ON MEDIOCRITY

The way towards progress is often fraught with difficulty. This is what life has taught me, as someone who years ago sought to improve myself in a way that had to be undertaken solitarily. The misconception, I would argue – and perpetuated by the legacy of Thoreau, and uninspired claptrap like Eat, Pray, Love – is that a person has to go on some physical journey to do some soul searching. Quite the contrary. 

Having lived in Boston for many years, I take pride in the fact that I am still very much the same person I was before arriving in the States, in terms of my values and principles. Those have intensified, to the point of being unshakable, because being in the midst of volatile and vacuous ways of life – and people – served to strengthen what I discovered was sacred, and often taken for granted, as we are often too easily influenced by the idea that something is "better" than another, based on others' enthusiastic yet rash endorsement of it. That which is American culture, a culture that is more convenient to subscribe to as it corresponds with the sort of self-gratifying lifestyles many find more fitting for themselves and their external goals, despite the profound emptiness that comes with it.

Perhaps that is why many Americans like the author of Eat, Pray, Love felt the need to traverse the world to get away from that emptiness, yet failed to learn anything of substance. Perhaps it's why Thoreau went and sat by a pond for two years back in the nineteenth century. Perhaps that is why so many Americans who seemed to have "had it all" chose to hang themselves lately, knowing that there is something really wrong with American culture.

My worldview though, has changed, as has my understanding and acceptance of certain types of people. Learning to gauge a person's true character – and the strength or lack of it – by observation of their actions, what values they live by, listening to how they speak and the content of their words, and whether all of it matches up. The phony reveals him or herself sooner or later. And it becomes all too easy to walk away, because they give you every reason to.

Mediocrity is not difficult to walk away from.

The mediocre often disguise themselves by shouting out loud about their achievements, and rely on others to lift them up, always, to stroke their ego and ensure that they will appear to be genuine and great, not mediocre. They lead double lives, instead of one real one, because they have their true self to hide. They engage in the exploitation of others to make a name for themselves, and are social climbers who make it a point to reveal who they know – usually non mediocre people – so others can see that they are not mediocre. They excel at selling themselves, and know how to be charming, but are otherwise ignorant about the world, social issues, and humanness – that which includes feeling empathy and consideration, and showing respect and integrity. 

The mediocre are incapable of exercising any self-awareness, or wisdom, because they truly believe they are an exceptional human being, without having tasted the bitterness of failure that truly great people have. Often, they will portray this belief about themselves on social media so they can be applauded by an audience, because the mediocre need the validation. The mediocre are impressionable people, and values and principles are irrelevent to them because it stands in their way of self-gratification.

Whether it's duplicitous old friends, or an amoral brother and sister, the mediocre make it too easy to walk away from them, because your biggest fear is that you will become as mediocre as them. The way towards progress is often fraught with difficulty.

HOW PUPPETS IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA CONTINUE TO DISGRACE THE PROFESSION OF JOURNALISM

 

An article on The Guardian website this morning, written by Martin Chulov asks, What could the US target in Syria and how is Russia likely to react?

It refers to the US bombing of Shayrat Airbase last year in response to a chemical attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun that had been attributed to the Syrian government.

That chemical attack, which was widely found to be a false flag by numerous accounts, including in an article by renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, poses the question: why is such an irresponsible and moronic article published on The Guardian website, supposedly a reputable news source?

Also disturbing is the author's style of writing as he muses about this potential airstrike on Syria. It's as though he's describing a video game, or casually and giddily going over some plans for an excursion with a pathetic sense of importance: The US maintains a naval battle group in the eastern Mediterranean, well stocked with over-the-horizon missiles....Striking from the west poses fewer problems all around. French jets could hit Syrian targets after taking off from French airfields. If Britain joins the fray, it has a base on nearby Cyprus, a short hop from Syria.... The opposition pipe dream remains the ousting of the regime.

How Chulov writes about the West's eagerness to bomb Syria reflects the overall attitude of Americans and their friends in how wholly detached they are from the concept of moral responsibility and integrity. Most journalists today, and especially those in the mainstream media consistently reveal themselves to be nothing more than propaganda tools in a frenzy. They demean a profession and its purpose while foreign journalists who are committed to telling truths in the countries of which these Western journalists promote destruction  are killed.

