahathir in the “Malay Dilemma” at page 74 and 75 says…. “For these students these scholarships are absolutely necessary. They are a means of breaking a vicious cycle. Backwardness in a modern society spells poverty. Poverty leads to poor education. Poor education perpetuates more poverty. Somewhere the cycle has to be broken and a rich country like Malaysia would stand accused of moral irresponsibility if she did not subsidies the education of the poor. They are a means to progress for a back ward community in a progressing nation. They are a means of rectifying racial Inequality.” How will this cycle be broken for the marginalized working class Indian Malaysians? Can the governments of the day be allowed to keep the poor Indian Malaysian in a state of want, by denying them the access to quality education with their peanut allocations and wayang kulits? It is our moral responsibility to force this rightful change. It will be morally irresponsible for us to allow the governments of the day to get away scot free from their duty to their Indian Malaysian citizens.

Jeevindra Kumar

Pro Tem Central Committee Member

Human Rights Party Malaysia

Are we racists?

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines racism as such

Noun

1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

2 : racial prejudice or discrimination

In the Malaysian context, the first definition may also be modified to the following

1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent inferiority of a particular race

This definition gives rise to the racial prejudice and discrimination that we see almost everywhere, in government policies, in the private sector and even in the supposedly egalitarian alternative media.

Let us now look at the speech delivered by YB Lim Kit Siang in Parliament on the 20th of May 2004 in the debate on the Motion of Thanks for the Royal Address, as the Parliamentary Opposition Leader.

The Honourable MP for Ipoh Timor calls for the formation of 10 Select Committees as a start towards making the Malaysian Parliament a ‘First-World Parliament’.

You may read the transcript here, http://www.dapmalaysia.org/all-archive/English/2004/may04/lks/lks3034.htm

The tenth Select Committee was to focus on the ‘Marginalisation of the Indian Community as the underclass’

The Honourable MP says, “During the 2004 general election, the “Group of Concerned Citizens” in its paper “Election 2004: New Politics for Indian Malaysians” had summarized nine long-standing fundamental issues faced by Indian Malaysians:

The number of Indian youth dying in police custody has increased;

The socio-economic inequality between the Indian poor and rich and between other communities has worsened;

The State has not responded effectively in addressing social ills in the community;

The State policies towards and financial allocation for Tamil schools remains pitiful;

The University intake policy has been a source of major distress for the community;

The State has not stepped in to help resolve the MAIKA scandal;

The Kampung Medan racially-motivated killings have not been brought to a closure. No public inquiry was instituted.

Low cost housing needs of the Indian poor have not been adequately addressed;

The negative consequences of the final breakdown of the plantation economy on the Indian rural poor have still not be regulated.

Aggressive displacement of Indian Malaysians is a serious problem. These nine fundamental issues afflicting the Indian community, marginalizing them into the new underclass in Malaysia, should be the terms of reference of a Select Committee on the marginalization of the Indian community in the country.”

A few questions rise in the mind upon reading the above.

First, is YB Lim Kit Siang a racist for raising Indian Malaysian issues in Parliament? If the answer is ‘no’, can we label anyone else as a racist for raising the same issues today, regardless of the name of the person who speaks out?

Why has the Pakatan Government, upon coming to power in several states, not addressed the same issues that was raised by one of its current leaders in the Parliament 5 years ago? A lack of political will, or a lack of moral will?

The third prime duty of the government to its people has been defined as to ensure that every family unit of the nation has space in the nation’s territory for a home and a means of livelihood.

When citizens are given different treatments when it comes to means of livelihood, including in terms of education and worker protection; and space for a home based on race, then we have to accept the fact that we are a racist country and people.

There is a difference between lip service and service to the Rakyat. A difference that is yet to be learned by both the governments of the day. This is compounded by the inability of the supporters from both sides of the divide to discern the primacy of egalitarian service over egalitarian slogans.

 We are racists as far as the Merriam-Webster definition goes, and that will not change with the mere adoption of slogans.

Jeevindra Kumar Krishnan

Pro Tem Committee Member

Human Rights Party Malaysia

Yang Amat Berhormat Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak,
Prime Minister of Malaysia,

Block Utama Bangunan Perdana Putra,
Pusat Pentadbiran Kerajaan Persekutuan, 62502 Putrajaya.
E-Mail : najib@pmo.gov.my
Fax : 03-8888 3444

Dated: October 12 2009

Re: 2010 Budget Proposals By Human Rights Party Malaysia

Dear Datuk Seri Najib,

We are a recently formed political party, the Human Rights Party Malaysia (HRP), which is pending registration.

We refer to your recent request to the Rakyat for proposals to be incorporated in the upcoming Budget for 2010 (The Sun 2/10/09 at page 12). Our humble proposals, not quantified monetarily due to lack of data and time constraints, are as follows:

1. Minimum Wage 1
1.We propose that a minimum wage be set at RM 1,200 per month, and, RM 50 a day (RM 6.25 per hour) for piece rate or daily paid wage earners, for all Malaysian citizens, so as to uplift them from low wages and concomitant poverty. This will, in one sweep move the lowest paid workers’ family above the poverty line of RM 691 under the 9MP. The average minimum wage of RM 325 agreed for oil palm plantation workers from Jan 1 20012 gives those workers a real wage (in constant 2001 RM) of RM 258.55 in Jan 1 20103.

2. Repatriation of Illegal Foreign Workers & Cessation of Intake of Foreign Labour
2.1 Simultaneous to the above minimum wage for Malaysians, we propose that it be accompanied with the repatriation of 500,000 foreign workers4, so as to create and augment employment opportunities for Malaysians.
2.2 The repatriation of foreign workers would largely be confined to the illegal workers who are estimated by sociologists to number 1.5 million5 in the peninsula alone.
2.3 To ensure that the effect of the minimum wage increase is not diluted but enhanced, the repatriation of foreign workers must be simultaneous to setting of minimum wages for Malaysians.
2.4 To bring about a restructuring of Malaysian economy and society there should be a capping6 of the intake of unskilled foreign labour so as to force automation and mechanisation of work to take place.
2.5 Once again this policy would be widespread and could only be a gain to all Malaysians, particularly the marginalised and impoverished bottom strata of Malaysian society.

3 Alienation of one million acres of land for the technologically advanced farming of high yielding grains,vegetables, fruits, livestock and aquaculture
3.1 As in previous schemes like Felda, Felcra, Fama, Risda, KEJORA, KEDA, KESEDAR, KETENGAH, Agropolitan etc., we propose that 1,000,000 acres of land be alienated to Malaysians of all races equitably, for the technologically advanced farming of high yielding grains,vegetables, fruits, livestock and aquaculture.

3.2 We rank 8th, 11th and 12th respectively in terms of per capita import of corn, rice and wheat worldwide7; this is critical considering that global grain reserves are estimated at 40 days as of 2008.8 This will also increase the existing agricultural land from 78,700 sq km to 82,746 sq km.

3.3 The purpose of this scheme is to be increasingly self sufficient in food supply,and if possible for export, as well as to restructure the economy so that no ethnicity is identified with any sector of the economy.
3.4 As previous schemes mostly benefited the Malay community, further entrenching them in agriculture, we propose this scheme be opened to larger and more equitable participation by all Malaysians, particularly the working class Indians, without prejudice.

4. Franchise Schemes
4.1 We propose that PNS should now extend its mission to provide total franchise solutions to all Malaysians. The time has come for Malaysians, especially working class Indians to be allowed in all the mainstream development programmes that are available.
4.2 We also propose that the licensing requirements under the Franchise Act 1998 be relaxed, together with the removal of race based requirements in submissions of Annual Reports for the Franchisors or the Master Franchise.

5. Establishment of an Anti Race Discrimination Commission and an Equal Opportunities Commission
5.1 We note that in the past many proposals and schemes did not filter down to the masses as intended, or were not implemented, or were not equitably distributed, or were hijacked by corrupt parties, and this was the bane of the NEP. As such we propose that an Anti Race Discrimination Commission and an Equal Opportunities Commission be established for the specific purpose of acting as a watchdog and ensuring government policy be implemented as intended, and be distributed equitably, specifically not excluding the working class Indians. This Commission should be similar to the Commission for Racial Equality and the Equality and Human Rights Commission9 of the United Kingdom.
5.2 This Commissions would be set-up with powers to enforce what is already budgetary and government policy, including the following:
5.2.1 Enforcement of Minimum Wage in the private sector
5.2.2 Monitoring of Repatriation of Illegal Foreign Workers
5.2.3 Equitable distribution of land alienated for the purpose of agriculture, livestock and aquaculture (as in Para 3 above).

5.3 To show transparency and sincerity an official Prime Minister’s Circular should not only be issued but made public and specifically also forwarded to us for our follow up in the implementation thereto. This would prove the governments commitment and sincerity. After all Article 8 of the Federal Constitution provides for Equality before the law and equal protection before the law and Article 12 provides for no discrimination on the grounds of race and religion.
5.4 In addition, the Implementation and Coordination Unit (ICU JPM) must be made responsible for the implementation of the Prime Minister’s Circulars and the Budget as a whole, as well as provide monthly updates on their website (when it is up and running again) on the latest status of what has been achieved vis a vis the budget. An example of long overdue implementation will be, the yet to be seen allocation of RM 100 million10 for the re-development of Tamil Schools announced in the last budget, of which not a single cent has filtered down, when the moneys could have been put to use immediately on a lesser number of schools if the initial allocation had been too small, as it has proven to be.
6. All Tamil Schools to be made fully aided
6.1 On this Budget Speech, an announcement should be made by the Prime Minister, reiterating an earlier government announcement, that with effect from Budget Oct 23 2009 all 523 Tamil Schools are to be fully aided government schools with equal budget, facilities, resources and teaching staff. Simultaneously, a policy should be introduced that Tamil and Chinese be taught in all National schools during regular school hours with effect from 2010 onwards.
7. Micro-credit schemes and small business loans extended to non-bumiputras
7.1 We propose that micro-credit schemes such as the Tabung Ekonomi Kumpulan Usaha Niaga (TEKUN) be extended to all Malaysians regardless of race. Right now there is only token assistance to non Bumi small businessmen. A meaningful extension of the policy to favour all Malaysians would ensure the wide spreading and flourishing of small businesses and reduction of loan sharks (Ah Longs) and the attendant crimes.
7.2 Licenses must be issued to entrepreneurs in the scrap yard and recycling industries. It is inconceivable that businesses that play such an invaluable role in managing dwindling resources are persecuted because they are unable to obtain the necessary licenses.

8. Amanah Saham Scheme for Working Class Indians
8.1 The Indian Equity Stake in Malaysia has fallen to 1.1%. We propose that the Government take concrete steps to rectify this dismal state of affairs by launching a brand new Amanah Saham Scheme in Budget 2010 specifically for the Indian Working Class. This scheme is targeted for Indian Malaysians earning less than RM 1200 per month, but will be open to all Indian Malaysians earning less than RM 3000 per month.
8.2 The proposed Amanah Saham Scheme must be launched with an initial annual fund size of RM 2 Billion, and be structured with the availability of a Government backed loan scheme at a preferential interest rate of not more than 2.50% per annum (similar to yield of 3 year Malaysian Government Security). Current outstanding MGS issues stands at RM 229 Billion11.
8.3 All other terms must be kept similar to that of Amanah Saham Wawasan 2020.

9. Reclassify the Plantation Sector from the Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities to the Rural and Regional Development Ministry
9.1 We propose this transference of the Plantation Sector from one ministry to another as the plantation population, are better served under the Rural Development Ministry, which are better able to care for the social needs of the rural population. Agencies like Felda, Felcra, Risda, etc., come under this Ministry, and are better able to meet the needs of the rural population, particularly as they get displaced when plantations are phased out. This is nothing more than a reclassification of departments from one Ministry to another.
10. Resettlement of Urban Poor into government Housing Schemes
10.1 Resettlement of all urban poor communities should be carried out on a programmed basis into well planned government housing schemes , rather than in an ad hoc manner, on the occasion of their eviction when private development occurs. This will avoid all the incumbent conflicts and abuses that are currently associated with private development on land occupied by these urban poor communities.
11. Legal aid for Criminal Cases
11.1 In order to serve justice to the poor, we propose a fully funded government legal aid fund for all criminal cases, as a fundamental right for all Malaysians earning RM5,000.00 and below per month. This proposal would be seen, as Malaysia taking the steps to ensure justice is served fairly and equitably. This should be modelled along the United Kingdom Legal Services Commission12.
12. Conclusion
12.1 We request that working class Indians be brought into the National Mainstream Development of Malaysia, rather than on ad hoc race-based specific allocations that do not filter down. Kindly therefore provide and announce the necessary allocations for all our aforesaid proposals that benefit all Malaysians and cannot be faulted on any grounds.
12.2 We hope these proposals merit you kind consideration. We shall be pleased to provide further clarifications if necessary.

Yours sincerely,
Jeevindra Kumar Krishnan Sukumaran Apparu
Protem Central Committee Members
Human Rights Party Malaysia

Yes.

The Yen is getting seriously overbought, against the dollar. Is this transferring the risk of the carry trade unwind, when it comes again, into this pair, but in the reverse direction.

The Nikkei and Yen continue to strengthen on worse than expected economic data coming ouy of Japan. The Japanese government has gone as far as claiming a ‘jobless recovery’ which is as logical as owning a blind seeing eye dog.

The markets will have to face the double whammy of a flight to security into the USD, as well as the reverse unwinding of the USD/JPY pair when this bear market in stocks gets back into gear.

Will the SEA currencies, including the RM, get sold off massively in tandem with the JPY? Maybe.

There is a lot more that can be said, but I just want to be on the record as the first to comment on this undue bullishness in the Yen. And to confess that I will laugh at anyone that gets whacked in the face when it gets sold off later…

Jeevindra Kumar

Dear writer,

I ******d ‘racial myopia’ and landed smack dab in the middle of some medical papers relating to short sightedness, and one lone article by a guy who wants to see the world in a single shade of gray…

I have suffered from myopia since I was knee high to a snake, and I take offence with anyone that equates my debilitating condition, which forces me to get really up close before I can decide whether to fix breakfast for whichever girl, whose bed i had drunkenly shared, or sneak out quietly, with narrow mindedness or intolerance.

I read your piece last night, after I had gotten royally pissed off from the report on the Penans a few articles down, so I waited for two reasons. First, to regain the slight sense of humour that I try to keep close while typing, and second to show that your much vaunted fellow Citizens, will give more of a damn about whether anyone has run down their favourite politico, (18 comments), rather than get bothered enough about a bunch of indigenous people who are the sex toys to loggers (9 comments). You should be proud that we have our priorities totally straight. What with not seeing colour, and emphatising with our fellow Citizens and what not, eh?

cont..

” g o o g l e d ” w a s c e n s o r e d . 

I rebut your Malaysians Mudah Lupa video with, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhqlN9GXe-A, or if that is censored as well, the video of Karpal, Rayer and ilk at Buah Pala in y o u t u b e this past January, lying through their teeth and offering hope to people whose land they had already signed off with a stroke of a CM’s pen. ( At least BN makes a one off payment for the vote every five years and forgets about you, but to continue raising hope and making heroic promises after the people have voted for you is just sick…what kind of a person will do that…oh right, smell the coffee right? politicians are scum, eh what?)

My second rebuttal will be Lim Kit Siang, standing in Brickies NUBE office, and calling me and the fellow guests at a DAP talk about Hindraf and something, in December of 2007, about how wrong it is for the police to shoot tear gas at us, ‘the salt of the earth’, when we are trying to demonstrate our right to peaceful assembly while carrying the great gandhi’s pix as a sunshield.. The same Lim who, when asked about Hindraf this year, did not answer the reporters question, but called Hindraf vituperative ( synonyms : calumniating, castigating, censorious, contumelious, defamatory, derisive, disparaging, insolent, insulting, invective, libelous, maligning, obloquious, offensive, opprobrious, reproachful, reviling, rude, sarcastic, scathing, scolding, scurrilous, sharp-tongued, slanderous, traducing, upbraiding, vilifying ) and proceeded to read out from a Chinese vernacular and crack jokes… ohh please search y o u t u b e yourselves for this one.

