people inter-faces

2012-01-03T03:08:00.000-08:00

Update on Orang Minyak issue

Since about two weeks we have armed groups of men (from as young as 12 to 60 plus) roaming the streets of Kampung Laksamana at night. Some are armed with parangs, others say that knives have no effect on orang minyak so they bring bamboo sticks.

Last night, a man wearing a juba was helping to guard the neighborhood. After 3am he was cought loading furniture from an empty house into a small lorry. The family had left the house because they were afraid of the orang minyak.

On the night before last, a man, hiding behind a banana plant because he was curious and wanted to see the orang minyak with his own eyes was apprehended by a vigilante group and almost beaten up very badly.

Apart from unifying the residents of Kg. Laksamana, there are also those who point the finger at foreigners, mainly Indonesians. They say that it is Indonesians who dabble in the art of black magic, and are more likely to bring forth such abomination as the Orang Minyak.

So my question: is the orang minyak issue really unifying the people? Or is it used to create havok and insecurity among the residents of Kg. Laksamana?

What is sure is that whatever the circumstances and the situation is, there are always people who know how to use it to their advantage!

2011-12-31T23:22:00.000-08:00

Supernatural Phenomena Behind the Batu Caves

I have been living in the Batu Caves area for more than 30 years. Many interesting and 'out of this world' things have been happening. But of late there has been an absolutely astonishing development.

On 1 November 2011, I was driving home after work, and as usual I passed over the bridge which spans the Sungai Batu, which flows out of the Ulu Yam dam, and merges with Sungai Gombak in the PWTC area.

(Confluence of Sungai Batu and Sungai Gombak)

The bridge I mention above is somewhere between Pinggiran Batu Caves and Kampung Laksamana. It is in this river, a bit further down, in front of the Batu Caves, in which the Hindu worshippers wash themselves on Thaipusam, and from where they start their journey up the 272 steps to the temple.

(Stairs leading up to the caves and the Hindu temple)

It was just before maghrib, when I passed the bridge and saw a creature sitting on the far end of the bridge. I did not trust my eyes: it was a giant head of a pig, with two huge, red fangs; it was 'vampire pig'. My hands were shaking so much when I took a picture, that it is quite blurred; but basically, you can see vampire pig as I saw it that evening. It must have had a hangover from Halloween the day before and felt disoriented, so it could not find its way back to the cave it had come from.

(Vampire Pig sitting at the end of the bridge over Sungai Batu, behind the Batu Caves)

I have not seen or heard from it since then, so I assume it continues to go about its usual business.

But another development - related or unrelated, I am not so sure - has been happening in the vicinity. Now we have two 'orang minyak' disturbing the good folks who live behind the Batu Caves. I copy the full report below here:

The ‘oily man’ strikes fear

By RASHVINJEET S.BEDI rashvin@thestar.com.my

The supernatural phenomenon purportedly terrorising Kampung Laksamana in Gombak has rallied the residents to stand together in defence of the young girls in their community.
WHILE most people would be in deep slumber at 2am, residents of Kampung Laksamana in Gombak were wide awake, roaming up and down Jalan Laksamana 1 in Gombak, Selangor.
Around 40 residents all divided into groups of about five to 10 people each and fully equipped with spotlights and wooden sticks were on patrol in the village located about 2km from Batu Caves that Thursday morning. Although they were joking with one another, you could feel the tension in the air.

An outsider might think that a gang rumble was on the cards. But what the residents of this village were worried about were not humans, instead they were keeping an eye out for not one, but two, supernatural beings. They are under attack from a couple of orang minyak (oily man), they claim. This village has been buzzing with sightings of the two paranormal creatures for the last 10 days.
Many residents claim to have seen and heard the orang minyak around the vicinity of the Pangsapuri Laksamana and Jalan Laksamana 1. And they all say the same thing the orang minyak are clad only in their underwear and drenched in black shiny oil. They can jump from one roof to another with ease, and vanish into thin air within seconds.
It's definitely no laughing matter, stresses Aslam Khan, 33, one of the villagers “lucky” enough to have seen them.
As he describes them, one is tall, stocky and bald while the other is thin and curly haired.
“I saw the bald orang minyak hiding behind the water tank of a house at about two in the morning. It was breathing really loudly, like a cow.