Palestinian journalist Yasir Murjata killed by the IDF earlier this month. (Mohammed Talatene/AP)

Are chemical attacks by the evil Bashar al-Assad the new weapons of mass destruction and evil Saddam Hussein? These howls for war and bombings to be spearheaded by the barbaric US drown out any rationality that could remind these warmongers of the repercussions, like what had followed after the destruction of Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan. The only person in the mainstream media that's actually speaking out as the voice of reason against these hawks is Tucker Carlson, a political commentator on Fox News.

From Carlson's segment on Syria :

"All the geniuses tell us that Assad killed those children. But do they really know that? Of course they don't really know that. They're making it up. They have no real idea what happened. Actually, both sides in the Syrian civil war possess chemical weapons. How would it benefit Assad using chlorine gas last weekend – well, it wouldn't. Assad's forces were winning the war in Syria...That's good news for Assad, and about the only thing he could do to reverse it and to hurt himself would be to use poison gas against children. Well he did it anyway, they tell us. He's that evil! Please. Keep in mind this was the same story they told us last April. Do you remember that?....Two months ago the Secretary of Defense admitted that actually, we still have no proof that Assad used sarin gas last year. The story, it turns out was propaganda. It was designed to manipulate Americans, just like so much of what they say."

Anyone with a conscience should be applauding Carlson – nevermind that he works for Fox, that actually makes it more impressive – for rising above all of the puppets in the media and showing integrity that was once central to journalism and reporting, and now, like all things considered sacred, utterly profaned due to American propaganda, widespread corruption and bloodlust.

WHILE THE WORLD BURNS UNDER WESTERN IMPERIALISM, WESTERNERS TWEET ABOUT IT

So Syria looks like the next Muslim majority country to be soon relegated to a failed state, a decision that Western governments take upon themselves to be the only reasonable solution, ignoring the sovereignity of those nations, their leaders, ways of life, populations, and brazen hypocrisy when it comes to their own treatment of their own societies.

Aleppo today.

Donald Trump, the clown that many Americans had no choice but to vote into office because their only other option was a revolting criminal, is now set on playing the part of World Police. Of course, there's no difference between him and his predecessors – from Barack Obama, to George W. Bush, to Bill Clinton – most US Presidents, with the exception of Jimmy Carter, tend to blend together to the point of unnecessary distinction as they gleefully drop bombs on civilians, destroy other nations, and neglect their own population – 23 million of which live at or under the poverty line in the US.

Nikki Haley, the infantile modern-day slavewoman and US Ambassador to the completely-useless-and-for-show-only United Nations tried to shame Russia in response to the alleged recent chemical attacks in Syria, referring to them as, "the Russian regime, whose hands are all covered in the blood of Syrian children." 

This from a person who back in December said of a nation that for the past forty-so years has thrived on the ethnic cleansing and exploitation of Palestinians and their lands: "Israel has been forced to live under constant security threats like virtually no other country in the world. It should not have to live that way." That quote was pulled from this Haaretz article, in which it also described Haley as a darling of AIPAC, and noted her obsession with the Isreali state.

From The Guardian article :

British prime minister, Theresa May, said: “We are working urgently with our allies to assess what has happened. But, we are also working with our allies on any action that is necessary.” 

French president, Emmanuel Macron agreed that a strong joint response was urgently needed.

Does all of this sound familiar? Western allies getting together to show concern for specific populations of the world, in places where they have vested interests, and after all of their illegal interventions and world-policing that sets countries on fire – this is the unconcealed strategy of modern day Western imperialism.

And yet we still have people like this guy, a political scientist he says, who makes it known to readers in the first line in his article that he's coming from a well-reasoned, educated standpoint : "Earlier this week when I argued that the United States has an ethical obligation to intervene in Syria...". I laughed after reading that line, and scanned the rest of the unremarkable write-up in which the author, Joseph Amodeo refers to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) mandate of the UN Charter in an exeedingly feverish endorsement of US military intervention. War mongers are rampant in the US, be it in politics, the mainstream media, or even pseudo-intellectuals who write op-eds, so this isn't really anything new. 

The author writes, "I believe that we are now at a point where military intervention is no longer an option, but rather a necessity to bring an end to the harm being perpetrated against the Syrian people by Bashar al-Assad’s regime." It's so cute how this guy tries to pretend that he cares for the Syrian people. Imagine if he encouraged that same regard towards the Americans who've long been on the receiving end of their government's policies. His endorsement of war masquerading as concern for Syrians simply translates to : come on, let's do some real damage already!!! He follows with, "In Kosovo, the United States and NATO forces undertook a 78-day bombardment, which resulted in no western casualties." 

