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Blue Ocean strategy vs. our blood-red sea

BY: Azly Rahman

    “… Because blue and red oceans have always coexisted however, practical reality demands that companies succeed in both oceans and master the strategies for both. But because companies already understand how to compete in red oceans, what they need to learn is how to make the competition irrelevant.”
    – Kim and Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy, pg. 190

    You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
    – Mahathma Gandhi

Leaders are fond of discussing management concepts and theories of social change and next, apply them to political paradigms.

They do this within the framework of Structural-Functionalism in which society is seen as a stable entity such as in the case of ‘power transfers’ and the ‘transitions of hegemony’.

Oftentimes political leaders and their opinion leaders, technocrats, intelligentsia, speech-writers, perception managers, and other members of the regime will embrace new ideas to help fine-tune the political economic structure of the old regime and help sustain the base and superstructure of the power arrangements. Continue reading “Blue Ocean strategy vs. our blood-red sea”

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Entering the Malay mind

by Azly Rahman

[Lecture notes of a recent speech given to Malaysian students in New York]

In this digital age of postmodernity, hypertextuality, alienation, and of chaos and complexity in which the historical march of capitalism has dictated the way nations think, it is becoming difficult for us to understand how the mind of a people work – unless we build a metaphysical chariot (like the one Krishna prepared for Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurusektra) to journey into it, through the eyes that will also bring us through their soul. At strategic points in that much the soul is corrupted by the material condition created by those who own the means of controlling the march of “progress” and the definition of “history”. At every epoch in the history of nations, there will be those who will be clueless of what they exist for and who they exist for; marginalized by those who have a better command of the art and science of social control and in the art of war.

I realize that the above sentences, for some, are dense and complex and require clarifications through simpler language; but like the monologue of Colonel Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola’s classic, “Apocalypse Now,” we ought to try to understand the meaning of such a statement. Like James Joyce’s stream of consciousness, sentences may flow gracefully with intensity. Continue reading “Entering the Malay mind”

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Obama for Putrajaya

by Azly Rahman

“…Haji Ramli Street was a dirt lane where Obama used to while away the hours kicking a soccer ball. In the long rainy season, it turned to thick, mucky soup; Obama and his friends wore plastic bags over their shoes to walk though it,” said Adi, who at 46 is the same age as Obama….

“Neighborhood Muslims worshiped in a nearby house, which has since been replaced by a larger mosque. Sometimes, when the muezzin sounded the call to prayer, Lolo and Barry would walk to the makeshift mosque together.

… “His mother often went to the church, but Barry was Muslim. He went to the mosque. I remember him wearing a sarong,” said Adi. – reported by Paul Watson in The Baltimore Sun, March 16, 2007

“… given the increasing diversity of America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers. …

And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools?

Would we go with James Dobson’s, or Al Sharpton’s? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination?

How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount – a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defence Department would survive its application?”
– Barack Obama Call to renewal: keynote address June 28, 2006

Barack Hussein Obama for prime minister of Malaysia? Continue reading “Obama for Putrajaya”

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I think, therefore I perish

by Azly Rahman

Cogito ergo, sum
– Rene Descartes

Rene Descartes the 17th century French philosopher and mathematician, in his most famous essay Meditations and A Treatise on Methods proposed the separation of mind and body in our conceptualisation of human nature paving way for the evolution of scientific method in the way we study phenomena.

Sense perception alone is not capable of understanding Nature, thought process separate from the physical entity of the self make understanding Reality complete, according to Descartes.

The ideology of thinking is now known as Cartesian paradigm.

From Cartesian paradigm the idea of falsification and determining of truth-ness of a study evolve, later known as the Scientific Method.

Cogito Ergo Sum, or “I think therefore I exist”, according to Descartes. For the layperson this may mean that it is the independence of thought that determine the nature of existence.

It is through the encouragement of thinking that human existence is celebrated. It is through doubting and dissenting that human beings will be defined as thinking beings. Continue reading “I think, therefore I perish”

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Culture reinvestigated — or must we preserve age-old traditions?

by Azly Rahman

The festive season brings me to this argument I am having silently with myself: Must core values of a society be preserved, through the rites and rituals and pomp and pageantry of that elusive concept called ‘culture’? Race theorists would call for a debate between the ‘Essentialist’ and the ‘Progressive’ schools of thought on culture.

