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Burgled! They even took the poor mouse

Anil Netto
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Today was not a great day.

I woke up this morning to find that my home had been broken into while I was asleep.

Here’s what they took:

  • A laptop (yes, they took the power adapter, the modem… and even the poor mouse, but no, they weren’t interested in my older desktop PC, which was next to it);
  • Wallet with around RM600 in cash (of which RM500 was actually donations passed to me to hand over to Aliran for its 30th anniversary dinner), identity card, driving licence, bank cards (not just mine but family members’ as well);
  • Computer case with thumbdrive and bank pass books inside;
  • Handphone.

Total loss: close to RM4,000. And, oh, what a hassle, all those cards gone.

Whoever it was must have been pretty desperate to break into my home as there really wasn’t much else to take.

It wasn’t a great feeling to be stripped bare, so to speak. Almost state-less and identity-less. But suddenly, I felt a lot lighter too. It was strange not feeling a wallet and handphone in my pocket – at the same time, it felt inexplicably liberating too.

But I was stranded. Not a single sen on myself. I couldn’t even go to the bank to withdraw any money as it was a weekend. Moreover, my ATM card had been stolen. Even if the banks were open, I didn’t have any IC either to show the teller staff for identity verification.

Here, I must thank those two guardian angels who materialised while I was in a daze and thrust cash into my hands to tide me over the next few days without my having to ask. You know who you are. Thanks again.

I trudged to the nearest police neighbourhood beat base, which was built a couple of years ago. But I rarely see anyone staffing it of late, and today was no different.

So I headed for the nearest police station to lodge a report, feeling very sorry for myself. Quite a few people were already there waiting for their turn to make a report. In the time I was there, I heard them making reports for:

  • a snatch theft
  • harassment by an “Ah Long” (loan shark). Apparently the Ah Long had demanded RM900 a day in interest, failing which he would “kerjakan” the hapless victim.
  • an assault by unknown people.

I thought I was having a dreadful day – until I saw him. The snatch thief suspect, who had been apprehended, crouched behind bars in the police lock-up, largely hidden from public view. I gazed at him and he looked back, a gaunt pitiful look. With his moustache, he looked around 40, perhaps older than his real age, and weary, a lost look in his eyes.

I wondered who his family was and what had happened to his parents and his siblings. Surely, when he was a child, he must have had parents who had dreams for his future. How would they feel if they could see him now in this state, I wondered. What had he gone through in his life for him to land up in this predicament. Suddenly I realised I did not know what “going through a rough time” meant.

I heard the couple, who had complained about the harassment from the Ah Long, telling the cop, “This has been a bad time for us.”

They say God acts in mysterious ways and, sometimes, speaks through the most unexpected channels. The cop replied philosophically, “Sometimes God sends us these things as trials to test us and draw us closer to him.”

He had a point – though coming from a cop, it sounded somewhat surreal.

Musa Hassan stared at me from a portrait on the wall.

I asked a friendly looking cop whether house break-ins were a common occurrence.”Well,” he replied, “today, we have had three cases so far in this area.”

That set me thinking about the crime rate, which appears to be rising by most anecdotal accounts. Could it have something to do with the fact that the gap between the rich and the poor in Malaysia is among the widest in the region – prompting some people to take short cuts, even if illegal, to narrow the gap in the only way they know how?

Or are people just taking the cue from the lack of integrity and accountability at the highest levels, when they see all those financial scandals and the crony capitalism around them? You know, the attitude that says, “If they can do it, why can’t I?”

Or is it some combination of both?

The triumph of Life over Death

Anil Netto
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I like to think of these unexpected victories as a legacy of the Resurrection, a sign that the forces of Death and Oppression will never have the last word over those who struggle for justice and peace, even though those who struggle may never live to see the fruit of their work. For Christ’s Resurrection tells that the struggle to build a kingdom of love, compassion, justice and peace will always triumph against all the odds.

We need only look at a few examples to see the progress that has been made over the last few decades and centuries despite all the bad news along the way. But even with these triumphs, we always have to be on our guard against the forces of darkness, which continue to assail the human race, giving rise to fresh challenges.

Let’s look at a few examples in this piece I wrote for the Herald:

For many centuries, slavery flourished in many parts of the world. But thanks to the abolitionist movement and the dedication of enlightened souls, today slavery has been outlawed. (Though of course there are new forms of legalised ‘slavery’: Think of the migrant workers who are exploited, the domestic helpers who are treated like bonded labour.)