Bombing civilian areas and infrastructure – just another day for NATO. (Kosovo)

And how many civilian casualties did the US and NATO cause with their overzealous bombing? Funny that Amodeo neglects to mention this crucial point that is central to the R2P mandate (after going on about the harm being done to Syrians) because according to the Human Rights Watch report, about 500 casualties were counted in ninety separate NATO attacks. Additionally, "more than half the deaths occurred as a result of attacks on illegitimate or questionable targets." What little I know about R2P I learned from a course in International Law I took in college, so how is it that I can see why R2P is problematic while a college professor of political science is drooling at the mouth, while using words like "ethical" and "necessity" to justify more bombarding of a state already so devastated?

Listen, it's only fine if the West shows up in your country and kills anyone that gets in their way, because that's the price to pay for democracy and freedom.

Critics of R2P have argued that intervention could set a dangerous precedent by allowing powerful states to breach the sovereignty of the less powerful, as is demonstrated time and time again by the US and its allies. What this is really, is Western imperialism masquerading as humanitarian intervention, with NATO overstepping its authority and violating international humanitarian law with conceit. Remember when a US aerial bombing of a mosque in Aleppo back in 2017 caused 43 civilian casualties? Because of faulty intelligence that had them believe they were targeting an al Qaeda meeting? And how the US Defense Department first tried denying it, and then finally shrugged and said it was legal even though it was clearly a war crime? 

Aleppo mosque bombing by US air strike.

Amodeo stupidly insists, "We cannot merely watch as the crisis in Syria spirals into further attacks on Syrian citizens and, in turn, draws the United States and the international community into an even deeper threat to global security," ignoring the fact that the United States is why most of the world is in a fucking mess. Because it can't stop intervening for self-interest, greed, power, natural resources and through violent, unbridled attacks, murdering anyone in their path, be it through open savagery or secret wars. 

What do Americans do about the continuous destruction of other lands and its people by its all-powerful government? They do nothing. It's almost as if even Americans are afraid of their leaders. Because deep down they know just how wicked and unconscionable the authorities are, and it's much easier to tweet about the depravity of their government, and comment enthusiastically on news stories than try to actually take action for all of humanity. That is called passivity, and also cowardice.

IF GUNS ARE VALUED MORE THAN AMERICAN CHILDREN, THE KILLING OF CHILDREN ELSEWHERE BECOMES ACCEPTABLE

I was a high school senior in Southeast Asia when the Columbine High School massacre took place. That was 1999, and I remember how intrigued I was to hear on the news about an unfamiliar foreign event that seemed too unbelievable to be true. Teenagers getting hold of a firearm and embarking on a massacre of their fellow classmates and teachers? This was incomprehensible to me. A documentary by Michael Moore released in 2002 provided my teenage self with some understanding of America's fear-based culture and the political influence from which it develops, and I had thought (was it teenage naiveté or mere reason?) that the US having a mirror held up to itself would finally help in its much-needed transformation.

Today, almost twenty years later, and the issue of gun control is still a debated topic in the US. Americans need to understand that for the rest of the world – and I’m willing to make that strong assumption – this falls somewhere between staggering and tedious. The only difference is that it's now children and teenagers at the frontlines, confronting the adults who are meant to protect them. The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are on the cover of Time, featured in Elle, leading speeches in Washington, DC. Their names and voices dominate the news. It's all worthy of applause, but these students from Florida echo a forgotten shadow in America's violent past – the children of Birmingham, Alabama.

The Birmingham Children's Crusade of 1963 saw thousands of African American children – some as young as seven – confront the white establishment during the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. What prominent African American leaders including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. could not achieve through non-violent protest – Dr. King was in a Birmingham jail at the time – their children voluntarily, and courageously agreed to take on in their place. After being trained in nonviolent tactics, they took to the streets on May 2nd to peacefully protest segregation in Birmingham. Those who weren't arrested had powerful water hoses turned on them, were beaten with batons, and attacked by police dogs.