…cont

feeling a bit lazy, haven’t smelled the coffee yet, so this will be the last for a while.

The 18 point Hindraf manifesto was coined in 2007, while the bulk of the commentors above me were sitting on their fingers while reading MT, and racism was as big a problem as it is now, the only difference being that March 8 has brought out a lot of the cowards from the woodwork, and that, of course dilutes the memory into thinking that they had always been around and were pivotal in making their voice and opinions heard so that others will change the way they vote. Of course the Bersih and Hindraf rallies had absolutely nothing to do with waking the gutless majority up to how important change was… I mean can you believe that two of the biggest rallies ever seen in this country can influence or give hope to anyone?

On the same note, if someone like me was to come out with a 27 point manifesto on what needs to happen so that the Penans will be ok, that will be totally fine right? But if a Penan writes that, then he must be a bleeding racist, correct?

You are right, of course the rest of my fellow Citizens are going to help the poor and marginalised and abused, right after the Teoh Beng Hock inquest and the cow head trials right? And they will fight real hard won’t they?

The poor are only equals to the rest of their fellow citizens in two situations in this country. First, when they travel overseas under a Malaysian passport, and are viewed as Malaysians and not the Bumi/Bintang/Bulan crap…but then again what are they doing travelling overseas when they are supposed to be poor? are they even supposed to afford a passport?

Second, when they cast their VOTE,it still counts as one. And if you and the rest of the upper class drivers of public opinion say that the poor have NO RIGHT to not participate in a system that does nothing for them, regardless of whether that system is labelled BN or PR or IND, I ask you this, how dare you?!?

I like to think simple, but I am also a bleeding heart, so to keep myself from getting confused with the myriad problems that is faced by marginalised Malaysians, and their polycausalities, I work from first principles. Justice, freedom of expression and choice (including the choice of living in the way of their ancestors), the right to fundamental human needs, including but not limited to decent healthcare, security and education, and the right of non participation are among the principles that colour my goggles.

Working from first principles, there are two anak Bangsa Malaysia communities that are marginalised to a greater extent and face more chronically acute (no, not an oxymoron) problems than the rest.

The Orang Asli are the first in this category, regardless of whether they have called the Peninsula or Borneo as their home for the past 50,000 years. http://jeevindra.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/until-the-semangs-are-okay/   and http://jeevindra.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/let-not-the-semang-be-forgotten-lucy-ahmed/ sum up how I see things. If you believe that the Jabatan Orang Asli is there to take care of these tribes, our elder brothers in every sense of the word, you are more wrong than you can imagine. To date, I am yet to see any politician banging the podium on their behalf, and I probably never will.

The second are the poor Indians. And the first thought that will spring in your mind is “HINDRAF”. The second thought will be, “I don’t care, because I am beyond race”. Fair enough.

I believe that the Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia movement will gain traction and become the new rallying call for the alternative media, but this to me will be a populist movement, and I mean that derogatorily as in “pop”. The SABM will champion high profile cases such as Teoh Beng Hock, and other flavour of the month issues such as the cow head incident. They will fight for equality and justice on the basis of petitions, candle light vigils, random protests and by sheer weight of numbers. They will occupy the safe middle ground and attract Malaysians of all backgrounds to believe in their ideals. What they won’t do is raise more than a finger for the Penans, or as in the case of the Kg Buah Pala residents, they will raise the middle finger.

Back to the Indians and Hindraf. Lets look at the cases over the past few days. Husband abducted in front of wife and kids by people claiming to be policemen in Kajang. One death by shooting of a robbery suspect. One murder of a young woman, with body left encased in cement. One murder of a youth in Selayang by unknown assailants. One demolition of an Indian cowherd village, which basically leaves dozens of families robbed of their livelihood. One school shut down, because the roof is just not there. And of course, one cow head. Guess which of this got SABM’s goat? Yes, the cow’s got the goat.

If HINDRAF has become disillusioned with PR and the general Malaysian public, and wants to go at it alone in their fight for the poor Indians, who seem to have only crime as their final fallback when everything else fails, I can’t blame them. At least they embrace their racial cause openly, unlike the MSM which espouses 1Malaysia but is actually UMNO to the core, or the alternative media which only cares about the problems of the middle class and above, and of course Teoh Beng Hock, which to date remains the greatest travesty of justice this country has ever seen.

Me, I am for Human Rights Party of Malaysia. Which claims to fight for Human Rights but fights for Indian Rights. And I am not ashamed of it, because in a land of racists, only the fool will call himself a humanist.

Jeevindra Kumar

Protesters threaten bloodshed over Hindu temple

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/36272-protesters-threaten-bloodshed-over-hindu-temple

Now, the question is this….should I get all riled up when a bunch of idiots march down the street carrying the severed and bloody head of a cow?

1. If I support freedom of expression and democracy, I have to say no, on the basis that freedom of expression forms the foundation of democracy. But I am a monarchist.

2. There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens being slaughtered everyday to serve our tastebuds. So regardless of whether the idiots were going to march or not the cow was as good as dead anyway. Lets call the cow “Daisy” and the idiots that carried it as the “Idiots”.

3. What is the purpose of the Idiots? To raise tension between Hindu’s and Muslims? Perhaps. Should I fall for it…..no. Because most of the Muslims I know will balk at this sort of thing, even if its for nothing more than the fact that it has no class at all.

4. What about the threat of bloodshed? This has to be taken seriously. I am as religious as a papaya tree, but I will defend the right of my fellow citizens to follow their respective religious beliefs. Whether it be a mosque, temple, church or vihara whose construction is being blocked, then I will stand with those that the place of worship belongs to.

5. Is there a ‘hidden hand’ behind tha action of the Idiots. Probably, because even stupidity has its limits, but greed is always limitless.

6. Will I care much unless this escalates? No. And even if it escalates, I will rate this as lower than the betrayal of the Kg Buah Pala residents by PR. This is just idiocy, Kg Buah Pala is pure daylight robbery.

7. So what now? Nothing I guess. I never get riled up by Idiots, it takes a genius to piss me off. I will just keep my focus on what happens to Kg Buah Pala’s residents and all of Daisy’s living cousins over there….unless of course…………..

So, Daisy, God Speed i guess. May you be reborn as anything but an Idiot.

Jeevindra Kumar

Everyone is whacking HINDRAF now. Including parts of the fractured and defunct leadership of the movement itself.

HINDRAF was a galvanising voice for the majority of Indians in this country. And its spillover effect into the population in general, embodied by the cry MAKKAL SAKTHI, will have to be written down somewhere so that people will always remember to expect the unexpected.

Perhaps the vacuum that  is the Indian leadership in this country, became so insufferable that every temple that was demolished, every death in custody, every slight and every insult against the darker hued denizens of this nation forced this fractured and mute community to coalesce, at least temporarily, to show that there will always come a time; when enough is enough……………………………………………………………………….is not the cliche it’s supposed to be. And it so happened that HINDRAF was at the right place at the right time to become the core of this awakening.

Or maybe I’m wrong and HINDRAF was the raison d’etre by itself. A people grateful for forceful and vocal leadership throwing caution to the tear gas soaked wind to make themselves heard, at least for once, even if the message was not everyone’s cup of tea.

Whatever the reason for HINDRAF’s success, it is clear that it is no longer the force it used to be.

Exhibit A : Kg Buah Pala, turned into a farce with the villagers now branded as greedy fools for life (by most Malaysians). And DAP as a bunch of gutless nitwits (at least in my books). And the rest of PR as having the moral fibre of a card carrying UMNO branch leader (in my books again). And HINDRAF as a what? As a nuisance perhaps?

On top of that we have the usually silent, yellow bellied Malaysians who rarely made a hoot before March 08 (you know who you are,c’mon), become the new movers of alternative opinion, joining the hard core “PR is Malaysia’s saviour” troops as the voice of the majority in the non mainstream trough.

Exhibit B : Gnana Prakasom and R.Gunasegaran. And you go, “who’s that?”. And I say, “same like Kugan but not so famous la”. And you go, “oh, ok. Sorry, don’t really care”. And my inner voice goes, “if HINDRAF, or anyone for that matter from the other side of the river Styx from BN still had their act together, these two will have their names right up there with Altantuya, and Kugan and of course Teoh Beng Hock, but no, no one seems to know what act we are on, hell, I don’t think we are all in the same play for that matter,so I have to hope and pray that Harris Ibrahim can carry the burden by himself”.

Exhibit C: The rape of the Penans, in every sense of the word imaginable. And everyone but the Penan go “what in the name of all that is holy does this have to do with me? Just blame BN. And I thought this was about HINDRAF you rambling idiot!!”.

Precisely.

Until the day comes when the average Mykad carrying, teh tarik drinking, roti canai loving Malaysian learns that justice is an universal concept, and applies equally to all, and learns to fight for any other Malaysian’s right as if we all lived and breathed in the same land and under the same sky, I don’t care who or what becomes irrelevant.

Let HINDRAF become another casualty of this country’s meandering history, a history that has taken it from somewhere to nowhere in no time at all. Let it lie by the highway as another victim of our growth into something meaningful. Let PR and BN become footnotes in the history books of our grandchildren, let them be seen as ancient ogres of inconceivable stupidity and corruption.

Because, ultimately, I see only one force that can save Malaysia, and that is the child that runs chasing its friends with snot running down its nose and laughter spilling on every side, along every street and jalan and lorong of this beautiful country.

I just hope that we don’t fuck it up too much before that child grows up, and has no choice but to look us in the eye, and punch us in the face while kneeing us in the groin for being such bigoted, selfish and myopic pricks.

Jeevindra Kumar

My brothers,

While we living have been keeping a close and watchful eye on the unfolding of the Teoh Beng Hock saga, you were dying while in police custody.

No, I do not expect any calls to be made for a Royal Commission to investigate your deaths, we are yet to get any answers on Kugan, months after his passing. God knows how many more have died in the meantime.

My question is this, though you can no longer answer them, what has made your lifes’ so cheap that it could be taken away with so little fuss.

Are you not Malaysians? Are you not human? Were your life’s made worth less because you were born an Indian, ergo, you must be a criminal? Were you Gunasegaran, sent to meet Yama because you worked in a toddy shop?

No my brothers. You came from a culture so old, it’s descendents have forgotten most of its history. You spoke a language so ancient, and so rich, that few today can fathom it’s mysteries. But all that means nothing, not in this time, not in this place. Right here and right now, the deaths of anyone that looks and talks like you is a mere statistic, just another number to be written down and forgotten.

And I am to blame for it as much as anyone else. My apathy, my ignorance, my lack of action did not raise the fists that struck you, or the boots that kicked you, but neither did they stop them. My silence accompanied the moans of pain you would have uttered, my eyes sat blind while you begged for mercy.

I am ashamed. And with shame I make you this promise, my brothers. My hands will write, and if the words have no effect, I will drop the pen and curl my fingers into a fist. My feet will walk for you and everyone else that have none to walk for them, and if my steps take me nowhere, I will shod them in boots, and stand firm.

I have lived my life, now I will start dying, and I will die remembering the purpose that was robbed from you. I will die with the dignity that befits my ancestors, and you, my brothers.

REST IN PEACE MY BROTHERS

Jeevindra Kumar

It’s easy to be taken for granted. We, humans, take the planet and the environment for granted everyday and we are still around.

But what the DAP and it’s majority of Chinese supporters have shown in the Kg Buah Pala issue is not something I will condone.

I believe in fairplay, i believe in justice for the sake of justice, i believe in taking the harder road because it is right. Sometimes there are no gray areas, and the choice has to be made between what is right and what is wrong.Hesitation is wrong, the fear of punishment is cowardly, and the usual rules of politics have to be thrown out.

The Penang government has let the residents of Kg Buah Pala down by it’s slow response and lack of moral will. The Penang government has behaved like a coward, and a coward deserves no respect or support from me, regardless of what the coward has achieved in the past

The only pity is that the residents of Kg Buah Pala have nowhere to turn to except their own race for any kind of support at all, which makes the cowardice of the Penang government even more apparent and painful.

The following is a letter that was sent to MT and published sometime around Dec 13 2007.
 

I am publishing it again so that we can see that the negative perception of HINDRAF and the Kg Buah Pala issue is something that could have been prevented.

It now seems that matters have moved on to a watershed, similar to the watershed that was March 8th, and the blame falls squarely and equally on the shoulders of HINDRAF and the opposition parties for sacrificing right planning for political expediency.

———————————————————————
Letter to Hindraf and Opposition political parties.
CTT (Citizen’s Think Tank) is going to form a Shadow
Government (what this entails is still unclear) soon.

When are we going to see a proper Shadow Cabinet by
the opposition parties and a move beyond calling for
Electoral reforms via BERSIH, to a common manifesto by
the Opposition to take on BN in the next GE??

Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall hosted a forum on Post
Hindraf Malaysia two days ago, with KeADILan and PSM
being represented, and the PAS speakers unable to
attend because of the BERSIH arrests at the Parliament
the same morning .

Yesterday, DAP hosted a talk  ” A New Deal For
Marginalised Indians ” at NUBE in Brickfields.

The message delivered by all the speakers is for
Malaysian Indians to spread the news and to vote for
the opposition candidates in the next GE, as well as
an open invitation for them to join the respective
parties.

It will be a crying shame if the next GE sees a
reduction in the popular vote to BN to below the 50%
mark, and yet BN still forms the government because
the Opposition parties can’t unite and work together
in a more concrete manner.

When this question was raised to the speakers, not a
single one of them said they will speak to the other
leaders to get the ball rolling, all we get is more
rhetoric about the raw deal the Indians have had, how
UMNO is bad, and the same old sob stories.

Time for rhetoric is over.

PAS, KeADILan, DAP, PSM and whoever else, put your
heads together and show us that you can unite beyond
individual ideologies to come with a blueprint for a
better Malaysia.

Decide on which is more important. Your individual
ideologies or a better future for Malaysia and
Malaysians?

For Hindraf, take this opportunity to push all the
parties that are ‘courting’ you for your support to
force them to come together in a more visible and
viable manner. By this you will be doing all
Malaysians a favour, not just the Indians. Do not
allow your supporters votes to be in vain.

All I ask is that you defend the constitution and
ensure that the poor are given help regardless of
ethnicity.

Jeevindra Kumar
Dec 13 2007
——————————————————————————-

If HINDRAF is being vilified right now, it is because it allowed its momentum and message to be exploited (for want of a better word) by the Opposition Parties to achieve a common purpose (winning the 8th GE) without getting a quid pro quo. Not a quid pro quo for Indians or Hindus alone, mind you, but clout to fight for the downtrodden regardless of race, religion or language.

This is what you get when you trust the rhetoric that spills from the mouth of Political Parties, regardless of which side of the divide they are on. When push comes to shove they will pass the blame elsewhere and just let the cards fall where they may.

As for the general racism exhibited in the Kg Buah Pala issus as far as MT commentors are concerned, it should not come as a surprise to anyone. If you thought you were living in the land of racial equality and social justice, it’s time to get your head checked. This is Malaysia, and we take our race divides seriously.

Jeevindra Kumar
July 14th 2009

The doom sayers have been recommending Gold and Oil and Silver. They have all missed land, the ultimate hard asset.

We will probably see most nations adopt a Gold/Silver backed currency in the next two decades. The chances of Governments then making private ownership of these metals illegal or heavily taxed is pretty probable if we look at history.

Land is probably the only asset that they can’t touch with impunity. It’s a finite resource, nearly impossible to steal, it has the greatest number of uses and forms the basis for all wealth.

Get smart, buy Land. This recession /depression has a long way to go yet, we are still screwed fundamentally, and in this scenario, the best defense is a good offense. Keeping part of your wealth in land is good offense.

History of Malaysian Indians 2

In the first article we had a brief look at the ancient connections that Indians have had with this region. This connection was strong enough for historians to call this region Greater India or The Indianised States of South East Asia. But this ancient relationship plays no role when it comes to the general state of the Indian community in this country today, as we have to draw our immediate history from more recent events.

