19/9/11 DERAILED AND PLUNG INTO DISASTER

After my long travelling into the Thai, Laos, and Cambodia at this point in time, as well as those travelling that I have made years back to the Mindanoa, long breath of the Indonesian, Brunei, Vietnam, Singapore and a small part of Mynmar, I would believe I have covered the whole of the ASEAN, especially observing the lives of the poor, the have not Muslim.

(2) Comparatively, I had travelled to Australia, America, Canada, India and China. In these States, I also as much as possible made my effort to see how the Muslim there are adjusting to their rather different lives compare to home.

(3) My childhood experienced, seeing the educational fate of the dropout friends, in Kelantan and Kedah also keep knocking into my head. My active student life in the 1980s encountered me with lots of social and spiritual issues flaring at those period. Those are the backdrops to this entry. I hope I will be able to make some points that readers could appreciate and work on in the future if not immediately.

(4) Long time ago, as a student, I read and heard that, the Islamic movement in India was very strong in pursuing the socio-economic struggle of the people. They were not happy with the poor state of te Muslim livelihod. In order to suppress the activists, Indra Ghandi who was the then Prime Minister, politely request these eager activists especially among the civil servants to take leave and really work hard in the rural areas to spread and work on such betterment sentiment among the Muslims. She encouraged them to take the footstep of the Buddhist monks to not only call for social works but most important to make the pople spiritually patience and loyal. She got the ideas, after seeing how the existence of these groups in Pakistan, had able to make a draw back to their societies.

(5) Indra Ghandi as said, this was a very strategic step to get rid of the educated Muslim from the Indian Civil Service though the breed of the so called Tabligh and Usrah group. In the 1980s and 1990s, these group spread as Al Arqam in Malaysia. I have friends who abandoned their studies for the so called heavenly course but ended as kicap, sos, ikan masin, minyak atar, vegetable, budu, etc trading groups and worst among some of my lady friends even in the School of Medcine left and get married to the Al Arqam echelon. They then became the household slaves taking care of the self made Malaysian Mullah.

(6) In Pakistan and Aghanistan, the group turned themselves into the Mujahidden be it the Taliban or the warring tribes of the north and interior Pakistan and Aghanistan. Though they have high spirit to protect or even to expel those infidel from their homeland, to this day, they are not able to unite and govern their land and countries properly. Thus, they remained slaves in their own State.

(7) In Malaysia, the Worst, in the plight of PAS and UMNO to gain controlled of the States and National politic, the so called heavenly course now turned into political evil which created so much conflict among the Muslim. Hj. Hadi Awang and Mat Sabu emerged to be the champion of this movement with Ashari in Al Arqam sort of giving some hidden hand. Nik Aziz Nik Mat, whom seem to be very moderate, now have to join the van wagon or else he will loose his semutar. Anwar Ibrahim then rose through the radical ABIM, which later giving him the foothold into UMNO and thus creating all those frictions to this day.

(8) My reading of the movement of the various Islamist Groups in the surge of Independence either in Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh revealed something also very disturbing. Learning from the past, in those colonial days, the British, the Dutch, the Spanish, they left the Islamic affair into the full controlled of the native Muslim. They interfered less. They made it very clear, that business and the running of the State must be left to the Master as a trade-off of Master non-interference into the Islamic and Adat matters. The Muslim applauded. They thought, they were the victor. The infidel were able to be distance from their traditional lives. Yet, to me they are the worst victim. By aggreeing to such an arrangement, in fact they have sold their country outright to the Master.

(9) That was when the so called, Islamic Religious Schools began to sprout. To ensure the clear separation of the good heavenly East and the bad worldly West. The term religious to me had been wrongly applied. I would see that the real correct term probably semi-spiritual. Islamic religion is about full course of the Way of Life. The schools, mostly to this day, in whatever name they are: Pondok, Madrasah, Pesantren, etc be it in Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand, it is merely semi-spiritual school. The focussed is to the affair of the heaven, avoiding the evil world. We sustained that way, ramphantly in the 1970-1990s, and some to this day. Mahathir was so coward to change those except toward the end of his administration.

(10) The Master smiled wide. They knew, the Muslim will never know how to run business and manage the State, thus, their existence will be sustained. The Chinese and Indians then were brought in to fill in the gaps intilally as slaves and later becoming collaborators. I would strongly put on record, PAS love this to sustain merely they don't dare to loose their kupiah, jubah, semutar look. They are not interested in the development of the real strenght of the Muslim, but they are more of political devil. I dare to say and stand on that!