Michael Ochs Archives/GETTY IMAGES

The Civil Rights Movement continued its struggle, but that incident ensured that they could no longer go unacknowledged by the authorities. The world had witnessed through the media the vicious treatment of Birmingham's children who had been propelled into activism, and outrage ensued. Using children in what should have been an issue fought and resolved between adults was unacceptable to many even in the US, including the "radical" black leader, Malcolm X.

Bill Hudson/ASSOCIATED PRESS

After hundreds of mass school shootings in the US over the years and zero changes in gun laws, things start to make more sense to me. If the lives of American children are not important enough for changes in gun control laws to take effect, why would the lives of children in Iraq, and anywhere else that suffers from US intervention, matter? An article published by the Scientific American asked in 2015, Where Is Outcry Over Children Killed by US-Led Forces? Based on what is reported – and the statistics are still highly debated – 1,201 Iraqi children have been killed by US led forces between 2003 and 2011. US drone strikes in Pakistan have resulted in the deaths of 172 to 207 children. The US government's love affair with weapons and violence and its frivolous exertion of both on foreign lands seems to stem from its own neglect for the well-being of American citizens.

Gun control is not just an American issue. The US has made it everyone's problem, once again, like the long list of other problems it's forcibly imposed on others. And I think what the rest of the world would like to know is: why does the US consistently fail to learn from its own history? Do we have to wait until the lives of American children are valued more than guns before children in other parts of the world are given the same consideration? And how do you justify forcing children, once again, to put down their school books to confront the conscienceless and say, "You, adults, have failed us."

FRIED CHICKEN AND MODERN TECHNOLOGY

I awoke yesterday at 4am and realized it's been too long since I last had fried chicken. Living in the US has made me a borderline vegetarian these past few years, following the continual revelations of horrifying meat factory conditions here. Widespread unethical business practices in the US also extends to halal distributors, which makes eating more fruit and salads and the occasional salmon the more desirable option for me now. Can't complain, since I've always consumed a lot of fruit and veg anyway.

So I went over to the Northeastern campus where the closest Popeye's to me is, and ordered six pieces of their chicken tenders. I figured that six is a reasonable amount for anything you're not eating consistently, and on a scale of ascetic and piggish, six falls right in the middle. Glancing over, I observed the older Hispanic lady absently sweep with her tongs pieces of chicken from the display warmer thing into a box so that they tumbled into it in rapid succession. It was only when I reached home that I saw that the box contained twelve pieces of fried chicken. My first fried chicken in about five months and I get rewarded with a mound of the stuff! I hope it's not contaminated.

In other news :

Facebook turns out to be a dangerous, exploitative technological tool and people are shocked, despite brilliant minds going to great lengths to spell it out for the masses, from George Orwell to Aldous Huxley to Ray Bradbury to Ted Kaczynski, who is currently serving eight life sentences in federal prison for crimes fueled by his extreme opposition to modern technology. 

Sean Parker, co-founder of Facebook came out back in November to acknowledge that the "site was made to exploit human vulnerability" and "God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains." A month later, spurred by his guilty conscience, former Facebook Vice President, Chamath Palihapitiya echoed Parker's "regret" in being involved in a self and socially destructive social network, admitting that he rarely used Facebook and doesn't let his children use "that shit." He  also stressed that it's not an American problem, but a global problem. 

Yet these major tech companies, including Uber, who is on a determined mission to win the award for Most Unethical Company of all Unethical Companies, and Tinder are all founded in the US, growing unimpeded by any real restrictions or moral obligation due to the absence of wisdom. Regrets might come later and after they've made their millions for those who get the entire world excited and eager to buy more into the emptiness that those riding the technology wave are selling, with disastrous consequences. The compliant masses are part of the problem as well if they lap up everything that's marketed to them and allow their emotional state to be so easily influenced. But responsibility starts with entrepreneurs and innovators who think every idea should be pursued so they can have their moment, instead of recognizing a dangerous idea and burying it.

Here is what extreme individualism and disdain for any real guidance looks like, because the need to do whatever I want is of the utmost importance. All those great thinkers who felt an obligation to society and warned them of a bleak future are just useful for quoting in useless reflective news op-eds now. This is the way it is done in the US, and perhaps the rest of the world follows suit. Be "free" now, and complain later after the damage is done and irreversible.

IS THIS THE GENERATION OF ARROGANT CRYBABIES?