Slippery encounter: Aslam pointing towards the water tank where he allegedly saw an “orang minyak”. He claims it then climbed onto the roof and vanished. Right: The oily stains allegedly left by the orang minyak in a resident’s house in Kampung Laksamana. — M. AZHAR ARIF / The Star

“It was black and shiny. When I shone my light on it, the thing stuck out its head to look back at me. Before I could do anything, it climbed up the roof and disappeared,” says Aslam.
He says they also found the possible spot where the orang minyak conducts its ritual of reciting jampi (mantra) and having an oil bath. The villagers stumbled across the spot after chasing the orang minyak into some bushes next to the flat.
“There was a large oil patch there,” he says, pointing to the ground.
Adds Aslam, the next night, they found a packet of fried rice and noodles at the very same spot. After returning about an hour later, the food was gone, believed to be eaten by the orang minyak.
Supernatural or real?
According to popular legend, the orang minyak is a person who has undertaken the study of black magic and as a rite of passage, has to rape a certain number of anak dara (virgins) to pass that course.
The villagers are worried because almost every house in the neighbourhood houses a young girl.
One, they said, has already had a nasty encounter with the orang minyak.

It was crawling up the stairs of the house, just like Spiderman. When it reached the top it suddenly jumped onto the roof. I don’t think a human could do that.-P.MOHAN

As reported by a local Malay daily, the 17-year-old girl did not only see the orang minyak a few times, but also felt “someone” caressing her and calling her to go out of the house.
It reportedly also locked the family members outside the house on Christmas eve, forcing the girl's brother-in-law Kamal Bahari Satar, 36, to break down the door.
“We saw a black heap underneath the kitchen table. When other residents poked it with a bamboo stick, we could see blood stains,” he was quoted as saying. It then fled to a neighbour's house.
After being “disturbed” for five days, Kamal decided to move his family out of their house, and out of the neighbourhood.
Unfortunately, all attempts by Sunday Star to contact him were unsuccessful.
Although some of these stories sound incredible and illogical, it is hard to find any Kampung Laksamana resident who doesn't believe in it, even those who haven't seen it.
The residents have been carrying out patrols from midnight to dawn. Every now and then, a team of youngsters can be seen riding their motorbikes in a convoy around the neighbourhood.
During the Christmas weekend, some 200 people patrolled the street, waiting for the orang minyak to appear and many carried parangs (machetes) and axes, says Aslam.
“Until we manage to catch this thing, we are going to carry on with our patrols. I don't feel calm although I don't have a wife or younger sister,” he vows.
Muaz Amran, 21, another resident who has been patrolling the area every night says he did not believe in such a thing before this.
“I thought the thing existed only in the movies but it seems to be happening in real life,” says the fresh graduate, referring to the 1956 P. Ramlee hit movie Sumpah Orang Minyak. He says that although he hasn't seen the orang minyak for himself, he believes his neighbours.
Another resident who only wants to be known as Man says he did not believe his neighbours at first.
Then, on Christmas day, he was woken up at 3am by a commotion outside his house.
“Apparently, the orang minyak had run into the next door neighbour's house but I just brushed aside the incident,” admits the bank officer.
The next night, his niece, who is a university student, saw the orang minyak sitting on the wall of his house.
“She woke up when she heard something. When she peeked out of the window, she saw a black figure sitting on the wall with its back facing her,” he says.
P. Mohan, 48, also claims to have seen the orang minyak at a house opposite his flat at about 12.30am.
“It was crawling up the stairs of the house, just like Spiderman. When it reached the top it suddenly jumped onto the roof. I don't think a human could do that. It then just disappeared,” he says, adding with a slight shudder, “The hair on my hands just stood up. We can laugh and joke about it, but this is serious. All the families here have young girls.”
K. Chandran, 49, has yet to see the orang minyak but he too is afraid that it will harm his 14 year-old daughter after hearing stories of how it appeared in an abandoned house next to his.
“I feel very scared now. All of us sleep in the hall with the lights on,” says the scrap metal dealer, whose lack of sleep is evident around his eyes.
Chandran shares that he has even installed two additional lights in his house, each costing RM500.
“Ever since these sightings, we have been feeling uneasy. I even dreamt about one of them recently,” he says.
Zaki Zainudin, 42, agrees that it has been difficult to get any peace of mind these past few days now they are startled by the slightest sound and get suspicious of every little happening.
“Last time a broken plate was just a broken plate. Now, we wonder why it has broken,” he says, before checking to see why a dog was howling nearby.
Zaki then takes out his phone to show photographs as proof of the existence of the orang minyak oil stains and footprint of the orang minyak in Kamal's house. He has also taken a picture of a banana tree leaf with an unusual tear. It has been said that the orang minyak is attracted to the banana bud (jantung pisang).
What is clear is that this stress has caused residents to lose sleep. Those on patrol only manage to catch a few hours of sleep before heading off to work in the morning. All the residents also sleep with all their lights on these days.
Almost at their wits end, the residents have made a police report as well as getting help from a few alternative healers, including a bomoh. They have also been holding prayers almost every night to ask for protection from the evil “spirits”.
Their frustration at the menace, and exhaustion, however, is growing by the day.
“I dare it to come and confront me now,” says office worker K. Paramasivam, his exasperation evident, echoing the feeling of every Kampung Laksamana resident.
He claims to have seen the bald orang minyak in an abandoned house, before it climbed up to the roof.
His main concern is for everyone in the neighbourhood, especially the young girls.
“I also have a younger sister in my house. We can't be sleeping two or three hours every day. We are not robots.”
But in a way this orang minyak episode has been a blessing in disguise for the residents of Kampung Laksamana.
Man observes that the slight “tension” between the supporters of the different political parties has disappeared in the past few days.
“Everybody is helping one another out. Everyone is together as one,” he says.
The residents also agree that they are friendlier with their neighbours now.
Paramasivam admits that he never really spoke to his neighbours and got to know them before.
“At the most, I would just acknowledge them. Now I actually talk and get to know them. The neighbourly spirit has been enhanced by these happenings,” he says.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/1/1/nation/10190056&sec=nation

