When not hunting down King Kong, JB moonlights as the other half of Tenacious D with Kyle Gass aka KG aka Kage...
This is not the greatest song in the world, it's just a tribute to...
Patience....the music starts @ 5.00...
And they are a funny duo.
A long time ago, me and my brother, Kyle here...
we were hitchhiking...
...Play the best song in the world or I will eat your souls...
He asked us " BE YOU ANGELS ?
And,
We said " NAYE "
WE ARE BUT MEN, "ROCK"
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Mei Yo Qian,Ni Hui Ai Wa Ma? 没有钱你会爱我吗
在这深夜里我想说爱你
不知道该从哪说起
屏幕的那头是熟悉的你
而现在出现了距离
好像认识你从上辈子起
每天晚上有我陪着你
爱你在心里我从未提起
在此刻我要告诉你
没有钱你会爱我吗
简单的一句话
没有钱你会爱我吗
我愿做个傻瓜
没有钱你会爱我吗
真心的一句话
没有钱你会爱我吗
我想听听你的回答
没有钱你会爱我吗
简单的一句话
没有钱你会爱我吗
我愿做个傻瓜
没有钱你会爱我吗
真心的一句话
没有钱你会爱我吗
我想听听你的回答
Duit tak ada tapi hati tetap suka...
Friday, May 15, 2009
The New umNO Dilemma
By Ian Buruma (The New Yorker)
KUALA LUMPUR, May 15 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s voice was barely audible above the background din of chattering guests and a cocktail-bar pianist at the Hilton Hotel in Kuala Lumpur.
Anwar — who had rebounded from six years in prison on corruption and sodomy charges to become the best hope for a more democratic, less corrupt Malaysia — speaks softly. He is still under constant surveillance, he said.
Sensitive political business has to be handled in other capitals, Jakarta, Bangkok or Hong Kong. Security is a constant worry. Intelligence sources from three countries have warned him to be careful. “I’m taking a big risk just walking into this hotel to see you, but what can I do?” he murmured. “It’s all too exhausting. But, you know, sometimes you just have to take risks.”
This was the same Anwar Ibrahim, one struggled to remember, who was once at the heart of the Malaysian establishment: the Minister of Culture in 1983, the Minister of Education in 1986, the Minister of Finance in 1991 and a Deputy Prime Minister in 1993. He was poised to succeed Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. And then he got overconfident. Starting in the summer of 1997, when the Malaysian currency and stock market lost more than half of their value in the Asian financial meltdown, Anwar did something that Dr Mahathir found unforgivable.
Even as the prime minister was imposing capital controls and blaming “rogue speculators,” such as George Soros, for the crisis, Anwar launched an attack on “nepotism” and “cronyism” in his own party, Umno, which had been in power since independence. The “cronies” included members of Dr Mahathir’s family. While Dr Mahathir tried to bail out banks and corporations run by his allies, Anwar talked about transparency and accepting some of the International Monetary Fund’s recommendations for liberalising the economy.
Dr Mahathir does not like to be contradicted. In 1998, Anwar was removed from the Cabinet and from Umno. He was charged with corruption, and with sodomising his speechwriter and his wife’s chauffeur, and convicted. Under Malaysian law, “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” carries a sentence of up to 20 years. Anwar denied everything and took to the road, addressing crowds all over the country. When he was barred from speaking in halls, he spoke in mosques or parking lots, standing on top of trucks or cars. “The government is trying to keep the people away from me,” he declared. “I am not afraid. No matter what happens, whether in prison . . . I will still strive, I will still fight, I will not step down.” While awaiting trial, Anwar was badly beaten by the chief of police, and he says that attempts were made to poison him.
After his arrest, Anwar says, Dr Mahathir gave a slide show for his Cabinet colleagues, to justify the purge of his former heir apparent. There were photographs of current and former US officials — Robert Rubin, William Cohen and Paul Wolfowitz — along with the World Bank president James Wolfensohn. “These are the people behind Anwar,” Dr Mahathir explained. (Dr Mahathir denies showing any pictures but allows, “I informed the Cabinet about Anwar’s associates.”)
Nobody was likely to miss the implication; Dr Mahathir has clearly stated his conviction that “Jews rule this world by proxy.” At the Hilton, Anwar, who started his career as the president of the Malaysian Muslim Students Union, and is a devout Muslim, shrugged. “They say I’m a Jewish agent, because of my friendship with Paul,” he said. “They also accuse me of being a lackey of the Chinese.” His eyebrows twitched in a gesture of disbelief, and he emitted a dry, barking laugh.
When Anwar was released from prison, in 2004, after six years in solitary confinement, he announced that he would return to politics. Last year, Dr Mahathir was asked by a reporter whether he thought Anwar would ever be the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Dr Mahathir replied that “he would make a good Prime Minister of Israel.” So far, it looks as though Dr Mahathir has underestimated his man. Anwar was returned to Parliament last year in a landslide. His coalition of opposition parties — which includes DAP and PAS, as well as his own PKR — has taken more than a third of the seats in Parliament, and several state governments. In the next general election, possibly as soon as 2010, Anwar Ibrahim may well become the Prime Minister of Malaysia.
To make sense of Anwar’s rise, fall, and rise, it helps to know something about the role of race and religion in Malaysia. The country’s population is more than half Malay, defined by ethnicity and the Muslim faith, but large numbers of Chinese (now about a quarter of the population) and Indians (seven per cent) arrived in the 19th century, when the British imported coolies from China and plantation workers from India. Tensions arising from this mélange — and, in particular, the fear held by Malays that they will always be bested by these minorities — have gripped Malaysian politics since the country achieved independence from the British, in 1957. In recent years, the situation has been further complicated by a surge in Islamic fervour among many Malays.
Dr Mahathir, whose father had some Indian ancestry, (Yeah, Right.His name was Iskander Kutty, A full blooded INDIAN by any measure) had always been obsessed with race, and the modern era of Malaysian politics can be traced to his book “The Malay Dilemma,” published in 1970, a decade before he came to power. It is a distillation of the kind of social Darwinism imbibed by Southeast Asians of Dr Mahathir’s cohort through their colonial education. The Malay race, the book argues, couldn’t compete with the Chinese for genetic reasons. Whereas the Chinese had been hardened over the centuries by harsh climates and fierce competition, the Malays were a lazy breed, fattened by an abundance of food under the tropical sun. Unfettered competition with the Chinese “would subject the Malays to the primitive laws that enable only the fittest to survive,” Dr Mahathir warned his fellow-nationals. “If this is done it would perhaps be possible to breed a hardy and resourceful race capable of competing against all comers. Unfortunately, we do not have four thousand years to play around with.”
And so the Malays had to be protected by systematic affirmative action: awarded top positions and mandatory ownership of business enterprises, along with preferential treatment in public schools, universities, the armed forces, the police and the government bureaucracy. Otherwise the “immigrants,” as the ruling party still calls the Chinese and the Indians, would take over. “The Malay Dilemma” was immediately banned for being divisive. The country was still reeling from the race riots of 1969, when, after a predominantly Chinese party enjoyed an election victory, hundreds of Chinese were attacked by Malays. Killings led to counter-killings. Such intergroup tensions were hardly new: ever since Britain left its former colony, political parties have used ethnic resentments to gain votes, while PAS sought to turn Malaysia into an Islamic state. Presiding over this fraught mosaic of ethnic and religious politics throughout the nineteen-sixties was the aristocratic Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman — until, in the fall of 1970, he was brought down by the brand of Malay nationalism advocated in Dr Mahathir’s book.
Despite the ban, activists succeeded in distributing copies to nationalistic Malay students. One of them was the young Anwar Ibrahim, then president of the Malaysian Muslim Students Union. Over the decade that followed, Anwar and Dr Mahathir steadily gained influence. By 1981, Dr Mahathir was prime minister. A year later, Anwar, who could easily have joined PAS, was brought into the government to help put Dr Mahathir’s ethnic theories into practice through the so-called New Economic Policy. He continued to do so until the late 1990s, when the consequences had become too blatant to ignore: a bloated (in all senses of the word) Malay élite was raking in more and more of the country’s wealth; educated young Chinese and Indians were leaving the country in droves; and poor Malays were being kept in a state of fear by the propaganda in public schools and in the state controlled press. Without their special status, the Malays were told, they would be at the mercy of those rapacious, dominating Chinese “immigrants.” Meanwhile, Dr Mahathir’s rule had grown increasingly autocratic. In 2003, he was succeeded by the more amiable Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who promised reform but delivered little. Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad, a confidant of Dr Mahathir’s, told me that, if anything, corruption has grown worse. “They’re making hay while the sun still shines.”
To challenge Umno’s ethnic policies is still to court serious trouble. I met Professor Lim Teck Ghee, a former World Bank social scientist, at a restaurant in Brickfields, a largely Indian section near the central station of Kuala Lumpur. A soft-spoken man, peering sadly through his glasses, Lim was the director of a leading economic think tank until he published, in 2006, a careful analysis showing that Malays, far from being dominated by the Chinese, actually owned more than 45 per cent of corporate equity in publicly-listed companies. He was quickly vilified for being “anti-national,” and he resigned his post.
Lim was one of several people I spoke to in Malaysia who used the word “apartheid” in describing his country. “The ethnic situation has become much worse,” he said, especially since Malay nationalism took a strong Islamic turn in the late 1980s, when Umno was challenged by PAS. The Islamists got a boost from the Iranian Revolution, and actually took power in Kelantan in 1990. To preëmpt the Islamists, Umno, ostensibly a secular party, wedded its ethnic nationalism (which was decidedly not a feature of PAS) to religion: Muslims were no longer supposed to drink alcohol; women were encouraged to wear head scarves (tudung); easygoing Malay Islam took on the harsher tone of Wahhabi purism.
The increasing conservatism of Malaysian Islam probably stems from insecurity and envy, more than from religious values. Lacking the powerful cultural and historical traditions of the Chinese and the Indians, Malays have been vulnerable to the inroads of Saudi-style Islam. It gives them an identity, a sense of belonging to something stronger than their village traditions. Meanwhile, in Lim’s view, educated Malays have been too timid to resist, whatever they might do or say in private. “I’ve seen it happening with my progressive university friends,” Lim said. “Wives take to wearing the tudung, the daughters cover up. Their passivity, their silence, is very bad for the community, because it allows the ultras to set the agenda. Islam has become more and more conservative. Muslims can no longer go to non-Malay restaurants or visit the houses of non-Malay friends. Tensions have grown. We’re reverting to the colonial situation, where the different races only meet in the marketplace.”
Lim’s children have already left the country; a daughter is in Seattle, a son in Sydney. He sighed. “Even young Malays are leaving,” he went on. “They can’t stomach the hypocrisy, the dishonesty.” Then he said something that I would hear, over and over, from many others: “The sad thing is that Malaysia could have been so good — we could have been a model of multi-ethnic harmony.” A sense of disappointment was palpable in most conversations I had with Chinese and Indian Malaysians, not least among those who once supported the privileging of Malays, in order to redress colonial imbalances and raise the prospects of the rural Bumiputera, the “sons of the soil.” It was also clear that such disillusionment can easily turn to hostility.
I saw Dr Mahathir, whose views are still widely read on his daily blog, Che Det, at a demonstration protesting the Israeli attack on Gaza. As I arrived at the Bangsar Sports Complex, he was finishing his diatribe against “the Jews” and “Jewish atrocities,” wildly cheered by groups of schoolchildren in Palestinian-style scarves and black tudung. They disappeared as soon as the former prime minister, smiling a little menacingly at the young, left the scene. Later, I read in a newspaper that the government had planned to mobilise “about five million pupils and 360,765 teachers from more than 10,000 schools,” to protest against what posters in the Bangsar Sports Complex termed “Holocaust II.”
I looked around the now depleted hall, and was puzzled by posters that read, in Malay, “Stop the atrocities against us.” I turned to an elderly Chinese-looking gentleman sitting behind me. “Who is this ‘us’?” I asked. With a sly grin, he replied, “Don’t you know? It means the Malays.” What atrocities had the Israelis perpetrated against the Malays? “Palestinians, Malays — they’re all Muslims,” the old man said. He shifted his chair closer. “I’m just here to observe,” he said, lowering his voice. “I’m not pro-Palestinian at all. I have Jewish friends, you know. Lend a hundred thousand dollars to a Jew and you’ll always get it back. Lend it to a Muslim and he’ll cheat you, for sure. They’re all liars and cheats, the Muslims.”