Another classic example: In South Africa, after decades of struggle, the oppressive apartheid system was dismantled, thanks in large part to the perseverance of pro-democracy activists. Nelson Mandela’s party, the ANC, took over the reins of power as an entire nation celebrated. But sadly, the ANC has since then introduced top-down neo-liberal “free market” policies and embraced privatisation. It has also failed to introduce meaningful land reforms. The result: race-divisions under apartheid have now given way to class divisions. But that does not diminish the sensational triumph over apartheid. And let’s not forget how Gandhi and his independence movement brought down the might British Empire in India.

In Malaysia, the struggle for human rights has gone on for a few decades now. For many years, “human rights” was considered something of a dirty word. Darkness descended in the land during Operasi Lalang in 1986-87, when over a hundred people were detained without trial under the ISA. A decade later, we heard of cases of police brutality against street demonstrators during the reformasi period of 1998-2001.

Who would have imagined then that we would one day have a Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) – whose major contribution has been the official legitimacy it has bestowed on the human rights struggle. This was later followed by the Royal Commission’s recommendation to set up an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC).

These were major victories, but unfortunately Suhakam, without any enforcement powers, remains a powerless and conservative toothless tiger while the IPCMC has still not yet been set up – a sad reflection of the current administration.

Fundraising walkathons for bailouts and fighter jets?

Anil Netto
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Most of us have done it while we were in school. You know, taking part in walkathons and donation drives to help the school build a new wing or to carry out urgent repairs. And we usually thought nothing of it and were glad to chip in.

But a friend of mine phoned this evening sounding upset that their child had been asked to take part in a school donation drive.

“No way is my child going from house to house to collect money for the school,” my friend told me. “I have written a letter to the school to tell them that my child is not to be involved in such fund-raising activities. And I told my daughter that if the teacher or the principal is unhappy, they should get in touch with me.”

“I mean, I am paying a lot in income tax; where is all that money going? Why should my child then go from house to house raising money for her (government) school?”

My friend has a point. After all the money the government has wasted on mega projects, our schools are still short of funds – especially schools in the interior areas and many of the Tamil vernacular schools.

But funny how we are never short of funds when it comes to buying the latest multi-million ringgit submarines or advanced fighter jets – or for the latest bailout. How many billions of ringgit have we spent on bailing out failed projects?. Now we have the fiasco over the Klang Port Free Zone – which is proving to be far from “free”. In fact, pretty expensive, if you ask me – a worthy contender for mega scandal of the year.

When was the last time you saw government officials going from house to house, cap in hand, trying to raise funds to buy a fighter jet or to bail out a failed mega project?

This is not a peculiarly Malaysian situation. Take Pakistan, for instance: it allocated US$4.2 billion on “defence” out of its US$21.7 billion federal budget compared to only 2 per cent of GDP on education.

And let’s not even talk about America. Listen to Robert Dreyfuss:

And it’s important to keep in mind that the official Pentagon budget doesn’t begin to tell the full story of American “defense” spending. In addition to the $650 billion that the Pentagon will get in 2008, huge additional sums will be spent on veterans care and interest on the national debt accumulated from previous DOD spending that ballooned the deficit. In all, those two accounts add $263 billion to the Pentagon budget, for a grand total of $913 billion.

Gulp! Nearly US$1 trillion on “defence”.

So I have a suggestion. Instead of donation drives for schools, why don’t we have walkathons to raise funds for the latest fighter jets and bailouts. I am sure the public would gladly chip in for such a good cause.

Look, a minimum wage would spur economic activity

Anil Netto
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Here’s more evidence to show that a minimum wage can actually keep the economy purring.

This time, we go to the United States.

San Francisco-based journalist, Dick Meister, a specialist on labour issues, is actually calling on the US administration to raise the minimum wage there to a more decent level. A minimum wage, far from dampening economic sentiment, could actually spur domestic demand and boost economic activity. Here’s what he has to say:

But what of that other bit of fiction spread by opponents, their flimsy argument that raising the minimum forces employers to eliminate jobs? Don’t you believe it.

Just the opposite has happened after each of the 19 previous times the minimum has been raised since it was initially set at 25 cents an hour in 1938. The job growth has been spurred primarily by the increased spending of those whose pay has been increased.

What’s more, the raises have benefited employers, since increasing workers’ pay raises their morale and, with it, their productivity, while decreasing absenteeism and recruiting and training costs.

Taxpayers would benefit, too, since so much of the billions paid out in public assistance goes to families whose working members do not earn enough at the current minimum wage to be self-supporting.

So isn’t that reason enough for Malaysia to introduce a minimum wage? After 50 years of Merdeka and 44 years of Malaysia, do you seriously think our nation as a whole stands to gain by paying poverty-line wages to hundreds of thousands of long-suffering workers?

