Narratives @najahnasseri.org

I’m sure you’ll do great, despite the rocky start to the week… Muahs!

Okay, maybe not ‘hot’ in terms of what one would expect from a hot party, but this was one of the hottest days in the year (though it’s expected to get hotter), and it was a pretty fun party despite the heat.

Hamzah and Haydar celebrated their 3rd birthday on the 3rd of May and Farinda and Nasir hosted a great soccer themed party for the boys. There was a kicking competition and pinatas for both the kiddies and the dads and great goodie bags (oh how I wish I could get Idris to wear his adorable t-shirt!).

The rest are in the pictures:

(note: the second picture is proof that Idris said a du’a for the boys during the Happy Birthday song!)

Photo 1: Nasir and Farinda
Photo 2: The Dads Pinata session (the kids did a lot better… heh!)
Photo 3: Nasir having a go at the pinata.

Photo 1: Safa having a go at the pinata.
Photo 2: Goodies Galore!
Photo 3: Idris going for the goodies after the bigger kids did all the work breaking through the pinata.

Photo 1: Kicking Competition
Photo 2: Party Popperz at work
Photo 3: The Birthday Boys

Auditor: Balkis never submitted accounts
Apr 28, 08 8:58pm

The external auditors appointed to go through and verify the accounts of the Wives of Selangor Assemblymen and MPs Welfare and Charity Organisation (Balkis) never received any documents from them for auditing last year.

In a statement issued today, chartered accountant Yee Choon Kong said Balkis failed to send in its financial records for last year including bank statements, official receipt books, payment vouchers, supporting documents, fixed deposit receipts, minutes of meetings, details of membership and subscription list.

“My firm, on a number of occasions, had called Balkis treasurer Suraimi Haji Sapuan to request them to send in (these documents) to our office to enable us to conduct the annual financial audit in respect of the financial year ending Dec 31, 2007.

“Our calls to the treasurer remain unanswered and thereby confirm that the financial statements of Balkis remain unaudited. Neither have I issued a signed audit report (for last year) nor have I finalised Balkis accounts before its funds were transferred,” he explained.

khir toyo 181207The Kuala Lumpur-based audit firm owned by Yee was rebutting former Selangor menteri besar Dr Mohd Khir Toyo (left) claims that Balkis’s 2007 accounts had been audited and the organisation had the right to transfer its funds without an auditor’s approval under its constitution.

Read the rest here. MM talks more about it here.

And then there’s more centralisation of funds - from the SEDCs to Mara. There are two questions I would ask: the first and most obvious one is, why discriminate against Pakatan state governments on this matter too (remember the tourism fund fiasco?). The second one would be: one would assume that SEDC funds would be available for the economic development of the state in general, whereas Mara is an organisation whose aims is to develop Bumiputras (unless they have changed their mission statement recently). Upon checking, no, they haven’t:

Objektif: Menggalak, membimbing, melatih dan membantu Bumiputera, khususnya di luar bandar, supaya menyertai dengan aktif dalam kegiatan perdagangan dan perusahaan ke arah membentuk masyarakat usahawan Bumiputera yang berdaya tahan, profesional dan kukuh.

Okay, so what’s going on here?

Character is not an item of knowledge which can be taught through learning or imitation. It is a conquest made during life through personal exercise and through personal experience. Two things are necessary in education. The first is to study man who, as Dr. Carrel expressed it, is still an unknown. The second thing is to help man in his normal development. For this, all the laws and energies put there by nature for the creation of man must be utilised. It is, therefore, necessary to know man from birth itself, to be aware of the processes of development through the different epochs of life, or, better still, to have a scientific knowledge of all the phases of growth from birth till maturity is reached.

This is what education ought to be; an education which starts from birth and which is based upon the knowledge of the psychology of human growth; an education which aims at giving the means and creating the conditions required for the development of man himself. It is evident that, as man is a living being of a determined species, his education must fundamentally be common to all humanity. This education must be based upon freedom, because it is necessary to respect the laws of development. This education must be based upon independence, because if man is dependent, he does not exist as a functioning individual. The purpose of this education is the development of character so as to make man master of himself and sure of his actions.

…Moral education, which is so necessary today, must insist upon the appreciation of civilisation rather than upon the appreciation of the character of one’s country or of one’s race, as has been the case in the past. Civilisation was created by man the intellectual, man the worker, and man the genius, who carried out a mission of progress, urged by extraordinary energies. It is man that must be appreciated irrespective of race or country - the man who has influenced progress, as well as the man who, by his work, kept up this loftier environment in which all humanity lived.

The new education must foster a new understanding of the real values of humanity and gratitude must be felt for those workers upon whom human life depends. If man is not appreciated, if there is no respect and veneration for human life, how can we expect or hope that men will become friends and work in peaceful collaboration?