Anwar’s daughter, Nurul Izzah, then entered the hall. The sports complex happened to be in her constituency. She had been elected as a member of Parliament for PKR in 2008. Izzah had not been especially eager to be a politician, having just given birth that year. But when Anwar was imprisoned, and his wife, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, took his place as an opposition leader, politics became something of a family enterprise.
Nurul Izzah, now 28, is popular, especially among the young. She has her father’s gift for public speaking, and is remarkably beautiful. She got up on the stage and shouted slogans in English about Israel being founded on bloodshed. When she sat down, she whispered to me, “Did you notice how they took away the microphone?” Referring to the official media, she said, “That’s how much they love me.” The vigorous government campaign against Israel had taken the opposition by surprise, and she felt that she had to make a statement. But the government evidently did not wish to share its Muslim solidarity with the opposition.
I asked Izzah when she started wearing a tudung. “Since I was 18,” she replied. Later that year, her father was jailed. “In the darkest hours, you turn to God. We were never forced into wearing the tudung. It was my decision. My father was alarmed.” In fact, Izzah was sent to a Catholic convent school outside Kuala Lumpur, and studied international relations at Johns Hopkins. Her best friend is a half-Welsh Catholic. “I can’t remember many verses of the Quran,” she said, with a polite giggle, “but I felt it was my duty as a Muslim to wear the tudung. I did face some challenges.” As a student, she told me, “My crowd was mostly liberal. So friends sometimes felt uncomfortable. Couldn’t go clubbing and that sort of thing.”
Nurul Izzah was asked to run for office, she explained, “because it was important for the PKR to have a young generation that supports multiracial politics. But, you know, to run for the opposition is suicidal for a future career in this country.”
Despite what must have been a very difficult childhood, she had a refreshing lack of bitterness, and spoke with a sense of humour, even a guarded optimism. I had noticed this quality in others of her age, including Chinese and Indians, who were working for NGOs, writing blogs, or organising local communities. Some have backgrounds in the community: I met Indian and Chinese politicians who started in labour unions. Others have studied abroad and decided to return, as activists or journalists. The most popular blogger is the half-Welsh, half-Malay scion of a royal family. The two founders of Malaysiakini, the country’s best online news site, met as students in Australia. Some are religious; many are not. But everyone, even Lim Teck Ghee, a staunch atheist, seems to agree that the chances of Malaysia’s becoming a more democratic, less racialist society depend almost entirely on the former Muslim student leader who helped institutionalise Malay nationalism: Anwar Ibrahim.
His arrest in 1998 was probably the making of him as an opposition leader. It came at a time when Malaysian society was beginning to open up, especially on the Internet. One of Dr Mahathir’s ambitions was to make Malaysia into an Asian Silicon Valley. Foreign companies were invited to invest in a “Multimedia Super Corridor” between the new international airport and the twin Petronas Towers (also known as Dr Mahathir’s Erections), which rise like gigantic pewter cocktail shakers in the centre of Kuala Lumpur. An international committee of experts, including Bill Gates, advised Dr Mahathir that, if he wished to attract foreign investment, censoring the Internet would be unwise. As a result, Malaysian readers now have access to news and commentary that is independent of the government.
Steven Gan is one of the founders of Malaysiakini.com. Inspired by Anwar’s call for reformasi, political change, he launched the site with his partner, Premesh Chandran, in November of 1999. On the night of Anwar’s arrest, 10,000 people had turned out to listen to his speech against bribery, ethnic discrimination, and rule by decree. Reformasi became the rallying cry of all those who felt disaffected by the corrupt autocracy that Malaysia had become. Every Malaysian able to go online knew what Anwar said when he was sentenced at his trial: “I have been dealt a judgment that stinks to high heaven. . . . The corrupt and despicable conspirators are like worms wriggling in the hot sun. A new dawn is breaking in Malaysia. Let us cleanse our beloved nation of the filth and garbage left behind by the conspirators. Let us rebuild a bright new Malaysia for our children.”
“When we launched Malaysiakini, we had 500 readers,” Gan told me in a sidewalk café near his office. “By the time the decision went against Anwar in the sodomy trial, we had 300,000.” Malaysiakini, which has paid subscribers, actually makes a profit. One of the effects of Malaysiakini — and of a number of immensely popular bloggers, such as Raja Petra Kamarudin and Haris Ibrahim — is the emergence of a genuinely multi-ethnic debate. Raja Petra is the aristocrat, related to the Sultan of Selangor. Haris is a half-Malay lawyer. Another influential figure is Jeff Ooi Chuan Aun, a Chinese IT consultant turned politician. Divisions that exist in daily life seem to fade away online. Malaysiakini is published in English, Malay, Tamil, and Chinese. “Malaysiakini has provided a platform for different communities to express themselves on sensitive issues, like NEP, Islam, human rights,” Gan says. “More non-Malays are finding their voice. They no longer feel they need to leave their country.”
The demonstration on the night of Anwar’s arrest was largely a Malay affair; it took a little longer for the minorities to stir in public. Indians had largely supported the ruling Barisan Nasional, which was led by Umno and backed by the MIC. This changed in November of 2007, when thousands of Indians marched in the streets to deliver a petition to the British High Commission, insisting that the British take responsibility for the treatment of Indians under colonial rule. It was really a stunt to protest against ethnic discrimination. But the petition never reached the High Commissioner: soldiers and riot police with water cannons and tear gas cracked down on the protesters with maximum force.
“I shall never forget that day,” Charles Santiago, an MP who took part in the protests, told me. “There was pent-up frustration there before, but that day something snapped.” The frustration had many sources: blocked job prospects, discrimination in education and property ownership, destruction of Hindu temples, young Indian men dying mysteriously in police stations and prisons. “The point of the petition was to raise consciousness among Indians about their rights, to embarrass the government,” Santiago explained. “But the crackdown was so heavy-handed that even the Chinese became sympathetic to our cause.” It was the first time, Santiago said, that “people of all stripes, rich and poor, went into the streets to make a point — this is what broke the back of Umno.” The MIC lost heavily in the March 2008 elections, as did the MCA. Many Indians and Chinese voted for Anwar’s PKR.
But the most important transformation over the past decade probably occurred in the mind of Anwar himself. He had long been critical of government policies, but almost up to the time of his arrest he was still regarded as a rather arrogant Umno man. I tried to picture the haughty technocrat as he smiled at me in his daughter’s sparsely furnished office at the PKR headquarters. All I saw was a charmer, whose fine dark hair, snappy spectacles, and black goatee gave him the air of a jazz-loving hipster of the 1950s. Even at his own party headquarters, he spoke softly, sometimes in a whisper, aware that anything he said was likely to be overheard.
I asked him whether he had expected Dr Mahathir — a man he had known for more than 30 years — to treat him so harshly. “Yes and no,” he replied. “I didn’t think he’d go that far. I’d seen him destroy opponents, but always short of using physical abuse.”
The 1998 trial was a humiliating spectacle, with elements of dark comedy: a mattress with semen stains produced as evidence in court; police claims that Anwar had beaten himself up by pressing a glass onto his own face. Years of solitary confinement provided much time for thought. “Prison life is such that you have to impose a punishing discipline on yourself,” Anwar told me. “Otherwise, you become lethargic, or a psycho.” Deprived of books for the first six months, Anwar was eventually allowed to read Tocqueville, Shakespeare, Confucius, the Indian and Arabic classics. He also received a subscription to The New Yorker. But there were times when he would have given anything to hear a human voice, even to be scolded by a guard. Family visits were always brief. His children would sing old pop songs to him. Anwar looked wistfully out the window as he sang the first bars of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”
The experience seems to have made him a humbler man. In an interview given three months after his release from prison, he told writer Eddin Khoo, “To be frank and honest, I cannot absolve myself entirely of the excesses of (Dr Mahathir’s) administration. There were some things that were beyond our control, other things we simply did not have the courage to address at that time.”
A retired Indian civil servant told me about hearing Anwar speak in the district contested by his daughter in 2008. It was near midnight and pouring down rain, yet more than 1,000 people waited until Anwar arrived, on the back of a motorcycle, drenched. When he spoke, the crowd fell silent, listening to every word. Then, suddenly, a number of Indians began to shout, in Tamil, “Makkal Sakti!” — “People Power! People Power!” And the Malays and Chinese repeated it after them, louder and louder — an unusual demonstration of multi-ethnic solidarity.
Anwar was arrested again, in the summer of 2008, for “sexual assault” on a strapping male aide, but it made no difference to his popularity. Allegations of sexual misconduct had become so clearly political that few people believed them, and the legal proceedings were farcical. Anwar was seized near his home by 20 commandos in balaclavas. The putative victim, who remains under “police protection,” is rather strong to be overwhelmed by the much less physically imposing Anwar. The aide swore in a mosque, over the Quran, that he was speaking the truth. When an imam later claimed that he had been forced by superiors to witness these proceedings, he was dismissed. The offence was then changed from “sexual assault” to “consensual sex against the order of nature,” even though the aide has yet to be charged. Anwar is not worried. “They just used it to embarrass me, but it did no good,” he said. “They lost the elections anyway.”
Anwar has not entirely shed his tendency towards arrogance. Weeks after the opposition won its victory in March 2008, he announced that he was ready to take over the government that year. This was premature. It’s true that the Barisan Nasional government no longer commands a two-thirds majority in Parliament, but there are many problems to overcome before Anwar’s coalition of opposition parties is ready to rule the country. It could be another year or two before the next general election. And the current prime minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, has the image of being a more ruthless operator than his predecessor, the ineffectual Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Najib has been involved in a scandal of his own. A young Mongolian model(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altantuya_Shaariibuu) who was a former mistress of a political crony(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Razak_Baginda) was found blown to pieces in a jungle clearing near Kuala Lumpur in 2006. At first, it looked like a sordid case of blackmail: she wanted money from her lover, and he, in desperation, had her killed. Then things got more complicated. The men convicted of killing her were police officers in charge of security for top officials. The blogger Raja Petra signed a “statutory declaration” alleging that Najib’s wife had been at the scene of the murder. He has since been charged with criminal defamation. Najib has denied any wrongdoing. For the two main contenders of leadership of Malaysia, the truth of the matter might prove to be less important than the public perception. The fact that Anwar appears to be less vulnerable than Najib suggests that the Malaysian public is more inclined to believe a popular blogger than their unpopular prime minister.
One man who is desperate for Najib to succeed is Dr Mahathir. When I spoke to Dr Mahathir’s confidant Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad, who is a veteran Umno political operator, about his party’s fortunes, he sounded gloomy. Umno, he told me, is like Chiang Kai-shek’s corrupt nationalists in Shanghai in the 1930s. He ticked off the party’s many ills on his fingers: “corruption, ostentatious living, abuse of power, rank stupidity at the top . . .” So was Anwar going to win? “He will if Najib fails to deliver great changes,” Abdullah Ahmad predicted. “Najib wants to, but he can’t. He’s surrounded by corrupt people.”
It’s not clear that Najib wants to make big changes, despite recent speeches denouncing corruption in Malaysian politics. Anwar does, but it’s unclear whether he will be able to. The entrenched interests — Malay bureaucrats, army officers, policemen, judges, businessmen, and politicians — will fight to hold on to their privileges. When I asked Anwar about this, he said that such resistance could be managed by reformulating the quotas rather than abolishing them. “Affirmative action would still be acceptable, but based on need, not on race,” he said. “I tell PAS that Malays won’t lose out. But there are poor Indians, and poor Chinese, too, who should be helped.”
Class rather than race, then? Anwar laughed. “I don’t like the word ‘class,’ ” he said. “I’m not a Marxist.” He paused, and added, “But Adam Smith mentioned equality many times in his books, too.”
