By WIDE ANGLE – Huzir Sulaiman

Our political situation is like something out of a movie – so here are the awards. The envelope, please…

The Wide Angle Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, headquartered for no particular reason in Skudai, presents this year’s Malaysian Political Oscars.

The most widely watched television event in Malaysia, the Political Oscar telecast reaches over 1 billion viewers, some of whom are dead, some of whom are 130 years old, and most of whom are registered at the same address.

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y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

u know ah

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

yestarday i left my green apple here  in the tupperware on my table

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

then ah

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

today i open it up ah

 audrey says:

then

 audrey says:

got worm

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

no

 audrey says:

got apple pie

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

like got scratches on the apple

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

around the apple

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

so scary!

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

then i throw it away

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

heheh

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

haiyeah

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

should have let u see just now

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

hehehehe

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

is not like rotten like that, is like lines around the apple

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

heheheh

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

may be is 'muk muk'

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

hehhehe

y{ee}n: love tzuki very much  says:

so geli

I was like, "wth is muck-muck?" Actually it's pronounced as "Moke Moke" like "Poke Poke" with an "M"

So I learnt a new word today: "muk muk" It means ghost! We did ask her to go retrieve the apple back from the dustbin but it was at the bottom of the bin. Maybe tomorrow the apple will appear on her desk. Haha..

This time I was face-to-face with the thief.

It was Friday, 8pm. I left office and headed home using Jalan Damansara, the toll-free road next to Eastin Hotel. As usual, I placed my laptop and handbag on the front passenger seat. Traffic was unusually heavy that night. Thinking that it was too dark to grab my book out of my handbag for a quick read, I toyed with my cellphone, browsing themes I exchanged with my colleague that afternoon. When I had to drive, I’d place my cellphone in the tiny side socket of my cardoor.

I was contemplating whether I should go home straight or ask where Chip was to join him for dinner. On second thoughts, I really did want to go home and freshen up before dinner. We even made plans to make a trip to PD to visit some friends that night. I decided to head home instead.

As I got onto my street, I took out my set of housekeys and auto-gate remote control from my middle compartment of my car. I pressed the button and the two gates of my front entrance slowly opened wide. I drove in to my usual parking space; a tiny space that is parked very close to the pillar and flower bed. It takes a lot of skill to drive up to my little spot but I always manage to get through without hurting my car!

I press the button of my remote control again for the gates to close. My engine was still running as I switch off my lights, air-con and radio. My car doors were still locked. I turned to my left to with the intentions of grabbing my bags when I noticed at the side of my eyes someone running into my driveway. The person was approaching the left side of my car. In a quick second, I was already wondering who could it be? If it was my sister, brother-in-law or a friend, they wouldn’t want to wait for me at the side of my car.

Next thing I knew, I was face-to-face with a dark figure. The porch lights were switched on but it was too dark for me to distinguish anything more than a silhouette with a helmet. I knew something was very wrong when he lifted up his two hands and smashed the front left window. Glass shattered. I screamed. His hands went through the broken glass and took my bags from the seat. I leaned to my left, trying to grab hold of any bags but he was too quick for me. He managed to escape while my gate was still in the midst of closing.

It was either my gate was so damn slow or he was so damn fast and experienced. I would say both.

I was terrified. I press on my car horn. My gate was about to close. Rational thinking came to place: “Audrey, open the gate again before you drive out to catch him.”

And so I did but by the time I carefully drove my car out from its tight corner, it was obviously too late. He was gone. I have no idea if he had an accomplice or he was on a bike. I guess he had both.

I drove out of my street and into the next and I knew I was just chasing after a ghost rider. With my side window opened bare, it wasn’t safe for me or worth the risk driving around alone. Luckily I had my phone with me (remember, I took it out of my handbag) and phoned Chip, my parents and my sister and waited at home for them. Shaken and frighten, I was lucky to get out of this situation unhurt. Small cuts on my fingers when the glass shattered but other than that, I was OK.

All in all, I lost the following:

·          My laptop with all my office work and personal photos!

·          My purse – credit cards, ATM, MyKad, driver’s license, shopping cards

·          My Sony T-100 camera *sob sob sob* and two memory sticks and photos of sis’ birthday

·          RM 250 cash

·          My Dragonlance book

·          My thumbdrive and blur-blur doodoll

·          A cross that I found in my postbox

I may have lost almost RM5k worth of stuff but I’m thankful that that was all that was taken from me. A lot of ‘what ifs’ situations came in my mind…

What if the gate closed in time and he couldn’t escape.. what would he have done to me?

What if he was bolder and asked me to open the doors to my house… what would he have done to me?

What if the glass injured me…

All things happen for a reason and maybe it was to prevent something else from happening…

Maybe it was to prevent us from driving to PD…

Maybe it was to get my parents and sister & family to come home at that time…

Maybe it was for me to get a new laptop and a new cam? Haa..

