APEC Summit 2009

Wanna know the results of APEC Finance Ministers' Meeting (FMM)???

Please go to this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpbuCJDyKgs

RAMAI TAPI SIKIT!

Salam,

Kita selalu dengar di segenap pelosok dunia, umat Islam ditindas dan dizalimi. Setiap kali berita ini diwar-warkan di media massa, maka ramailah yang melahirkan rasa simpati. Sumbangan begitu banyak dihulurkan. Apa yang menghairankan, sebahagian besar sumbangan itu bukan datangnya daripada masyarakat Islam itu sendiri. Oleh itu, saya sering tertanya-tanya, adakah umat Islam semakin pupus? Adakah umat Islam itu sengaja memekakkan telinga mereka? Adakah umat Islam itu sengaja membutakan mata mereka? Jika Ya, memang benarlah tekaan saya bahawa Umat Islam itu ramai, namun yang berjuang untuk mempertahankan Islam itu adalah sangat sedikit bilangannya.

Jika kita kecilkan skop ini kepada ruang lingkup sesuatu organisasi. Sebahagian besar organisasi mempunyai begitu ramai ahli. Sebahagiannya, bilangan ahlinya kelihatan lebih gah daripada bilangan aktiviti yang dijalankan. Namun apa yang menyedihkan, bagi setiap kali aktiviti yang dijalankan, hanya karakter yang sama sahaja kelihatan begitu sibuk ke sana ke mari menyiapkan tugasan. Susuk tubuh mereka yang lain langung tidak kelihatan, Yang kedengaran hanya suara-suara kritikan yang tidak disusuli dengan apa-apa tindakan. Memang Ya, kritikan itu amat-amat dialukan, namun kritikan tanpa disusuli dengan tindakan hanya menampakkan pengkritik itu kelihatan dungu. Bak kat orang muda-muda, "Cakap nak lebat je!" Oleh itu, begitu menjadi harapan saya, bahawa, Kelab UMNO ini tidaklah menjadi sebahagian daripada organisasi yang digambarkan seperti diatas. Setiap karakter dalam Kelab ini diharap dapat menjadi aset penting kelab dalam memastikan kelab ini sentiasa dipersada kejayaaan.

Wasalam,

Shahrir Tamrin

Alif Ba Ta 2009

Kedai Kopi Pak Nab in Stevens (Round 1)

Dear folks,

If God Willing, we would host "Kedai Kopi Pak Nab" on this coming Saturday. All are invited regardless you are Stevens students or not. As long as you are Malaysian and have interest to know what is actually going on in our country, you are kindly welcomed to join this Kedai Kopi.

Please note, this Kedai Kopi would be as casual as possible. No dress code, no ethical code, or what so ever. This is a session in which one's opinions are highly appreciated. No right or wrong.

* For further explanation, feel free to contact Zaid Nabil at 210-556-8538

Regards,

Shahrir Tamrin

A Must-Read Article!

Dear folks, I have received this article from Azly Rahman, one of the speakers for Alif Ba Ta 2009. I have enjoyed reading this article. I hope you would enjoy reading this piece as much as I did.. Regards, Shahrir The Asri problematique and the rise of denominational Islam?