An advantage of replacing the rhetoric of race with that of class is that all opposition parties can agree on the ideal of equality. Religion is a more contentious matter. How to reconcile the Islamists and the secularists? Anwar prefers to finesse the problem, by “concentrating on what we have in common, not what divides us.” But PAS has stated its desire to introduce hudud laws for Muslim citizens — punishing criminal offenses with stoning, whipping, and amputation. Secularist partners in a federal government would find that hard to accept. “Any party should be free to articulate its ideas,” Anwar says. “But no issue should be forced on non-Muslims. When I argue with Muslims, I cannot sound detached from rural Malays, like a typical Malay liberal, or sound like Kemal Atatürk. I would not reject Islamic law out of hand. But without the consent of the majority there is no way you can implement Islamic law as national law.”
I mentioned the case of a young Malay woman who no longer believed in Islam and wanted to marry a Christian. To do so, she would have to change her religious status. The secular authorities ruled that this was a matter for the Islamic court, but, of course, no Islamic court (whose authority she, as a non-believer, no longer recognised) would ever accede to apostasy. Her predicament has become a test case on the issue of Malay identity. After receiving death threats, she is now in hiding.
Anwar rolled his eyes. “Islamically, it is indefensible that all Malays should have to be Muslims,” he told me. “Not all Arabs are Muslims, after all. But this case has become too political. It is better not to dwell on this issue. We should deal with poverty, rule of law, democracy. . . .” I must have looked unsatisfied. “Look,” he said, “I have Malay friends who no longer believe, who drink. But they don’t make an issue out of it.”
I decided to visit Kelantan, where PAS has been in power since 1990. Islamic laws have been introduced there for Muslims, though they are not always enforced. Muslims cannot drink alcohol. The lights must stay on in movie houses, and only morally acceptable films can be shown. (Some movie houses have gone out of business.) But nobody has been stoned for adultery or had limbs amputated. I drove across the country, through a succession of palm-oil plantations, in the company of Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, a wealthy liberal Malay lawyer who had resigned his post as minister of legal affairs in the Prime Minister’s office on a matter of principle — the first Malaysian Cabinet minister to do so. He was against the arrests of political opponents, including Raja Petra, under the Internal Security Act.
We had met on a Sunday night in Kuala Lumpur a week before we embarked on our trip north. Zaid was happy, because PAS had scored an important by-election victory in Kuala Terengganu, dealing another blow to the Barisan Nasional. He decided to celebrate the success of the Islamists with a lavish dinner in a fine restaurant. “A good result,” Zaid murmured, raising his glass to the men who wanted an Islamic state.
Although PAS won in the city, the Terengganu is still in Barisan Nasional hands. “Look at those buildings,” Zaid said, as we drove through Terengganu on the way to Kelantan. We passed a vast stadium, a huge new airport, a gigantic new mosque, a convention centre, a university, an “integrity institute.” All around these grandiose testimonies to human greed (and generous kickbacks) were typical Third World shantytowns: wooden shacks with corrugated iron roofs. “There is no money to be made out of building proper sewage systems or water supplies,” Zaid observed, with the dry chuckle of bitter experience.
Kelantan has hardly any huge buildings. Everything in the state capital, Kota Bharu, near the border with Thailand, is built on a modest scale. I met the PAS vice-president, Husam Musa, at the party headquarters. Husam, an economist by training, is not an imam but one of the new breed of professionals in Islamist politics. He was polite, if a little defensive. On the question of an Islamic state, he said this goal was often misunderstood: “We don’t mean a state ruled by clerics but one guided by the holy books. Without the books, we’d be like Umno and just grab the money. The difference between us and them is that we believe we will be judged in the afterlife.”
He said that Islam was “pro-progress,” and that American democracy was a good model. (“Unfriendly people will accuse me of being pro-American for making this statement.”) He also said that discriminating against ethnic minorities was “un-Islamic,” as was government corruption. “People should be treated the same, and that includes the freedom of religion,” he said.
What about Muslims — were they free to renounce their faith? He averted his eyes. “I have my own opinion about that, but I will reserve it,” he said. “Media in Malaysia will interpret it in the wrong way. Everything here is turned to politics.” He used “politics” as a pejorative term. “I am not a politician,” he said. “I’m a Muslim activist.”
Few people in Kelantan, even the Chinese, openly complain about the PAS government. Non-Muslims don’t feel hampered by religious rules that don’t apply to them, and the lack of corruption is widely acknowledged. Still, given the chance, many young people leave for Kuala Lumpur. Several young Malays told me that it was “no fun” living in a place where you can get arrested for buying a beer. “This is a place for old men,” an unemployed building contractor said. “They can sit around and pray all day.”The real Malay dilemma today is that democrats need the Islamists: Malay liberals and secular Chinese and Indians cannot form a governing alliance without religious and rural Malays. And the only serious contender who can patch over the differences between secularists and Islamists for the sake of reform is Anwar, a liberal Malay with impeccable Muslim credentials. “He is our last chance,” Zaid told me, as he celebrated the victory of PAS in Kuala Terengganu. When I repeated this to Anwar, he looked thoughtful and said, “Yes, and that’s what worries me.”
KUALA LUMPUR, May 15 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s voice was barely audible above the background din of chattering guests and a cocktail-bar pianist at the Hilton Hotel in Kuala Lumpur.
Anwar — who had rebounded from six years in prison on corruption and sodomy charges to become the best hope for a more democratic, less corrupt Malaysia — speaks softly. He is still under constant surveillance, he said.
Sensitive political business has to be handled in other capitals, Jakarta, Bangkok or Hong Kong. Security is a constant worry. Intelligence sources from three countries have warned him to be careful. “I’m taking a big risk just walking into this hotel to see you, but what can I do?” he murmured. “It’s all too exhausting. But, you know, sometimes you just have to take risks.”
This was the same Anwar Ibrahim, one struggled to remember, who was once at the heart of the Malaysian establishment: the Minister of Culture in 1983, the Minister of Education in 1986, the Minister of Finance in 1991 and a Deputy Prime Minister in 1993. He was poised to succeed Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. And then he got overconfident. Starting in the summer of 1997, when the Malaysian currency and stock market lost more than half of their value in the Asian financial meltdown, Anwar did something that Dr Mahathir found unforgivable.
Even as the prime minister was imposing capital controls and blaming “rogue speculators,” such as George Soros, for the crisis, Anwar launched an attack on “nepotism” and “cronyism” in his own party, Umno, which had been in power since independence. The “cronies” included members of Dr Mahathir’s family. While Dr Mahathir tried to bail out banks and corporations run by his allies, Anwar talked about transparency and accepting some of the International Monetary Fund’s recommendations for liberalising the economy.
Dr Mahathir does not like to be contradicted. In 1998, Anwar was removed from the Cabinet and from Umno. He was charged with corruption, and with sodomising his speechwriter and his wife’s chauffeur, and convicted. Under Malaysian law, “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” carries a sentence of up to 20 years. Anwar denied everything and took to the road, addressing crowds all over the country. When he was barred from speaking in halls, he spoke in mosques or parking lots, standing on top of trucks or cars. “The government is trying to keep the people away from me,” he declared. “I am not afraid. No matter what happens, whether in prison . . . I will still strive, I will still fight, I will not step down.” While awaiting trial, Anwar was badly beaten by the chief of police, and he says that attempts were made to poison him.
After his arrest, Anwar says, Dr Mahathir gave a slide show for his Cabinet colleagues, to justify the purge of his former heir apparent. There were photographs of current and former US officials — Robert Rubin, William Cohen and Paul Wolfowitz — along with the World Bank president James Wolfensohn. “These are the people behind Anwar,” Dr Mahathir explained. (Dr Mahathir denies showing any pictures but allows, “I informed the Cabinet about Anwar’s associates.”)
Nobody was likely to miss the implication; Dr Mahathir has clearly stated his conviction that “Jews rule this world by proxy.” At the Hilton, Anwar, who started his career as the president of the Malaysian Muslim Students Union, and is a devout Muslim, shrugged. “They say I’m a Jewish agent, because of my friendship with Paul,” he said. “They also accuse me of being a lackey of the Chinese.” His eyebrows twitched in a gesture of disbelief, and he emitted a dry, barking laugh.
When Anwar was released from prison, in 2004, after six years in solitary confinement, he announced that he would return to politics. Last year, Dr Mahathir was asked by a reporter whether he thought Anwar would ever be the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Dr Mahathir replied that “he would make a good Prime Minister of Israel.” So far, it looks as though Dr Mahathir has underestimated his man. Anwar was returned to Parliament last year in a landslide. His coalition of opposition parties — which includes DAP and PAS, as well as his own PKR — has taken more than a third of the seats in Parliament, and several state governments. In the next general election, possibly as soon as 2010, Anwar Ibrahim may well become the Prime Minister of Malaysia.
To make sense of Anwar’s rise, fall, and rise, it helps to know something about the role of race and religion in Malaysia. The country’s population is more than half Malay, defined by ethnicity and the Muslim faith, but large numbers of Chinese (now about a quarter of the population) and Indians (seven per cent) arrived in the 19th century, when the British imported coolies from China and plantation workers from India. Tensions arising from this mélange — and, in particular, the fear held by Malays that they will always be bested by these minorities — have gripped Malaysian politics since the country achieved independence from the British, in 1957. In recent years, the situation has been further complicated by a surge in Islamic fervour among many Malays.
Dr Mahathir, whose father had some Indian ancestry, (Yeah, Right.His name was Iskander Kutty, A full blooded INDIAN by any measure) had always been obsessed with race, and the modern era of Malaysian politics can be traced to his book “The Malay Dilemma,” published in 1970, a decade before he came to power. It is a distillation of the kind of social Darwinism imbibed by Southeast Asians of Dr Mahathir’s cohort through their colonial education. The Malay race, the book argues, couldn’t compete with the Chinese for genetic reasons. Whereas the Chinese had been hardened over the centuries by harsh climates and fierce competition, the Malays were a lazy breed, fattened by an abundance of food under the tropical sun. Unfettered competition with the Chinese “would subject the Malays to the primitive laws that enable only the fittest to survive,” Dr Mahathir warned his fellow-nationals. “If this is done it would perhaps be possible to breed a hardy and resourceful race capable of competing against all comers. Unfortunately, we do not have four thousand years to play around with.”
And so the Malays had to be protected by systematic affirmative action: awarded top positions and mandatory ownership of business enterprises, along with preferential treatment in public schools, universities, the armed forces, the police and the government bureaucracy. Otherwise the “immigrants,” as the ruling party still calls the Chinese and the Indians, would take over. “The Malay Dilemma” was immediately banned for being divisive. The country was still reeling from the race riots of 1969, when, after a predominantly Chinese party enjoyed an election victory, hundreds of Chinese were attacked by Malays. Killings led to counter-killings. Such intergroup tensions were hardly new: ever since Britain left its former colony, political parties have used ethnic resentments to gain votes, while PAS sought to turn Malaysia into an Islamic state. Presiding over this fraught mosaic of ethnic and religious politics throughout the nineteen-sixties was the aristocratic Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman — until, in the fall of 1970, he was brought down by the brand of Malay nationalism advocated in Dr Mahathir’s book.
Despite the ban, activists succeeded in distributing copies to nationalistic Malay students. One of them was the young Anwar Ibrahim, then president of the Malaysian Muslim Students Union. Over the decade that followed, Anwar and Dr Mahathir steadily gained influence. By 1981, Dr Mahathir was prime minister. A year later, Anwar, who could easily have joined PAS, was brought into the government to help put Dr Mahathir’s ethnic theories into practice through the so-called New Economic Policy. He continued to do so until the late 1990s, when the consequences had become too blatant to ignore: a bloated (in all senses of the word) Malay élite was raking in more and more of the country’s wealth; educated young Chinese and Indians were leaving the country in droves; and poor Malays were being kept in a state of fear by the propaganda in public schools and in the state controlled press. Without their special status, the Malays were told, they would be at the mercy of those rapacious, dominating Chinese “immigrants.” Meanwhile, Dr Mahathir’s rule had grown increasingly autocratic. In 2003, he was succeeded by the more amiable Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who promised reform but delivered little. Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad, a confidant of Dr Mahathir’s, told me that, if anything, corruption has grown worse. “They’re making hay while the sun still shines.”