Maybe it was a test of relationships between those who genuinely cared and those who pretended to…

Possibilities aplenty (maybe it’s just as simple as me being unobservant and careless) but I’m taking this positively rather than to live in fear forever. The faceless helmet-wearing silhouette haunts me every once in a while. Then again, I can’t help but to repeat how absolutely thankful I am that I came out of this unhurt J

So ladies, do not place your bags on the passenger seat even if you are in the car. It’s better to leave them on the floor of your car or boot.

I came across an article titled "The Lina Joy Case -- An 'Easy' Version" and thought that the author, "Tulang Besi", did a great job in articulating his take on the infamous Lina Joy case. For the sake of being objective, I shall withhold my personal views on the case of Lina Joy, lest I want to get dragged into another 'debate' on religious sensitivities and righteousness which in any case is abundant all over the internet, if you so feel like letting off abit of steam after a long hard day.

For those readers that are just not bothered to read Tulang Besi's entire article, let me try to summarize it for you. The gist of his article is that Lina Joy's case could be catastrophic to the entire Islamic faith if the courts in Malaysia were to rule in favour of her. Lina Joy was seeking through the Malaysian civil courts to recognize her status as a non-muslim because the National Registration Department refused to remove the word 'Islam' from her identity card but instead directed her to go to the Islamic courts to seek an approval for her to denounce Islam first. To support his claim that the outcome of this case is pivotal to the survival of Islam (or atleast in Malaysia), the author presented 5 points for his readers to consider:

* 1) The nullification of a vast array of laws - Abdul Hamid CAJ (as he then was) in Kamariah bte Ali v Kerajaan Negeri Kelantan, Malaysia opined that in allowing Article 11 to be construed so liberally would entail making invalid entire bodies of Islamic law; e.g. Zakat laws, marriage laws, et cetera. (In short, all Islamic laws would be rendered null and void.)

* 2) The coming to existence of a constitutional paradox - Article 160 of the Constitution states that a Malay must be a Muslim; thus, if a Malay person declares himself a non-Muslim, what race would he (legally) belong to then? As he cannot satisfy the constitutional criteria of a Malay, he would lose not only his Malay status but his Bumiputra privileges as well.

* 3) The diminution of the powers of the Syariah court - Not only would our Islamic court would be deprived of its right to adjudicate on matters of apostasy involving Muslims, said right would then be conferred to the civil court, whose judicial members are comprised of Muslims and non-Muslims trained in the intricacies of civil laws but not Islamic laws.

* 4) Of inheritance rights - Seeing as to the fact that Muslims and non-Muslims are governed by different inheritance laws, and the fact that non-Muslims cannot inherit from Muslims, one can easily imagine then the gory court battles that would emerge from disputes on inheritance.

* 5) The impossibility of religious enforcement - Consider perhaps, a man eating eating in public in the fasting month of Ramadhan who, when arrested by religious officers, professes to having left the Islamic faith. The religious officers would be unable to perform their duties if so.

(For those who actually did take the time to read the article, you would have noticed that the 5 arguments above is a direct cut & paste job )

Ok fair enough, Tulang Besi is of course entitled to his opinions but as I kept on reading especially the comments posted for this article I noticed the same pattern of arguments always pops up across all forums and blogs whenever there is something written about Islam. Some readers would argue from a secular point of view and some would be from the religious corner. Usually these comments can span across hundreds of pages but still go nowhere because both sides are experiencing what I think is a paradigm paralysis.

Islamists, Islamic apologetics and fundamentalist would argue their case under the assumption that everyone else believes in what they believe in where else the non-muslims and secularists would argue in the otherwise where the influence of "God" is kept only within the wall of our human souls. The crux of their arguments are as such, secularists would say that religion is a very personal thing and thus religious decisions are to be left at an individual level whereas Islamists would argue that a Muslim's religious status must be decided by Islamic authorities because you are a Muslim before you are anything else. In my humble opinion, I believe that the void that seperates these two sides can be bridged if my fellow Muslim brothers and sisters are able to adopt the political and legal doctrine of "Separation of church and State".

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State." - Thomas Jefferson 1802

The term separation of church and states simply means that government and religious institutions are to be kept seperate and independent of each other. From the 5 points raised by Tulang Besi in support of his notion that Islam will fall if Lina Joy were to be allowed to convert out of Islam shows that Islam does not seperate our religious life from our civil lives. As far as I know, the personal domain in Islam is far less encompassing than the public domain where the lives and conducts of Muslims are always somebody's business.

If we do actually manage to seperate our religious obligations from our civil duties, I honestly believe that humanity as a whole and Malaysians especially would be able to eliminate all (if not most) religious and racial conflicts once and for all.