Very often I find myself thinking how not many things make sense anymore. For instance when I'm standing in line at CVS waiting to use the self-checkout machine and wondering, when did I sign up for an unpaid job at CVS? Especially when there are more than enough employees standing idly around simply keeping an eye on customers as they bag their purchases, after the machine malfunctions and the whole process of buying some gum and vitamin water – once a smooth and simple procedure – becomes a disruptive operation.

Reading about Hollywood celebrities being touted as possible candidates to run for the US presidency is also bizarre. George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, The Rock – these are the people that should run a country in the minds of many liberal Americans. Nevermind if they're just as unqualified as Donald Trump and his offspring, as long as they have more fans than Trump and have acted in a few successful films. It's as though the US has dug themselves deeper and deeper into a hole that they're grasping at anything now to feel better. 

Or when stating the obvious on a show becomes a radical stunt that leaves white Western audiences upset. Here I am referring to the season two premiere of The Grand Tour I was watching on Prime a few months ago, in which Jeremy Clarkson said at one point, "I still can't believe that Switzerland banned motor-racing because of an accident in another country."

Richard Hammond then says, "It's like Britain banning railways because a train crashed in India."

And Clarkson replies, "Or it's like America invading Iraq because some Saudi Arabians destroyed the World Trade Center."

The last statement of course drew an uncomfortable pause and a smattering of confused laughter from the studio audience (and groaning, as the subtitles indicate), similar to how a classroom of students would react if someone suddenly made a joke about the rich, petulant teenager with the sense of entitlement sitting in the back who makes the other students do her homework, but they do it obligingly because she supplies them with drugs in return. So they refrain from laughing lest she remembers that day and withholds the drugs to those who dared slight her, while demanding that they continue to do her homework anyway.

You'd have thought Clarkson had just made a vulgar remark about God or something, which, strangely enough, probably would've been better received, going by the many offensive jokes made on Top Gear when it was hosted by Clarkson, Hammond and May.

And then I read an article a few days ago – Professor cancels hate speech course after student's object to use of racial slur. Professor Emeritus Lawrence Rosen at Princeton University had students walk out of his Anthropology class after he used the word "nigger" in order to provoke critical thinking and debate. What the students took from it instead was offense, completely missing the point, and demanded an apology from the professor, to which he refused. Hats off to him for not complying with the demands of crybabies perpetuating the extreme politically correct culture today even within educational spaces that have long explored difficult subject matter when doing so outside is almost always controversial.

An African American colleague of Rosen's had to actually release a statement in which she wrote, "I feel bad for the students who left the class not trusting the process. Rosen was fighting battles for women, Native Americans and African-Americans before these students were born. He grew up a Jew in anti-Semitic America, and recognises how law has afforded him rights he would not otherwise have."

I think that's an important fact that young people today fail to acknowledge when it comes to those of a different generation who actually fought the fights. Yet with the whole "me, me, me" mentality today the concept of exercising some bloody humility is now just another obsolete practice too reminiscent of the old-world. Showing respect for those who have actually lived through true barbarism is anti-modern or something. Instead you have halfwits who spend their time posting their feelings of outrage on Twitter thinking they know everything.

I'm reminded of an episode of the Doha Debates I watched years ago where the topic was about the Israel-Palestine conflict (this particular episode is not available on YouTube). One of the Palestinian panelists who had lived his entire life in Palestine, fighting the helpless fight expressed his and many other Palestinian's exhaustion and defeat, saying that they were ready to come to a compromise with Israel. A Muslim high schooler in the audience proceeded to lecture the man, possibly in his fifties, and who had seen more blood and suffering than most of the people in the room, saying that it was time for the younger generation like herself to take over the negotiations, and then the outcome would finally be more successful for Palestinians.

Maybe a dinner of falafel and hummus with leaders of rogue states is the solution. (Photo: Moshe Milner)

I was amused by her teenage arrogance, because in her mind it would be as simple as sitting down with tea and falafel with the Israeli government and demanding that they comply with international law and retreat from the occupied territories and justice and stability would be restored. Since a lot of the young audience members expressed their disapproval of violent protest that some Palestinians had had to resort to over the decades, talking forcefully with the Israeli's and their American sponsors and boycotting them is their best bet, regardless of the fact that there never was a peace process on Israel's part to begin with.