There is something more. There is also the fact that if one has grown up with a veneration for humanity, one will not consent to become an unconscious, destructive force to destroy humanity. Men will not lend themselves to those erroneous ways which foolishly destroy the creators and maintainers of everything that provides for their existence. They will be unwilling to use the supernatural and universal powers which they possess for a cosmic cataclysm to destroy the fruits of civilisation. Having developed a conscience and sentiment towards human life, they will be incapable of cruelty; for cruelty belongs to a dead soul. …men conscious of the value of humanity will refuse to obey an insane and absurd command as the one to destroy those who produce and maintain the civilisation in which we all live.

Through all this shine forth the necessity and importance of educating the child. The child must not be considered as he is today, in his apparent weakness in relation to us. He must be considered in his power of potential man. Every human being is the result of the growth of the child; as every tree, even if gigantic, originated from the seed which potentially contained it…

Dr Maria Montessori

© AMI, 2001

From Dr Montessori’s ‘A New World and Education’

While America isn’t exactly the bastion for democracy unless it’s in a movie, there are still many lessons on democracy, the democratic process and what that means to the minority Muslim community there that Muslims elsewhere can learn from.

In addressing the “American Muslim Community’s ‘Obama’ Problem”, Firas Ahmad has raised some pertinent issues for Muslims elsewhere in the world, in view of the much larger “Muslim Community Problem”.

The American Muslim Community’s “Obama” Problem

How do you root for a candidate who doesn’t want you to root for him?

by FIRAS AHMAD

As Obamamania continues to capture the imagination of the United States, parts of the American Muslim community are no less overcome by the Illinois senator’s charismatic and overpowering vision for change. It makes sense. He is a man of diverse ethnic background who seeks dialogue over war, who can credibly represent change given his independence from establishment politics and whose life story suggests an intimate understanding of the Muslim world. In many ways he represents more than Muslims could have hoped for given the radioactive nature of Islam in America over the past several years. Someone who seemingly has a sympathetic ear and background that could build bridges.

But for many reasons, Muslims are one constituency Obama does not want to court.

In actual fact, Muslims the world over has a bad name. The Malay adage holds true - kerana nila setitik, rosak susu sebelanga, and as much as we can talk till we’re blue (or green) in the face about how extremists do not represent Islam and is but a tiny minority of the 1.2 billion of us in this world, there is a reason why we still have a bad reputation, and it’s not all about Zionist/Illuminati conspiracy theories, nor is it a sign that we should just wait till Qiamat arrives.

The only reason a candidate like Obama would not say something nice about Muslims is because he is making a clear political calculation. The votes he would gain from Muslims are far less than the votes he would lose from his association with Muslims. This should be startling. Unfortunately it has not initiated the kind of discussion within the community necessary to change these political ramifications for candidates in the future. To be fair, other candidates have lost votes based on their religious affiliation. Romney, a practicing Mormon, could have had a much better shot as the Republican nominee if he were from a Protestant denomination. But in terms of public perception, Muslims are a whole other category of disrepute. We are not talking about a Muslim candidate, we are talking about supporting a candidate who denies any connection, real or perceived, to Islam.

It could be that talking till we’re blue in the face is not enough. It could be that being quietly compliant while giving up our democratic right to live as Muslims is not enough, nor would it make us more ‘acceptable’ to mainstream society. On this, the author has some very good suggestions for Muslim communities in the US, which is more than relevant in other parts of the world.

Policy and political decision making in America is not decided entirely on Capitol Hill. It is decided in the complex interaction of think tanks, academic institutions, book stands, radio shows, the evening news, newspapers, editorial pages, opinion polls, Hollywood blockbusters and much more. It is the confluence and interaction of all these institutions that inform how politicians behave, not the other way around. Politicians are simply seeking votes, and votes are determined by people’s inclinations, perceptions, prejudices and perspectives. If you want to win politicians, you have to build constituencies by changing the way people think.

If Muslims do not want to suffer the indignation of political irrelevance for many elections to come, instead of giving money to politicians, they should start investing in journalism scholarships. They should establish fellowships for Muslim academics to take a year off and write a book for a general audience, and then back them up with a PR firm to get the book on a best seller list. They should invest in publications that demonstrate a breadth and depth of thinking on a range of issues. They should invest in think tanks that analyze public issues and present actual value to the overall public discussion. All of these institutions exist right now for Muslims in America. But for the most part they are underfunded, underappreciated and undervalued. Because the community in general has not rallied behind them, they are for the most part invisible. Because they are invisible, Muslims are effectively invisible when it comes to Obama or any other serious candidate.

I would say that these suggestions have wider consequences in our part of the world, where extremists could be ‘reborn’ in our own backyards (or the next HDB block). By investing in the information and political process as it is set up today, we would also be reaching out to other Muslims, who when starved of a range of perspectives and a living role model to look up to, would hopefully not google an Al-Qaeda manual.