Thursday, 05 November 2009 12:38

But in all these and applicable to all religions, the question remains: at what point is innovation in religion allowed, acceptable, and tolerated? At what point is the "denominationalization" of Islam acceptable without the religion being demonized by those who think they have understood the Divine presence but actually clutched by the Devil's right hand? A REPUBLIC OF VIRTUE Azly Rahman http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/ The current uproar over the arrest of Dr. Asri, former Mufti of Perlis interests me. I am not particularly interested in the political and ideological dimension of it; rather in how this issue will develop in this hypermodern country plagued with internal contradictions. “The center cannot hold” as the Irish poet W.B. Yeats once said, and “Things Fall Apart” as the title of the great African novel of Chinua Achebe suggests – these describe the Malaysian theological dilemma, a dilemma that has a history and a future. Malaysian Muslims are yet faced with another challenging situation; one which presents an interesting extrapolation of the historical dilemma the Muslims have been facing intellectually. Coming soon would be a public intellectual crisis that involves the Grand and subaltern voices in Islam. Those of the Wahabbi, Salafi, Sunni, Syiah, Sufi, and the “denominations derived from traditional and indigenous practices” (the tariqats primarily) will come out in the open to assert the “truth-ness” of their perspective and practice of Islam. Essentially now, Islam seems to have many 'denominations' based on cultural, geographical, political, economic, and intellectual factors—as a consequence of globalization. Muslims are all part and products of the various authorships of these 'denominations' -- thanks to the power/knowledge matrix of the evolution of Islam. These denominations are even mutating, depending on class and consciousness of the adherents. On a crude psychological plane in Malaysia, here is the situation, stated in simple terms: The subaltern voices in Islam are clashing with each other. Examples abound. The Sufis are saying that the Wahabbis are on the wrong path, the Wahabbis claim they are preaching the one and true tauhid and that Sufism is a strange invention, the Shiahs in Iran are probably building more powerful weapons against the Sunnis the Mid-east over, the Malaysian government is propagating Hadhari and the halal hub in a haram casino-capitalistic environment, the Malays have produced their own messiahs or Rasul Melayu (Malay prophets) and their variants of Ayah Pins and their Sky Kingdoms, the anti-hadiths are roaming cyberspace declaring themselves Quranic-only Muslims, the liberal Muslims are at loggerheads with the strict ones bent on moral policing, the gangsta-rapper-Busta Rhymes-type Muslims are angry with the soft-spoken Raihan-acapella-type- Muslims, the Sisters in Islam are angry with the Malaysian Brotherhood of Islam or the Ikhwanul Muslims, the Death Metallists are having a field day with all these chaos amongst Muslim ideologues, the Catholics are fighting in court over the issue of the "Allah" ban, the whirling dervishes are still whirling.... it is a postmodern situation in the field of Islam in Malaysia. I hope this is a useful sketch of the postmodern Muslim condition. Are Muslims then better off reading the Quran hermeneutically? Is it better for them to remove themselves from the philological, historical, and most importantly cultural context, take the scripture in whatever meaningful language it has been translated into, and take only the spirit of it, and like a Prometheus unbound, soar to greater theological heights? This is a challenging question. Or maybe religious sentimentality and critical sensibility must come from one’s own exploration using a triad of sense awareness, intellect, and intuition, drawn from purely cultural sources? -- We can then be free from cultural biases and these "geographically and politically- bound" schools of thoughts? In that case then we will be going into the realm of what I consider "truly spiritual democracy" and use reason and rationality to read the Quran (or any religious text) for that matter. Will the collection of hadiths be necessary anymore? I think this question has been answered by the subaltern Muslims that has already begun their systematic critique of the narratives of the Great Prophet. There is a growing number of Muslims who are beginning to assert that the highest faculty is human reason, which we must exercise in order for us to be truly human. This is the essence of the Enlightenment and of the Renaissance in that only through reason and feeling that we can arrive at an understanding the meaning of who we are. Some say through lots of zikir, chanting, and even dancing (whirling dervishes included) that one can reach what needs to be reached mystically. The dancer danceth the dance of the dance itself (like what Michael Jackson lived for, maybe), and in his/her dance, as she whirls and twirls, he loses himself into the abyss of nothingness ... profound ... even looking from the outside. But in all these and applicable to all religions, the question remains: at what point is innovation in religion allowed, acceptable, and tolerated? At what point is the "denominationalization" of Islam acceptable without the religion being demonized by those who think they have understood the Divine presence but actually clutched by the Devil's right hand? We are prisoners of language, trapped in a prison-house of language. We can avoid the answers but we can never run away from more questions. Like in the song Hotel California (by the California rock group Eagles) that goes “you can check out anytime you like but you can never leave”. Perhaps, in all these lie a possible marriage between philosophy and religion -- finally. In Malaysia though, is this at all possible?

Kedai Kopi Pak Nab in Rutgers: The Report

Program Kedai Kopi Rutgers University.