Oil running out – and Malaysia allows an energy-intensive smelter

Anil Netto
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The oil is running out.

Yes, in Malaysia too.

By 2010, we will become a net importer of oil. If our domestic demand for petroleum products continues to increase by 4 per cent annually, we will have nothing left over to export as demand will exceed domestic crude oil production.

Many countries around the world are beginning to feel the energy squeeze. As Peak Oil – the slowdown in oil production, which is incapable of meeting rising demand – sets in, the price of oil will soar. The resulting energy squeeze has already hit dozens of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Jeroen van der Veer, the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, has just laid out the “Three hard truths about the world’s energy crisis” and it is sobering food for thought:

  • The first hard truth is that demand is accelerating.
  • The second hard truth is that the growth rate of supplies of “easy oil,” conventional oil and natural gas that are relatively easy to extract, will struggle to keep up with demand.
  • The third hard truth is that increased use of coal will cause higher carbon dioxide emissions possibly to levels we deem unacceptable.

So what do we do? We blow our precious hydro-electric resources on an energy-intensive, polluting (yeah, yeah, it is supposed to be green technology) smelter in Sarawak – a RM7 billion joint venture between Rio Tinto and Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS) – and we all know whom the latter is linked to. (Check out the environmental protests against Rio Tinto’s smelter in Iceland here.)

This smelter will soak up all that surplus electricity from the 2,400MW Bakun Dam, whose power we don’t really need at the moment. Whether the Bakun Dam is really capable of delivering the 2,400MW in electricity is another issue – given that the designated catchment area has been badly degraded through logging and conversion to plantations. (Check out the latest Aliran Monthly for more info on the degradation of the catchment area.)

And what has happened to those grand plans to transmit electricity to the peninsula via submarine cables?

Planning for the Bakun Dam itself has been an unmitigated disaster. The project has been plagued by numerous delays, the scandalous relocation of indigenous people, cost over-runs and now uncertainty over what to do with all that surplus electricity if – and that is a big IF – the dam can really deliver 2,400MW. Ever since they took over the ancestral lands of the indigenous people, you could say the project has been jinxed.

Sime Darby is the lead project manager of the Bakun Dam. It is also one of the key parties involved in the Northern Corridor Economic Region project – and let’s not forget its usual business of managing massive oil palm plantations. Isn’t that a wee bit of an overstretch? And we know what happens when a corporation over-extends itself, don’t we. Last time I checked, Sime Darby hasn’t had a very happy record venturing into non-core activities (think Sime Bank).

The smelter firms no doubt are looking for “cheap, cheap” electricity – but at the electricity tariff rates they desire, can we ever recover the billions of ringgit poured into the bottomless pit known as the Bakun Dam?

Who will take responsibility for this?

What if Jesus had lived in Latin America?

Anil Netto
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I came across this interesting power-point presentation of the Stations of the Cross by Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate from Argentina, and I thought I would share it with you. What is different about these Stations is that the scenes of the Passion are actually contextualised to reflect current day realities.

This particular presentation is set in Latin America with commentary by Alastair McIntosh, a writer, lecturer, social activist, broadcaster and campaigning academic based in Scotland. It is based upon, and builds on, original text from CIDSE agencies (Coopération Internationale pour le Développement et la Solidarité) that distributed the images.

Download the powerpoint presentation here. Amazing how this 2,000-year-old Gospel event can jump to life when set against a backdrop of current day socio-economic realities.

Religious leaders overcome odds to affirm right to water

Anil Netto
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It’s not often that religious leaders come together to take a common stand on an issue of national significance.

Over the years, Aliran organised a couple of seminars – one on corruption and the other on the human being – that looked at these issues from the perspective of the various spiritual traditions.

In recent times, we have seen religious leaders coming together to protest against the invasion of Iraq and, last weekend, to reaffirm the right to water in an interfaith seminar. But this time, the plan by various religious and civil society groups to hold the event at the National Mosque was scuttled at the last moment.

Obviously, some quarters are uncomfortable with the idea of Muslims and non-Muslims putting aside their differences and coming together to take a common stand on an important public interest issue especially at such a prominent landmark as the National Mosque.

In this piece for IPS, I looked at the run-up to the seminar and the last-minute change in venue.

When religious leaders from different faiths sought to jointly affirm the sacredness of wateron scuttle interfaith harmony as well as support plans to privatise a common resource.

Plans to hold the highly symbolic interfaith forum on the right to water at the National Mosque, a major landmark in the capital Kuala Lumpur, on Saturday had to be scuttled when the organisers were suddenly forced to shift the venue to a location five km way.

