Hans Rosling debunks the myths. See his amazing statistics in video.
Next, Third World mentality:
That, above, was Taslima Nasrin of Bangladesh in India recently. She says religion, including Islam, does not respect women, so several Islamists were trying to beat her into changing her mind.
It could well happen in Malaysia and it does happen, notably during the Article 11 (freedom of religion) forums. Online, it happens everyday at Raja Petra Kamarudin’s Malaysia Today site.
Before that, a recent sample of Raja Petra’s “writings”. On Zaid Ibrahim:
The rising star of Umno Kelantan is maverick Datuk Mohd Zaid Ibrahim. ‘Controversy’ can be said to be Zaid’s middle name. He not only opposes the Islamic party PAS’ Islamic State, but he is also a fierce defender of freedom of religion, which certainly does not go down well with the majority of Malaysia’s Muslims who want apostasy (murtad) to be outlawed. In fact, Zahid not only offends the Islamists, but he also rubs his own ruling party, Umno, the wrong way, resulting in disciplinary action being taken against him. Zaid is certainly a ‘loose cannon’ of the first degree.
On Muhammad Muhammad Taib (but Raja Petra goes on an excursion about the Chinese. This is a favourite backhanded device; to deflect accusations against him, he points the finger elsewhere. In this case, he wants to show he has “balls”, or scrotum. Malaysian speech make up for its intellectual emptiness often with genital references; recall the menstruation remarks in Parliament by Umno MPs.)
[P]lease don’t get taken in by those Kung Fu movies of one hero facing 100 evil people and beating these 100 people with just one punch. The Chinese are scared shit. They do not dare get involved in anything perceived as anti-government. They will manufacture porn. They will act as pimps and run brothels. They will traffic in drugs. They will assassinate MCA leaders and underworld leaders (most times they are one and the same). They will run illegal lotteries and gambling operations. They will run loan sharking businesses and burn your house down and kidnap your children if you do not pay. They will rob banks and goldsmith shops. This, they dare do. But they will never manufacture anti-government VCDs. And they will never, ever host Malaysia Today on their servers.
After that Raja Petra’s cohorts join in the fray and attack anybody who challenges their headman. Here is a random sampling of reader comments:
anakpontian wrote: I agree with Raja Petra that CHINESE HAVE NO BALLS…. CHINESE HAVE NO BALLS CHINESE HAVE NO BALLS… WHY..? CHINESE DARE NOT SPEAK UP AGAINST UMNO READ MCA AND GERAKAN DARE NOT SPEAK UP FOR CHINESE….
hakim abdullah wrote: Mr. Tee, you need to read properly before jumping off. Action does speak louder than words so instead of rambling rubbish, show everyone what kind of balls you possess by making Chinese unite together and fight againts corruption in our political system
Hockchew wrote: Benny Cheah, go drnk your mama’s milk.
joseph81 wrote: Most Chinese has no balls, so in general speaking Chinese has no balls, sad but true, RPK was right.
tellmewhy wrote: Dear Benny, Anyone who has followed RPK thus far will vouch for his honesty and no-holds-barred comments.
All that is standard, juvenile Malaysian intellectual fare. It also represents a cross-section of Malaysian male attitudes and vernacular life, especially since Malaysia Today is supposedly one of, if not, the most popular national blog. Raja Petra’s ”writings” draw a large following, and vocal ones at that demanding for political, economic and social change. They also constitute, alarmingly, the ingredients of civil society.
But the man leads the pack not with profound ideas – there is nothing even remotely of the sort – but with vileness. His cohorts repeat after him. And in Malaysia vileness speaks with the fist, even online. Whisper a dissenting thought, they shout you down. At an open forum, you are likely to get the Taslima treatment, so it isn’t just Islamists who want to beat up others they don’t like or don’t agree.
Yet they are the same ones shouting for freedom and democracy from a regime they say is oppressive and inept: they are the exact mirror reflections of those they accuse. Imagine then if they or the likes of them have any say in the running of the country… it would make no difference.
Little wonder, Malaysia is a mess.