The Indian influence began to penetrate the Malay region very early in time. “An Indian Era of Malay history” existed in Malaya until about the beginning of sixteenth century. Most of the south Indians who migrated to Malay Peninsula during the early years went in connection with trade and commercial activities. The early migrants were basically drawn from the traditional trading communities of south India like the Chettis and Komatis; whereas those south Indians who emigrated to Malaya during the nineteenth century when the plantation economy emerged were chiefly “illiterate, cheap docile” labourers. (K. S. Sandhu, “Indians in Malaya: Immigration and Settlement, 1786-1957″, Cambridge, 1969)

Indians have been synonymous with the estate economy from the 1870’s until the 1940’s. The growth and the distribution of the South Indian population in Malaysia were closely related to the growth of rubber, palm oil and sugar estates. Plantation of rubber for example, grew from 350 acres in 1877 to two million acres by 1940. As early as 1918, rubber exports from Malaysia supplied half of the global consumption for that commodity. This rubber ‘boom’ created massive demand for manual labour. As the indigenous population did not come forward to supply the energy and strength needed to fuel this growth, the plantation owners had to look towards South India for labourers who would work for fixed hours daily.

South Indians were also valued as the best ‘metal breakers’ and specially adapted for road construction, so they found employment on all such road and railway projects. The labour that these early Indian migrants, our forefathers, provided to this country cannot be measured, and must never be forgotten.

Labourers were recruited mainly using the ‘Kangany’ or ‘Maistry’ system. Estate, factory and mill owners rarely hired the labourers they needed directly, this was contracted out to the Kangany. The Kangany will then have to ensure an adequate and regular supply of labour to mills and plantations, and was paid a premium for each person that was recruited.

Since these middlemen were from the same local society as the labourers they recruited, they had the power to engage, discipline, control as well as educate those they hired on behalf of the owners. The middlemen frequently visited the rural areas and lured the economically and socially vulnerable villagers by painting plantation life in bright colours and offered them travel and other expenses as an additional inducement. By their personal approach and standing in the local society they could and did influence the decisions of the prospective emigrants.

The power to offer employment made the relationship unequal, turning into a pattern of patronage and exploitation between the Kangany and the labourer. A system of salary advances, initial indebtedness, the subordination of labour to the middlemen, illegal deduction from the wages of workers under employment, compulsory contribution of free labour were the main features of the Kangany recruitment process.

P.E. Baak, “About Enslaved Ex-Slaves, Uncaptured Contract Coolies and Unfreed Freedmen” in Modern Asian Studies, Vol.33, No.1, 1999, p.124.

These two titles say what must be said. That the exploitation of Indian labour by the colonial powers and its middlemen was a form of slavery, where unfreedom, for want of a better word, was the state of its sufferers. Before we look further into this chapter of history, let’s take a brief look at the life of one of the emigrants.

He had to stop schooling at a young age because of poverty. Having no choice, he began working at that young age in the village where he was born. He earned enough to support his elderly parents and send his siblings to school. When the time was right, he married the girl chosen for him and was blessed with two beautiful children.

One day, an agent came to his village and spoke to the young men there. The agent was looking for workers to work in Malaysia. The agent said he will take care of all the details of travel and permits for anyone that was willing to go abroad and work hard for two years. The agent would even loan the money to those that were interested but could not afford the sum, about twenty five times the average monthly income in the village, needed for travel and the necessary papers. He promised a job with an initial salary twice what the young men could earn in the village. There would be two increments every year, a day off every week, and accommodation and food provided for the entire two years.

The agent also promised better jobs with even higher salary for those that did well in their first year. Taken in with the promises of the agent, and hoping to provide a better life for his children than he had, the young man bade a tearful goodbye to wife and family, and left for Malaysia with high hopes.

The reality in Malaysia was different. He had to work twelve to fourteen hours everyday, seven days a week. There were only three days holiday for the entire year, when the owner shut the doors of the business to celebrate Deepavali. Food was cooked communally, and was simpler than the fare he had grown up on in the village, and was never enough.

His lodging was a cramped room shared with 4 other workers, and his bed was a cloth on the cement floor. His identification papers were kept by the owner, making it impossible for him to go anywhere apart from work and home. But the worst fact was that he and his fellow workers have not been paid a single cent for the past six months.

If they asked for money to send some home to their family in the village, they are beaten up by the owner and his men. They can not inform those back home of their situation, as they are afraid that their wives and family would not be able to take the news, and might do something rash. They can only wonder how their family was meeting the monthly loan payments.

Unfreedom, indebtedness, forced free labour, inhuman living conditions, cruel heartless masters, and no help from anyone.

The year is 2008, the place is some of the businesses in Brickfields of Kuala Lumpur, the victims are the poor emigrants from the villages of South India, and they are exploited by agents from their village. The only difference is that their masters are no longer from the colonial class, but are Malaysian Indians.

This is modern day slavery, a reincarnation of colonial practises, in our midst. As long as we allow this to continue, we have no reason to complain of being a disenfranchised people, for we turn a blind eye to those that suffer as our forefathers did.

© Jeevindra Kumar 2008

HISTORY OF MALAYSIAN INDIANS

Long Live! Year of Siyaka 822, month of Waisaka, according to astronomy. The fourth day of the waning moon, Monday. On this occasion, Lady Angkatan, and her brother whose name is Buka, the children of the Honourable Namwaran, were awarded a document of complete pardon from the Commander in Chief of Tundun, represented by the Lord Minister of Pailah, Jayadewa.

The above is a translation from a plate found in the Philippines, written in the Kavi script, dating back to 1100 CE (Common Era),one of the examples of our long history here ;

“The Dravidian influence on the ancient Filipino scripts was obviously of Tamil origin,” wrote V.A. Makarenko, in advancing another view on the origin of Philippine scripts. Based primarily on the work of H. Otiey Beyer, this theory argues that these scripts reached the Philippines via the last of the “six waves of migration that passed through the Philippine archipelago from the Asian continent . . . about . . . 200 B.C.E (2200 years ago) . . . .,” constituting the Malayans and Dravidians, “primarily the Tamil from Malaya and the adjacent territories and from Indonesia and South India as well.”

When does our history in this land begin? Should we begin with the migration of our immediate forefathers 200 years ago or with the founding of Malacca by a Prince called Parameswara 600 years ago, or should we start with the physical evidence of an ancient Hindu Kingdom in Lembah Bujang 1600 years ago? Or can we go even further back, viewing the influence of Indians in South East Asia, which made historians call it “Greater India” or as the “Indianised States of South East Asia”.

If we view ourselves as a poor migrant community, then we should only look at our history over the past 200 years or so. If we consider ourselves as the descendents and the guardians of the great culture that ruled this part of the world for more than a thousand years, then our history here begins when our ancestors gave this land its name.

Until at least 23 years ago, our school history books said that the name Malaya, comes from a combination of the words “Malai” and “Ur”, given to it by the Indian seafarers. Though this is probably no longer what is taught to our children, along with other omissions, it does not change the fact that the Indian community living in Malaysia today, are of the same stock as the Indians that provided the foundations of civilisation to this country. Should we then continue to view ourselves as third class citizens?

But the reality remains that when we returned to the very shores that our ancestors had civilized, we returned as indentured labourers. And today we find ourselves in the increasingly difficult position of being left behind, despite having contributed so much. We must take upon ourselves the burden of rediscovering and remembering our true history, for our history in this country in not just our legacy, but the true story of how this nation came into being.

To lay the groundwork and approach our history here with the correct perspective, we can look at certain aspects of the national culture to gain an idea of how much it has been influenced by our own.

It is impossible to treat the story of Sang Sapurba, the first Malay King, as strictly historical, for it seems more mythological. Three young men descend from the heavens of Indra upon the mountain Maha-Meru, on the slopes of which they meet two women who support themselves by planting hill-padi. Supernatural incidents mark the appearance of the strangers. The very corn in the ground puts forth ears of gold, while its leaves become silver and its stalks copper. One of the new-comers rides on a white bull, and carries a sword called Chora samandang-kini. They are received by the natives of the district (Palembang) and made Rajas. He who rides the bull becomes king of Minangkabau, and the other two receive minor kingdoms.

The white bull of Sang Sapurba is evidently the vehicle of Siva, and the name of the sword bears a close resemblance to manda-kini, the name given in heaven to the sacred Ganges, which springs from the head of Siva. The title given to the queen, Permaisuri, is in turn derived from the word Parameswari, the wife of Siva, as logic and custom dictates.

Study a Keris carefully, and you will see a small protuberance in the shape of a tapering and sinuous hook at the base of the Keris, just after the hilt. It is called “Belalai Gajah” and it signifies the proper obeisance that has to be paid to Ganesha, before the start of any venture, in this case, the business end of the Keris. It is taboo to point the Keris straight up to the sky, or straight down to the ground, as pointing it up signifies “murka” and down shows great disrespect, as the Keris is also a symbol of the Siva Linga.

There are numerous examples such as the ones above, which makes it difficult to answer exactly where Indian history ends and South East Asian history begins. If we embrace the distant past, we deny the hardship and the struggle of the present, if we only look at the recent history, we will be guilty of selective perception, which is a sin that we cannot commit, because we have not earned the right to do so.

We can ask ourselves why a great portion of this region’s history is denied by a great portion of its own people, and is replaced by an increasing emphasis to history from elsewhere, but that is beyond the scope of our responsibility at the moment. What we must do, is rediscover and remember the full history of “Greater India” for that is our debt to our ancestors, our responsibility as patriots and our duty to our children.

© Jeevindra Kumar

When John Kerry lost the last time around, it was almost as heartbreaking as watching Liverpool lose to ManUre. But Obama’s victory more than compensates for the wait, it’s not merely a rejection of Bush, but a rejection so strong it has crossed racial lines, in a manner that will write itself into history. Well done the people of USA, well done Barack Obama, all de best.

Back to Malaysia. The prime time news last night had clips of people being interviewed on who should be elected president. The answer was invariably Obama, and the respondents were mostly the sons of the soil.

There is a limit to everything, even hypocrisy. How can any red blooded Malaysian, holding the concept of Ketuanan Melayu close to his heart, a firm believer in the importance of the contract of which we may not speak of, in any way or form, condone the acceptance of a mixed blood like Obama, or congratulate him and his fellow citizens, when they have so clearly ignored the rights of the indigenous people of that country, regardless of whether they are the first indigenous or 7th indigenous people to arrive.

This is an outrage of the highest order, and God forbid that something similar should happen within our sacred shores. I, for one will defend this country against such blind acceptance of a man on his worth alone, when a smidgen of intelligence should make it clear that it is his race and religion that is of utmost importance.

Barack Obama, the people of USA might be able to accept you, but you sir, should not even dream of running a country as great as mine, for you are the wrong race, the wrong colour and of the wrong religion, you pendatang.

Jeevindra Kumar

When Prometheus, bound by chains to have his liver devoured by an eagle everyday, undying, in eternal pain, was asked to place a gift to mankind, whom he loved so much he gave them the gift of fire knowing the punishment he will face, he in his wisdom placed in that box a gift so precious, so valuable, that his single gift offset each curse and burden placed in that box by all the other gods, jealous of mankinds success.

Pandora opened that box, and out flew war and disease, famine and gluttony, and all the myriad ills that still plague us today, but the last to leave that fateful box was Prometheus’s gift, not as well known as his earlier gift of fire but infinitely more precious. It was the gift of Hope.

What hope is there for Malaysia?

1. The so called Pakatan Rakyat governments can’t even form a shadow cabinet, 7 months after winning 5 states and after countless promises made and broken on forming the next federal government.

2. They cant even have a website that says “This is PakatanRakyat.com”. They are either lazy, stupid, divided or they just can’t give a damn, whichever it is, it’s not good for all of us that voted for them.

3. Barisan Nasional is dying from within and they still have their heads so far up Media Prima’s butt that they don’t know their left foot is already in the grave up to the neck.

4. The global economy is doing what it’s supposed to, which is go ‘thunk’. ‘thunk’ as it tumbles against the walls on its way down, but our economic ‘brains’ are still repeating the mantra ‘ Om.. Malaysia is fine.. Om’ taught to them by their grandfathers back when Keynes was still boinking his mates in the gentleman’s club.

5. The fourth estate which probably has a few thousand journalists. reporters, subeditors, editors and other creatures has to make do with a sum total of 7 brains between them, 3 of which are in citizen Nades’s suitcase. 

6. I am starting to get mildly irritated with what’s happening, which means that the rest of you should have started panicking about 3 years ago.

God save Malaysia, but if even You can’t do it, please make it quick and unexpected, let us all just wake up one day and find out that we have been annexed by Bukit Timah, because the rest of  Singapore did not want us.

Jeevindra Kumar

Economic meltdown? I told you so!!

Worried about the headlines? You should be.

I quit my job on the 31^st of December 2005, because I wanted to protect my kith and kin from what I thought then, will be a recession of major proportions. Have I succeeded? Not yet. Am I in despair? Not yet. But enough about me, let’s talk about you.

Banks, hedge funds, insurance firms, brokerages, and stock markets (even entire countries i.e. Iceland), are collapsing left right and centre. Did you ever think this would happen? Why not? Far better minds than me have been warning of the fragility of the global economy for years. They have been getting more strident and detailed in their prophecy of doom for the past half decade, but most people paid them little or no heed at all. I’m sure there are some that are still clueless.

There is no single cause for this crisis, so there is no point in pointing fingers. It’s all of our faults. This is a calamity that is the fault of the entire human species. We chose fiat currencies over gold and silver, we chose bigger and better SUV’s to move our butts from A to B, we chose to eat and live like kings.

How bad will it get?

Grain reserves (food) are at levels so low globally, it’s not even funny. The central banks seem to be choosing to go down the road that Japan has already gone through, by setting things up for a deflationary depression, which will be very painful whichever way you look at it. The climate, sea levels and plate tectonics are continuing to change according to their cycles, which are beyond our ability to predict, except to say that the surface of this planet is becoming a tad more dangerous. The man on the street, whichever city that may be, is losing faith in his government and the experts, and rightly so, but this will also mean a concomitant and continuous rise in crime and anarchy. A lot of jobs will enter the endangered species list, especially if the job has nothing to do with the production, transportation, refining and retailing of food, energy, water, security, weapons, alcohol, drugs, and other things (like bicycles) that we cannot survive without. I could go on and on.

Should we panic?

No. Let’s look at the US of A. It’s about 20% of the global economy, and Obama notwithstanding; it’s up the proverbial creek. Guess which nation was 20% of the global economy 200 years ago? If you guessed China, you are close, now go a bit south and west. If your finger lands in India, you are right. So the US of A should bounce back, in a couple of hundred years or so. We have been through depressions and worse calamities before. What is at risk is not our lives, but our lifestyles.

How to survive this relatively unscathed?

You will need brains and balls. Brains to identify the opportunities and changes that you will have to make, and the balls to do them. Learn…

1. How to trade the global markets
2. How to hoard gold and silver
3. How to buy the right stocks when they are getting cheap, like now
4. How not to buy the home you live in and the car you drive by installments
5. How to grow your own food (just in case)
6. How to survive on different diets (insects can be yummy, with the right sauce, I hope) Vegetarianism helps as well.
7. Improve your immune system (very important, if you can’t drink tap water without falling ill, stick to beer)
8. How to ride a bicycle (in case oil goes to 200 bucks a barrel, which it still might)
9. How to watch less TV
10. How to read more non fiction (knowledge has the habit of being useful)
11. How to be nice to your neighbours ( just be nice to everyone, might safe your life someday)
12. How not to follow the herd (if everyone is selling, you must be buying, unless it’s LV bags and Armani coats they are selling, then I hope you had sold yours before they did)
13. How not to be superstitious
14. How to keep the faith.

There are tremendous opportunities now; I hope you can see them. Anyway, the winter we are in right now, won’t last, and spring will be here soon enough.  Good luck and God Bless.