In looking at the question of Cultural Essentialism, the arguments for and against it, on whether adherence to this concept divides or unites, and lastly to offer my own view on this important concept, I begin with the general statement that “Cultural Essentialism” is the belief that in every civilised society or a cultural group, exists a core culture which governs the ‘life sustaining’ forces of that particular culture.

From the core, moral or religious doctrines are derived, cosmological views or metaphysical conceptions are drawn, knowledge bases are founded, principles and ethos are constructed, and socialising agents as cultural values transmitters are established. So that the core culture can continue to be passed down from one generation to the next in order for society to be maintained of its order and harmony although technological, political, economic, and ideological winds of change may be sweeping seasonally into the core culture’s residence. Continue reading “Culture reinvestigated — or must we preserve age-old traditions?”

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Hadhari, human rights, hypocrisy

by Azly Rahman

The General Assembly proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member-States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.- Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948
Free Raja Petra Kamarudin and all the ISA detainees. Abolish the ISA. This is my appeal to the current regime.

How do we continue to live with the contradiction of being a ratifier of the UDHR and still hold on to the Internal Security Act (ISA) as an instrument of oppression? At home, how must we live with this hypocrisy of jailing without trial our noble citizens such as Raja Petra Kamaruddin and yet abroad speak out against Guantanamo Bay in the platform of world affairs?

When Malaysian leaders go abroad and give speeches at the United Nations or the Malaysian embassies for example, they often argue that Malaysians have their own way of dealing with human rights issues. Continue reading “Hadhari, human rights, hypocrisy”

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Race Relations Act – why now?

By Azly Rahman

This sounds like a good idea; but after 51 years of independence?

We should have had this act to prevent the emergence of race-based parties and to ensure that all citizens be given equal opportunity and the rights and privileges accorded to them as a result of surrendering their natural rights to the state.

After 51 years of the institutionalisation of ethnocentrism and many times outright racism in terms of allocation of resources, open-secret indoctrinations, and the exploitation of racial and religious issues for political gain, we are now proposing an act to improve race-relations?

I am now puzzled – by the inherent contradictions we are confronting and will continue to confront vis-à-vis this proposed act. Continue reading “Race Relations Act – why now?”

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We are all class-ed multiculturalists now!

By: Azly Rahman

Growing up in a Malay kampong in Johor Bahru, having been born in a British Military hospital in Singapore, schooled in Kuantan, Seremban, Shah Alam and moving from one realm of cultural experience to the next, living in from one enclave to another in the process of being schooled and in the process of being and becoming an educator, ending up in a town a half and hour’s drive from New York City where I have lived for several years, I sometimes wonder if all these makes me a “cultural construction” of “multi-ethnicity” or a “Malay” still? Or — how “Malay” am I still? Or — what is a Malay”? as I would ask what is an “American”?

Here in the United States where I teach a course called “Cross-Cultural Perspectives” in which trying to engage my students in the works of Edward Said, Clifford Geertz, Renato Rosaldo, and the like, I find myself again, having to interrogate my “subjectivity and objectivity” as a “culturally-constructed being” in my attempt to play the role of Socrates in dialogue with my students in our exploration of the multiple meaning of culture.

Each semester is a learning experience, teaching me newer ideas of what “culture, race, and ethnicity” means. I look forward to the intensive classroom discussions by the “hybrid and hyphenated human beings” in my class — those whose family background present a rich tapestry of ethnicity in a sea of creativity called the human race.

I have had pure Afghans, Colombians, Puerto Ricans, Turks, Greeks, Irish, Australians, Ghanaian, Nigerian, Russian, Israeli, Cuban, Iranian, Taiwanese, mainland Chinese, Australian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian, Jamaican, Egyptian, Bangladeshi, Saudi Arabian, and a hybrid of all many of these. There were Indonesians too. But no Malaysians yet. Continue reading “We are all class-ed multiculturalists now!”

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When tomorrow comes

by Azly Rahman

“The only permanent thing is change” – Lao Tzu

During Mahathirism in the 1980s – change management ideology pervaded the psyche of the civil service sector. The ideology was enculturalised by the corporate sector and universities picked up the trend and fashioned it into their mission statement, pedagogical processes, and curriculum. Everybody was taught to speak the language of change.

During that time too, circa 1985-1995, even high school students were taught visioning strategies and how to manage change.

Literature of change management, i.e. to change to corporate culture, to change to a society run on cybernetics/information technology became hugely popular.

Knowledge of visioning strategies were brought to the grassroots and even kampong people were in tune with the basic ideas of change sometimes equating it with the Arabic words “islah” and “hijrah” to denote and connote “reforming oneself” and “pilgrimag-ising oneself”.

