When 'Ubah' Was An Impossible Dream.

As I write this post the sun is rising in Malaysia on a new day and I will be going to bed soon because it is the end of the day in the UK. There is something ironic about that. I left Malaysia 32 years ago and although I now live thousands of miles away I am excited at the prospect of 'Ubah' ('change' in the Malay language)becoming a reality on 0505.

The election or GE13 as it has become known, I suspect, will be a political milestone for the manifestation of Malaysian unity all over the world. I don't think I am alone in hoping for Ubah while living in a foreign land. You may wonder why this is important for someone who does not experience daily life under a regime that many Malaysians experience as being corrupt and authoritarian. I may not live there now but I did live the daily  life of state-led grind for many years. When the news only told one story, whether on TV or in print and when no one was allowed to question the actions of Mahathir because he had a God-like status. Being seen as a 'rebel' for questioning government actions was no fun.

On  my subsequent trips back to Malaysia I couldn't understand why Malaysians voted BN in time after time. The low point for Malaysia, in my humble opinion, was when Anwar Ibrahim was beaten up in jail after being arrested. Many even believed the government's accusations that Anwar had beaten himself up in jail to attract international sympathy.

Then something happened and I think it must have been soon after Anwar's acquittal but there was a slow change of people's minds where once the state had held a stronghold on people's thoughts and political opinions. It has been remarkable to watch. I have been deeply moved by the comments left in their hundreds by people desperate for change, who have finally realised that the true 'cost' of democracy is full and equal rights and not secondary rights given at the will of authority. The cost of democracy? There is no cost, actually. That was another bit of fear mongering to make people resistant to change.

Ubah, Ubah and Ubah. Get out there and vote for Anwar and his coalition and experience Ubah like never before. I shall be sitting on the computer all through the night (Saturday night UK time) reading about what's happening and willing you all on while voting takes place. Do it for Malaysians all over the world. More importantly, do it for yourself and your children. 

The Jim Royle Take on Welfare

Below is a fantastic article written by Ricky Tomlinson in the Guardian that debunks the welfare myths. 

I urge you to read the rest on the site.  

"Welfare reform, my arse. Has Jim Royle parked his chair, feet up, telly on, in the corridors between the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions? Employing him as adviser can be the only explanation for the utter rubbish that boils forth from this government on welfare.

Who else could have dreamed up the bedroom tax, a policy so stupid it forces people to leave their homes and drag themselves around the country in search of nonexistent one-bedroom flats?

That one has to be the result of too many hours in front of Jeremy Kyle (no offence) with the heating on full and a can of super-strength lager. It seems as if that is how this government views ordinary people: feckless and useless – poor, because they brought it on themselves, deliberately.

Maybe the cabinet is confused. Twenty-three millionaires in the one room can get like that. But do you know what, enough. Let's call this government's welfare policy what it is – wrong, nasty and dishonest.

Off the top of my head, I can list 10 porkies they are spinning to justify the latest stage of their attack on our 70-year-old welfare state."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/02/ten-lies-told-about-welfare

Good Friday Pop Up Church Waterloo Station

I must have had the most amazing of Good Friday experiences when I was part of this pop church at Waterloo Station this morning. It was organised by The Oasis Church, run by Rev Steve Chalke, and supported by the churches in Lambeth, London. We normally gather underneath the clock in Waterloo Station and sing hymns in a sedate manner but this time the service set the station alight with the banging of steel drums. Hundreds gathered to watch. It was a testament to the innovation that lies in the way the Christian message can be spread.

What, no limousine?

Amid the vast coverage on the election of Pope Francis one story seems to stand out most prominently in the way it is being repeated countless times. This story is about limousines. When Pope Francis was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he shunned limousines and, instead, travelled around in buses. This simple fact is being repeated as some piece of stark evidence to demonstrate that the Pope is a man of the poor. Further credence is given to this 'man of the poor' image by more stories about how he lived in a simple apartment and cooked his own meals.

What I want to know is how all this stacks up to the new Pope actually fighting the causes of poverty as well as empathising with the outcomes of poverty? Is he going to advocate the use of contraception so that poor parents will actually be able to feed the children that they already have instead of spreading the gloom of hunger to all their brood? Is he going to get involved with the social policies of those countries where the Catholic religion is heavily interwoven into the government social policy making processes so as to create inequalities?

Eamon Duffy who is Professor of the History of Christianity at Cambridge University writes in today's Times' newspaper that Pope Francis is 'no liberal' because he 'sternly resisted the social and religious radicalism' that swept through the order of the Argentinian Jesuits in the 1970s.

I wait to see whether Pope Francis will make a difference in an ever increasing world of global inequalities.

My Life As A Disability Advocate

Blogging the week: learning disability charity CEO Jane Chelliah

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ouch/2013/02/blogging_the_week_learning_dis.html


The link will take you to 'The Ouch' blog on the BBC website. I was asked to write a guest post on my experience as CEO of a charity called Powerhouse. 

The 'Blame' Game over AIDS

The weareUs organisation which is a Christian charity has produced a marvellous booklet called 'Pray With Us'. The theme for this week is Luke 4:14-21 and the entry has been written by Canon Gideon B Byamugisha, an Anglican priest in Uganda who is HIV positive. Canon Gideon writes about how people who were HIV positive were hectored at a World AIDS Day in Uganda. in 2012. There were no words of comfort for the sufferers but ridicule and the blame game which accused them of adultery and promiscuity.

Canon Gideon writes: 'In Luke 4, Jesus chose to quote from Isaiah at a time when religion, morality and scripture had been hijacked by the status quo to preserve the rights of the privileged, while denying the vulnerable rightful access to resources, knowledge and services that would help protect them against life-threatening realities in Israel.'

The 'Blame' game is becoming ever more pervasive. The poor are blamed for their poverty, the disabled are blamed for their disability and the sick are blamed for being sick. The blame game is all about shifting responsibilities. When the question is posed as to what 'Jesus would have done?' in this modern age of social injustice Luke 4 reminds me that nothing in our circumstances maybe new but our attitudes can be renewed and refreshed through wearing the lens of Christianity. 

Sex 365 Days In A Row

A couple who live in Colorado, USA, had sex for 365 days in a year. Yes, you read that right. A full year of full on coupling everyday. They did it because they believe that 'sex is the glue that keeps you together'. They have three children - yes, three children - but persevered through all the stresses and strains of normal living which usually just makes couples want to go to bed to SLEEP.

Charla and Brad Muller (pictured above) went on to write a book about the experience titled: '365 Nights: a Memoir of Intimacy'. Before any of you jump to conclusions about the sort of books that I read I must tell you that I have never read this book nor had I heard about it until an interview was published in The Guardian newspaper.

If you are wondering what the Christian angle is in this story well, Charla was inspired during a bible group session when reading Galatians 5:22 -23: 'But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control'. When I read that particular piece of scripture I normally think of jolly old fashioned greeting cards that used to carry beautiful poems written by Helen Steiner Rice. Sex? Nah!

The 'project' (their word) was Charla's gift to her husband on his 40th birthday on the premise that 'if intimacy everyday may not be a long-term sustainable model, neither is no intimacy at all'. They had reached a point in their lives where they, apparently, realised that intimate spontaneity was never going to be a factor so they opted for forced intimacy instead.

I think this couple are plain bonkers based on the simple premise that one can have too much of a good thing before the law of diminishing returns sets in. Also, intimacy comes from talking and sharing one's experiences and very few couples seem to realise that emotional intimacy is an important 'glue' too. Sex can even be the lazy option for intimacy.  Talking and listening demands far more of one's spirit especially if it demands compromise from one partner.