Anyway, Bill Burr touched on this whole PC crybaby thing last week when he described how he got into trouble for making fun of the military. He made a great point about the past and the present day, in which criticizing certain persons, practices and issues has become disrespectful and controversial. Using reason can only disrupt the herd mentality after all. Let them be arrogant or whine, but don't let them think they are not free.

ADULTS ARE BULLIES, TOO, AND SOME OF THEM BECOME TEACHERS

   

Earlier this month Malaysian news reported that M. Vasanthapiriya, the 13 year old Penang student who attempted suicide back in January after being accused by her teacher of stealing her iPhone had died.

Having followed the story these past few weeks I was, and still am consumed with grief at the news of Vasanthapiriya's death. While police investigations haven't revealed much of the details as of yet, what the case tells us clearly and undeniably is that a teenager took her own life after a teacher (with the help of colleagues) drove her to act on the guilt and shame she was made to feel in a way someone still in the prime of their innocence would.

All else is irrelevant, including the missing iPhone, which, as Vasanthapiriya's father had had to point out, embarrasingly enough is replaceable. What this whole case shows, along with last year's death of 11 year old Mohamad Thaqif Amin Mohd Gaddafi as a result of being physically abused by his teacher – or, "disciplined" as some would call it – resulting in his limbs being amputated, is that a) a lot of people end up in the wrong profession, b) corporal punishment as enforcing discipline in the school – another great legacy of European colonialism which sought to "broadcast authority" over natives – is still perpetuated by some retarded Malaysians today, and c) many adults are just bullies looking for someone to pick on.

I don't come to that conclusion lightly. My conclusion is in fact informed by years of experience in the Malaysian public school system. From the sixth grade to the twelfth, I had my school experience forever blighted by some of the worst, dark-hearted bullies who called themselves teachers. I'm not about to go off on a revenge rant, or share some sob story, but what makes the tragedies of Mohamad Thaqif and Vasanthapiriya so sickening is how these issues are only now coming to light, and after damage has been done.

Nevermind the many students who were often too vapid to be around, as the school as an institution for learning can become too much like a factory priming the subervient herd. But with teachers abusing their authority and leaving permanent psychological scars on the student with smug satisfaction, the world becomes a dark place. So dark in fact that at age thirteen, and feeling the true torment of depression as a teenager for the first time, I wrote a poem about it. It was a cry from my soul. And it was published in a 1999 edition of a Chicken Soup book.

I stand by that poem, despite its mediocrity. Because over the years I still hear from strangers around the world – high school students – who had come across the poem and expressed gratitude and relief for a little poem having helped them feel less alone in a difficult time, much like how I had felt at that age.

School became a demoralizing place for me. So some mornings, after my father dropped me off at the school entrance, and attendance was taken at assembly, I broke from the crowd of students and headed to the back entrance. And I walked the two miles back home, where, with my parents both at work, I'd sit in my room and read. Books like The Catcher In the Rye by Salinger, Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Golding's Lord of the Flies, and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. To me, I could finally be in the right company, and educate myself through the best teachers. Because cutting school became a necessary habit of mine to escape an unbearable environment, it only gave teachers more opportunity to ridicule and verbally abuse when I was present in the classroom.

I never forgot a single one of them, and truth be told, if there's a reason why I teach now when I can it's because of all of the sadistic teachers I've had, who picked on the defenseless because it gave them pleasure or a sense of dominance. Everything that they were, I am not. No doubt these sort of situations go on constantly in Malaysia, and elsewhere, but the normalcy of it all makes change seem almost like an incredible notion. A distinction between a strict teacher, and someone with wickedness in their heart needs to be acknowledged.

Vasanthapiriya and Mohamad Thaqif are just the two victims we've heard about, and only because their lives ended in tragedy. It's time for more of these adult bullies to be exposed as the uncivilized brutes that they are in failing to do their jobs responsibly and professionally as teachers. If you can't conduct yourself in such a way then you don't belong in the most honorable profession there ever was.

WHEN YOUR NATIONALITY BECOMES LIKE CLOTHING – SOMETHING YOU WEAR ACCORDING TO TRENDS

During a phone conversation I had earlier today the topic landed on Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, the true firebrand "father of Malaysia," in my opinion. Tunku Abdul Rahman declared Malaya's independence and everything, but Dr. Mahathir showed the world that we are.