The Malay word “perubahan paradigma” became perhaps the most popular word on television, as its use signified a “better level of intelligence” as perceived by Malaysians imbued with “corporatist ideology”. Continue reading “When tomorrow comes”

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Set Raja Petra free – this true defender of Islam and the rights of many

by Azly Rahman

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d.

— from William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Saudara RPK,

I hope they are treating you well, in this holy month of Ramadhan that is turning our nation into our Ramallah.

I write in a state of being free while you languish in sadness incarcerated by those in their dying days breathing painfully.

They say that you are anti-Islam and anti-government. The are wrong on both counts. You are a great defender not only of Islam but of other faiths. You are a great defender of a sane government yet to be installed and one that will gladly set you free.

They are fearing not you nor the voices of conscience no longer in the wilderness; they are fearing themselves – their Inner Self – that they are answering to in their scramble to satisfy their greed for material wealth and lust for power.

They have not made you a bankrupt, RPK. They themselves are drowned in riches that will bury them.

Sdr. RPK. I hope your incarceration will be brief. So too will be of the others.

The rakyat feels that the present government will not be the one freeing you. A new one will. Continue reading “Set Raja Petra free – this true defender of Islam and the rights of many”

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A Merdeka upside down?

by Azly Rahman

“Our Nation, Malaysia is dedicated to: Achieving a greater unity for all her people; maintaining a democratic way of life; creating a just society in which the wealth of the nation shall be equitably distributed; ensuring a liberal approach to her rich and diverse cultural tradition, and building a progressive society which shall be oriented to modern science and technology.

We, the people of Malaysia, pledge our united efforts to attain these ends, guided by these principles:

• Belief in God

• Loyalty to King and Country

• Upholding the Constitution

• Sovereignty of the Law, and

• Good Behaviour and Morality”

– From the Rukunegara, circa 1970

The words above constructed and proclaimed in 1970, after the bloody riots of May 13, 1969, contain internal contradictions if we are to analyse them today.

As we approach Aug 31, our independence or Merdeka Day, we read the following stories: Continue reading “A Merdeka upside down?”

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MARA is progress not fascism

by Azly Rahman

Mara means “to advance (forward)”. It is the opposite of “retreat” and the declaration of defeat. It does not mean Undur.

Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) must live up to its name. So must its younger brother Maktab Rendah Sains MARA. It is in the interest of the public to suggest good ideas for reform – and to advance.

In my lifetime I have been affiliated with both organisations. I taught in the former institution and I was schooled in the latter. Whether a product of historical accident or not, I am proud of my experiences in both. There is a reason for things to happen. I came from a poor family and was given the chance to have an education I wish many more Malaysians, my parents included.

But I wish to share my view on this troubling phenomenon that is plaguing a certain segment of the Malays. My argument will be largely linguistic.

What is the Malay view of the recent protest of UiTM student – of those young “men-in-black” whose are mourning and calling for the death of reason and rationality and for critical sensibility?

I think Malays in general are angry at the protesters. I think they are embarrassed that those few thousands of Malay students were displaying their ignorance of what Universiti Mara means. Continue reading “MARA is progress not fascism”

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Brand new era for Universiti Teknologi MARA?

BY Azly Rahman

We must congratulate the present leadership of Selangor for suggesting that Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) be open to non-Bumiputeras; a good suggestion indeed and UiTM students and alumni should in fact be proud that such a statement of hope and reconciliation is made public.

More than merely ten percent should be allocated for Malaysians of other ethnic groups. This is indeed and excellent way to begin restructuring our public universities so that they can become truly global and embrace multiculturalism as a pillar of intellectual pride.

This will be in tune with the spirit of the The Beijing 2008 Olympics in which there will be competition amongst the races. Way too long the Malay students in UiTM have been unfairly denied the opportunity to collaborate and cooperate with their peers from other ethnic groups in the learning process. They have been shackled in a place wherein the only ideology they know is one of “Ketuanan Melayu”; a concept that is a contradiction to what a university must aspire to become. The 3-4 years of their wonderful college experience should provide them the skills to work in a multicultural environment.
Continue reading “Brand new era for Universiti Teknologi MARA?”

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The future of our interfaith dialogue

by Azly Rahman

Must engaging in dialogue on religion be painful? Must it be greeted with hostility? Or is it a moot question—that the answer lies in what we failed to have done through our education system, decades ago?