Waktu program: Sabtu 17 Oktober 2009 (9:00 malam – 11:30 malam)

Senarai yang hadir:

Fahzan

Aishah Nayan

Kwang Huei

Taufik

Farah Najeeha

Kai Li

Najmi

Zahid

Atilia

Manford Goh

Zaim

Hamidah

Foo Tzehkeong

Hanis Haziqah

Jumlah Perbelanjaan: $43.76 untuk minuman, makanan ringan dan lain-lain.

Tuan rumah untuk program, Taufik dan Najmi juga ada menyediakan bihun goreng dan nasi. Ini tidak termasuk dalam $43.76 di atas.

Bahagian 1) Democracy: a Flawed System?

Antara soalan-soalan yang ditimbulkan:

· What is democracy?

· How is it different from other systems?

· Why is democracy more prevalent in today’s world?

· Why is the west more “successful” in holding democracy? Is democracy superior to other political systems?

· Differences of democracy practiced in Malaysia and the rest of the world

Antara respons-respons dari hadirin:

· Democracy is a system that emphasizes on the power of majority of the people to decide the direction the government would take.

· Comparison with other systems such as monarchy, theocracy etc. Theoretically, democracy seems to be the system that favors the mass as a whole. However, it could still be abused and taken advantage of if the people do not really understand how the system works.

· Democracy seems to work successfully in the western countries. A lot of countries in the third world countries theoretically practice democracy (by having election etc), but corruption is still rampant and power abuse is still a norm. This could be attributed to the mentality of people and their knowledge of the working system of democracy.

· Democracy is not the ultimate superior political system. In the history of the development of human civilization, successful empires and civilizations come and go with different political systems. Even the founder democracy, the ancient Greek empire crumbled and fell out of favor. Democracy is probably more relevant today but not saying, 300 years ago. This explains that political system works in cycle of time. Democracy may become less dominant in the future.

· In addition, in democratic countries, decision making sometimes take a long time due to the process that takes place in the parliament or senate. Therefore, in some way, the decision making process in developing countries may better be made by only a small of people to speed up the process of development.

· Democracy in Malaysia: how the political system changed from the sultanate of different states to parliamentary democracy.

Bahagian 2: Problems with current education system

Antara soalan-soalan yang ditimbulkan:

· Does our current education system promote integration between races?

· The dilemma of the language of instruction

· Scholarship program and its impact and effectiveness on Malaysian development

Dan jawapan-jawapan dari hadirin:

· Some audiences disagree with the vernacular schools. Kids do not interact with kids from different racial background from young age. This creates massive misunderstanding and suspicion between races.

· A lot of Chinese feel that national schools only cater Malay students’ interests. They feel these schools are inadequate to cater Chinese students. Some feel that Chinese schools promote more hardworking culture with daily homework and strict regulation (I’m not familiar with Chinese school, so we just take this point anyway)

· Scholarship program has helped Malaysia produce young bright minds. However, the bigger problem is the continuation after graduation and returning to Malaysia from universities abroad. The lack of job and research opportunities that correspond to the qualification hurt the country as students are more interested in finding the opportunities in foreign countries.

Program tamat sekitar jam 11:30 malam.

Prepared by,

Fahzan Ramli

Rutgers University

Kedai Kopi Pak Nab RIT-Part 1

KULN NY-NJ@RIT had its first Kedai Kopi Pak Nab on October 1st, 2009. About 30 members joined the discussion on Vision 2020, NEP, and PPSMI. We were grateful to have two excellent moderators to lead the discussion- Muhamad Taufik Abd Rahim and Mohamad Nazim Baharin. Overall, the activity was regarded successful by the feedbacks received from the participants. It was an eye-opener for some, and for others, it was a platform to voice out their opinions. To wrap-up the discussion, we briefly discussed about 1Malaysia-the concept and the role it plays on our society. All participants agreed that the concept of 1Malaysia is pretty vague and that it should be more defined for people not to misinterpret it. All in all, it was a huge success and we are glad to announce that we are going to have Kedai Kopi Pak Nab-Part 2 sometime soon.

By,

Nur Adilah Mohamed Rosli