No leader of a country is free of faults, obviously, but let's state the even more obvious fact that only a rare number of leaders are actually leaders because they love their country, regardless of what state it's in. You see it in their actions, words, and commitment to the long and arduous process of development. And in a genuinely multiethnic, multicultural society like Malaysia this endeavor becomes even more insane.

So the recent comments made by Mukhriz Mahathir, Dr. Mahathir's son, and who is widely perceived to have ambitions of becoming Prime Minister has pissed off some people, and might work against him. Unaware of what he said during the phone conversation, I googled his name on the laptop in front of me.

“When we travel abroad or perform the umrah, if we are asked which country we are from, we would feel embarrassed and say we are from Brunei. 

“(Because) if we answer Malaysia, people would ask us why there are so many problems (in Malaysia), it was magnificent and great (in the past), but (in a) terrible (state) at present,” reads the quote. (Malaysiakini)

Speak for yourself, Mukhriz.

And allow me to refer to a past post I'd written after Fidel Castro's death, concerning great leaders, romantics, and those of weak character who look for a different flag to wave when hardship falls on their native country. Mukhriz is echoing the same pomposity exhibited by Americans today who seek to distance themselves from the Trump presidency by announcing their intent to become Canadian (although many Americans said the same during the Bush administration).

What's also amusing about Mukhriz's ill-contemplated comments is that he refers to Brunei as the preferred country of choice for embarrassed Malaysians.

Ummm....the country whose leader has been known to be a barefaced hypocrite, controlling the population with threats of shariah law and other restrictions while he sips his wine, holds sex parties and chums it up with Donald Trump – that Brunei? He might as well just use Saudi Arabia as the country embarrassed Malaysians can claim to be from when asked by strangers.

The problem with Mukhriz's rhetoric is that he comes off as a weak individual. Weak individuals don't make good leaders. Weak individuals don't love their country when it's suffering and needs love the most – they give up and start calling themselves something else, not just to feel better about themselves, but to sound more pleasing to others. He is not like his father, but children aren't extensions of their parents anyway. They've been influenced and conditioned by a different generation of ideas and people.

When people in the States ask me, and they often do, where I'm from, I tell them. The general response is of admiration for Malaysia, even though many of them have never even been there. If any of them comment on the problems going on there at present, and they rarely do, because we're in the US, and the problems here are profound and endless and incomparable in many ways, I tell them, yes, like all countries, we need to work at it. And most importantly, we need strong leaders of the romantic breed, because love cultivates, and love is a battle, and a leader who exercises power without love is a leader without wisdom.

HYPOCRITES AND THE "ME TOO" MOVEMENT

So now that some powerful men have toppled so sensationally from their plinths, the ongoing witch hunt for badly behaved men has suddenly roused those who for the longest time had been complicit in endorsing such men to suddenly grow a conscience. Maybe "grow a conscience" is the wrong phrase. Saving one's own career or reputation is probably more apt. Jumping on the bandwagon is always the more convenient route when the opportunity presents itself, especially in the liberal and loud entertainment or fashion industry, it seems.

In the US, where this whole exposé first found a furious audience, the call for female empowerment rang like a battle cry, prompting women who'd suffered, and endured degrading treatment from men to step out of their chains finally, without fear. I, too felt a sense of satisfaction when the Harvey Weinstein story broke. It called to mind an incident I once had at Mass General Hospital a few years ago, after I'd been brought to the ER in a wheelchair and looked as pale as a corpse, due to a stress related stomach illness. I was called into a small room to be examined by a large, male doctor. While lying down on the exam table, he put his hands under my sweater aggressively, without warning. I reacted impulsively, my body jerking away, and he snapped loudly at me, "let me do my job!" Just like that, I was silenced. No apology, no retreating of his hands to acknowledge my surprise, and then explain, like any doctor would, what he was doing. It was just the two of us in the room with a closed door, and he was exercising his power over me, in the least professional and concerned manner that I'd ever experienced with a doctor. After awhile, I sat in the seat next to him while he asked some questions. The entire time he did not hide the fact that he was staring at my chest, and when I held my bag to cover my front, his eyes simply traveled slowly down the rest of my body.