To challenge Umno’s ethnic policies is still to court serious trouble. I met Professor Lim Teck Ghee, a former World Bank social scientist, at a restaurant in Brickfields, a largely Indian section near the central station of Kuala Lumpur. A soft-spoken man, peering sadly through his glasses, Lim was the director of a leading economic think tank until he published, in 2006, a careful analysis showing that Malays, far from being dominated by the Chinese, actually owned more than 45 per cent of corporate equity in publicly-listed companies. He was quickly vilified for being “anti-national,” and he resigned his post.
Lim was one of several people I spoke to in Malaysia who used the word “apartheid” in describing his country. “The ethnic situation has become much worse,” he said, especially since Malay nationalism took a strong Islamic turn in the late 1980s, when Umno was challenged by PAS. The Islamists got a boost from the Iranian Revolution, and actually took power in Kelantan in 1990. To preëmpt the Islamists, Umno, ostensibly a secular party, wedded its ethnic nationalism (which was decidedly not a feature of PAS) to religion: Muslims were no longer supposed to drink alcohol; women were encouraged to wear head scarves (tudung); easygoing Malay Islam took on the harsher tone of Wahhabi purism.
The increasing conservatism of Malaysian Islam probably stems from insecurity and envy, more than from religious values. Lacking the powerful cultural and historical traditions of the Chinese and the Indians, Malays have been vulnerable to the inroads of Saudi-style Islam. It gives them an identity, a sense of belonging to something stronger than their village traditions. Meanwhile, in Lim’s view, educated Malays have been too timid to resist, whatever they might do or say in private. “I’ve seen it happening with my progressive university friends,” Lim said. “Wives take to wearing the tudung, the daughters cover up. Their passivity, their silence, is very bad for the community, because it allows the ultras to set the agenda. Islam has become more and more conservative. Muslims can no longer go to non-Malay restaurants or visit the houses of non-Malay friends. Tensions have grown. We’re reverting to the colonial situation, where the different races only meet in the marketplace.”
Lim’s children have already left the country; a daughter is in Seattle, a son in Sydney. He sighed. “Even young Malays are leaving,” he went on. “They can’t stomach the hypocrisy, the dishonesty.” Then he said something that I would hear, over and over, from many others: “The sad thing is that Malaysia could have been so good — we could have been a model of multi-ethnic harmony.” A sense of disappointment was palpable in most conversations I had with Chinese and Indian Malaysians, not least among those who once supported the privileging of Malays, in order to redress colonial imbalances and raise the prospects of the rural Bumiputera, the “sons of the soil.” It was also clear that such disillusionment can easily turn to hostility.
I saw Dr Mahathir, whose views are still widely read on his daily blog, Che Det, at a demonstration protesting the Israeli attack on Gaza. As I arrived at the Bangsar Sports Complex, he was finishing his diatribe against “the Jews” and “Jewish atrocities,” wildly cheered by groups of schoolchildren in Palestinian-style scarves and black tudung. They disappeared as soon as the former prime minister, smiling a little menacingly at the young, left the scene. Later, I read in a newspaper that the government had planned to mobilise “about five million pupils and 360,765 teachers from more than 10,000 schools,” to protest against what posters in the Bangsar Sports Complex termed “Holocaust II.”
I looked around the now depleted hall, and was puzzled by posters that read, in Malay, “Stop the atrocities against us.” I turned to an elderly Chinese-looking gentleman sitting behind me. “Who is this ‘us’?” I asked. With a sly grin, he replied, “Don’t you know? It means the Malays.” What atrocities had the Israelis perpetrated against the Malays? “Palestinians, Malays — they’re all Muslims,” the old man said. He shifted his chair closer. “I’m just here to observe,” he said, lowering his voice. “I’m not pro-Palestinian at all. I have Jewish friends, you know. Lend a hundred thousand dollars to a Jew and you’ll always get it back. Lend it to a Muslim and he’ll cheat you, for sure. They’re all liars and cheats, the Muslims.”
Anwar’s daughter, Nurul Izzah, then entered the hall. The sports complex happened to be in her constituency. She had been elected as a member of Parliament for PKR in 2008. Izzah had not been especially eager to be a politician, having just given birth that year. But when Anwar was imprisoned, and his wife, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, took his place as an opposition leader, politics became something of a family enterprise.
Nurul Izzah, now 28, is popular, especially among the young. She has her father’s gift for public speaking, and is remarkably beautiful. She got up on the stage and shouted slogans in English about Israel being founded on bloodshed. When she sat down, she whispered to me, “Did you notice how they took away the microphone?” Referring to the official media, she said, “That’s how much they love me.” The vigorous government campaign against Israel had taken the opposition by surprise, and she felt that she had to make a statement. But the government evidently did not wish to share its Muslim solidarity with the opposition.
I asked Izzah when she started wearing a tudung. “Since I was 18,” she replied. Later that year, her father was jailed. “In the darkest hours, you turn to God. We were never forced into wearing the tudung. It was my decision. My father was alarmed.” In fact, Izzah was sent to a Catholic convent school outside Kuala Lumpur, and studied international relations at Johns Hopkins. Her best friend is a half-Welsh Catholic. “I can’t remember many verses of the Quran,” she said, with a polite giggle, “but I felt it was my duty as a Muslim to wear the tudung. I did face some challenges.” As a student, she told me, “My crowd was mostly liberal. So friends sometimes felt uncomfortable. Couldn’t go clubbing and that sort of thing.”
Nurul Izzah was asked to run for office, she explained, “because it was important for the PKR to have a young generation that supports multiracial politics. But, you know, to run for the opposition is suicidal for a future career in this country.”
Despite what must have been a very difficult childhood, she had a refreshing lack of bitterness, and spoke with a sense of humour, even a guarded optimism. I had noticed this quality in others of her age, including Chinese and Indians, who were working for NGOs, writing blogs, or organising local communities. Some have backgrounds in the community: I met Indian and Chinese politicians who started in labour unions. Others have studied abroad and decided to return, as activists or journalists. The most popular blogger is the half-Welsh, half-Malay scion of a royal family. The two founders of Malaysiakini, the country’s best online news site, met as students in Australia. Some are religious; many are not. But everyone, even Lim Teck Ghee, a staunch atheist, seems to agree that the chances of Malaysia’s becoming a more democratic, less racialist society depend almost entirely on the former Muslim student leader who helped institutionalise Malay nationalism: Anwar Ibrahim.
His arrest in 1998 was probably the making of him as an opposition leader. It came at a time when Malaysian society was beginning to open up, especially on the Internet. One of Dr Mahathir’s ambitions was to make Malaysia into an Asian Silicon Valley. Foreign companies were invited to invest in a “Multimedia Super Corridor” between the new international airport and the twin Petronas Towers (also known as Dr Mahathir’s Erections), which rise like gigantic pewter cocktail shakers in the centre of Kuala Lumpur. An international committee of experts, including Bill Gates, advised Dr Mahathir that, if he wished to attract foreign investment, censoring the Internet would be unwise. As a result, Malaysian readers now have access to news and commentary that is independent of the government.
Steven Gan is one of the founders of Malaysiakini.com. Inspired by Anwar’s call for reformasi, political change, he launched the site with his partner, Premesh Chandran, in November of 1999. On the night of Anwar’s arrest, 10,000 people had turned out to listen to his speech against bribery, ethnic discrimination, and rule by decree. Reformasi became the rallying cry of all those who felt disaffected by the corrupt autocracy that Malaysia had become. Every Malaysian able to go online knew what Anwar said when he was sentenced at his trial: “I have been dealt a judgment that stinks to high heaven. . . . The corrupt and despicable conspirators are like worms wriggling in the hot sun. A new dawn is breaking in Malaysia. Let us cleanse our beloved nation of the filth and garbage left behind by the conspirators. Let us rebuild a bright new Malaysia for our children.”
“When we launched Malaysiakini, we had 500 readers,” Gan told me in a sidewalk café near his office. “By the time the decision went against Anwar in the sodomy trial, we had 300,000.” Malaysiakini, which has paid subscribers, actually makes a profit. One of the effects of Malaysiakini — and of a number of immensely popular bloggers, such as Raja Petra Kamarudin and Haris Ibrahim — is the emergence of a genuinely multi-ethnic debate. Raja Petra is the aristocrat, related to the Sultan of Selangor. Haris is a half-Malay lawyer. Another influential figure is Jeff Ooi Chuan Aun, a Chinese IT consultant turned politician. Divisions that exist in daily life seem to fade away online. Malaysiakini is published in English, Malay, Tamil, and Chinese. “Malaysiakini has provided a platform for different communities to express themselves on sensitive issues, like NEP, Islam, human rights,” Gan says. “More non-Malays are finding their voice. They no longer feel they need to leave their country.”
The demonstration on the night of Anwar’s arrest was largely a Malay affair; it took a little longer for the minorities to stir in public. Indians had largely supported the ruling Barisan Nasional, which was led by Umno and backed by the MIC. This changed in November of 2007, when thousands of Indians marched in the streets to deliver a petition to the British High Commission, insisting that the British take responsibility for the treatment of Indians under colonial rule. It was really a stunt to protest against ethnic discrimination. But the petition never reached the High Commissioner: soldiers and riot police with water cannons and tear gas cracked down on the protesters with maximum force.
“I shall never forget that day,” Charles Santiago, an MP who took part in the protests, told me. “There was pent-up frustration there before, but that day something snapped.” The frustration had many sources: blocked job prospects, discrimination in education and property ownership, destruction of Hindu temples, young Indian men dying mysteriously in police stations and prisons. “The point of the petition was to raise consciousness among Indians about their rights, to embarrass the government,” Santiago explained. “But the crackdown was so heavy-handed that even the Chinese became sympathetic to our cause.” It was the first time, Santiago said, that “people of all stripes, rich and poor, went into the streets to make a point — this is what broke the back of Umno.” The MIC lost heavily in the March 2008 elections, as did the MCA. Many Indians and Chinese voted for Anwar’s PKR.
But the most important transformation over the past decade probably occurred in the mind of Anwar himself. He had long been critical of government policies, but almost up to the time of his arrest he was still regarded as a rather arrogant Umno man. I tried to picture the haughty technocrat as he smiled at me in his daughter’s sparsely furnished office at the PKR headquarters. All I saw was a charmer, whose fine dark hair, snappy spectacles, and black goatee gave him the air of a jazz-loving hipster of the 1950s. Even at his own party headquarters, he spoke softly, sometimes in a whisper, aware that anything he said was likely to be overheard.
I asked him whether he had expected Dr Mahathir — a man he had known for more than 30 years — to treat him so harshly. “Yes and no,” he replied. “I didn’t think he’d go that far. I’d seen him destroy opponents, but always short of using physical abuse.”
The 1998 trial was a humiliating spectacle, with elements of dark comedy: a mattress with semen stains produced as evidence in court; police claims that Anwar had beaten himself up by pressing a glass onto his own face. Years of solitary confinement provided much time for thought. “Prison life is such that you have to impose a punishing discipline on yourself,” Anwar told me. “Otherwise, you become lethargic, or a psycho.” Deprived of books for the first six months, Anwar was eventually allowed to read Tocqueville, Shakespeare, Confucius, the Indian and Arabic classics. He also received a subscription to The New Yorker. But there were times when he would have given anything to hear a human voice, even to be scolded by a guard. Family visits were always brief. His children would sing old pop songs to him. Anwar looked wistfully out the window as he sang the first bars of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”
The experience seems to have made him a humbler man. In an interview given three months after his release from prison, he told writer Eddin Khoo, “To be frank and honest, I cannot absolve myself entirely of the excesses of (Dr Mahathir’s) administration. There were some things that were beyond our control, other things we simply did not have the courage to address at that time.”
A retired Indian civil servant told me about hearing Anwar speak in the district contested by his daughter in 2008. It was near midnight and pouring down rain, yet more than 1,000 people waited until Anwar arrived, on the back of a motorcycle, drenched. When he spoke, the crowd fell silent, listening to every word. Then, suddenly, a number of Indians began to shout, in Tamil, “Makkal Sakti!” — “People Power! People Power!” And the Malays and Chinese repeated it after them, louder and louder — an unusual demonstration of multi-ethnic solidarity.
