QURBAN

Hari Raya Haji a.k.a Hari Raya Korban or Aidil Adha is just around the corner. Malaysians will have the last Public Holiday of the year.

Like the turkeys before Christmas, there are some nervous goats, lambs and cattle hoping against hope that Hari Raya Haji will never come. These animals do not know about the history of Korban. (Qurban is the way Bollywood spelt it. Means the same.)

Hundreds of years ago Nabi Ibrahim (Abraham) was commanded by God to sacrifice his son Ismail. Even though Nabi Ibrahim loved his son very much, he loved God more and being the faithful servant of God, he obeyed. Ismail too was not afraid to die. He was ready to be slaughtered in God's name. God, being Most Merciful, spared Ismail's life and Abraham's agony by replacing Ismail with a sheep at the last moment. The tradition lives on in the Muslim world although it is not compulsory for every Muslim to sacrifice an animal every Hari Raya Haji. It is compulsory for those doing the pilgrimage (the haj) in Makkah al Mukaramah to sacrifice an animal (goats, sheep or camels) though. When I was there, I did not have to look for an animal. I just went to the bank, paid for a coupon, said my niat (intention) and the Islamic Development Bank would slaughter the animal on my behalf and distribute the meat to the poor, even outside Saudi Arabia. Otherwise I would not know what to do with my portion of the meat. Makkah is hardly the place to have a barbecue.

My parents and my family sometimes bought a part of a lembu for the korban. Most of the meat is distributed to the needy as required by Islam. When I was a child, I was told that in the Hereafter, you got to ride the animal you sacrificed on the way to Heaven. I got a severe tongue lashing when I asked my mother to sacrifice a motorbike.

Labels: Aidil Adha, Sacrifices

50 Years of Independence: A Personal Thought

(I was tagged by Najah Nasseri to write the following. I am supposed to be Number 38. Her post is Number 39.)

When our country achieved Independence in 1957, it was just one week after I reached my 13^th birthday. When the country celebrates her 50^th birthday, I will be 63 and hopefully still alive to celebrate both occasions.
On 31^st August 1957, I was in Kelantan the so-called Malay Heartland. Even there, there were other races too. I had as my classmates, Chia, Das, Sardar in addition to people like Rahman Daud, Shukri Hamid, Nik Sidik and Nik Kazeem. All of us took part in the lantern procession to celebrate our country’s independence. I can safely say that none of us knew, let alone understood the word racism. Like any other people in the world, we did fight with each other. Never did we fight over our skin’s colour. Before the bruises on our skin barely disappear we were fast friends again.
Now we have wrinkled skin and the colour has become a bone of contention. After so many years of independence, many of us could not become Malaysians. Somehow, some of us still think of ourselves as Malays, Chinese, Indians or whatever our ethnicity is. Some of us look up to America and embraced the life style of the Americans. The Americans think of themselves as Americans even though they are Greeks, Italians, Lebanese, Jamaicans, Irish or WASPs. This is something that we have not embraced yet. I am not saying that there is no racial prejudice or discrimination in America. There are bigots everywhere. I feel that even with a smaller population, Malaysia has more bigots. I guess this is the result of our system. The sailing boat, the symbol that the Nation’s Founding Fathers chose for the Alliance of the major races is now in rough waters.
We are at sea. We are lost, wondering what went wrong. Some blame it on materialism which gives rise to selfishness, avarice, jealousy, corruption and abuse. Some blame it on politicians. I blame it on materialistic politicians.
Before some politicians descend on me and smother me with their bush jackets, let me ask you if you know of any politicians who joined politics purely to serve the people and the country. You might try to point out some politicians from the Opposition who do not seem to gain much, material-wise at present. The situation might change when they are in power. In the mean time, they are noisily voicing out some of the people’s grievances, real or imagined. This is not to say that representatives from the ruling coalition never criticized the government or its machinery. But when push comes to shove, they will toe the party line. This is the problem. Party first, people later. Even the very people who voted the representative in have no say in the decision. How many times did your wakil rakyat ask your opinion on important issues? How many times did your wakil rakyat speak up and argue against decisions that you and thousands of other people think are not right? Maybe I am a bit idealistic but I long for the day when our representatives ask our opinion and then speak up without fear of losing promotions, contracts, next nomination or whatever. Do we have to wait another 50 years for this?

( I have tagged my daughter Elisa to write Post # 37 but she is away without Internet at the moment so I guess my eldest daughter Elida will have to forgo shopping and encounters with naked vagrants to write the next post. You can tag Elisa next.)

Labels: ideal democrasy, Malaysia, rant

TERMINALS

This is the new terminal for buses in Kuala Terengganu. I can remember two previous stesen bah - the one where the present HSBC bank is and after that next to Rex cinema. Given my notorious porous memory, please remind me if there were other bus stations in Kuala Terengganu.

On the present bus terminal was the Kuala Terengganu badminton hall where my father tried very hard to hand down to me his considerable racquet skills and behind it was the Customs Quarters. In previous life, this site housed a prison.

If you look at the snapshot above closely, you can see some addition that was not in the blueprint. Why do the shopowners/tenants hang plastic sheets behind their shops? I can think of two valid reasons: Piah (rain coming in) and Panah (too much sun in the evening). For either reason, I have a question: Wasn't the weather taken into consideration when designing this building? Let me know the excuses, please. I hate to see a nice building made ugly.

Still on terminals, I have been asked by commentator xyz to draw your attention to yet another terminal for bloghoppers. Go here. It is a worthwhile effort and if you read the same blogs that the author reads, you will save a lot of time browsing your bookmarks. It is a boon to me because after my hd crashed, I lost all my bookmarks, email and adresses. For techie stuff, my good friend TV Smith came up with a good feed page. Have a look.

Enjoy!

Labels: blog portal, designing buildings, Terengganu