(11) I read, Muhammad SAW love his people to seek for knowledge. He used to sit and participate in group discussion among his people in the Masjid. Many times, he choose to sit with those who are discussing about real lives and social matters over the spiritual subjects. I believe, he chosen as such because he was really interested to see a better livelihood among the Muslim and as well as to guide them to the true and correct way of worldly course. But, most of the Muslim scholars ignored this and never elaborate on such attitude of Muhammad SAW. MasyaAllah. They read on the works of Ibn Khaldum and Al Bukhari, but they chosen to ignore such due to their blindness on the subject, yet they called themselves Islamic scholars. What a joke? To me they are just a semi-spiritual teacher.

(12) Here in this land, Cambodia, at once, the Cham, their empire spread over the Indochinese. They were all over. Today, there are still all over, but all over as a poor society. Once they were traders, they were successful business people, but I believe, they never see the reason of Muhammad SAW great hate over the Jews, for their concern were only about themselves without the Sense as Leader to the advantage. They never realised, Allah passed Islam through their heart, to lead, especially among all the other disadvantage natives be there in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam but they secluded themselve as a special communities. That probably the reason why later, Allah (probably) get Pol Pot to teach them a lesson. Yet to this day, they remained not united and they continue to be split, and see Islam the same way they used to see, a spiritual devine rather as the true Religion, a complete Way of Life.

(13) To many, the Tabligh or the olden Arab and Indian Gujarat Missionaries were the style that must be followed and kept, and thus giving a very wrong signal about Islam. They never want to think and act beyond what they have been taught and seen, to develop an image of Professional Muslim Lifestyle that could put the Muslim into a greater success and glory.

(14) What I could see, worst, I believe, their frustration had made them a run away into heavenly course. Their so called scholars, studied all over, in Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Arabs, they come back to teach Al Quran yet just by their door steps are poverty, miseries. They see those as Allah punishment, and that is 100 percent true, a punishment for they are blind and defeated. I'm worried with the up coming of Thaksin through his sister as the PM of Thailand, soon he will be able to convert both Thai and Cambodia into a Capitalist Buddhist State. His Chinese blood will enable him to capitlaise all the Chinese resources be it in Thailand, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Singapore and even China for such a purpose. If the Cham are not ready, soon they will lost their batik and selendang.

(15) Are we not seeing the same phenomena in Kelantan, Trengganu, and Kedah. The same is slowly creeping into rural Sarawak. Our Suraus and Masjids now in the rural areas are filtrated by these heavenly people, whom potrayed the true Islamic course. Gotch, what are going wrong here?

(16) To me, Najib should seriously have to look into two faundamental issues that Muhammad SAW had tried to address ie Education and Economic System. Education is about clarifying human mind and soul. If their mind and soul are clear, then the next step would be easy. For that to happen, they must be properly educated. Educated with a proper knowledges and skills.

(17) On the other hand, economic is about human welfare. Without a proper management of human welfare, the craziness of the past, from Nile-Babylon-Ganges-Yang Tze to Persian-Greek-Roman, then Islamic and modern civilizations which had been dirtied by rage of wars and destructions, will persist.

(18) Our Islamic education must be reviewed begining from the Kindy to the Universities and even those informal systems that we have through our what ever mechanism in placed. The Masjids, the Suraus, the Pondoks and all sort must be look and assisted to move into the real Islamic Educational System. We must be able to build characters that are pure and clean. Characters and capabilities that are very concern about their true sense of purpose, both at the local and global level.

(19) Secondly, as I have many times commented, our Financial System must now move aggressively into the Islamic System where Allah had made it a rule that tax or interest must not exceed 2.50 percents as compared to our present practice of much more due to risk management. I believe this is wrong. Have we really sit down and tear off the Al Quran to understand why Allah had come with such a fixed figure and not say a floating statement such low, affordable, non-discrimental. He fixed the figure. Why?

(20) Unfortunately, we still model our Islamic Financial System based from the poriginal Capitalist Jewish Greed System rather looking at it from a fresh point of view. I wonder, Muhamad SAW when he began to preach and teach about Islam, did he used the Jewish and Christianity as his basis or benchmark? To say it in a bold manner, in the preparation for the Aidi Fitri, while we are preparing the rendang are we looking at the human waste as the guide or benchmark? To me, that is how we had modelled our prsesent Islamic Financial System.


Phnom Penh, Cambodia
9 Sept., 2011