Anwar was arrested again, in the summer of 2008, for “sexual assault” on a strapping male aide, but it made no difference to his popularity. Allegations of sexual misconduct had become so clearly political that few people believed them, and the legal proceedings were farcical. Anwar was seized near his home by 20 commandos in balaclavas. The putative victim, who remains under “police protection,” is rather strong to be overwhelmed by the much less physically imposing Anwar. The aide swore in a mosque, over the Quran, that he was speaking the truth. When an imam later claimed that he had been forced by superiors to witness these proceedings, he was dismissed. The offence was then changed from “sexual assault” to “consensual sex against the order of nature,” even though the aide has yet to be charged. Anwar is not worried. “They just used it to embarrass me, but it did no good,” he said. “They lost the elections anyway.”
Anwar has not entirely shed his tendency towards arrogance. Weeks after the opposition won its victory in March 2008, he announced that he was ready to take over the government that year. This was premature. It’s true that the Barisan Nasional government no longer commands a two-thirds majority in Parliament, but there are many problems to overcome before Anwar’s coalition of opposition parties is ready to rule the country. It could be another year or two before the next general election. And the current prime minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, has the image of being a more ruthless operator than his predecessor, the ineffectual Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Najib has been involved in a scandal of his own. A young Mongolian model(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altantuya_Shaariibuu) who was a former mistress of a political crony(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Razak_Baginda) was found blown to pieces in a jungle clearing near Kuala Lumpur in 2006. At first, it looked like a sordid case of blackmail: she wanted money from her lover, and he, in desperation, had her killed. Then things got more complicated. The men convicted of killing her were police officers in charge of security for top officials. The blogger Raja Petra signed a “statutory declaration” alleging that Najib’s wife had been at the scene of the murder. He has since been charged with criminal defamation. Najib has denied any wrongdoing. For the two main contenders of leadership of Malaysia, the truth of the matter might prove to be less important than the public perception. The fact that Anwar appears to be less vulnerable than Najib suggests that the Malaysian public is more inclined to believe a popular blogger than their unpopular prime minister.
One man who is desperate for Najib to succeed is Dr Mahathir. When I spoke to Dr Mahathir’s confidant Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad, who is a veteran Umno political operator, about his party’s fortunes, he sounded gloomy. Umno, he told me, is like Chiang Kai-shek’s corrupt nationalists in Shanghai in the 1930s. He ticked off the party’s many ills on his fingers: “corruption, ostentatious living, abuse of power, rank stupidity at the top . . .” So was Anwar going to win? “He will if Najib fails to deliver great changes,” Abdullah Ahmad predicted. “Najib wants to, but he can’t. He’s surrounded by corrupt people.”
It’s not clear that Najib wants to make big changes, despite recent speeches denouncing corruption in Malaysian politics. Anwar does, but it’s unclear whether he will be able to. The entrenched interests — Malay bureaucrats, army officers, policemen, judges, businessmen, and politicians — will fight to hold on to their privileges. When I asked Anwar about this, he said that such resistance could be managed by reformulating the quotas rather than abolishing them. “Affirmative action would still be acceptable, but based on need, not on race,” he said. “I tell PAS that Malays won’t lose out. But there are poor Indians, and poor Chinese, too, who should be helped.”
Class rather than race, then? Anwar laughed. “I don’t like the word ‘class,’ ” he said. “I’m not a Marxist.” He paused, and added, “But Adam Smith mentioned equality many times in his books, too.”
An advantage of replacing the rhetoric of race with that of class is that all opposition parties can agree on the ideal of equality. Religion is a more contentious matter. How to reconcile the Islamists and the secularists? Anwar prefers to finesse the problem, by “concentrating on what we have in common, not what divides us.” But PAS has stated its desire to introduce hudud laws for Muslim citizens — punishing criminal offenses with stoning, whipping, and amputation. Secularist partners in a federal government would find that hard to accept. “Any party should be free to articulate its ideas,” Anwar says. “But no issue should be forced on non-Muslims. When I argue with Muslims, I cannot sound detached from rural Malays, like a typical Malay liberal, or sound like Kemal Atatürk. I would not reject Islamic law out of hand. But without the consent of the majority there is no way you can implement Islamic law as national law.”
I mentioned the case of a young Malay woman who no longer believed in Islam and wanted to marry a Christian. To do so, she would have to change her religious status. The secular authorities ruled that this was a matter for the Islamic court, but, of course, no Islamic court (whose authority she, as a non-believer, no longer recognised) would ever accede to apostasy. Her predicament has become a test case on the issue of Malay identity. After receiving death threats, she is now in hiding.
Anwar rolled his eyes. “Islamically, it is indefensible that all Malays should have to be Muslims,” he told me. “Not all Arabs are Muslims, after all. But this case has become too political. It is better not to dwell on this issue. We should deal with poverty, rule of law, democracy. . . .” I must have looked unsatisfied. “Look,” he said, “I have Malay friends who no longer believe, who drink. But they don’t make an issue out of it.”
I decided to visit Kelantan, where PAS has been in power since 1990. Islamic laws have been introduced there for Muslims, though they are not always enforced. Muslims cannot drink alcohol. The lights must stay on in movie houses, and only morally acceptable films can be shown. (Some movie houses have gone out of business.) But nobody has been stoned for adultery or had limbs amputated. I drove across the country, through a succession of palm-oil plantations, in the company of Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, a wealthy liberal Malay lawyer who had resigned his post as minister of legal affairs in the Prime Minister’s office on a matter of principle — the first Malaysian Cabinet minister to do so. He was against the arrests of political opponents, including Raja Petra, under the Internal Security Act.
We had met on a Sunday night in Kuala Lumpur a week before we embarked on our trip north. Zaid was happy, because PAS had scored an important by-election victory in Kuala Terengganu, dealing another blow to the Barisan Nasional. He decided to celebrate the success of the Islamists with a lavish dinner in a fine restaurant. “A good result,” Zaid murmured, raising his glass to the men who wanted an Islamic state.
Although PAS won in the city, the Terengganu is still in Barisan Nasional hands. “Look at those buildings,” Zaid said, as we drove through Terengganu on the way to Kelantan. We passed a vast stadium, a huge new airport, a gigantic new mosque, a convention centre, a university, an “integrity institute.” All around these grandiose testimonies to human greed (and generous kickbacks) were typical Third World shantytowns: wooden shacks with corrugated iron roofs. “There is no money to be made out of building proper sewage systems or water supplies,” Zaid observed, with the dry chuckle of bitter experience.
Kelantan has hardly any huge buildings. Everything in the state capital, Kota Bharu, near the border with Thailand, is built on a modest scale. I met the PAS vice-president, Husam Musa, at the party headquarters. Husam, an economist by training, is not an imam but one of the new breed of professionals in Islamist politics. He was polite, if a little defensive. On the question of an Islamic state, he said this goal was often misunderstood: “We don’t mean a state ruled by clerics but one guided by the holy books. Without the books, we’d be like Umno and just grab the money. The difference between us and them is that we believe we will be judged in the afterlife.”
He said that Islam was “pro-progress,” and that American democracy was a good model. (“Unfriendly people will accuse me of being pro-American for making this statement.”) He also said that discriminating against ethnic minorities was “un-Islamic,” as was government corruption. “People should be treated the same, and that includes the freedom of religion,” he said.
What about Muslims — were they free to renounce their faith? He averted his eyes. “I have my own opinion about that, but I will reserve it,” he said. “Media in Malaysia will interpret it in the wrong way. Everything here is turned to politics.” He used “politics” as a pejorative term. “I am not a politician,” he said. “I’m a Muslim activist.”
Few people in Kelantan, even the Chinese, openly complain about the PAS government. Non-Muslims don’t feel hampered by religious rules that don’t apply to them, and the lack of corruption is widely acknowledged. Still, given the chance, many young people leave for Kuala Lumpur. Several young Malays told me that it was “no fun” living in a place where you can get arrested for buying a beer. “This is a place for old men,” an unemployed building contractor said. “They can sit around and pray all day.”The real Malay dilemma today is that democrats need the Islamists: Malay liberals and secular Chinese and Indians cannot form a governing alliance without religious and rural Malays. And the only serious contender who can patch over the differences between secularists and Islamists for the sake of reform is Anwar, a liberal Malay with impeccable Muslim credentials. “He is our last chance,” Zaid told me, as he celebrated the victory of PAS in Kuala Terengganu. When I repeated this to Anwar, he looked thoughtful and said, “Yes, and that’s what worries me.”
KILL UMNO AND A NEW
MALAYSIA WILL EMERGE.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
ARMADA OFF SINGAPOODAH !!!!
SINGAPORE — To go out in a small boat along Singapore’s coast now is to feel like a mouse tiptoeing through an endless herd of slumbering elephants.
One of the largest fleets of ships ever gathered idles here just outside one of the world’s busiest ports, marooned by the receding tide of global trade. There may be tentative signs of economic recovery in spots around the globe, but few here.
Hundreds of cargo ships — some up to 300,000 tons, with many weighing more than the entire 130-ship Spanish Armada — seem to perch on top of the water rather than in it, their red rudders and bulbous noses, submerged when the vessels are loaded, sticking a dozen feet out of the water.
So many ships have congregated here — 735, according to AIS Live tracking service of Lloyd’s Register-Fairplay Research, a ship tracking service based in London — that shipping lines are becoming concerned about near misses and collisions in one of the world’s most congested waterways, the Strait of Malacca, which separates Malaysia and Singapore from Indonesia.
The root of the problem lies in an unusually steep slump in global trade, confirmed by trade statistics announced on Tuesday.China said that its exports nose-dived 22.6 percent in April from a year earlier, while the Philippines said that its exports in March were down 30.9 percent from a year earlier. The United States announced on Tuesday that its exports had declined 2.4 percent in March.“The March 2009 trade data reiterates the current challenges in our global economy,” said Ron Kirk, the United States trade representative.More worrisome, despite some positive signs like a Wall Street rally and slower job losses in the United States, is that the current level of trade does not suggest a recovery soon, many in the shipping business say.“A lot of the orders for the retail season are being placed now, and compared to recent years, they are weak,” said Chris Woodward, the vice president for container services at Ryder System, the big logistics company.Western consumers still adjusting to losses in value of their stocks and homes are in little mood to start spending again on nonessential imports, said Joshua Felman, the assistant director of the Asia and Pacific division of the International Monetary Fund. “For trade to pick up, demand has to pick up,” he said. “It’s very difficult to see that happening any time soon.”
So badly battered is the shipping industry that the daily rate to charter a large bulk freighter suitable for carrying, say, iron ore, plummeted from close to $300,000 last summer to a low of $10,000 early this year, according to H. Clarkson & Company, a London ship brokerage.The rate has rebounded to nearly $25,000 in the last several weeks, and some bulk carriers have left Singapore. But ship owners say this recovery may be short-lived because it mostly reflects a rush by Chinese steel makers to import iron ore before a possible price increase next month.Container shipping is also showing faint signs of revival, but remains deeply depressed.
And more empty tankers are showing up here.
The cost of shipping a 40-foot steel container full of merchandise from southern China to northern Europe tumbled from $1,400 plus fuel charges a year ago to as little as $150 early this year, before rebounding to around $300, which is still below the cost of providing the service, said Neil Dekker, a container industry forecaster at Drewry Shipping Consultants in London.