Regards

Jeevindra Kumar

p.s. I am shooting this e mail out to everyone in my address book, so don’t reply unless you want to heap praise on me, or give me money.

Malaysian’s have a short memory.

They have forgotten that they hold the future of the country in their hands. They have forgotten that it is their actions, whether great or small, that has placed this country  on a new path.

Thay have forgotten this, and are now following the day to day developments of Anwar vs Badawi, as if the future of the country depends on this two.

This country deserves better than a politician, it deserves the everyday heroes, it’s citizens, to decide what will come to be tomorrow.

Malaysian’s must wake up to the fact that they are masters of this country, that the government and its various arms are mere extensions of the citizen’s will.

Malaysian’s must be able and willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that this country will achieve everything that it is capable of. They must watch closely and be willing to step in when their servants in the government step out of line and ignore the will of the people.

They must become worthy of this great land. They must make their will known. They must keep forcing the change that this country needs. They must not give up. They must not despair.

analysis of pairs two weeks ago and today. got it pretty damn right. enjoy

Raise your hands if you believe that this minister does not know about economic cycles.

If your hands are raised, now slap yourself hard for being stupid. What he has done is simple, with one seemingly silly statement, he has made everyone swallow the fact that we are going to have a downturn, and that this downturn will be a repeat of the one in 1997.

By diverting the focus to his “ignorance” and with the media interviewing “top” economists who all point out that this is just part of the nations’ economic cycle, the average Malaysian is now gearing up for what he has survived through in 1997.

If you believe that this “downturn” will be a repeat of 1997, slapping yourself wont do. Open the drawer, get the hammer out, and keep knocking some sense into your head until I tell you to stop.

Its going to be worse. How much? I cant say, but if you think back to ‘97 and multiply that by a hundred you are beginning to scratch the surface.

This looks more like a repeat of 1929, with the added bonus of not having much of a chance of a world war to pull us out of it.

What can you do? Buy Gold. Or you can read my previous post.

Year Oil – consumption Rank Percent Change Date of Information
2003 472,000 28 2001 est.
2004 460,000 30 -2.54 % 2003 est.
2005 460,000 28 0.00 % 2003 est.
2006 510,000 27 10.87 % 2003 est.
2007 515,000 27 0.98 % 2004 est.
2008 501,000 28 -2.72 % 2005 est.

Year Oil – production Rank Percent Change Date of Information
2003 729,200 27 2001 est.
2004 690,000 27 -5.38 % 2003 est.
2005 785,000 22 13.77 % 2004 est.
2006 770,000 23 -1.91 % 2005 est.
2007 770,000 23 0.00 % 2005 est.
2008 751,800 25 -2.36 % 2005 est.

Reserves estimated at 3,000,000,000 barrels as at 2008, or 3990 days at current production.

Price paid for import/consumption is current market (brent) price. current USD 131.41 (world avg)
Price received for export/production is Tapis price. current USD 142.19, the most expensive crude in the world(usually)

So we make about USD 106,898,440 daily from exports and spend USD 65,836,410 on imports. NET DIFFERENCE OF USD 41,062,030 IN PROFIT DAILY. IF WE TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION THAT THE PUBLIC GETS AN OFFICIAL SUBSIDY OF RM0.30 PER LITER, THEN THE GOVERNMENT, AND NOT THE PEOPLE!!! IS GETTING ABOUT USD 100 MILLION DAILY.

who the fuck is enjoying this???

World Oil Prices http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_wco_k_w.htm

(Dollars per Barrel)
Period: Weekly

Crude Type

Total World
123.35 126.06 121.36 129.70 129.78 131.41 1978-2008
United States
120.16 121.92 117.82 125.28 125.93 128.02 1978-2008
OPEC* Average
123.86 126.43 121.52 130.00 130.20 131.47 1978-2008
Abu Dhabi, Murban 39º
129.02 131.00 126.63 134.47 136.36 136.07 1978-2008
Algeria, Saharan Blend 44º
127.81 130.77 126.32 135.10 134.45 136.67 1978-2008
Angola, Cabinda 32º
123.93 126.19 121.58 129.97 129.35 131.36 1989-2008
Dubai, Fateh 32º
122.85 124.76 119.96 127.76 129.48 129.39 1978-2008
Ecuador, Oriente 30º
114.82 115.12 111.25 120.64 119.81 121.18 1978-2008
Indonesia, Minas 34º
130.44 133.61 127.97 136.88 138.44 138.15 1978-2008
Iran, Heavy 30º
119.37 121.85 117.42 125.72 125.11 126.73 1978-2008
Iran, Light 34º
122.27 124.75 120.32 128.94 128.41 130.03 1978-2008
Iraq, Kirkuk 36º
119.10 122.64 118.01 127.02 125.81 128.16 1978-2008
Kuwait, Kuwait 31º
119.86 121.69 116.51 124.33 126.00 125.92 1978-2008
Libya, Es Sider 37º
122.35 126.74 121.80 130.63 130.16 132.32 1978-2008
Neutral Zone, Khafji 28º
123.89 126.63 120.79 129.05 129.66 130.90 1999-2008
Nigeria, Bonny Light 37º
130.90 133.71 129.82 138.76 138.29 140.30 1978-2008
Nigeria, Forcados 31º
130.91 133.75 129.87 138.81 138.33 140.35 1978-2008
Qatar, Dukhan 40º
128.33 129.97 125.80 133.92 135.91 135.72 1978-2008
Saudi Arabia, Arabian Heavy 27º
118.54 121.28 114.49 122.75 123.36 124.60 1978-2008
Saudi Arabia, Arabian Light 34º
123.89 126.63 120.79 129.05 129.66 130.90 1978-2008
Saudi Arabia, Arabian Medium 31º
120.89 123.63 117.14 125.40 126.01 127.25 1978-2008
Venezeula, Bachaquero 17º
NA NA NA NA NA NA 1978-2008
Venezeula, Bachaquero 24º
NA NA NA NA NA NA 1978-2008
Venezuela, Tia Juana Light 31º
123.84 125.27 122.26 131.68 130.36 131.90 1978-2008
Non-OPEC* Average
122.73 125.60 121.16 129.33 129.26 131.33 1978-2008
Australia, Gippsland 42º
133.42 136.91 129.12 136.43 137.30 137.70 1989-2008
Brunei, Seria Light 37º
1978-2003
Cameroon, Kole 34º
121.91 126.18 121.82 130.53 128.68 131.31 1989-2008
Canada, Canadian Par 40º
127.91 130.59 126.18 131.05 135.06 135.85 1993-2008
Canada, Heavy Hardisty 22º
113.65 115.72 109.54 113.54 116.90 119.49 2007-2008
Canada, Lloyd blend 22º
1989-2007
China, Daqing 33º
127.08 129.71 123.98 132.08 132.92 132.66 1978-2008
Colombia, Cano Limon 30º
128.02 128.61 125.18 135.06 134.50 136.33 1989-2008
Egypt, Suez Blend 33º
117.81 121.91 117.44 125.63 124.46 126.87 1978-2008
Gabon, Mandji 30º
NA NA NA NA NA NA 1978-2008
Malaysia, Tapis Blend 44º
134.97 138.43 133.00 140.90 142.13 142.19 1978-2008
Mexico, Isthmus 33º
123.73 125.16 122.15 131.57 130.25 131.79 1978-2008
Mexico, Maya 22º
107.08 107.94 104.96 114.90 114.50 116.54 1989-2008
Norway, Ekofisk Blend 42º
127.40 131.81 127.92 136.39 135.10 137.69 1978-2008
Oman, Oman Blend 34º
123.06 124.82 120.45 128.29 129.93 129.84 1978-2008
Russia, Urals 32º
121.30 125.44 119.69 129.92 128.54 131.29 1978-2008
United Kingdom, Brent Blend 38º
126.33 130.13 125.47 134.87 133.85 135.98 1989-2008

This is going to rile a lot of people.

‘Aryan’ is what we consider to be the finest of European thought and culture. There is no such race as the Aryans, as there is no evidence for ‘race’ in human DNA. 

By the end of Aryan civilisation, I am talking about the end of this brief period in human history where the West has basically run the world, and has made most other cultures and civilisations idealise the West as their model for growth.

The rise of the Indo European languages, of democracy, of modern economic theory. of globalisation and of consumerism has taken us on the whole, away from the way our ancestors have lived for tens of thousands of years. We have forgotten about the very important concept of balance, that is the foundation of all ancient religions, including the ancient religions of Europe. We have forgotten to keep ourselves in a state of harmony with the planet and with each other, and we are bringing upon ourselves the destructive madness that we see playing out every day. Some call this destructive madness the manifestation of Nature’s or God’s wrath.

Let’s recap where we are going wrong.

Democracy is not the halfway house to Utopia as Brodsky believes. It is an ingenious tool to make the masses believe that they are in control of their lives. Governments do not govern in the best interest of the people, even the ‘best’ governments care about themselves first and the people second. The best form of government has always been and will always be a benevolent monarchy, and there is no better example than that of pre-dynastic Egypt, where the best warrior, in terms of courage and ability and intelligence, was crowned King for 8 years, and then killed, to be replaced with the next candidate. Today we choose leaders based on their oratorical ability and the depth of their pockets, either in cash or bullets.

Globalisation is what happened when early humans spread far and wide tens of thousands of years ago, propagating our species to all the corners of the planet. It is not this unsustainable experiment we are conducting now to break down barriers on paper. This is mass consumerism, forced on people, on a global scale.

Fiat currencies are the raison d’etre for the rise in prices of commodities, and the concomitant inflationary cycle we are stuck in. Things are not becoming more expensive…it is “money’ that is losing its value. That is because we have substituted Gold and Silver with coloured bits of paper which basically have no scarcity built into them

The Greeks and Romans are not the epitome of civilisation, they are mere shadows of the great civilisations that preceded them, the Etruscans and the Celts and the Macedonians and the Minoans and so many more. But today we choose to ignore the bulk of our collective history and divide thought on that line that we call Socrates. We have discarded Dionysus for Apollo, and now we have no idea of what either stand for. We have bought into the lie that truth is beauty and vice-versa.

We have all become specialists, and have forgotten to keep the generalists, that can see the whole, in our midst. We have dumbed ourselves down to MTV and text messages. We are evolving to become the forgettable.

It is time for the ancient ways to return. To self sufficiency in city states. To seeing God in nature as opposed to religion and heaven for the right price as it is practised today. To the individual and not the label.It is time for Atlantis to return.

Few will understand this, and I used to think that pitiful, but now I consider it unremarkable.

TAPIS is the name for the crude that Malaysia sells, frequently at a higher price to WTI. So we make more than most per barrel, about 8% more?

As for the twice monthly pay proposed for civil servants, ask for weekly pay. That way people might get paid for 52 weeks instead of the 48 weeks that you are paid for now.

24 x twice monthly = 48 weeks pay, the first 2 weeks covers 15 days, the second between 13 to 17 days.

52 weeks x 1 = 52 weeks. Then your 13th month bonus will actually be for the thirteenth month.

took this from some where…

I thought I would mark this occasion in TOD ANZ history:

Today, Wednesday 7th November 2007, the price of TAPIS oil produced in Malaysia and used as the Asian regional benchmark hit $100 per barrel, as published by Upstream Online:

http://www.upstreamonline.com/market_data/?id=markets_crude

Here is how the table of oil prices looked at 3:40pm Australian Eastern Summer Time (AEST):

You can also see the run in prices that has occurred over the last four weeks (this chart in Australian dollars):

http://www.aip.com.au/pricing/marketwatch.htm

This is what I have..

In one hand I have a brilliant business idea, a brilliant business partner, and a couple of thousand brilliant robots. On the other hand I have an Investor who is basically the best you will be able to find on this planet for the foreseeable future.

Here is what i don’t have..

A pittance (well, not really a pittance per se) to carry my end of the deal. So for the past two months I have spoken to, mailed, messaged and bugged more people than I care to remember to find The One that will be lucky enough to join the best thing to come out from Malaysia since rubber bands. And what do I find?

Nada, Zilch, Kosong, Nothing. First we have to disclude the gutless wonders that will never ever have the balls to invest in anything. As for the balance that do not lack courage or brains, they are BROKE!! Even the guys that own 5 storey buildings are having a tough time “rolling”.

This is what follows a liquidity boom, we will have a liquidity crunch. Uncertainty makes everyone hold on the their paper currency. They are lost, bewildered and basically will wait to see what the rest of the herd is going to do. This includes the banks as well.

If not for the fact that the past two months has been the most fun I have had sober, I will be very very pissed. There is a certain power that foreknowledge gives you, and by virtue of having expected all these changes in the economy both local and global for a while now, it is fun to follow people’s reactions. I am not trying to belittle the “suffering” that follows 3 ringgit petrol, but I must say that the average global citizen has way too much faith in the powers that be, and way too little in himself.

Well anyway, all this cost cutting and “change your lifestyle” crap being spouted by basically everyone is bullshit.

There is only one way out of this quagmire for society as a whole.

STABLE MONEY & LOW TAXES.

I expect that I will write about the above 4 words in 6 or 16 years time and remind everyone that I already gave out the formula in 2008 as an echo to Nathan Lewis who has been saying the same since before I learned to tie my own shoelaces.

Jeevindra Kumar

p.s too add to my growing prowess as an economic prophet. muahhahaha. Gold at USD 8000. KLSE at 3500. chap fan at RM 18.50… muahhahahaha. don’t worry it will be a while yet.  ; )

If I was a doc, I will tell the nurse to get the body bag ready.

The global economy is screwed, but as individuals we can all survive and even thrive even in the worst conditions.

This is the part that people read wrongly. You are not a piece of detritus being carried along by currents which are out of your control. Look at the situation as if it is a test. Tough times are here. How can you gear up to prosper in it?

Get the knowledge. Read up about what “experts” think will play out.

Get the insurance. Figure out how to minimise the impact of any predictable changes and situations will have in your life.

Garner the resources. Have in hand today what the rest will want tomorrow. Or in other words, stay ahead of the crowd in as many areas as possible.

Don’t worry. Take it one day at a time. Expect setbacks and body blows, but learn to roll with the punches.

Buy Gold. Sell properties and buy stocks. Become vegan. Stay drunk.

Read up on the Kondratieff Cycle.

Jeevan

A couple of e mails I sent out in early January 2006, telling ppl to be forewarned. Of course no one listened.

Have you heard? Malaysians no longer have cheap petrol…

If you have not seriously considered the economic
future that is facing us, please do so.

The global slump is no longer a matter of purely
academic interest, where leading economists have been
predicting and warning us of a global recession of
unprecedented proportions; it has arrived. Read the
papers.

Energy crisis, Gold Bull Run, Stock market bubbles
worldwide including on the Sensex??( Bombay), Property
Bubbles leaking and heading towards a slump/crash,
consumers are going bankrupt at an unprecedented rate
worldwide, Rich Industrialised nations are borrowing
more and more from the Third world nations, The US of
A alone has a total debt of USD 37,000,000,000,000 (
37trillion)– more than the value of all the
currencies, stockmarkets, bond markets worldwide;to
put it simply, there isn’t enough money in the world
to pay for a debt that size.

Leave terrorism, bird flu, another war(Iran) and all
else aside, the economic reality alone is enough bad
news.

The only way out of financial disaster is to tap
directly into the global market and take advantage of
the massive opportunities presenting themselves in the
making of a new world order. The rise of BRIC (
Brazil, Russia, India, China) and the fall of the USA,
UK, and other Industrialised Nations presents great
opportunities to the astute investor.

Oh Woe!!! The Dollar is Doomed!!!!

Is the Dollar doomed? Is it going to become worthless?

Nope. The pain that we are feeling makes us think that. What is doomed is not the Dollar, but all Fiat currencies. So now we have the Euro looking like the king of the hill, forgetting that at best it is just another version of the Deutsche Mark, and at worst it is a cracked currency, or as one smart guy puts it, Esperanto as money..

We are witnessing a slow train wreck that has been decades in the making. The final push came when Nixon shut the Gold window in 1971, and the USD was no longer convertible to Gold.