I have faith that we will one day be ready to appreciate interfaith dialogue. On this note, I too believe that we will one day appreciate philosophical discussions and scientific debates. My experience conducting interfaith dialogue every semester in the American classroom setting gives me the assurance that we will be ready. It would be good to one day know that our corridors of academia are filled with passionate discussions on the self, the universe, God, and fate of humanity.

The core of each religious foundation is there for us to explore and to learn from. We need to escape from being trapped in the particular and liberate ourselves into explorers of the universal. Of course this will take time given the nature of class and caste system we are in; developments that have impacted upon our consciousness. But evolve we must, if we are to see a progressive country emerging out of these ruins of communal politics, immorality of modern capitalism, and persistent religious misunderstandings. Ignorance is the greatest enemy of knowledge, as the sage Socrates once said. Continue reading “The future of our interfaith dialogue”

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Malaysia’s educational reform: can the yellow states lead the way?

by Azly Rahman
[email protected]
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/

“To evolve into wiser individuals with enquiring minds, we must ask questions and reflect upon the answers suggested to us. If we are afraid to ask questions, our mind and consciousness will be owned and manipulated by those who think they have the right answers, or by those who wants to use force to tell us what the right answers shall be.”
– My thoughts on the nature of learning

“I currently firmly believe that education should first be a dialectical and dialogical tool to mediate and resolve the contradictions between Existentialism and Cyberneticism, and of Cultures of Disabilities, …and next be a Deconstructive-Reconstructivist tool and social force to engineer personal and social revolutions and progress towards the realisation of a personal republic of virtue, ethics, multiculturalism, and metaphysics; so that human beings endowed with the Natural Rights to be free may collectively become educated to rise above hegemony, domination, and oppression and in the final analysis, journey towards a Pastoral and Natural self .”
– my personal philosophy of teaching

Let’s take a break from thinking about Malaysian politics. Justice will take its natural course, the natural “way”, like how Lao Tzu would philosophize.

Let us talk about the possiblities in education.

I have some ideas on how we can evolve out of this current political quagmire and focus our attention to an ever-pressing national question: how best to educate the children of our nation.

We need to have the states governed by Pakatan Rakyat to experiment with a new paradigm of educational reform. To showcase what “human capital revolution”, “education across the life span” and “education for creative and critical consciousness” means. Continue reading “Malaysia’s educational reform: can the yellow states lead the way?”

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With whom will the army stroll?

by Azly Rahman

No man is an island, entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,

as well as if a promontory were,

as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were:

any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind,

and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

– John Donne, English poet

We do not need an emergency rule unless we are still living in 1969. Those days are over. Majlis Gerakan Negara (MAGERAN) is history. This is a time for the natural state of things to unfold. A time to let a hundred flowers bloom. The semiotics of structural violence must not be paraded in front of Malaysians who now know how to protest peacefully.

They know what a totalitarian regime means. They now know what separation of powers means. They want to see an urgent evolution of this philosophy. Only those in danger of losing power want to maintain hegemony and will use the ideological state apparatuses to maintain power. Machiavellians included.

Emergency rules are for nations in desperation. For dictators facing an imminent and violent political death. For despots who refuse to detach themselves from power. For governments that allow prime ministers to rule for as long as they like. Ours is not. We do not have dictators. We have democracy yearning to break free.

Suharto, Idi Amin, Shah Reza Pahlavi, Somoza, Noriega, and Marcos were are all tyrants. Some fell from grace because of the greed of their women. Typical Marie Antoinette syndrome. Continue reading “With whom will the army stroll?”

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How to radicalise our universities

by Dr. Azly Rahman

My parents, like those of many of you readers too, only managed to complete Darjah Tiga/ Standard Three of their education. Poverty and the nature of ‘human capital revolution’ during the 1940s did not afford them the luxury of being in an ivory tower. Hard times.

One became a taxi driver and the other first, a seamstress and next, a factory worker in Singapore assembling microchips for a German multinational corporation. They would leave for work at four or five in the morning and come home at seven at night. That was the story of their lives. I am sure they too had the dream of entering a place called the “university.”

They spent their time -hard times- that took toll on their personal lives, raising their children to enter the university.