Eight small companies in the industry have gone bankrupt in the last year and at least one of the major carriers is likely to fail this year, he said.Vessels have flocked to Singapore because it has few storms, excellent ship repair teams, cheap fuel from its own refinery and, most important, proximity to Asian ports that might eventually have cargo to ship.The gathering of so many freighters “is extraordinary,” said Christopher Pãlsson, a senior consultant at Lloyd’s Register-Fairplay Research, a ship tracking service based in London. “We have probably not witnessed anything like this since the early 1980s,” during the last big bust in the global shipping industry.The world’s fleet has nearly doubled since the early 1980s, so the tonnage of vessels in and around Singapore’s waters this spring may be the highest ever, he said, cautioning that detailed worldwide ship tracking data has been available only for the last five years.These vessels total more than 41 million tons, according to the AIS Live tracking service. That is nearly equal to the entire world’s merchant fleet at the end of World War I, and represents almost 4 percent of the world’s fleet today.Investment trusts have poured billions of dollars over the last five years into buying ships and leasing them for a year at a time to shipping lines. As the leases expire and many of these vessels are returned, losses will be heavy at these trusts and the mainly European banks that lent to them, said Stephen Fletcher, the commercial director for AXS Marine, a consulting firm based in Paris.In previous shipping downturns, vessels anchored for months at a time in Norwegian fjords and other cold-weather locations. But stringent environmental regulations in practically every cold-weather country are forcing idle ships to warmer anchorages.But that raises security concerns. Plants grow much faster on the undersides of vessels in warm water. “You end up with the hanging gardens of Babylon on the bottom and that affects your speed,” said Tim Huxley, the chief executive of Wah Kwong Maritime Transport, a shipping line based in Hong Kong.One of the company’s freighters became so overgrown that it was barely able to outrun pirates off Somalia recently, Mr. Huxley said. The freighter escaped with 91 bullet holes in it.Another of the company’s freighters close to Singapore was hit last December by a chemical tanker that could not make a tight enough turn in a crowded anchorage; neither vessel was seriously damaged.Capt. M. Segar, the group director for Singapore’s port, said in a written reply to questions that many vessels were staying just outside the port’s limits, where they do not have to pay port fees.Singapore has complained to the countries of registry about 10 to 15 ships that have anchored in sea lanes in violation of international rules in the last two weeks, Captain Segar said.Ships are anchoring at other ports around the world, too. There were 150 vessels in and around the Straits of Gibraltar on Monday, and 300 around Rotterdam, the Netherlands, according to the AIS Live tracking service.But Singapore, close to Asian markets, has attracted far more.“It is a sign of the times,” said AIS Martin Stopford, the managing director of Clarkson Research Service in London, “that Asia is the place you want to hang around this time in case things turn around.”
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Immigration Revamped in New Zealand
KIA ORA !!!
Auckland
Time to licence those leeches !!!
Many heartbreaks could have been avoided if this act comes in sooner !!!
3 cheers to the Immigration Services of New Zealand.
seperate the wheats from the chaffs !!!!
Hundreds of would-be immigrants are today in limbo as a law comes into effect that could stall their bid to live legally in New Zealand.
The Immigration Advisers Licensing Act requires mandatory licensing of all immigration consultants, but so far just 171 of an estimated 1200 have bothered to get the proper documentation. Many are part-timers who have been put off by the $1995 cost of a licence.
The Immigration Advisers Authority had hoped up to 400 would have become licensed in time for today's law change.
Immigration New Zealand has said it will no longer process applications filed by non-licensed agents, meaning migrants part-way through the process could be left thousands of dollars out of pocket. Some applicants have paid unlicensed agents up to $15,000 to work on their submissions, but authority registrar Barry Smedts says it cannot help to get the money back because it was not illegal to provide non-licensed immigration advice before today.Licensed immigration consultant Tika Ram said clients of the 1000-odd advisers still unlicensed had been left confused about where they stood under the new law."Some clients have paid the full fees upfront, so they can't just switch to a licensed adviser now without losing all their money. "Advisers should have advised their clients that they will not be able to act on their behalf after a particular time-frame, but many did not."David Cooper, operations manager at immigration consultancy firm Malcolm Pacific, said the issue of licensed advisers had been "off the radar" for would-be migrants.However, many were "waking up to the reality only in the last couple of weeks" after Immigration New Zealand printed forms warning that all applications submitted by unlicensed advisers would be returned.
Indian national Raman Balakrishnan paid $9000 to his unlicensed immigration agent, but is now "stuck" after a police certificate from India failed to arrive in time to beat the law change."I am in a no-win situation. If I let my agent lodge my application, it will be returned. But if I do it myself, I will still have to state that I received advice from an unlicensed adviser, and that will also mean that my application will be rejected," he said."Does it mean I have to lie and say that I did not receive any immigration advice in order to get around it?"
Mr Smedts said the law still allowed would-be immigrants to represent themselves.The relatively small number of licensed advisers was not necessarily a bad thing for the immigration industry, he said."The industry is now smaller, more professional and has a higher standard of overall expertise. I like to think of licensing as a sort of brand protection that supports good operators and punishes bad ones."
But a local Chinese immigration agent - who did not apply to be licensed because of the cost - said the new law would drive many advisers underground.Many would-be migrants would continue to seek advice from advisers within their own ethnic communities regardless of whether they were licensed. "The law is just turning honest and respected community leaders into criminals, some of whom genuinely want to help the people in their communities."
Overseas-based immigration advisers will have until May 4 next year to get a licence.
The authority defines immigration advice as "using, or purporting to use, knowledge of or experience in immigration to advise, direct, assist or represent another person in regard to an immigration matter relating to New Zealand, whether directly or indirectly and whether or not for gain or reward".Some people, such as lawyers and MPs, are exempt from needing licences, but the authority says the exemption "probably doesn't cover many people in the not-for-profit, NGO [non-government] and government services who provide support and assistance".
IMMIGRATION ADVISERS LICENSING ACT 2007*
All NZ-based immigration advisers must be licensed from today.*
Just 171 of the estimated 1200 advisers have so far got licences.*
A licence costs $1995. *
Unlicensed agents face fines up to $100,000, seven years' jail and reparations. *
Overseas-based immigration advisers have until May 2010 to get licensed.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Hedge Fund 101
So what are hedge funds?
Money Talk
By Robert Brown Watson Wyatt
A hedge fund is a private investment fund open to a limited range of investors which is permitted by regulators to undertake a wider range of activities than other investment funds and which pays a performance fee to its investment manager. Although each fund will have its own strategy which determines the type of investments and the methods of investment it undertakes, hedge funds as a class invest in a broad range of investments, from shares, debt and commodities to works of art.As the name implies, hedge funds often seek to offset potential losses in the principal markets they invest in by hedging their investments using a variety of methods, most notably short selling. However, the term "hedge fund" has come to be applied to many funds that do not actually hedge their investments, and in particular to funds using short selling and other "hedging" methods to increase rather than reduce risk, with the expectation of increasing return.Hedge funds are typically open only to a limited range of professional or wealthy investors. This provides them with an exemption in many jurisdictions from regulations governing short selling, derivative contracts, leverage, fee structures and the liquidity of investments in the fund. A hedge fund will nevertheless voluntarily limit the scope of its activities via its contractual arrangements with the individual investors in order to give them some certainty surrounding the specific investments that will be invested by the hedge fund itself.The assets under management of a hedge fund can run into many billions of dollars, and this will usually be multiplied by leverage, meaning that their influence over markets is substantial. Hedge funds dominate certain specialty markets such as trading within derivatives with high-yield ratings and distressed debt.
Unlike banks, building societies, insurance companies or stockbrokers, there are no mentions of hedge funds in the Yellow Pages. And it is highly unlikely you will find one based in your local high street, yet there are a lot of them around - and in some odd places too. Hedge funds are often linked to takeovers or other big trades in the financial markets, and they are often embroiled in regulatory debates. Hedge funds have become big players. It has been claimed that these privately owned investment companies are responsible for half the daily turnover of shares on the London stock market. Industry experts calculate that there are around 8,000 hedge funds operating globally, mainly in the USA, with hundreds based in the UK - primarily in the West End. But the reason they don't advertise in the Yellow Pages or any other similar directory is that they are not offering their services to the man or women in the street. Instead they offer their investment capabilities primarily to very wealthy individuals or to professional investors such as insurance companies and pension funds.
Rapid growth
The world of the hedge funds has grown rapidly in the last 15 year or so.
They first sprang up in the USA on Wall Street in the 1940s.
They invest money - in anything that they think will make profits
At first they concentrated on investing money for the extremely wealthy. The first time anyone in the UK outside the financial markets really heard of them was when the firm run by George Soros reputedly made hundreds of millions of pounds by betting that the pound would be ejected from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism back in 1992. The opportunity to make huge sums of money, not to mention looking after their own wealth directly, has since lured many traders and bankers in the City of London away from the big investment banks and investment management companies. They have set up their own firms, where they can run their own business and generate more of the profits for themselves. Some of these firms operate from discreet offices, where substantial amounts of money are managed by high-profile investment professionals with long track records in the business. Others have very few staff, relying on the investment judgement of just one or two people.
Varied strategies
So what do they actually do?
The simple answer is that they invest money - in anything that they think will make profits. Typically they focus on generating positive "absolute returns" (or returns greater than zero). Hedge funds embrace a wide variety of skills and strategies, generally grouped under the four following headings:
Long/short equity - they aim to profit from superior research and stock picking skills by buying the best ideas and reducing the resulting stock market exposure by shorting (selling stocks they do not own) those they believe will perform less well.
Relative value - typically they use computer systems to calculate the "fair" value of one asset relative to another and then shorting the more expensive asset and buying the cheaper one.
Event-driven - they seek investment opportunities surrounding corporate events, for example, investing in bankrupt or merging companies.
Trading strategies - for example, taking positions on the direction of markets, currencies and commodities
So, hedge fund managers are essentially a group of active investment managers who invest in a variety of asset classes, with the licence to invest in a very flexible way. What is so special about them?
The return achieved by a given hedge fund manager will (in theory) largely be driven by that manager's ability (or skill), rather than by underlying economic or market conditions.
So they offer the potential to achieve investment returns with relatively low volatility and largely unrelated to whether a particular investment market (such as shares or bonds) is going up or down.
The main reasons for this are:
Hedge fund managers generally try to remove some market exposure and aim to produce a positive return irrespective of market direction. Often this will involve making an offsetting bet to hedge against losing money on the original investment position. The unrestricted nature of hedge funds means that the investment managers are able to fully utilise their skill to produce positive performance. Operating in fairly small areas of the market means that investing in a number of funds can reduce volatility through the benefits of diversification. One feature often attributed to hedge funds is the widespread use of derivatives; sophisticated bets on the future direction of an underlying asset such as a share, currency, or even a whole financial market. Some hedge fund managers will use derivatives almost exclusively, such as Contracts for Differences, rather than buying the underlying asset directly. In some cases a hedge fund may do this to build up a larger investment position than they could afford directly - known as leverage. The truth though is that the use of derivatives is commonplace in conventional banks, investment banks and other more sober financial outfits such as insurance companies and the treasury departments of big companies.
Easy money?
Despite having a large concentration of investment expertise, hedge funds can still lose money for themselves and their clients, or provide just rather disappointing returns, so choosing the right ones is key. As noted earlier, the return from a given hedge fund manager is largely driven by the manager's ability or skill. Some funds simply won't reveal to anyone except their clients what their general trading strategies are, or how well or badly they have been doing
There have been considerable flows of money into this area and increasing volumes of assets chasing the same opportunities may depress returns. Also, many hedge funds restrict how much money they will take on so they can sensibly manage the funds they already have, and it is not uncommon for the most skilled (and hence desirable) managers to be closed to new investors. They can charge very high fees, which can be high enough to erode any out-performance achieved by the manager, so due care is advised when selecting them. Most hedge funds are domiciled offshore for tax reasons. But if the managements who actually run the business are based in the UK then they should be subject to full regulation by the Financial Services Authority. Overall though, there are considerable risks involved in investing in one or just a small number of hedge funds.
Hedge fund indices
As the interest in hedge funds has grown, a similar trend has developed to copy the mainstream financial markets: the "investable index". These indices - rather like the well known FTSE 100 share index - allow investors to allocate money across a range of strategies and managers, with the aim of generating returns that match one of the well known indices. This should also help to shed a bit more light on what has often been a very secretive world. Some funds simply won't reveal to anyone except their clients what their general trading strategies are, or how well or badly they have been doing. Others have become more transparent, publishing investment updates, quarterly or even monthly, that anyone can read. Despite that, an investor needs to decide if an index return is really the right target and whether the managers included are truly representative of the underlying managers in each strategy.
Conclusions :
Hedge Funds are GAMBLING
by the VERY RICH.
Hedge funds have become an increasingly popular form of investment for professional investors who have diversified away from mainstream share and bond investment.
It should be noted, however, that they are only one option within an ever increasing range of investment strategies.