What has happened is this… the “normal” economic cycles that Man has lived through for millenia has been made tenfold, a hundredfold more impactful by our experiment with Fiat Currencies, which is nothing more than counterfeit money, since Governments can print as much as they want,  and which they do.

The blame falls squarely on all our shoulders for turning our backs on what has constituted as money for most of our species’ history; Metals. Gold, Silver, Copper and so on. The funny side to the whole matter is that the warnings made by the sensible students of history is ignored, while people like Bearded Ben and good old Greenspan are listened to with bated breath.

To put it simply, we have been on this planet for about 195,000 years. But in the last 100 or so we have ravaged this planet to fuel our appetites, and have made so many collectively idiotic decisions that I wonder if the dolphins are laughing at us.

This link takes you to a speech by the Hon Ron Paul of the US Congress. He is one of the smart ones.

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr021506.htm

Been a week since the last chart and it seems like the futures price for Rough Rice has actually gone down.

So what now?

I hope that it will continue down, but it does not seem likely. Which is also the problem with using Elliot Wave analysis on its own, for any asset that is not traded globally.

Kudos to the Japanese people for having an administration that is willing to open up its rice reserves for the good of all. Their stockpile is simply huge.

I usually read about economics, global markets, history, a bit of philosophy, good biographies and fiction by certain authors.

I have always believed that true greatness and true evil will be beyond human comprehension, but I have never read much about the evil that lives amongst us, unless it was the latest by Stephen King. What I have just read, written by Harold Schechter on Albert Fish in a book called Deranged has kept me awake the past two nights.

There is evil and then there is EVIL. I will paste a letter written by Albert fish regarding one of the many children he had butchered and mutilated and eaten and abused during his sick life.

Read this even if you are squemish and easily frightened. No parent should be unaware of the evil that Homo Sapiens Sapiens is capable of.  

Never never walk away from a child that looks to be in distress. Dont ever turn a deaf ear to cries for help. Never act as if you are not aware of what happens around you if it involves abuse!!

 Billy Gaffney

A child named Billy Gaffney was playing in the hallway outside of his family’s apartment in Brooklyn with his friend, Billy Beaton on February 11, 1927. Both of the boys disappeared, but the friend was found on the roof of the apartment house. When asked what happened to Gaffney, Beaton said “the boogey man took him.”

“I brought him to the Riker Avenue dumps. There is a house that stands alone, not far from where I took him. I took the boy there. Stripped him naked and tied his hands and feet and gagged him with a piece of dirty rag I picked out of the dump. Then I shit on his chest. Then I burned his clothes. Then I threw his shoes in the dump. Then I walked back and took the trolley to 59 Street at 2 a.m. and walked from there home. Then the next day about 2 p.m., I took tools, a good heavy cat-o-nine tails. Home made. Short handle. Cut one of my belts in half, slit these halves in six strips about 8 inches long. I whipped his bare behind till the blood ran from his legs. I cut off his ears, nose, slit his mouth from ear to ear. Gouged out his eyes. He was dead then. I stuck the knife in his belly and held my mouth to his body and drank his blood. I picked up four old potato sacks and gathered a pile of stones. Then I cut his dick off and slapped him in the face with it, twice. I had a grip with me. I put his nose, ears and a few slices of his belly in the grip. Then I cut him through the middle of his body. Just below the belly button. Then through his legs about 2 inches below his behind. I put this in my grip with a lot of paper. I cut off the head, feet, arms, hands and the legs below the knee. This I put in sacks weighed with stones, tied the ends and threw them into the pools of slimy water you will see all along the road going to North Beach. I came home with my meat. I had the front of his body I liked best. His cocknballs had a nice little fat behind to roast in the oven and eat. I made a stew out of his ears, nose, pieces of his face and belly. I put onions, carrots, turnips, celery, salt and pepper. It was good. Then I split the cheeks of his behind open, cut off his tiny cock and grape nuts and skeeted on his face. I put strips of bacon on each ass cheek of his behind and put them in the oven. Then I picked 4 onions and when the meat had roasted about 1/4 hour, I poured about a pint of water over it for gravy and put in the onions. At frequent intervals I basted his behind with a wooden spoon. So the meat would be nice and juicy. In about 2 hours, it was nice and brown, cooked through. I never ate any roast turkey that tasted half as good as his sweet fat little behind did. I ate every bit of the meat in about four days. His little monkey was a sweet as a nut, but his pee-wees I could not chew. Threw them in the toilet.”^[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Fish

Looks like we might be facing another period of increase in Rice prices.

On Elliot Wave analysis, it looks like the corrective phase is complete. If it is, expect a full retracement to the high at 25.++. , and beyond….?

Have you started on your ubi kayu/ tapioca/cassava plot yet???

Seriously, I am waiting for this two cash crops to come back with a vengeance, Hemp and Millet. And the world shall smell sweet again.

Jeevindra kumar

Ur – original or primordial
Sprache – speech ( peci )

There is a slow growth in interest amongst linguists, both professional and amateur, in tracing back the roots of modern languages to their primal source. Chief among these efforts are those undertaken by the Santa Fe Institute and the Tower of Babel project. Ursprache refers to the term borrowed from German for this original mother tongue.

The rise in interest can be traced to three main factors. First the easier access to information and data as well as increased ease of collaboration because of the Internet. The expectation that most of the languages around now ( about 6800 ++) will go extinct within the current lifetime because of the rise of globalisation, english, internet etc is making people aware of the need for action; and thirdly the human genome project which is drawing a clearer picture of mankinds family tree is making people more interested in their ancestral heritage.

If any of you are interested in exploring the evolution of language as well as the possible role that Tamil has played in this process, please share it.

If you are, the first question we can look at is when did mankind start using language and why.

cheers
jeevan 
 
 
  
  quote:
If you are, the first question we can look at is when did mankind start using language and why.

Originally posted by jeevindra – 22 Oct 2007 : 01:49:50 AM
 

Mr. Jee,

you may start the ball rolling by sharing your findings

good start … keep posting [:)]

——————————————————————————–
 
  Re: Ursprache Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 3:57 pm
 
 jeevindra
Newbie
 
 
  “fermented honey drink,” O.E. medu, from P.Gmc. *meduz (cf. O.N. mjöðr, Dan. mjød, O.Fris., M.Du. mede, Ger. Met “mead”), from PIE base *medhu- “honey, sweet drink” (cf. Skt. madhu “sweet, sweet drink, wine, honey,” Gk. methy “wine,” O.C.S. medu, Lith. medus “honey,” O.Ir. mid, Welsh medd, Breton mez “mead”).

Ta. ma??u honey, toddy, fermented liquor, sweet juice, drink taken at the time of sexual union, liquor jar, fragrant smell; ma??am toddy. Ma. ma?u sweetness, honey; ma??u nectar. Tu. mi??i sweetness

nice choice of name miss mathu.

When?

No one knows when man started using language, linguists place an arbitrary date of 50KYA, while placing an upper limit for research at 8KYA.

Another way of looking at the question is by studying the earliest presence of the anatomical characteristics needed for speech.

1. Descended Hyoid – we can only have a voice box if the hyoid (a bone in the throat) has descended down from its original perch. This evolutionary change makes breathing and swallowing simultaneously impossible. When this happens people choke. Since we can still speak, our evolution has chosen speech over the ability to smoke while swallowing lunch.

2. Hypoglossal nerve – this is the cranial nerve that controls the tongue. It has to be of a decent size to allow the fine control necessary for different sounds, among other things.

3. Middle ear development – since we expect others to understand the meaning of the sounds we make, the ears have to be tuned to be more sensitive to the frequency range of the human voice. Too low and all we would hear is the sound of blood rushing around in the head.

4. Control of expiration – some monkeys that can vocalise can only do so for one sound per breath. Without the ability to control the rate of air passing from the lungs over the vocal chords, we will not be able to say more than one syllable for each breath. Since this makes the sentence ‘ Your fly is open” require between 7 to 8 cycles of inspiration/expiration, we needed to develop larger intercostal nerves to control our chest (and expiration to a finer level).

5. Asymmetrical brain – the cortex had to be specialised and have the regions that deal with speech and understanding of words. Broca’s / wernickes areas.

there are a few more but i cant remember them now.

To summarise we shared this characteristics with neanderthals and homo sapiens idaltu. If we take the common ancestor for neanderthals/homo sapiens or modern humans/sapiens idaltu as the starting point for speech since th(ese) two are our closest hominid brothers, we come to homo heidelbergensis with a date of 600-250KYA. Do not be too concerned about brain size as both neanderthals and idaltu had bigger brains than us. We are actually the runt of the family.

Another way of looking at a possible starting date for speech is to look at the oldest incidences of common or shared words between language families in relation to genetic branching back in mankinds homeland of africa. Will look at that later.

Why did we start speaking?

We didn’t(probably). We actually wanted to sing(mimic nature?). Either romeo was trying to get juliet to agree for a walk on the moonlit beach (courtship), or because juliet wanted to sing the kids to sleep because romeo was still out with his buddies and there was no food (lullabies). Or maybe because juliet got tired of seeing the neighbours cooking a bigger deer every sunday (nagging). We just don’t know. But seeing that hunting is still a silent sport and you cant find a quiet kitchen when more than one woman is in there, language ( mankinds greatest invention) could actually be the work of womankind. Probably explains why we dont call it fathertongue.
On a more serious note, mull on the fact that poetry (language as song) is the highest form of expression possible.

Bottom line, no one is sure why we started to use language, maybe it is nothing more than natural evolution from being bored around the campfire.

What next? Africa? introduction to linguistics? genetic family tree vs language family tree? Or enough is enough. Pray tell, i dont have much time.

cheers
jeevan 
 
 Re: Ursprache Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:30 pm
 
 Bowie
 
Hero Member
 
 
  Hi jeevindra,

I find the topic interesting even though the subject is quite alien to me. I am assuming your approach to the topic is more scientific than spiritual. Spiritual meaning: brought down by god (not from the Christianity angel i.e. the tower of Babel and so fourth, but the Hindu angel). Where lord Ganesh, Saraswathi and Lord Murga thought the language to mankind. What is your take on that?

How the need for the creation of such epics as Ramayana and Mahabratham arose? The language used on such texts was beyond what mankind is capable now. How this process of such high utilization of language got started in India? 

   Re: Ursprache Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 5:39 pm
 
 jeevindra
Newbie
 
 
  Hi Bowie,

There are 4 questions that dictate our world view.

1. Why are we here?
2. What is our purpose/goal?
3. How do we achieve this purpose?
4. what stands in our way of achieving this?

Religion plays a huge role in helping us address this questions, and no doubt the peace of mind and sense of security that we obtain by sharing the same world view with our nearest and dearest makes the answers that religion provides mark the boundary within which we are comfortable.

My take on the role of religion in answering this question is that it is as important as the role of anthropology or genetics, in that it gives clues on where to find the answers. The drawback of using only religion as an answer is the loss of objectivity, and that no one view can be accepted by all.

The tower of Babel refers to a time when all of mankind spoke one language, which might not be far from the truth. The idea of language being taught by Lord Ganesha/Muruga or Devi Saraswathi, or of Tamil and Agastya can be viewed as the homage we give to our teachers. The same argument can be used for Sumerian/Annunaki~Nefilim or Olmec/ Quetzlcoatl. The reference in many ancient civilisations to teachers from elsewhere is extremely important but not the end of the argument, it is a link in the chain.

Most of us, when asked, will say that Shakespeare is the greatest writer ever in the english language, even if we have never read or sat for any of his plays. But during his day, his audience were the peasants first and the nobility second. Homer’s Illiad and Ulysses still hold the highest rank in Greek literature. Mankind has regressed as far as taste and ability go when it comes to language. The Mahabaratha and Ramayana are works of astounding creativity and beauty. The easiest answer I can give is that mankind today is of the fourth/iron/brass/kali yuga/fifth age, so he is in effect going through devolution ( as opposed to evolving higher). But is this good enough an answer?

Back to the question of worldview. Progress is only possible when we make the attempt to leave the comfort of dogma and walk into no man’s land. The only way to achieve this is by the scientific method. If the answer that we end up with proves that the origin of language is from God then we accept that.

Why should the scientific method be better? Because Man is not the only creature that uses language. The Blue whale has dialects according to which part of the globe it swims in, and some biologists point to a date of 20MYA as when cetaceans developed language, it is hard to explain that from a religious perspective.

Bottom line, my take is that religion is a later development to language. Chances are that organised religion assimilated the prehistory before its rise as part of its world view.

cheers
jeevan

   Re: Ursprache Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:23 am
 
 Phuchandy
Hero Member
 
 
  Dear Jeevan,

Interesting…I have been quietly spending some time on this matter myself…I doubt there would be anyone interested in the matter of liguistics or anthroplogy to be exact and its origins to or from mankind, let alone see someone new posting and opening up a thread on the subject let alone in MinV.

But please do share your details with regards to the subject in discussion.

Thank you.

Regards,

Phuchandy

   Re: Ursprache Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 12:17 am
 
 jeevindra
Newbie
 
 
  Hi Phuchandy,

Glad to hear that you enjoy digging into history as well.

Lets jump to the lady that is the great, great, great…x 6000 or thereabouts… grandmother of all the people living today. mt EVE. She is not an Eve in the biblical sense but because the descendants of the other ladies that lived alongside her about 150KYA are no longer around to enjoy Astro like we do.

Her kids can be divided into two branches first, based on the group that the mitochondrial DNA falls into, called haplogroups. L0 and L1.

L0 are the bushmen mainly and some other tribes. We call them the Khoisan and they are more famous for talking with clicks and acting in movies called Gods Must Be Crazy 1,2 and 3. Dont watch 3, its a waste of time. 1 and 2 are really funny.

L1 has six more branches – L2 to L7. They all stay put in Africa…until 65KYA a branch from L3, called M decides to keep walking past the Arabian peninsula into the fertile crescent/north India and become what we know today as Indians. Indians without the Dravidian/Aryan/ fair/ dark/ moustached whatever nonsense.

L3 has another branch called N that comes about around 40KYA and becomes the Europeans. But there is a problem. Australian Aborigines are also N, and since they have more in common with Indians then anyone else, N has been asked to shut up and just accept the fact that it comes from M. Plus all of N’s languages are from M as well.

There are many theories about M and N but this one fits the best.

All the rest of mankind outside Africa come from M and N. No problems there.

Why did M decide to leave Africa?

Toba event, 70KYA, about 800 times more violent than Pinatubo, drives mankind to near extinction, and starts an Ice Age that only started thawing 15 KYA. M wanted to find better accomodation. The old equator was further north than current, so the route out of Africa was in the thermal belt.

what language did M speak?

About 10,000 ~ 100,000 humans left. M’s language is Ursprache for everyone outside Africa.

How can we figure out Ursprache, if it still exists?

1. It will be old, cant be dated conclusively.

2. It will be linked with all the ancient civilisations. Sumerian, Harappan, Egyptian, meso America…

3. Its will have relationships with the African languages… Munda etc

4. The early solo travellers of humanity will have links to it. Australian Aborigines, Ainu etc.

5. Languages that linguists have to classify as isolates (orphans with no genetic relationship with other languages) because their classification is wrong but they refuse to admit it, will be related to it, and the similarities will be so obvious that (http://www.zompist.com/chance.htm) articles like this that argue based on totally wrong maths (linguists are really bad with numbers) are used to defend it. And I am serious about the math being totally wrong, yet this article is quoted very often.

6. There will be unexplained similarities between it or its close relatives with languages from supposedly totally unrelated families, that that list of words will be called false cognates.

7. Since language is only one part of its culture, expect its gods;early script;astronomy;engineering knowledge; architecture; traditions;place names; games; calendars; myths; cartography …. pop up globally.

8. While other civilisations will refer to a mysterious land from where their teachers/gods/ancestors came, and call it Punt/Atlantis whatever Ursprache will say, Damn! pity that place sank. Time to move again people!!

9. Because it is old, its vocabulary will be absurdly rich, and have like 64 different words for hair and 48 different words for water. But if I was being loose with the definition, the number will be 3 digits for both.