But they had an intelligent hunch, they believed universities will make everybody come out smarter and able to think critically, creatively, and altruistically. They did not have the knowledge of political economy to decipher the fact that universities are closely linked to the politics of the day. Continue reading “How to radicalise our universities”

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UMNO’s Latest Psy-War Materials Exposed

by Azly Rahman

[Azly has clarified that the piece below appeared in Malaysia Today, linked to the Malaysia Waves blog and that he had not received the email personally. – Admin]

(NOTE: This is an email I received from a reader exposing the latest brain washing tricks deployed by UMNO’s apparatus called Biro Tatanegara(BTN). Mind you BTN is 100% funded by tax payer’s money)

Biro Tatanegara. Does it ring a bell? Government propaganda or honest student development programme? For those who aren’t aware of it, Biro Tatanegara or BTN for short is under the Jabatan Perdana Menteri and it has several modules which all public university students have to attend in the name of “Student Development”.

On the 6th of July 2008 in UiTM Shah Alam, there were three separate talks being held under BTN with the first one being titled “Pendidikan”, second one titled “Ancaman Keselamatan Negara” and the third one titled, “Patriotisma”. Smell anything funny yet? No? Read on. You won’t even have to smell it after you are done reading this. It’ll be stuffed down your throat.

I would like to only focus on the first speaker, Dr. Idris bin Md. Noor. He was supposed to talk about education as that was the title of his speech, but the content was far different. He first went on with the usual introductions but in less than a few minutes, he suddenly touched on the forum on the discussion of social contract in Malaysia that the BAR council organized.

He criticized it with all his heart, saying no one should discuss about it as it is unquestionable. Fair enough, I thought at first. Freedom of speech right? But what if he suddenly accuses the “Malay” speaker in the forum, which I’m guessing is Farish A. Noor, as a traitor to the Malay race as a whole?

And while he was browsing through his files on the laptop which was projected on the big screen, it was no surprise for me that I saw files entitled “Ketuanan Melayu”. He also then went on about the Malay’s obsession with magic and ghosts, he said that it is all wrong beliefs through the perspective of Islam because if they really could use magic and other dark arts for fighting, then they should kill Karpal Singh with it. Continue reading “UMNO’s Latest Psy-War Materials Exposed”

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Smart schools vs sick schools

by Dr. Azly Rahman

I read this excerpt of a news story below with disgust.

‘… One-third of Malaysia’s schools do not have water and electricity, a minister said, pledging to fix the problem by 2010….

‘Deputy Education Minister Razali Ismail told Bernama that all 9,806 schools will have access to basic utilities by the end of a four-year education development plan….70 percent of schools already have access to water and electricity. The other 30 percent are mostly located in rural areas, but “we are confident the problem will be solved by 2010”.

…Malaysia has implemented a series of five-year development plans with the aim of reaching developed-nation status by 2020..In the last national blueprint, announced in 2006, the government said RM1.15 billion would be spent to upgrade schools.’

All we continue to hear are slogans such as ‘2010’, ‘Vision 2020’, ‘developed-nation status’ and ‘billions of ringgit of funding’.

These cloud our vision of what schools ought to be. It is as if there is a ‘manufactured crisis’ going on: keep schools impoverished so that the government can keep making promises using empty slogans. The aim: only this government can continue to help those poor schools. This is the nature of mystification we have been fed with all these decades.

recall then education minister Najib Abdul Razak making a statement about “smart schools” –

“…that the first Smart School is being built at a cost of RM144.5 million. Apart from being wired, it would have a hostel for 800 students, an Olympic-size swimming pool, a hockey pitch, a hall and other facilities. Eventually all Malaysian schools will be operated on this concept. …”

Now we hear that many schools do not have water and electricity supply, let alone computers to make the schools and students smart. I think our children deserve better than empty promises by the ministry in charge of human intelligence and social reproduction. Continue reading “Smart schools vs sick schools”

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Lim Kit Siang’s blog written by a Malay?

by Azly Rahman
[email protected]
Brave new Malaysian identity emerging?

Dear readers,

On a website I read the following honest opinion, I thought in the spirit of dialogue, dialectic, and dialogic I’d share with you wonderful bloggers:

——————————————————————————–

Lim Kit Siang’s blog written by a Malay?

There is something that is quite funny about one opposition leader blog which seems to be written by someone else and not the owner of the blog.

That blog is blog.limkitsiang.com and there are many posts by someone who calls himself by the name of Dr. Azly Rahman.

Whether that person do exists or is a pseudonym of Lim Kit Siang, nobody can tell.

The latest posting by Dr. Azly Rahman titled “All Malaysians have special rights” gives the following excerpts: Continue reading “Lim Kit Siang’s blog written by a Malay?”