Their place should be considered alongside other alternatives such as private equity, property and commodities. The opinions expressed are those of the author and are not held by the BBC unless specifically stated. The material is for general information only and does not constitute investment, tax, legal or other form of advice. You should not rely on this information to make (or refrain from making) any decisions. Always obtain independent, professional advice for your own particular situation.
Or read up on some PONZI Scheme...
Fail-Proof but not Idiot-proof
AND MY HERO IS
BERNIE MADE OFF
OOPS, MADOFF...
Money Talk
By Robert Brown Watson Wyatt
A hedge fund is a private investment fund open to a limited range of investors which is permitted by regulators to undertake a wider range of activities than other investment funds and which pays a performance fee to its investment manager. Although each fund will have its own strategy which determines the type of investments and the methods of investment it undertakes, hedge funds as a class invest in a broad range of investments, from shares, debt and commodities to works of art.As the name implies, hedge funds often seek to offset potential losses in the principal markets they invest in by hedging their investments using a variety of methods, most notably short selling. However, the term "hedge fund" has come to be applied to many funds that do not actually hedge their investments, and in particular to funds using short selling and other "hedging" methods to increase rather than reduce risk, with the expectation of increasing return.Hedge funds are typically open only to a limited range of professional or wealthy investors. This provides them with an exemption in many jurisdictions from regulations governing short selling, derivative contracts, leverage, fee structures and the liquidity of investments in the fund. A hedge fund will nevertheless voluntarily limit the scope of its activities via its contractual arrangements with the individual investors in order to give them some certainty surrounding the specific investments that will be invested by the hedge fund itself.The assets under management of a hedge fund can run into many billions of dollars, and this will usually be multiplied by leverage, meaning that their influence over markets is substantial. Hedge funds dominate certain specialty markets such as trading within derivatives with high-yield ratings and distressed debt.
Unlike banks, building societies, insurance companies or stockbrokers, there are no mentions of hedge funds in the Yellow Pages. And it is highly unlikely you will find one based in your local high street, yet there are a lot of them around - and in some odd places too. Hedge funds are often linked to takeovers or other big trades in the financial markets, and they are often embroiled in regulatory debates. Hedge funds have become big players. It has been claimed that these privately owned investment companies are responsible for half the daily turnover of shares on the London stock market. Industry experts calculate that there are around 8,000 hedge funds operating globally, mainly in the USA, with hundreds based in the UK - primarily in the West End. But the reason they don't advertise in the Yellow Pages or any other similar directory is that they are not offering their services to the man or women in the street. Instead they offer their investment capabilities primarily to very wealthy individuals or to professional investors such as insurance companies and pension funds.
Rapid growth
The world of the hedge funds has grown rapidly in the last 15 year or so.
They first sprang up in the USA on Wall Street in the 1940s.
They invest money - in anything that they think will make profits
At first they concentrated on investing money for the extremely wealthy. The first time anyone in the UK outside the financial markets really heard of them was when the firm run by George Soros reputedly made hundreds of millions of pounds by betting that the pound would be ejected from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism back in 1992. The opportunity to make huge sums of money, not to mention looking after their own wealth directly, has since lured many traders and bankers in the City of London away from the big investment banks and investment management companies. They have set up their own firms, where they can run their own business and generate more of the profits for themselves. Some of these firms operate from discreet offices, where substantial amounts of money are managed by high-profile investment professionals with long track records in the business. Others have very few staff, relying on the investment judgement of just one or two people.
Varied strategies
So what do they actually do?
The simple answer is that they invest money - in anything that they think will make profits. Typically they focus on generating positive "absolute returns" (or returns greater than zero). Hedge funds embrace a wide variety of skills and strategies, generally grouped under the four following headings:
Long/short equity - they aim to profit from superior research and stock picking skills by buying the best ideas and reducing the resulting stock market exposure by shorting (selling stocks they do not own) those they believe will perform less well.
Relative value - typically they use computer systems to calculate the "fair" value of one asset relative to another and then shorting the more expensive asset and buying the cheaper one.
Event-driven - they seek investment opportunities surrounding corporate events, for example, investing in bankrupt or merging companies.
Trading strategies - for example, taking positions on the direction of markets, currencies and commodities
So, hedge fund managers are essentially a group of active investment managers who invest in a variety of asset classes, with the licence to invest in a very flexible way. What is so special about them?
The return achieved by a given hedge fund manager will (in theory) largely be driven by that manager's ability (or skill), rather than by underlying economic or market conditions.
So they offer the potential to achieve investment returns with relatively low volatility and largely unrelated to whether a particular investment market (such as shares or bonds) is going up or down.
The main reasons for this are:
Hedge fund managers generally try to remove some market exposure and aim to produce a positive return irrespective of market direction. Often this will involve making an offsetting bet to hedge against losing money on the original investment position. The unrestricted nature of hedge funds means that the investment managers are able to fully utilise their skill to produce positive performance. Operating in fairly small areas of the market means that investing in a number of funds can reduce volatility through the benefits of diversification. One feature often attributed to hedge funds is the widespread use of derivatives; sophisticated bets on the future direction of an underlying asset such as a share, currency, or even a whole financial market. Some hedge fund managers will use derivatives almost exclusively, such as Contracts for Differences, rather than buying the underlying asset directly. In some cases a hedge fund may do this to build up a larger investment position than they could afford directly - known as leverage. The truth though is that the use of derivatives is commonplace in conventional banks, investment banks and other more sober financial outfits such as insurance companies and the treasury departments of big companies.
Easy money?
Despite having a large concentration of investment expertise, hedge funds can still lose money for themselves and their clients, or provide just rather disappointing returns, so choosing the right ones is key. As noted earlier, the return from a given hedge fund manager is largely driven by the manager's ability or skill. Some funds simply won't reveal to anyone except their clients what their general trading strategies are, or how well or badly they have been doing
There have been considerable flows of money into this area and increasing volumes of assets chasing the same opportunities may depress returns. Also, many hedge funds restrict how much money they will take on so they can sensibly manage the funds they already have, and it is not uncommon for the most skilled (and hence desirable) managers to be closed to new investors. They can charge very high fees, which can be high enough to erode any out-performance achieved by the manager, so due care is advised when selecting them. Most hedge funds are domiciled offshore for tax reasons. But if the managements who actually run the business are based in the UK then they should be subject to full regulation by the Financial Services Authority. Overall though, there are considerable risks involved in investing in one or just a small number of hedge funds.
Hedge fund indices
As the interest in hedge funds has grown, a similar trend has developed to copy the mainstream financial markets: the "investable index". These indices - rather like the well known FTSE 100 share index - allow investors to allocate money across a range of strategies and managers, with the aim of generating returns that match one of the well known indices. This should also help to shed a bit more light on what has often been a very secretive world. Some funds simply won't reveal to anyone except their clients what their general trading strategies are, or how well or badly they have been doing. Others have become more transparent, publishing investment updates, quarterly or even monthly, that anyone can read. Despite that, an investor needs to decide if an index return is really the right target and whether the managers included are truly representative of the underlying managers in each strategy.
Conclusions :
Hedge Funds are GAMBLING
by the VERY RICH.
Hedge funds have become an increasingly popular form of investment for professional investors who have diversified away from mainstream share and bond investment.
It should be noted, however, that they are only one option within an ever increasing range of investment strategies.
Their place should be considered alongside other alternatives such as private equity, property and commodities. The opinions expressed are those of the author and are not held by the BBC unless specifically stated. The material is for general information only and does not constitute investment, tax, legal or other form of advice. You should not rely on this information to make (or refrain from making) any decisions. Always obtain independent, professional advice for your own particular situation.
Or read up on some PONZI Scheme...
Fail-Proof but not Idiot-proof
AND MY HERO IS
BERNIE MADE OFF
OOPS, MADOFF...
Friday, May 8, 2009
Happy Vesak Day
The significance of Vesak lies with the Buddha and his universal peace message to mankind.
As we recall the Buddha and his Enlightenment, we are immediately reminded of the unique and most profound knowledge and insight which arose in him on the night of his Enlightenment. This coincided with three important events which took place, corresponding to the three watches or periods of the night.
During the first watch of the night, when his mind was calm, clear and purified, light arose in him, knowledge and insight arose. He saw his previous lives, at first one, then two, three up to five, then multiples of them .. . ten, twenty, thirty to fifty. Then 100, 1000 and so on.... As he went on with his practice, during the second watch of the night, he saw how beings die and are reborn, depending on their Karma, how they disappear and reappear from one form to another, from one plane of existence to another. Then during the final watch of the night, he saw the arising and cessation of all phenomena, mental and physical. He saw how things arose dependent on causes and conditions. This led him to perceive the arising and cessation of suffering and all forms of unsatisfactoriness paving the way for the eradication of all taints of cravings. With the complete cessation of craving, his mind was completely liberated. He attained to Full Enlightenment. The realisation dawned in him together with all psychic powers.
This wisdom and light that flashed and radiated under the historic Bodhi Tree at Buddha Gaya in the district of Bihar in Northern India, more than 2500 years ago, is of great significance to human destiny. It illuminated the way by which mankind could cross, from a world of superstition, or hatred and fear, to a new world of light, of true love and happiness.
The heart of the Teachings of the Buddha is contained in the teachings of the Four Noble Truths, namely,
The Noble Truth of Dukkha or suffering
The Origin or Cause of suffering
The End or Cessation of suffering
the Path which leads to the cessation of all sufferings
As we recall the Buddha and his Enlightenment, we are immediately reminded of the unique and most profound knowledge and insight which arose in him on the night of his Enlightenment. This coincided with three important events which took place, corresponding to the three watches or periods of the night.
During the first watch of the night, when his mind was calm, clear and purified, light arose in him, knowledge and insight arose. He saw his previous lives, at first one, then two, three up to five, then multiples of them .. . ten, twenty, thirty to fifty. Then 100, 1000 and so on.... As he went on with his practice, during the second watch of the night, he saw how beings die and are reborn, depending on their Karma, how they disappear and reappear from one form to another, from one plane of existence to another. Then during the final watch of the night, he saw the arising and cessation of all phenomena, mental and physical. He saw how things arose dependent on causes and conditions. This led him to perceive the arising and cessation of suffering and all forms of unsatisfactoriness paving the way for the eradication of all taints of cravings. With the complete cessation of craving, his mind was completely liberated. He attained to Full Enlightenment. The realisation dawned in him together with all psychic powers.
This wisdom and light that flashed and radiated under the historic Bodhi Tree at Buddha Gaya in the district of Bihar in Northern India, more than 2500 years ago, is of great significance to human destiny. It illuminated the way by which mankind could cross, from a world of superstition, or hatred and fear, to a new world of light, of true love and happiness.
The heart of the Teachings of the Buddha is contained in the teachings of the Four Noble Truths, namely,
The Noble Truth of Dukkha or suffering
The Origin or Cause of suffering
The End or Cessation of suffering
the Path which leads to the cessation of all sufferings
The First Noble Truth is the Truth of Dukkha which has been generally translated as 'suffering'. But the term Dukkha, which represents the Buddha's view of life and the world, has a deeper philosophical meaning. Birth, old age, sickness and death are universal. All beings are subject to this unsatisfactoriness. Separation from beloved ones and pleasant conditions, association with unpleasant persons and conditions, and not getting what one desires - these are also sources of suffering and unsatisfactoriness. The Buddha summarises Dukkha in what is known as the Five Grasping Aggregates. Herein, lies the deeper philosophical meaning of Dukkha for it encompasses the whole state of being or existence. Our life or the whole process of living is seen as a flux of energy comprising of the Five aggregates, namely the Aggregate of Form or the Physical process, Feeling, Perception, Mental Formation, and Consciousness. These are usually classified as mental and physical processes, which are constantly in a state of flux or change. When we train our minds to observe the functioning of mental and physical processes we will realise the true nature of our lives. We will see how it is subject to change and unsatisfactoriness. And as such, there is no real substance or entity or Self which we can cling to as 'I', 'my' or 'mine'. When we become aware of the unsatisfactory nature of life, we would naturally want to get out from such a state. It is at this point that we begin to seriously question ourselves about the meaning and purpose of life. This will lead us to seek the Truth with regards to the true nature of existence and the knowledge to overcome unsatisfactoriness. From the Buddhist point of view, therefore, the purpose of life is to put an end to suffering and all other forms of unsatisfactoriness - to realise peace and real happiness. Such is the significance of the understanding and the realisation of the First Noble Truth.