10. Its current guardians will spend more effort talking about how they will give their lives/die for it, than spearhead the research so that humanity gets closer to its common heritage, rather than further away day by day. Or maybe they are just waiting for some vellai karan to pin a note on the notice board so they can say ” Of course!! Yathum Ure/ Kal Thondri…” and wait for the next vellai karan to come with another note.

I am just pissed off because I have to stop spending all my time doing this.

Anyway, I got triggered into this because of two things about a year ago.

First, I was looking up the source for the words money/cash etc and got surprised.

Second, being a non believer in Keynesian economics, and a half believer of Rothbard, and that only on Sundays, I preferred economic cycles. Ended up in Kondratieff’ work, found out that the Mayans and Tamils had used that way way back and was hooked. That cycle is more popular in the Chinese version now ; 12 animals x 5 elements.

Bottom line. Love Tamil. If you already do, then learn as much about is as possible. If you have done that, share it.

This language holds the key to the puzzle that is humanity and history, it deserves a lot better than people like me looking into it.

cheers 

   Re: Ursprache Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 2:12 pm
 
 Bowie
 
Hero Member
 
 
  Did you say Tamil holds the key to the puzzle that is humanity and history?
How about sharing the roots of Tamil from your perceptive. 

   Re: Ursprache Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 3:15 pm
 
 pesum
 
Hero Member
 
 
  Thank you Jeevan saar for pointing out that the Tamil language holds the key to the puzlze of humanity and history.

Pls advise what kind of Tamil books will give us some enlightenment in this topic. Would appreciate if you could kindly advise the title of these books. [:)]

   Re: Ursprache Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 5:56 pm
 
 Phuchandy
Hero Member

What makes you come up with a deduction like that? Anything in particular that you would like to elaborate?

   Re: Ursprache Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 6:13 pm
 
 jeevindra
Newbie
 
 
http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~tcrndfu … eprint.pdf
http://search.artifice.com/forums/topic-10090.html
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/200700 … _sys.shtml
http://www.clc.sun.ac.za/KEYNOTES%20%20 … ngtson.pdf
http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.dhttp://par … s/P114.PDF
http://evolutsioon.ut.ee/publications/Metspalu2004.pdf
http://www.verbix.com/documents/etruscan-dravidian.htm
http://www.livingtongues.org/docs/Drav_Mund_IJDL.pdf

Start with these links as a primer.

For research into comparative linguistics you can start with this list below.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishl … O4M393S2QF

I have saved most of my research into my hardrive, and my first try to paste the links got erased because i forgot to open another tab [:(!] . open file, retrace link, copy, paste, ad nauseam.

Anyway, I dont know of any tamil books yet, maybe I should write one….

As for my perspective on the origins of tamil, go to my previous post and replace “it” and Ursprache with Tamil in the list. Will add another two.

1. Rate of change. Average ROC of a language is 1 word out of 5 every millenia. Tamil is glacial, which is why 8 year old kids can read the Tirukkural.

2. The entire family will be classified as an orphan family. Origin unknown.

But to make it simple, here’s the summary.

Africa > origin of man > birthplace of language > roots of Tamil > early speakers walked out > all other languages. All that has to be done is fill in the blanks.

cheers 

   Re: Ursprache Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 10:26 am
 
 jeevindra
Newbie
 
 
  http://www.infitt.org/ti2002/papers/71ARASEN.PDF

forgot about this paper. its in Tamil, decent intro into the subject.

cheers
   Re: Ursprache Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 11:00 pm
 
 pesum
 
Hero Member
 
 
  Thank you Jeevan. Will print out the above URL page and see what the writer has got to say about the Tamil language.

   Re: Ursprache Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 11:04 pm
 
 pesum
 
Hero Member

   Re: Ursprache Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:02 am
 
 Paandian
 
Administrator
 
 
  Damn… i feel like i know nothing. Please do not stop sharing guys. I’m reading every single word on this topic and visiting every single link from this topic.

Tq jeevindra saab.

 jeevindra
Newbie
 
 
We Need To Free Ourselves from
British Archaeological Frauds
The reason I’m mentioning this, is that this Sumerian language comes from the same language family as that of the ancient Dravidian culture of the Indus Valley, of Harappa and Mohenjodaryo, which preceded the arrival of the Indo-Aryans, the speakers of what became Sanskrit, into India from the central Asian plateau. And the whole thesis is, that at a time which I can’t date, but certainly well before 4000 B.C.E. , there was a single, ocean-going culture, which preceded the shared culture of the Indus Valley and Sumerian riparian (river-side) cities. A maritime culture, which went from Sumatra, as the terminus of the current which leads from south of Ceylon eastward, which spread across the Indian Ocean area, as far as the east coast of Africa. And there was one unified culture speaking one unified language many millennia ago; a maritime culture which had outposts in various locations. This was very much older than the supposed “origin” of civilization in oligarchic Mesopotamia. All of which is wholly antithetical, heretical actually, to the accepted canon of British archaeological authorities.
by Tony Papert

THE PRIMARY CLASSICAL LANGUAGE OF THE WORLD

There is no other language in the whole world as Tamil, that has suffered so much damage by natural and human agencies, and has been done so much injustice by malignant foreigners and native dupes.
The general belief that all arts and sciences are progressively advancing with the passage of time, is falsified in the case of philology, owing to the fundamental blunder of locating the original home of the Tamilians in the Mediterranean region, and taking Sanskrit, a post-Vedic semi-artificial composite literary dialect, the Indian Esperanto, so to speak, for the prototype of the Indo-European Form of Speech.
Katpadi Extension,
G. Devaneyan.
21-3-1966
Introduction to
Real Roots of German, Greek, Latin & English
Mini Word Origin Directory

Language is not easily corrupted like human genes or prejudicious perceptions. So historians and geneticists depend upon linguists to a great extent to trace the origin and movements of people. So it is logical to state that bad advice from ignorant linguists about origin of language is responsible for incorrect ancient history.
Tamil sounds are the closest to the ancient sounds (especially those of the Munda and the Santali) once spoken throughout the sub-continent of India. A few words of these ancient languages will be found in this book. The Munda and Santali sounds existed in northeast India about 50,000 years ago. These sounds traveled to Europe with the Neanderthals and the Cro-Magnons. This is attested to by the very strong links to euskara, the language of the Basque people who settled in the northern section of the Pyrenees Mountains about 30,000 years ago.

The Massive Linguistic Ignorance

PEOPLES AND LANGUAGES IN PRE-ISLAMIC INDUS VALLEY

Beginning from Sir John Marshall, who was the first to suggest that the language of the Indus Civilization was Dravidian 17, most scholars have taken the ‘Dravidian hypothesis’ seriously. Piero Meriggi, a scholar who contributed towards the decipherment of the Hittite hieroglyphs, opined that Brahvi, the Dravidian language spoken even now in part of Balochistan, must be the original Harappan language 18. However, Brahvi has changed so much and become so Balochified, as Elfenbein points out 19, that it cannot give clear evidence of any sort in this case. Another scholar, the Spanish Jesuit Henry Heras, ‘turned more than 1,800 Indus texts into “Proto-Dravidian” sentences’ 20 but his decipherment and linguistic theories were not accepted. Later Soviet scholars headed by Yurij V. Knorozov, carried on a very rigorous computer analysis of sign distribution in the Indus texts coming to the conclusion that it belonged to the Dravidian language family 21. However, Kamil Zvelebil, also a Russian scholar came to the conclusion that ‘the Dravidian affinity of the Proto-Indian language remains only a very attractive and quite plausible hypothesis.22 Indeed, the plausibility of the hypothesis is such that many people, such as Iravatham Mahadevan, a scholar of old Tamil epigraphy, have used it to offer readings of the Indus script 23. F.C.Southworth and D.Mc Alpin used the Dravidian roots to reconstruct the language of the Indus Valley.24 Walter A. Fairservis, another specialist in this area, stated with considerable certainty that ‘the Harappan language was basically an early Dravidian language’.25 Even Parpola, after much careful and detailed sifting of the evidence, opines ‘that the Harappan language is most likely to have belonged to the Dravidian family’.26

–Dr. Tariq Rahman, Fulbright Visiting Fellow

 
AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL LANGUAGES: CONSONANT – SALIENT PHONOLOGIES AND THE “PLACE OF ARTICULATION IMPERATIVE”
distinction and a minimal fricative contrast (but six or seven vowels). Perhaps most similar to Australian languages are the Dravidian languages of southern India. Tamil, for example, has five places of articulation in a single series of stops, paralleled by a series of nasals, and no fricatives (thus approaching the Australian proportion of sonorants to obstruents of 70% to 30%)
Andrew Butcher
Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, School of Medicine
Flinders University, Adelaide

“I beg my reader to look at the ruins of the ancient cities of India: Agra, Delhi, Oude, Mundore, etc., which have many of them been much larger than London, the last for instance, 37 miles in circumference, built in the oldest style of architecture in the world, the Cyclopean, and I think he must at once see the absurdity of the little Jewish mountain tribe (the “Lost Tribes”) being the founders of such a mass of cities. We must also consider that we have almost all the places of India in Western Syria…I think no one can help seeing that these circumstances are to be accounted for in no other way than by the supposition that there was in very ancient times one universal superstition, which was carried all over the world by emigrating tribes, and that they were originally from Upper India.” (Vol. I; p. 432.)

Anacalypsis – Godfrey Higgins (1772-1833), archeologist, politician, humanitarian, social reformer, and author.

The significant number of such global cognates leads some linguists to conclude that all the world’s languages ultimately belong to a single language family. This speculation about a further level of the family tree of language, which ties Nostratic with all other language families into what is called Proto-World. Genetic evidence suggests that the first humans migrated from the Horn of Africa into Yemen, and some research has speculated that early human migrations might have been caused by climatic change along with other factors. This could have happened as long as 50,000 years ago – people coming out of Africa at that time could have spoken a language that we could now call Proto-World. Historical Linguistics – Vol 26.2002 pp 85-96

I am afraid that the constraints that time and resources are placing on me, will cause my visits here to be rare. Do not worry, if you make the effort to learn, the knowledge will be there.

adieu 
 
 
  

There is a book titled “Bird Watching In Lion Country” by Dirk du Toit which is an excellent starter for anyone who wants to explore the world of currency trading.

Most people are bird watchers. We look for opportunities that allow us to make an honest buck while risking as little as possible.

We want stable jobs, we want sure deals, we want to be on the inside loop, we want to be in the know. We want to sit on our patios and watch the birds. We want to make money and reach “our dreams” by waiting for them to land in our hands.

A  rare few don’t look for birds, they are after the lions that put the birds to flight. The lions are those that we read about with awe and envy. The lions are the ones that have bird watchers for breakfast and forget about them before elevenses. The lions are the ones on top of the food chain.

Bird watchers have another habit, they read voraciously about the lions, but still remain happy bird watching. When presented with an opportunity to move with the lions, the bird watchers suddenly realise that the map they are holding says

Here Be Dragons

and run screaming, wide eyed with arms flapping in the air (like the kid from home alone) and hide under their beds refusing to come out even for jelly filled doughnuts.

This is something that perplexes me to no end, why do people talk about chasing their dreams and moonshots and whatnot but do not know the first thing about the relationship between risk and reward. Risk and reward go hand in hand, and as long as risk makes you hide under the bed, the rewards you win are little more than cardboard cutouts of crows taking a crap ( forgive the alliteration).

You control risk by first putting a limit to the downside. If the opportunity cost is xxx dollars, decide if you are willing to lose that in return for what can be made.

Look for extraordinary ideas, people and opportunities. Look for what  the lion hunters and the lions are doing and not what binoculars the bird watchers are using.

I have realised that I am surrounded by bird watchers, and all I feel for them is pity. Small dreams make for small lives, and that they see themselves as “successful” makes it all the more sad.

ON THE THREE METAMORPHOSES OF THE SPIRIT

     Of the three metamorphoses of the spirit I tell you: how the spirit becomes a camel; and the camel, a lion; and the lion, finally, a child.
     There is much that is difficult for the spirit, the strong, reverent spirit that would bear much: but the difficult and the most difficult are what its strength demands.
     What is difficult? asks the spirit that would bear much, and kneels down like a camel wanting to be well loaded. What is most difficult, O heroes, asks the spirit that would bear much, that I may take it upon myself and exult in my strength? Is it not humbling oneself to wound one’s haughtiness? Letting one’s folly shine to mock one’s wisdom?…
     Or is it this: stepping into filthy waters when they are the waters of truth, and not repulsing cold frogs and hot toads?
     Or is it this: loving those that despise us and offering a hand to the ghost that would frighten us?
     All these most difficult things the spirit that would bear much takes upon itself: like the camel that, burdened, speeds into the desert, thus the spirit speeds into its desert.
     In the loneliest desert, however, the second metamorphosis occurs: here the spirit becomes a lion who would conquer his freedom and be master in his own desert. Here he seeks out his last master: he wants to fight him and his last god; for ultimate victory he wants to fight with the great dragon.
     Who is the great dragon whom the spirit will no longer call lord and god? “Thou shalt” is the name of the great dragon. But the spirit of the lion says, “I will.” “Thou shalt” lies in his way, sparkling like gold, an animal covered with scales; and on every scale shines a golden “thou shalt.”
     Values, thousands of years old, shine on these scales; and thus speaks the mightiest of all dragons: “All value has long been created, and I am all created value. Verily, there shall be no more ‘I will.’” Thus speaks the dragon.
     My brothers, why is there a need in the spirit for the lion? Why is not the beast of burden, which renounces and is reverent, enough?
     To create new values — that even the lion cannot do; but the creation of freedom for oneself and a sacred “No” even to duty — for that, my brothers, the lion is needed. To assume the right to new values — that is the most terrifying assumption for a reverent spirit that would bear much. Verily, to him it is preying, and a matter for a beast of prey. He once loved “thou shalt” as most sacred: now he must find illusion and caprice even in the most sacred, that freedom from his love may become his prey: the lion is needed for such prey.
     But say, my brothers, what can the child do that even the lion could not do? Why must the preying lion still become a child? The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred “Yes.” For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred “Yes” is needed: the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers the world.

from Nietzsche’s Thus spoke Zarathustra, part I, Walter Kaufmann transl.

No. This is not a review of the movie of the same name.

Once there was one global language. Once there was one global religion. Once there was one global kingdom. Is this true?

“All this seems to confirm the very close connexion which there must have been in some former time, between Siam, Afghanistan, Western Syria and Ireland. Indeed I cannot doubt that there has been really one grand empire, or one Universal, one Pandean, or one Catholic religion, with one language, which has extended over the whole of the old world; uniting or governing at the same time, Columbo in the island of the Serendive, and Columbo in the west of Scotland.”Godfrey Higgins – Anacalypsis.

We are taught a bibliocentric history. That which does not conform to the Abrahamic religions is easily discarded as nonsense, and any alternative views of mankinds history is ignored and dismissed as the work of loons.

So, are we to believe that civilisation arose almost overnight in Sumeria and Egypt?

What do they have to say of their own origins, the Sumerians and the Egyptians? The Sumerians have their Dilmun and the Egyptians have their Punt.

“Both Punt and Dilmun are referred to in their respective myths as holy places and being to the east. Both are places of trade and are revered as being ancestral homelands. Both are given mystical and Utopian status and spoken of in myth with respect. And both are considered to be the “land of the god(s).” Punt, unfortunately isn’t written of nearly to the degree that Dilmun is, but its allure is, perhaps, equally mysterious and appealing to those of both antiquity and modernity.” http://ahotcupofjoe.wordpress.com/2007/06/24/dilmun-and-punt-two-mythical-origins-for-two-early-civilizations-part-i/

Lets just say that the evidence that supports a far richer history for mankind is much too great to be ignored. And until there is enough research done without any a prioriassumptions, the truth will forever be an unattainable perfection for most, if not all.

So who were the warriors then? Our forefathers were. They were the ones that spread across the world, from the same source, leaving traces of our common origins in our DNA, our languages and our religions, the very things that split us today.

