I see you have some nice information about music and entertainment….

In case you don’t know, 20 hours of battery life refers to music…

Thanks for pointing out the typo in the link to Kassim Ahmad’s website. I have corrected it.
Bakri Musa

about the two personalities, hang tuah and hang jebat. it is not important whether they are legendary figures whose existence cannot be proved, whether they once walked the earth or whether they are figments of our imagination etc (people like baju argues that it is all dongeng, cerita cerita melayu lama etc putting down kassim ahmad, calling him names just because he chooses to express his opinion - but clearly he misses the point).

they are symbolic of the kind of change we want for our community. do we work for change from within or from without. one favours a slow orderly process and the other a more tumultuous type of change in the form of a popular movement.

how many times have we heard so and so says it is better to accept the status quo but work to change the system from within. only to be betrayed in as many times by these people.
how do you think these people came to occupy leadership positions within UMNO, only to betray the very people who put them there?

we have given a chance for the likes of hang tuah to work to bring about change within our malay community. they failed. they only succeeded in bringing change to their lives - and those of their mistresses.

it is time we call out the hang jebat in all of us, to spearhead the kind of change we look for. the appearance of hang jebat on the scene is never too late.

but note the keris wielded by a certain personality recently. it is gold in colour and is diamond studded. he is hang tuah. make no mistake about it.

“to say that malays are descendants not of slaves but terrorists is not far from the truth.

pls substitute “terrorists” for “pirates”.

thank you.

it’s good to know that you are at peace with who you are. very few of us are that fortunate. like you said i am still in the throes of yet a new crisis. disappearing into the sunset is but a journey everyone takes in life. that’s the easier part of it. it’s how we do it. do we ride on horseback or on the back of a water buffalo?

talking about ancestry, the malays are not a homogenous lot - and malaysia is something like a melting pot. we have our brothers from sumatra, aceh and from rhiau, from as far as sulawesi selatan. some are descendants of pirates (they say those from sulawesi, like the ancestors of sultan pahang, tun razak and sultan of johor) who once terrorised the seas. to say that malays are descendants not of slaves but terrorists is not far from the truth. some are like yourself - from a distinguished like of indian muslim traders who, it would not be an exaggeration to say, introduced islam to pulau pinang. i would like to believe that the term ‘mamak’ today is not used in a derogatory sense like it once was.

i can trace my ancestry some 500 years back - to the time when kedah was a southern province of thailand, until the british changed all that. and your family came and settled down in bakaq bata.

how is your brother malek?

the truth is the malays are still looking for themselves. they know not who they are. they are in the middle of a massive identity crisis if you will. but let’s not intellectualise too much over this one issue - lest we miss the bigger picture, missing the wood from the trees.

speaking of identity crisis, the babas and nyonyas from and of malacca have yet to resolve their own. there is a real identity crisis. dont you think they have a stronger right to be called natives or malays even. they speak malay at home, follow malay customs. can they be said to profess the malay religion? yes, in some cases”. you dont think they fit the constitutional definition of a ‘malay’?

when we say, “malay minds”, do we know what we are talking about? i would like to believe so. as to whether we do, that is another matter.

cheers

I’m very grateful for the link to Mr Ahmad’s website, though. I was looking for a copy of his thesis in English but could not find it. Is there some way I can get a hold of it?

Please email me at the address provided, if possible. Thanks!