But, the last-minute change did not stop prominent leaders of the Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, and Sikh faiths from signing a landmark joint declaration on water and affirm that the element is a sacred gift bestowed by the creator to people to be conserved and used to fulfil the basic needs of all living things on earth. Full article: Water a sacred gift, affirm interfaith leaders

Return the denarii to Caesar

Anil Netto
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Christianity should not merely be seen as a spiritual process. There are also the social, cultural and economic dimensions involving the whole human person and his/her relationship with the community.

In the Old Testament, God dramatically intervened in human history to rescue His people from slavery and oppression.

Jesus heralded the reign of God in a more direct fashion. Inevitably, when we choose the side of the poor and criticise injustices, we run into conflict with the interests of the rich and powerful.

This is an excerpt from a piece I wrote for the Herald.

Jesus himself did not set about to upset the powers-that-be during his time. But his message that the Kingdom of God, God’s reign, was at hand was a slap against the sovereignty of Caesar, the Roman Occupiers and Israel’s own worldly rulers. The values that he proclaimed – love, compassion, justice – were diametrically at odds with the values of the Roman Empire (oppression, tyranny and greed).

Seen in that light, Jesus’ message to render to God what was God’s and to render to Caesar what was Caesar’s meant that we should give back to worldly rulers the ultimately worthless and futile pursuits (wealth, greed, ambition) symbolised by the denarii (money and the oppressive economic system). The denarii was to be given back to Caesar, while the people were to go back to their rightful “owner”, God. Through this separation of the tainted denarii from the people of God, it could be said that Jesus was bestowing economic independence on the people – an independence from the oppressive structures of the time.

And that independence was seen in basic communities from the time of the Gospel to the conversion of Constantine. They saw themselves as under God’s direct reign – a reign that, even though dimmed by the later worldly ambitions and oppression of political and church leaders, continues to this day.

In that sense, we are called once again to return to the Gospel in basic communities, to take stock of global challenges and begin the transformation at the local level. This time, the challenges – economic, political, social and cultural – and the oppressive economic system are a thousand times more formidable. Whereas the empire of the Roman world in the Gospels was confined to the known world, today the tentacles of Empire stretch across the globe in the form of neo-liberalism (and other policies which favour the rich over the poor, the capitalist class over the workers), militarism and the arms race, global trade injustice…

Old tram railtrack unearthed along Penang Road

Anil Netto
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The other day I was passing by Penang Road and I noticed some major road excavation work in progress. I looked more closely – and there it was: preserved like an elongated time capsule under the surface of the road were two parallel metal strips right smack in the middle of the road. The old tram track!

This section is probably a continuation of the 50 metres of tram track that was unearthed – and now kept visible – following road and pavement upgrading works in 2004 at the Chulia Street/Penang Road junction.

Let’s hope these discoveries will inspire our urban transport planners to look more closely at the system of trams, which first began running in Penang in the 1880s. These trams later became part of an integrated people-friendly public transport system in the decades that followed.

Reviving the trams will be timely – and it won’t cost much. In fact, Australian tram engineer Ric Francis, author of Penang Trams, Trolleybuses and Railways, estimates that half of the old tram track could be dug out and re-used. One tram could keep 55 cars off the road, he says. Plus it will conserve our fuel, reduce pollution and complement the new public bus service, RapidPenang.

Moreover, trams that blend with the old-world architecture of George Town will surely enhance the heritage value of the inner city, which has the largest collection of pre-war shophouses in South-East Asia.

This is definitely the way to go!

Listen to Francis speaking about Re-introducing the Tramways in Penang – A Proposal for Action on Saturday at 10 am at the Penang Heritage Trust (26, Church Street). For details, phone 04-2642631.

Be there for a fascinating glimpse of what could be possible.

1,800 turn up for MTUC picket in Prai

Anil Netto
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Just heard from Abdul Razak Abdul Hamid, the chairman of MTUC Penang, that some 1,800 workers turned up for the MTUC picket near the Prai Industrial Estate, adding their voices to the call for a RM900 minimum wage and a RM300 cost of living allowance.

This exceeds the turnout for the earlier 25 June picket, in which some 1,000 workers took part.

Razak said that a few more new groups joined in today’s picket. He added that similar pickets were also held in about half a dozen locations across the country – Ipoh, KL (in three locations), Johor, Sabah and Sarawak.

So the issue is not dying out – there is still disquiet among the low-income working class. And a general election is looming.

The ball is now in PM Abdullah Badawi’s court.

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