There are some writings which move you, which tell you that the anonymous populace of the web share things in common, no matter how distant they may seem at first. So, one feels slightly sad when they stop writing. A wake for screwme, who recorded a piece of himself for all to see, and decided he had no more to share.
What should one say at a wake? Nothing much, a short reminiscence perhaps, a sincere thank you.
Thus, I thank you crashdown. I know all good books have endings, all fulfilled lives must die, it is only the unfulfilled which longs for more even with the knowledge of the inevitable. Though all good things must come to pass, for their mortality defines part of their goodness, some manage to inspire new beginnings in others. Yours was one of them.
'For I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you.' - Paul in Corinthians II
Farish Noor announced that he would take a temporary hiatus from writing in Malaysiakini. The reason is unclear, but he alludes that it is due to the negative responses from some of his critics. This is rather surprising as Farish Noor's comments on the failures of the Reformasi movement are equally as critical. Neither do I find this critic's reply to be entirely unjustifiable. He was afflicted by a letter, which to my eyes, was nothing but a fair reply. Humans truly have different sensitivities.
Our sensitivities tend to be sturdy, hard to remove, hard to numb. They are however, built on fragile emotions and desires like love and hope. And as we love and hope for different things, so too do our sensitivities differ. We become sensitive about the paintings which we paint with the greatest passion, not the most expensive. We take the greatest affront at a slight disapproval from a love one, not a foe. Perhaps, he despaired because he holds the Reformasi movement close to his heart, that he contributed his efforts into it, and that he is now being criticised by the members of a movement he bravely believes in. Would he have reacted the same if the criticisms were meted out by PUM? Sometimes, the messenger is as important as the message.
Although my exposure to Farish Noor's writings have been restricted to the free excerpts provided by Malaysiakini, I have found the few paragraphs to be insightful and I will certainly miss his column. I too should be taking a hiatus as my exams approach.
Channel 4 showed the plight of this Palestinian student who was hindered from attending registration day at his university. He said that he would have no future if he did not go to university, his family would not have a future. I was quite irked with his statement.
Being a university graduate does not automatically sets you up for life. Many say that it shatters glass ceilings in employement, that it is a necessary social status symbol indeed to advance in life. The only glass ceilings which have really existed is within our own minds. I admire those who have taken the riskier path in life, working only with their own certificate of passion to drive them on. After 2 years in university, I have learned that a degree is no measure of a person capabilities. I learn to recognise the multi-faceted aspects of intelligence, a degree probably only captures one.
Perhaps it is in my going to university that I am able to see this fact. To learn, only to realise that you have not learned much. I thought the Palestinian student living under the Israeli regime, would understand the feeling of being marginalised, and would thus not simply sidelined his non-graduate peers. Perhaps, after he graduates he will realise this.
Today, while surfing for Malaysian comic stores which sell Neil Gaiman's Sandman trade paperbacks, I accidentally bumped into a site about Lat. My mind instantly associated that name with images of a short man with afro-mopped hair, and a fat funky-glassed chinese aunty in cheongsam. When I was younger, I remember unearthing my parents' extensive collection of Lat cartoons and fondly reading them. Needless to say, I was a little more than pleased by my discoveries both yesterday and today.
I clicked on the old cartoons offered and was surprised at how well I have remembered them. It was like a game of snap, with every image on the screen, my mind searched through my own memory banks and I would go 'ahah, I remember that. Snap!'
His best works were definitely the ones about his younger days. They all had a slightly melancholic feel which I guess is a quality prevalent in most memories. However, what I like most was how the drawings portray a different Malaysia from the one I know. It was not only his experiences of growing up in a village which I thought unique, but also how different Malaysia was at that time. His drawings told of a keener Malaysia, a more inclusive one, a country more open to diverse thoughts and ideas. Although my interpretations of the drawings may be wrong, but it did seem like the kind of Malaysia I would like to live in.
After watching Comic Relief, I can not help but feel a little moved this morning. This tinkling of the heart has nothing to do with the small hours, although that's when my reflections and ruminations of life usually abound. Interspersed between the comedy sketches and parodies, were clips of a land where the people are as resilient as Thor's Anvil. Although some may find the videos trite and dressed up by the BBC to purposely evoke sad emotions from the viewer, I can still feel at the very essence of it, it is all heart. Minus off the sad adagios and the melancholic acoustics, the raw footage is a story unto itself, a visual lament of human torment.
The best clip was the story about a Rwandan Tutsi woman who saw her husband killed alongside other family members. Only she and her daughter survived by hiding under the dead bodies of their relatives. Having been shot in the arm, the wound soon developed gangrene and indeed to prevent the infection from spreading she pulled off her arm. After the massacre, she took a loan provided by AVEGA and began to build her life again. She looked after her child. She took into her care six of her murdered neighbours children.
I admire her for her courage when she pulled her arm off. A normal being would have struggled with the bloodiness of it all. I admire her for her courage to hope and to build a better life, her willingless to help others, even after going through such experiences. But what I admire her most for is her sheer resolution. The face of the woman was one of acceptance for events past. A woman who was afflicted and yet took things into her stride. Trauma quashed not with resignation and submission, but with a glimmer of hope for better things. Here's someone who was able to put things into perspective, when all around her was a blur of suffering.