Once we were warriors, now we are just consumers.

This is a letter that was published in the Star in 2006. I know the writing is clunky and bad, but what I remember best is that no one gave much of a damn about oil prices at that time, I especially like the last paragraph I wrote then….

If you have not heard of Peak oil, it is the
assumption that the world has crossed the 50% mark in
terms oil reserves used, and that the price of oil
will continue to increase because it becomes more
difficult and costly to extract oil from half or more
empty reserves and maintain present supply levels.

There are as many proponents as opponents to this
theory, and each could be equally wrong. Viewed solely
as an impending energy crisis, Peak oil is not as
cataclysmic as many believe, but when viewed together
with the expected rise in oil demand from BRIC i.e.
China, India and other rising super economies, as well
as the incredible dependence of mankind to this
commodity not just in producing energy but as a raw
product in the manufacture of plastics and a whole
slew of chemicals, maybe we should start paying a bit
more attention to the questions being asked.

Economists believe that the law of necessity and
supply and demand will force mankind to find ways
around this crisis. If we consider that Petronas has
established oil reserves for another 12 years and
natural gas for another 30, whither will prices go
when the government can no longer afford subsidies?

How will all the machinery, engines, generators,
manufacturing processes that depend on oil or its by
products be modified efficiently enough that we don’t
feel the pinch too much? Some might say the answer is
as simple as conserving energy and making choices like
switching to hybrid cars. But the amount of energy/oil
used in manufacturing a car is far greater than the
amount of oil the car will use throughout its
lifetime; the very act of buying a car means you have
used vast resources of energy before even driving it
for the first time. Mankind’s ability to produce
grains and other foods at present quantities also
depends on the use of machinery and economies of scale
and the cheap supply of oil.

The most precious commodity of the future will be
fresh water, and the only way to ensure that will be
through technologies that convert polluted water or
seawater into potable water. This will also be
extremely energy dependent. What price water then, and
will we fight wars for water again?

We have coupled our progress as a species the past 100
odd years with the ready and cheap supply of oil, to
find and adopt alternatives might be a little too late
already. When we are over dependent on a single
commodity, as we are today on oil, we should have the
sense to really ensure that our survival will not be
affected by the rising scarcity of that commodity,
Brings to mind the words Ireland and potatoes,
remember what happened then?

Nov 27, 2006

Jeevindra Kumar

The Future of Farming
December 3, 2006

Sorry for taking a while off there. I see that the dollar has been breaking down in a notable fashion against both gold and other currencies, suggesting quite a bit more excitement to come on that front. This week, however, we will look a bit beyond such things to broader “economic” topics.

As I have been saying, my vision of the future is both more urban and more rural. Urban means dense enough that one does not need a car and indeed keeping one is a major burden. Think Manhattan or Amsterdam or Hong Kong, not Phoenix or Miami. There is nothing unnatural about urban living, and humans have been doing it since the time of the Sumerians (3500 BC). The Assyrians lived in cities, as did the Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. The Great Suburban Disaster (1945 — ), in which humans were so stupid as to build cities so spread out that they required motorized wheelchairs to get around them, will likely, some decades in the future, be regarded as a temporary aberration, like Maoism in China.

This week, however, we will look more at the rural side of the plan. Rural basically means farming. The rural areas will of course provide food for the urban areas — commercial farming — and also there could be a significant subset of people who are simply subsistence farmers. In other words, they grow food only for their own consumption, spending only a bit of time at this, and also have some other occupation. Indeed, it is not necessarily any more difficult to grow enough food to largely satisfy one’s own consumption than it is to maintain a typical exurban yard. One acre per family is more than enough.

Of course, since we’re dreaming here, it would be nice if our farming techniques were very Earth-friendly, and we could do away with all the artificial inputs and basic land abuse so common today.

There are two basic techniques that may be useful for our “family farms” of the future. One is generally known as Permaculture, and the other is sometimes called Natural Farming. Permaculture is more commonly recognized. Some permaculture advocates say that a person can grow all the food they need to live with about an acre of land and six hours of work per week, which is a lot less than most people spend commuting.

I am not a permaculture expert or indeed an expert of any sort of farming, but I will attempt to describe the philosophy behind the system. In short, Permaculture imitates nature by mixing together a variety of plants, which can then grow together. It is rather the opposite of today’s crop monoculture ideal. There are quite a few books on permaculture, which one can read if they are interested.

Natural Farming is a name applied to the farming methods of Masanobu Fukuoka of Japan, who embarked on a multi-decade project to find out how to grow food while letting nature do as much of the work as possible. While Permaculture “imitates” nature, I would suggest that Natural Farming is nature itself, or a sort of dance with nature in which the farmer guides natural energies toward the desired outcome. Fukuoka jokes that his Natural Farming techniques can support a person with three days a year of work. Fukuoka has also consistently produced the highest yields-per-acre of rice in Japan, and quite possibly the highest yields in the world, with continuous cultivation (no fallow periods) and no fertilizers, natural or artificial. There is no tilling of soil, minimal weeding, minimal pest control, no irrigation, and not much else being done either.

Oddly enough, there are not a lot of books about Natural Farming out there, perhaps because it is a plan that emphasizes “not doing” instead of “doing.” The heart of the technique is seedballs. “Just make seedballs” is Fukuoka’s advice. A seedball is a small ball (about 2cm) of clay and humus mixed with seeds. The “dirt” protects the seeds from birds and other seed-eaters, and when the seedball is “activated” by rainfall the seed is already slightly “buried” because it is surrounded by a bit of dirt. One can use a single type of seed, as might be typical of a rice field, or a mixture of dozens or even hundreds of seeds, as might be used for a vegetable garden. You just throw the seedballs out and let nature do the rest. This will create a natural mixture of vegetables growing together. They just grow like weeds. Whatever tends to grow best in a particular microlocation, with its mixture of sun exposure, soil qualities, water exposure, etc, will multiply while less appropriate species fade away. By mixing hundreds of seeds together, you give nature hundreds of options for what to grow there. That’s about all you need to know. “Just make seedballs.” Everything else can be learned, apparently, from personal experimentation based on this foundation.

Seedballs can be used for many things besides vegetable gardens. Fukuoka has suggested that deforested areas could be reforested by making seedballs of seeds of the natural plants found in a forest, and then dropping them from airplanes.

Here’s a good site about “Fukuoka Farming”:

http://fukuokafarmingol.info/fover.html

Here’s a site about Permaculture:

http://www.permaculture.org.au/

Nathan Lewis
www.newworldeconomics.com

This is Malaysia, situated between the two nations that will be occupying the #1 and #2 slots as the biggest economies in the world.

It has citizens of Chinese and Indian origin. And the whole lot of them seem to do one of two things, either support the BN’s racial politics or bitch and moan about not having a level playing field etc.

Why can’t we look at history and understand that our location makes us fools for allowing Singapore to be the leading entreport in the region? Why cant the Chinese and Indian businessman start exploring ways and means to help each other tap into the colossal potential in terms of trade between China and India.

Why cant the Chinese start figuring out that setting some funds to assist Indian businesses and schools will go a long way towards building long term partnerships. Why can’t Indian businesses figure out that it’s time to learn Mandarin, and to look beyond curry powder, sarees, pappadoms and incense sticks?

Why can’t the Malays figure out that they are the best placed to become the middlemen and equal partners of the clueless Malaysian Indians and Chinese ?

My business partner is a Chinese and he handles the computer stuff while I do the wheeling and dealing. And if the rest of you are too damn dense to see the potential then that’s just too bad, because you will have only yourselves to blame.

Jeevindra Kumar

p.s. have been reading with interest on rice prices and BERNAS. for the traders out there figure out the irony in this… Japanese farmers, rice, candlesticks, hedging, look east policy of Mahathir, BERNAS, futures market.

I sell hot cakes.

Last year I sold them at a buck each and I sold a hundred, contributing $100 to the GDP. The cost was $0.50 each, and my profit margin was 100%. My income (pre tax) was $50 after cost.

This year, inflation has increased my cost to $0.65, to maintain the same profit margin in $, I will have to sell the cakes at $1.15, if I want to maintain the profit margin in percentage, to take inflation into account, I will have to sell them at $1.30.

I sold a hundred again this year, in the first instance my contribution to the GDP will be $115, and the second $130, and this will be reflected in the governments numbers.

Did I have to do more work to increase my GDP output by 15 to 30 percentage points? Did I make more money in terms of purchasing power? In the first instance at $1.15, I would have made less while on paper my output increased by 15%.

In trading, we always keep an eye on the numbers released by the BLS in the good old US of A, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or as some of us call it, the Bureau of Lies n Statistics. Why? Because the US consumer is a bit above 20% of the Global Economy, and when they stop spending, a lot of us will be up the creek with no paddle.

Sadly, the libertine John Maynard Keynes still holds sway over most peoples understanding of economics, and even the saying that goes “You can fool anyone, but you can never fool the currency trader” does not hold true anymore because everyone and their uncle seems to be one nowadays.

The best indicator of how the economy is doing is what you are going through. If its getting more difficult to make ends meet, then it’s not as rosy as the numbers say.

http://www.mondaymorningeconomist.com/cooking.html    if you want to read more about how the governments of the world cook their books, in this case the USA.

Jeevindra Kumar

I read this story many years ago, so I can’t give credit where it is due, any errors are mine.

KANGAROO COURT

A burglar, climbing into a house through a window, falls and breaks his leg when the window frame gives way. The burglar goes to the court of the land and demands justice.

The judge asks for the house owner to be brought before him.
The house owner pleads that the architect that designed the house is at fault. The architect is brought in.
The architect pleads that the contractor that built the house is at fault. The contractor is brought in.
The contractor pleads that the workman that nailed the frame in is at fault. The workman is brought in.
The workman pleads that the beautiful woman in a short red dress that walked pass made him miss a nail or two. The beautiful woman is brought in.
The woman pleads that the tailor who made the dress too short is at fault. The tailor is brought in.
The tailor has no one to blame, so he is sent to the gallows to be hung.

The gaolers come back in a while and tell the judge that the tailor is too tall to be hung. The judge tells them to find a short tailor.

A short tailor is found, and hung for the crime of causing a burglars leg to break.

and justice is served………..

Jeevindra Kumar

I walked into a police station and expressed my wish to surrender myself for the article yesterday.

After the requisite head scratching and consultations with whomever, the police there told me to go to the Civil Crime division in Bukit Perdana. I told them that i had walked in with only a copy of the article and my ID. I did not bring anything else, no phone, no money, no wallet.

So they arranged for a patrol car to drive me there.

At Bukit Perdana, I was told that they have no reason to charge me for anything, anticlimactic, I know.

The only thing I gained from yesterday is the walk back from Bukit Perdana to brickfields to my parents place.

Some of our roads are as pedestrian friendly as a Cambodian minefield, and that was the only time I felt any apprehension at all, feeling cars whizzing past inches away from my swinging arms.

Anyway, Raja Petra has agreed to post bail, Thank God. I have absolutely no idea what plan B would have entailed.

jeevan

Let’s send the Altantuya murderers to hell

Today, we shall not be talking about politics. We shall also not be talking about race or religion. Today, we shall talk about doing the human thing. Today, let’s discuss how to launch a ‘Justice for Altantuya: restore Malaysia’s dignity’ campaign. And let’s send those bastards who murdered Altantuya to hell where they belong.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin 

I had dinner with a few friends last night and on the way to the restaurant another good friend, Din Merican, phoned to fill me in on the details of Dr Setev Shaariibuu’s press conference that was held earlier that day. I listened as Din filled me in on what transpired and could not help but blurt out, “I am a father of two daughters. I can imagine what Shaariibuu must be feeling. Fucking assholes!”

“I have three daughters,” Din responded. “These people are animals, bloody animals. Fuck them! Fuck them!” This is what I would call ‘at a loss for words’ — and when you just have to say something but no words can fully describe how you feel, then ‘fuck’ is the only word you can use which will console you enough and make you feel you have expressed your anger and disgust in a most ‘appropriate’ manner.

“Hey, don’t insult animals,” I replied. “Animals are cute. I love cats, dogs and horses. These people are worse than animals. Even animals will not do something like this.”

“Even pigs can be cute,” my wife who was driving the car butted in and I repeated what she said. “Yes, even pigs are cute. These people are not even the same level as pigs. They are lower than pigs. Melayu babi, the whole lot of them.”

I found it very difficult to hold back my tears as Din continued with his narration of what Dr Shaariibuu said at his press conference. Yes, I am a very emotional person as many may have suspected by now. But I can also be very stubborn and stiff-lipped as well when facing an adversary, as the Special Branch officers from Bukit Aman have discovered. I am what the Malays would call ‘marah nyamuk, bakar kelambu’. And I would not hesitate to deny my body food and water as an act of defiance just to prove to my jailors that they may incarcerate my body but they can never own my mind or break my spirit. But hearing what Dr Shaariibuu had to say ‘broke’ me. Even my degil got tamed.

“Let’s bring these bastards down,” I told Din. “Let’s launch a ‘Justice for Altanatuya: restore Malaysia’s dignity’ campaign’ or something like that. These assholes must be sent to hell.”

Understandably, much of the dinner conversation thereafter was focused on the Altantuya murder. What was most amusing — not that I would classify this tragic murder as ‘amusing’ — is that none at the dinner table are lawyers by profession. But all were able to skilfully ‘argue their case’ as any seasoned lawyer with decades of litigation experience under his or her belt can — or maybe even better than that because not all lawyers are smart (trust me on this one). I always say you need brains to become a lawyer but you do not need to be a lawyer to have brains.

Sure, ‘certified’ lawyers would pooh-pooh such ‘coffee shop’ arguments as just that, coffee shop arguments. And have we not overheard and scoffed at many an ‘expert’ at the next table offering his or her legal prognosis to all and sundry who would care to listen? Yes, opinions are like assholes — everybody has one.

But there are opinions and there are opinions — and, just like assholes, no two are alike. So, while we value the expert opinions of our ‘learned’ legal eagles (yes, that is what they call each other in court even though they may be arguing — how civil), we too have conducted our own trial by court of public opinion and we have already arrived at our verdict even while the Altantuya murder trial is halfway through and long before we can see the end of what many consider a show-trial in a kangaroo court.

Of course, we are not at liberty to say this as this may tantamount to subjudice or contempt of court or something like that (the courts have all sorts of fancy words and phrases to throw at you when they want to send you to jail whenever you differ with their opinion). So I would never dare state that the Altantuya murder trial ‘a show trial in a kangaroo court’ for fear of getting sent to jail. All I am at liberty to say is that many consider the Altantuya murder trial a show-trial in a kangaroo court and leave it at that without declaring whether I too share the opinion of the majority of Malaysians (not sure whether that statement can still get me sent to jail).

Anyway, back to the dinner last night and to what all those ‘self-made lawyers’ who never argued even one case in court their entire life had to say. As I said, neither they nor I am a lawyer but I have attended a decade of trials and hearings since the birth of Reformasi in 1998 and my ‘practical experience’ has exposed me to much of what goes on in court. And all I can say is that, and I repeat, while you need brains to become a lawyer, you really do not need to be a lawyer to have brains, as my dinner friends proved last night.

It was a long dinner and much was discussed and everyone had an opinion plus, as I said, all skilfully ‘argued their case’. However, to avoid this piece turning into a fifty-page thesis, which may see me getting an honorary law degree (or see me getting sent to jail), allow me to summarise how the ‘case’ was argued last night.

First concerns the Affidavit that Razak Baginda submitted to the court during his bail application hearing in the Shah Alam High Court. Justice Segera had initially cautioned Razak’s lawyer that there was no necessity in submitting an Affidavit since it was only a bail application hearing and, anyway, bail is not allowed in murder cases. But the lawyer insisted in pursuing the matter in spite of repeated warnings from the Judge. So the Judge had no choice but to accept the Affidavit as it is the right of the accused to defend himself/herself the way he/she sees fit.