I understand how power structures work, and how one female voice gets shut down when it tries to confront a pig in a powerful position. In incidents like the one I experienced, it becomes even more difficult to make a complaint because some male doctor made a female patient feel uncomfortable, who cares? Perhaps some people would just roll their eyes at what I described above, because he was just a massive sleazeball like a lot of men. The point is that it was a professional setting, and he was a doctor showing brazen disrespect for his sick patient by creating an uncomfortable atmosphere all on his own. Did I make any sort of complaint? Of course not.

Because like Harvey Weinstein and others like him, they are protected by their status and a culture of entitlement.

But then came the pitchforks and torches, brandished by young naive girls, in some cases, who've had poor luck with the opposite sex due to, perhaps, poor choices, and are intent on placing blame on anyone but themselves. The whole Aziz Ansari debacle last week is what I'm mostly referring to. And I really can't stand Aziz Ansari. In fact, I find him revolting for reasons I will likely delve into in a future post. But some petulant girl decided that he is guilty of treating her in a way that made her uncomfortable, after she desperately tried to get his attention at a party, and then, fast forward to a date in New York City where Ansari hurriedly paid for a meal, she went back to his place thinking...what? He was eager to get back so he could read some poetry to her?

Aziz Ansari is more guilty of being bad at comedy than he is of being a typical guy. There needs to be some responsibility shouldered by girls like "Grace" who're too comfortable with feeling like helpless  little flowers while expecting guys to be machines, and then crying when they realize guys are in fact not machines in situations that she has helped enable or advance.

A movement that began as a call for women to rally together in solidarity against specific types of men has become tainted with immature individuals who are quick to play the victim while disregarding their own behavior. Take the Tariq Ramadan incident, as another example. The revelations stunned me as well when it was first reported in France in their feminist version of "Me Too." It was crushing to learn that religion, and Islam in particular, has exposed yet another raging hypocrite (see also Nouman Ali Khan, the sleazy Pakistani-American Muslim speaker). Those parading around basking in their celebrity "religious scholar" status, preaching on how to be good to others while they themselves are not. 

I am in no way defending Ramadan for what he is accused of, but the statements made by two of his accusers, a French woman and a Morrocan woman, does raise some pertinent questions. The former confessed that she had agreed to meet him at his hotel room to "discuss religion" and that she had fantasized the possibility of the handsome, intelligent Islamic scholar falling in love with her and they would marry. The former disclosed that she had been in a relationship with Ramadan for five years. What stories like this always fail to consider is the naivete of women, and aside from Ramadan's own lack of self-control, what about their's? "I was under his influence, he manipulated me," claims Henda Ayari, the French Tunisian woman who went on to sleep with the renowned Islamic scholar.

"I pointed out to him that he had promised to take me to the light," says Majda Bernoussi, rather pathetically, and who intends to publish a manuscript titled, "A voyage in troubled waters with Tariq Ramadan."

When I was eighteen and attending a college in Malaysia, students in my program were encouraged to attend a college fair to meet representatives from various universities around the US. Before the event, the program director, an American woman, took a few of us female students aside and said to us, "if any of the male reps suggest that you meet him in his hotel room later to discuss your options further, do not go." She implied with that warning that such incidents had happened before, and had not ended well. Still, as good advice as it was, I don't think most girls or women need to have such things explained to them. It's just common sense. It's not flattering, or bold. It's naivete, and gross. Besides, there's a cafe in the hotel if you desperately want to ask a man some questions about religion and seek some direction in life. If he refuses to meet in the hotel lobby, cafe or any other public setting tell him to piss off. Ramadan's shady, manipulative text messages, as described by his accusers had already filled them with suspicion in regards to his character, yet they reacted with shock and dismay in the end when his allegedly grotesque behavior in person matched the conniving statements he made to them in private correspondence. Well, don't follow your intuition or anything!

The fact that these Muslim women are supposedly intent on improving themselves as human beings through religious study highlights the reality that they really have a long way to go in that department, if they don't see a problem with encouraging a married man's unprincipled behavior, but instead cling to the hope that he will leave his wife for them, his sexual play things. This is not just wicked, self-serving behavior on both sides, but unequivocally anti-woman –– ruin another woman while also playing the victim, and profit from some books detailing your dalliance with a hypocrite, while revealing yourself to be one as well.

Well done to Western feminism, where women are more content with calling themselves oppressed victims, and helpless in their "free" state, instead of seeing themselves as capable of risilience, and taking responsibility for their own actions and lack of common sense.

HOW ARE YOU FEELING THIS WINTER?