The Second Noble Truth explains the Origin or Cause of suffering. Tanha or craving is the universal cause of suffering. It includes not only desire for sensual pleasures, wealth and power, but also attachment to ideas', views, opinions, concepts, and beliefs. It is the lust for flesh, the lust for continued existence (or eternalism) in the sensual realms of existence, as well as the realms of form and the formless realms. And there is also the lust and craving for non-existence (or nihilism). These are all different Forms of selfishness, desiring things for oneself, even at the expense of others. Not realizing the true nature of one's Self, one clings to things which are impermanent, changeable and perishable. The failure to satisfy one's desires through these things; causes disappointment and suffering. Craving is a powerful mental force present in all of us. It is the root cause of our sufferings. It is this craving which binds us in Samsara - the repeated cycle of birth and` death.
The Third Noble Truth points to the cessation of suffering. Where there is no craving, there is no becoming, no rebirth. Where there is no rebirth, there is no decay. no, old age, no death, hence no suffering. That is how suffering is ended, once and for all.
The Fourth Noble Truth explains the Path or the Way which leads to the cessation of suffering. It is called the Noble Eightfold Path. The Noble Eightfold path avoids the extremes of self-indulgence on one hand and self-torture on the other. It consists of Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. These path factors may be summarised into 3 stages of training, involving morality, mental culture and wisdom. Morality or good conduct is the avoidance of evil or unwholesome actions -- actions which are tainted by greed, hatred and delusion; and the performance of the good or wholesome actions, - actions which are free from greed, hatred and delusion, but motivated by liberality, loving-kindness and wisdom. The function of good conduct or moral restraint is to free one's mind from remorse (or guilty conscience). The mind that is free from remorse (or guilt) is naturally calm and tranquil, and ready for concentration with awareness. The concentrated and cultured mind is a contemplative and analytical mind. It is capable of seeing cause and effect, and the true nature of existence, thus paving the way for wisdom and insight.
Wisdom in the Buddhist context, is the realisation of the fundamental truths of life, basically the Four Noble Truths. The understanding of the Four Noble Truths provide us with a proper sense of purpose and direction in life. They form the basis of problem-solving. The message of the Buddha stands today as unaffected by time and the expansion of knowledge as when they were first enunciated. No matter to what lengths increased scientific knowledge can extend man's mental horizon, there is room for the acceptance and assimilation for further discovery within -the framework of the teachings of the Buddha. The teaching of the Buddha is open to all to see and judge for themselves. The universality of the teachings of the Buddha has led one of the world's greatest scientists, Albert Einstein to declare that 'if there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs, it would be Buddhism' The teaching of the Buddha became a great civilising force wherever it went. It appeals to reason and freedom of thought, recognising the dignity and potentiality of the human mind. It calls for equality, fraternity and understanding, exhorting its followers to avoid evil, to do good and to purify their minds. Realising the transient nature of life and all worldly phenomena, the Buddha has advised us to work out our deliverance with heedfulness, as 'heedfulness is the path to the deathless'. His clear and profound teachings on the cultivation of heedfulness otherwise known as Satipatthana or the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, is the path for the purification of beings - for the overcoming of sorrows and lamentation, for the destruction of all mental and physical sufferings, for the attainment of insight and knowledge and for the realisation of Nibbana. This has been verified by his disciples. It is therefore a path, a technique which may be verified by all irrespective of caste, colour or creed. - Venerable Mahinda
Info taken buddhanet.net
Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
ALL THINGS MUST PASS
STRIVE ON
DON'T GIVE UP.
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT OF ME ?
I HAVE TAUGHT THE TRUTH.
I HAVE HELD NOTHING BACK...
YOU ARE THE COMMUNITY NOW.
BE A LAMP TO YOURSELVES.
BE YOUR OWN REFUGE.
SEEK FOR NO OTHER.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
AUSPICIOUS AYUTTHAYA — SACRED SITES IN AYUTTHAYA PROVINCE
พระนครศรีอยุธยา
14°20′N 100°34′E /
View Larger Map
The legendary island city of Ayutthaya in Ayutthaya province (officially known as Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya province) is home to the Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Historical Park, designated a UNESCO Cultural World Heritage Site in December 1991.
The ancient capital of the Siamese kingdom for four centuries from 1350 to 1767, in its heydey, all who set their sights on the thriving riverside capital as they sailed upriver to Ayutthaya were captivated by its majestic splendour.
Once upon a time billed as the most glorious city of the Orient, Ayutthaya boasts a rich cultural and artistic legacy. Magnificent temples, historical landmarks, ancient monuments and ruins, archaeological, religious and ancestral sites and shrines dominate its lowland landscape.
Merit-making acts are considered to be a vital part of religious rituals performed to seek blessings on auspicious occasions.
A special programme jointly developed by Ayutthaya province, the Provincial Administration Office and the Tourism Authority of Thailand, Ayuttahaya Mahamongkhon reflects an effort to spark greater public interest in ancient and ancestral sites of historical, cultural and religious significance and encourage pilgrimages to sacred sites and holy shrines during important events in the Buddhist lunar calendar, particularly Visakha Puja and Khao Pansa, which marks the beginning of the Buddhist Lent.
Vesak Day,(MAY 8th 2009) the holiest day of the year for Buddhists all over the world, falls on the full moon day of the sixth lunar month. It commemorates the birth of Lord Buddha, his enlightenment and passage to Nirvana — freedom from suffering. The three incidents took place on the same day but in different years.
SACRED SITES IN AYUTTHAYA PROVINCE
Ayuttahaya Mahamongkhon highlights 60 sites of religious significance and cultural and historical interest. According to ancient belief, a pilgrimage to pay homage at nine sacred sites is deemed to be an auspicious merit-making act through which an individual will receive blessings. These include:
Temples on the Island City of Ayutthaya
Wat Klang Klong Sra Bua
Wat Klong Pakkran
Wat Kluai temple
Wat Kasatratirat Voraviharn
Wat Chet Khet temple
Wat Choeng Tha temple
Wat Tuek Wat Toom
Wat Tha Karong
Wat Dhammaram
Wat Thammikarat
Wat Borommawong-israwararam
VoraviharnWat Bangka-cha
Wat Pradungsongtham
Wat Phanomyong
Wat Phananchoeng
VoraviharnWat Phutthaisawan
Wat Phraya Tikaram
Viharn Mongkon Borphit
Wat Pichaisongkram
Chao Sam Phraya National Museum
Wat Phu Khao Tong
Wat Mae Nang Pluem
Wat Ratchapraditstaan
Wat Wongkhong
Wat Si Pho Sala Poon
VoraviharnWat Sammano Kottharam
Wat Saam Viharn
Wat Suwandararam Rajavoraviharn
Wat Sena-snaram Rajavoraviharn
Wat Na Phra Meru Ratchikaram Voraviharn
Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon
Wat Intaram
Temples in various districts of Ayutthaya
BANG PAHUN DISTRICT
Wat Kudi Thong
Wat Kai
Wat Kok
Wat Vora-nayok-sawan
BANG PA-IN DISTRICT
Wat Khanon Tai
Wat Niwet Dhamma-prawat
Wat Ban Sensrakrachap
Wat Prote Sat
Wat Phraya Yaat
Wat Ladrahong
Wat Vivekwayupat
PHAK HAI DISTRICT
Wat Kok Thong
PASHII DISTRICT
Wat Ta-ko
BANG SAI DISTRICT
Wat Tasung Taksinaram
Wat Pom Kaeow
Wat Na Taang Nok
NAKHON LUANG DISTRICT
Wat Nakhon Luang
BANG NAM KHO DISTRICT
Wat Bang Nam Kho
BANG BAAN DISTRICT
Wat Phai Lom
Wat Phra Kaeow
UTHAI DISTRICT
Wat Prannok
Wat Sakae
TA RUEA DISTRICT
Wat Satue
LAAD BUA LUANG DISTRICT
Wat Sutawat
MAHARAJ DISTRICT
Wat Suwanchedi
14°20′N 100°34′E /
View Larger Map
The legendary island city of Ayutthaya in Ayutthaya province (officially known as Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya province) is home to the Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Historical Park, designated a UNESCO Cultural World Heritage Site in December 1991.
The ancient capital of the Siamese kingdom for four centuries from 1350 to 1767, in its heydey, all who set their sights on the thriving riverside capital as they sailed upriver to Ayutthaya were captivated by its majestic splendour.
Once upon a time billed as the most glorious city of the Orient, Ayutthaya boasts a rich cultural and artistic legacy. Magnificent temples, historical landmarks, ancient monuments and ruins, archaeological, religious and ancestral sites and shrines dominate its lowland landscape.
Merit-making acts are considered to be a vital part of religious rituals performed to seek blessings on auspicious occasions.
A special programme jointly developed by Ayutthaya province, the Provincial Administration Office and the Tourism Authority of Thailand, Ayuttahaya Mahamongkhon reflects an effort to spark greater public interest in ancient and ancestral sites of historical, cultural and religious significance and encourage pilgrimages to sacred sites and holy shrines during important events in the Buddhist lunar calendar, particularly Visakha Puja and Khao Pansa, which marks the beginning of the Buddhist Lent.
Vesak Day,(MAY 8th 2009) the holiest day of the year for Buddhists all over the world, falls on the full moon day of the sixth lunar month. It commemorates the birth of Lord Buddha, his enlightenment and passage to Nirvana — freedom from suffering. The three incidents took place on the same day but in different years.
SACRED SITES IN AYUTTHAYA PROVINCE
Ayuttahaya Mahamongkhon highlights 60 sites of religious significance and cultural and historical interest. According to ancient belief, a pilgrimage to pay homage at nine sacred sites is deemed to be an auspicious merit-making act through which an individual will receive blessings. These include:
Temples on the Island City of Ayutthaya
Wat Klang Klong Sra Bua
Wat Klong Pakkran
Wat Kluai temple
Wat Kasatratirat Voraviharn
Wat Chet Khet temple
Wat Choeng Tha temple
Wat Tuek Wat Toom
Wat Tha Karong
Wat Dhammaram
Wat Thammikarat
Wat Borommawong-israwararam
VoraviharnWat Bangka-cha
Wat Pradungsongtham
Wat Phanomyong
Wat Phananchoeng
VoraviharnWat Phutthaisawan
Wat Phraya Tikaram
Viharn Mongkon Borphit
Wat Pichaisongkram
Chao Sam Phraya National Museum
Wat Phu Khao Tong
Wat Mae Nang Pluem
Wat Ratchapraditstaan
Wat Wongkhong
Wat Si Pho Sala Poon
VoraviharnWat Sammano Kottharam
Wat Saam Viharn
Wat Suwandararam Rajavoraviharn
Wat Sena-snaram Rajavoraviharn
Wat Na Phra Meru Ratchikaram Voraviharn
Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon
Wat Intaram
Temples in various districts of Ayutthaya
BANG PAHUN DISTRICT
Wat Kudi Thong
Wat Kai
Wat Kok
Wat Vora-nayok-sawan
BANG PA-IN DISTRICT
Wat Khanon Tai
Wat Niwet Dhamma-prawat
Wat Ban Sensrakrachap
Wat Prote Sat
Wat Phraya Yaat
Wat Ladrahong
Wat Vivekwayupat
PHAK HAI DISTRICT
Wat Kok Thong
PASHII DISTRICT
Wat Ta-ko
BANG SAI DISTRICT
Wat Tasung Taksinaram
Wat Pom Kaeow
Wat Na Taang Nok
NAKHON LUANG DISTRICT
Wat Nakhon Luang
BANG NAM KHO DISTRICT
Wat Bang Nam Kho
BANG BAAN DISTRICT
Wat Phai Lom
Wat Phra Kaeow
UTHAI DISTRICT
Wat Prannok
Wat Sakae
TA RUEA DISTRICT
Wat Satue
LAAD BUA LUANG DISTRICT
Wat Sutawat
MAHARAJ DISTRICT
Wat Suwanchedi
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