Justice Segera then read the Affidavit and remarked that, after reading it, he is even more convinced that Razak is guilty. How then to grant bail, notwithstanding the fact that bail should automatically be denied anyway in cases of murder? Justice Segera was then immediately removed from hearing the case and was replaced by a junior judicial commissioner.

Note that Justice Segera is a senior Judge and the most suited to hear this very controversial and high-profile case. Was he removed because he had prejudged the case or because he was now privy to certain information that may influence his decision or because they want to ‘kill’ the Affidavit?

This was the first bone of contention. Karpal Singh, who is holding a watching brief on behalf of Altantuya’s family, then raised this matter during the trial and he asked the police officer on the stand as to why they did not investigate the Affidavit since much has been revealed in that document. The police officer replied that they did not investigate the Affidavit because ‘tidak ada arahan dari atas’ (so instructions from the top).

This further enhances the belief that there is some very damaging evidence in that Affidavit and which the government is trying to hide. The fact that the Affidavit exists and Karpal raised the matter in court and the police did not deny it — other than explain they did not investigate it because of no instructions from the top — convinces most that something is amiss here.

It seems the Affidavit also reveals that Altantuya was camped outside Razak’s house and this caused him to panic. He then went running to Najib, and Rosmah summoned Najib’s ADC, Musa Safri, and instructed him to solve Razak’s problem. Musa then summoned the two police officers currently on trial. So, it appears like Razak and the two police officers are not the only ones involved. Najib, Rosmah and Musa have also been implicated in this entire thing. And why the need for the police officer to declare that he had already killed six people before this if murder was not what was on everyone’s mind?

Then the Attorney-General did a very strange thing. Just before the trial started, he made a public announcement that only three people and no others are involved in the murder. This is not only strange but highly irregular as well. It is not the Attorney-General’s job to determine this. This is for the court to decide. Furthermore, the trial had not even started yet so how does the Attorney-General know what is going to surface in the trial? No one has testified yet and until all the testimonies are heard who knows who else is involved and whether the three accused who on trial are even guilty or not? The Attorney-General made it appear like he knows the outcome of the trial even before the trail commenced? How not to feel that the trial is a show-trial?

The Sunday morning before the trial was supposed to start, I received a SMS that said the charges against Razak would be withdrawn. At 4.00pm, I received another SMS saying that the entire team of prosecutors will be replaced because they did not agree to drop the charges against Razak. The following morning, the new prosecutor requested a one-month postponement on the excuse that he had just that very morning been told he is taking over the case so he needs time to study the files. The judge gave them a two-week postponement. The SMS may have been inaccurate but the actions thereafter lent credence to the SMS. And this SMS was from a Deep Throat in the Attorney-General’s Chambers so I am not about to just dismiss it as lies and slander.

The next point is about where Altantuya’s remains were found, which was deep in the jungles. The three accused deny killing Altantuya yet the police knew exactly where to go to look for the remains. How did the police know where to go when the three denied killing her? Did they use a bomoh? Was there an informer? No, the police just happen to know that deep in the jungles they would find Altantuya’s remains without anyone having to tell them.

It makes one wonder whether the police knew where to go because it is a ‘gazetted dumpsite’ where all ‘bumped off’ people are disposed. Does this then mean that the two police officers on trial alongside Razak are police hit men whose job it is to bump people off and then get rid of their bodies at that site where they retrieved Altantuya’s remains? This, of course, remains mere speculation but there is certainly cause for speculation and the evidence all seem to point to this assumption.

The whispering amongst those who walk in the corridors of power is that when they went to the ‘dump site’ they retrieved the remains of many others as well. Some say it was the remains of seven people and others say nine. So Altantuya was not the first. There were many others before this, almost ten judging by the remains.

This, of course, has never been made public and probably never will. So, until it is, we must assume that the ‘whispering’ is unfounded. But then, what about Razak’s Affidavit we talked about earlier, which stated that the police officer had admitted to killing six people before this. This would then make Altantuya the seventh victim. Against this backdrop, the ‘whispering’ about the police retrieving the remains of seven or nine people begins to sound like very loud whispers.

Many other ‘key issues’ raised by my non-lawyer friends, who all argued as if they were conducting the Altantuya murder trial, were matters such as how Altantuya’s immigration records could be erased from the Immigration computers, the letters Najib wrote to the Malaysian embassy supporting Altantuya’s visa application, the photograph of Altantuya, Najib, Razak and Kalimullah taken during Altantuya’s birthday party in the Mandarin Hotel in Singapore, and much more.

Rumour has it, and it remains just that, a rumour, is that all this ‘evidence’ has been given to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Okay, maybe Abdullah is using this information to keep Najib in line — which appears to be working seeing that he is constantly licking Abdullah’s hand. But this is not about politics and should not be dealt as such. This is about the Prime Minister of Malaysia withholding crucial evidence in a murder trial. Abdullah is an accessory to murder and burying evidence that will affect the outcome of the trial and interfere in seeing justice done renders Abdullah as guilty as those currently on trial and those who also should be on trial but are not.

I really wish I could write about all the above which was discussed by those at the dinner table last night. Unfortunately, since the trial is still ongoing, I will not be able to talk about any of these matters. The best I can do is relate what those at the dinner table discussed last night and leave it at that without giving my opinion. And the above is what was discussed by those who are not lawyers and never once in their lives argued any case in court.

Of course, since all these people are not lawyers, most of what they said is based purely on logic and not on points of law. It is actually quite ridiculous that people not tutored in matters of law would attempt to dissect and analyse the Altantuya murder trial and pass judgement as if they are trained and certified lawyers. Anyway, as I said, opinions are like assholes and every one has one so we should not take too much notice of what my dinner friends said last night. Meanwhile, read what my friend, Din Merican, e-mailed to me this morning:

In ancient times, nations go to war at the slightest provocation. In the 21st century, fortunately, we are more civilised than our progenitors, although there are still exceptions. After all, we are members of the United Nations and, I am told, we subscribe to the UN Declaration on Human Rights. Yet, we in Malaysia, treat foreign nationals with total disregard for compassion and human decency. Are we a bunch of cynics? I wonder.

Take the case of the beating-up of the Indonesian karate/judo coach and the brutality towards, and extortion of, Indonesian guest workers by Rela, the murder of a Mongolian national, etc. Is the way we deal with our neighbours and other nation states? I wonder whether we are a nation of laws or a country run on the basis of the law of the jungle.

Our Prime Minister, Badawi, and his Foreign Minister (at that time Syed Hamid) did not have the courtesy to reply to the letters from their counterparts in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, seeking a fair trial and justice for the family of the late Altantyua Shaariibuu. Too busy maybe? Surely not!

It is going to be tragic for Malaysia’s image if the Altantuya family cannot get justice for the brutal murder of their loved one. How can we blow to smithereens a human being, someone’s loved one, and a mother to two young children, using an explosive which is only utilised in times of war to destroy bunkers, bridges and buildings? This is unheard off anywhere in the world. This case, therefore, has a lot of international implications, especially when the deed was done by ‘servants’ of this country.

We are being viewed as arrogant by the Indonesians, Thais, Singaporeans, as well as by many of our neighbours. Now, we add to this list the Mongolians. How indecent and irresponsible of the PM and his Foreign Minister for not even acknowledging the receipt of letters from their Mongolian counterparts. Who are we protecting?

There is no point in Badawi trying to convince us that his Administration is keen to restore the image of the judiciary. He cannot even fix his own Police Force and the AG’s Office. Frankly, Malaysians should have sent Badawi and his cohorts in BN out of office in the last general election.

The mainstream media is just hopeless in the cause of justice for Altantuya and dignity for Malaysia. Malaysians and civil society movements must now pressure the Badawi government to expose the real culprit behind this murder and bring to closure this long and costly trial. Let justice prevail and let us put an end to the culture of impunity, where the powerful and politically connected are above the Law.

As a father of six kids (of whom three are girls, including a 16-year old) and a grandfather, I feel for Dr. Setev Shaariibuu and his family. I was at the press conference on April 24 at the Office of Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim and I personally saw the agony on Dr. Shaariibuu’s face.

It is time for Malaysians to push this issue and not allow the murderers who walk in the corridors of power to get away with this vile and evil deed unscathed. It is time to ‘storm the Bastille’. It is time we sent these sorry excuses for human beings to hell where they deserve to be.

——————————————————————————–

I agree, storm the bastille then. Nah, first time I met Raja Petra, I had only this to say, You are a brave man, and a brave man should never walk alone, especially if he is a Liverpool fan to boot. : )

Since this article is deemed seditious, I will join him in whatever hell the government has placed him in. Have asked Bar council to help make sure I get sent to wherever he is,  I have no bloody intention of letting the man suffer by himself.

Adios my friends, till I see you all again.

Jeevindra Kumar

A couple of years ago, Mr Warren Buffett and the Gateses’ held a press conference announcing the donation by Mr Buffet of some astronomical sum to the Gates foundation for charity.

I stayed up late to watch the broadcast live on CNBC.

Something happened that night, or rather did not happen that night, which has galled me ever since. The assorted newshounds and press jackals rose and asked questions such as these… ” How will the share holders react? Will these affect the share prices?” ” Are your children happy about this, (even though Mr Buffett leaves them about half a billion each or something)?” They questioned from all angles stopping short of calling the great man crazy for giving the bulk of his fortune to charity.  But none had the brains or heart to say thank you.

So, a little belated, joining the few that have already said this,  please allow me to say….. Thank You to you Mr Buffett, and to the Gateses’, on behalf of mankind, on behalf of the voiceless poor, on behalf of humanity itself, Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.

Thank You for showing us that it is possible to give back to the world.

Thank You.

Atychiphobia- Fear of failure.

Since no one has coined the name for fear of success, I have decided to do it.

Vetriphobia – fear of success. You heard it here first……

We can call ourselves what we want, the multitude, common folk, hoi polloi, the many, the people, grassroots, plebeian, salt of the earth, the lumpen, the masses, the makkal, the rakyat, the citizens… but what is it that separates us from those that cannot be called the above,the heroes of Mankind?

Thomas Carlyle  listed the Hero as the following

I.   THE HERO AS DIVINITY.  ODIN.  PAGANISM:  SCANDINAVIAN MYTHOLOGY.
II.  THE HERO AS PROPHET.  PROPHET MUHAMMAD (PBUH):  ISLAM.
III. THE HERO AS POET.  DANTE:  SHAKSPEARE.
IV.  THE HERO AS PRIEST.  LUTHER; REFORMATION:  KNOX; PURITANISM.
V.   THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS.  JOHNSON, ROUSSEAU, BURNS.
VI.  THE HERO AS KING.  CROMWELL, NAPOLEON:  MODERN REVOLUTIONISM

Or simply, the Hero as Prince, Prophet, Priest, Poet, Philosopher or God. To which I will add Philanthropist and Politician. Mr Buffet, the Gateses’ ; Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King…you get the drift. Pushing the envelope a bit, let’s add Physycist to the list, Einstein, Feynman, Hawkings. The one hero who can’t really be categorised is Tesla, who seems to have been an Incarnation of the God of Electricity himself.

What separates us lumpens from our heroes, from those whose names and deeds live forever in the annals of history. To me, it is a phobia that is shared by all of us common folk, the fear of success.

We settle into an atavistic mode and stick to the herd. We fear recognition, we shun wealth, we play it safe, we come up with excuses on why something cannot be done, we stop others from trying, we look for faults, we do everything but succeed. I am talking true success here, the type that puts you on a road where each day brings new heights and new goals.

We measure our goals in small minded terms, and once we have acquired these small possesions, we settle back, and we do little more than wait to die.

I have been on a tremendous learning curve this past few weeks, and have had the opportunity to communicate with one of mankinds Heroes. The most obvious difference between him and everyone else, including myself, I know is this, the ability to think, to decide and to act independently, and the willingness to accept failure with the same equanimity as he would accept success. He has neither fear of failure, or of success.

We on the other hand, will read a hundred self help books, pay through the nose to listen to motivational gurus, pray on bended knee as if God has nothing better to do than listen to us, and go home to watch the telly and complain that live has not thrown us the right opportunity yet.

If you want success, learn to take the calculated chance. Act on knowledge and intuition, not because others are acting that way. Do not wait to see others succeed before you follow the same path, see the success coming to you and keep walking to it. Be adaptable but remain steadfast, even when others have quit on you. But most important of all, believe in yourself even if no one else does.

The Buddha said that the greatest wealth a man can have is self confidence, and the greatest power is self control. Cultivate both, no matter where or what you are right now.

We are the dust that coat the shelves of mankinds history, and the heroes are the books that fill them. And as long as we are happy lying in dust, we do not know what success is.

Jeevindra Kumar

p.s. take this quiz to find out the truth… http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/fortune/quizzes/fear_success/frameset.exclude.html

Okay, let’s be honest. This is what happens when you drink all the drinks within reach at the bar and keep a copy of Whitman on the bedside, as well as suffer from chronic puppyloveitis.

Nah, actually I found this in an old laptop I had passed on to my mum, can’t remember when I actually wrote it or why. Struck a chord in me and thought I will share it with, judging by the hits I am getting, the 2.17 of you that actually visit this blog.  Dedicated to the one time I had something perfect in my arms, ana.

Perfection

when your lover smiles

the spiders eight legs

in the rough beards of old men

the quick strike and kill of prey,

the forked tongue tasting scented molecules

a baby’s belly laugh

water flowing, looking for the ocean

in a quiet pebble

sunlight, warm, toasty

in the steady tap tap of a drummers stick

in the running chase of the ball,

a tree growing, climbing higher than it’s neighbour

in a man’s crafting of a fresh joke

eggs frying in the pan, the mother looking out the window at the morning

nearly ripe fruit, waiting for the hand

a dead singer, singing again from the radio

in a vote, cast without doubt

digging the ground, where’s the potato?

when she’s angry with you, jealous of an unknown other

the echo, coming back to you

new glasses, the world clear again

the ringing phone, your friend waiting for your voice

in the soldier, stepping into battle, silent goodbyes in his heart

in the strike of a match, fire being born

the flapping of a curtain, the owner away

a cat’s tail, gently waving

in the wilting flower,  job done, forgotten

finding bubble wrap, unpopped

a stranger, reading your favourite book

the artist, haughty, dressed the part

a salesman, walking home after a good day

the scientist, in his lab, dinner getting cold

after the tycoon’s funeral, all eyes on the will

sleeping eyes, the national anthem playing

after the abortion, the mother crying

rolling thunder, the child cowering under the sheets

in sniffing the air, right now.

jeevan

Are we going through a downturn?

Seems like it.

Will it get worse?

No certainty here, but most probably YES!!! And if it does worsen, it will get worse for everyone, regardless of station or location. Unless of course you are a a member of a tribe which still lives close to nature with zero reliance on ModCons, in which case you will not be reading this anyway…

You can increase your chances of surviving a recession/depression by being proactive, and by learning to separate the wheat from the chaff, in as many aspects of your life as possible.

First and foremost, stop listening and reading to the lies from the global and local mass media. Especially when it comes to economics.

Secondly, learn a skill that will give you the chance to have a source of income regardless of what happens to your country or neighbourhood.

Thirdly, start reading seriously and stop watching TV.

I can go on, but this will do for now. The best way to take charge of your financial future is to learn how to trade. Judging by the plethora of trading courses out there, that seem to be able to turn the average Joe into a supertrader overnight, it seems like most people are muppets when it comes to trading.

There is no “secret trading system”, no “shortcut to success” when it comes to trading.

It takes a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of patience and most importantly a lot of common sense, which as we all know, is a scarce commodity.

But for those that persevere, and commit themselves to becoming a trader, the skills you learn and master will stand you in good stead when everyone else is panicking because their employer has gone bust/the banks are foreclosing everyone/there is financial mayhem everywhere.

Resign to the fact that most of us will see a return to gold and silver backed currencies in our lifetime, but until that day comes, there is money to be made in the game of finding the correct value for fiat currencies, known as forex trading. And for those of you that are traders or are planning to become one in the future, I hope that you will still be there when the dust settles.

You survive a downturn by doing what the rest will do tomorrow, today.

Jeevindra Kumar