So here you have it, the supernatural things going on behind the Batu Caves. It seems that the orang-orang minyak are working to unify the Malaysian people! I am not the only one saying this. See also:

Orang Minyak Kampong Laksamana Gombak menyatupadukanmasyarakat?

Orang Minyak Kampong Laksamana Gombak secara tak langsongmerapatkan jurang di-antara masyarakat sekampong!

http://mahaguru58.blogspot.com/2012/01/orang-minyak-kampong-laksamana-gombak.html

Or maybe better put: The Malaysian people unify to protect themselves from the orang-orang minyak, whoever they may be.

And in addition we have to guard from vampire pig. It has been seen flying in other places as well, recently. So, people, beware and guard well against the evils of the super?-natural? world!

2011-12-06T23:10:00.000-08:00

In Memoriam Francis Khoo Kah Siang (1947-2011)

A Tireless Advocate of Justice for Palestinians

By Franklin Lamb

Francis Khoo Kah Siang passed away on November 20, 2011.

In addition to the countless reasons Francis will be sorely missed by his friends and loved ones, he will be missed because he leaves a void for many of us who were and remain inspired by his work for Palestinian rights. Francis Khoo is an icon of countless others, who like himself, are neither Arab nor Muslim, neither from the Middle East nor culturally or politically connected to Palestine by birth, but who support the Palestinian cause.

Many of us, but especially Westerners and Americans it seems, learn essentially nothing about the Nakba in school. Yet many, often quite by chance and for one reason or another, have come into contact with the Question of Palestine and, learning about the great injustice that has befallen the Palestinian people, could not remain indifferent or idle. Francis was one of these.

To my personal regret, I did not know Francis Khoo well personally for a long period although we knew of each other. But by the time we finally met, which was just fourteen months before his sudden and untimely death last month, I knew what kind of a person he was and something about his lifelong quest for justice.

Over the past half-decade I learned something about his remarkably work through my friend, his wife, the gifted orthopedic surgeon and well known humanitarian, Dr. Swee Chai Ang, who for three decades has embraced and supported Palestinian refugees both with lifesaving medical care under heavy and indiscriminate bombardment inside Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp and Gaza Hospital in Beirut, and with her indefatigable work for the refugees return to Palestine. The latter included lectures and appearances around the World, sometimes in the company of Francis, her beloved husband, advocate, counselor and partner.

It was in September of 2010 that I met Francis in person when he came to Beirut for the 28th annual commemoration of the September 1982 Sabra-Shatila Massacre and he attended a reception at the office of the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign and participated in a heavy schedule of activities during his visit. It was evident that he was a fascinating life-loving person with whom it would be a great pleasure to spend time and to work with which I had hoped to do.

All the while he was in Lebanon he was on peritoneal dialysis for kidney failure which he administered himself three to four times a day.According to his niece Melissa, Francis would often use his walking stick as a hanging post for his dialysis fluids including at the Hezbollah museum at Melita in South Lebanon. He recalled with fondness how the Hezbollah Melita museum guard who was obviously unfamiliar with this version of makeshift dialysis tried to help him. On the bus south, to visit Palestinian refugee camps, Francis entertained the passengers with songs, including Beladi (‘my land’) the beautiful Arabic anthem of the Palestinian revolution, followed by a soliloquy on the origin of the song and his interpretation.

Few of the passengers on the bus had much idea about Francis’ background. Francis Khoo Kah Siang was born into a closely knit, devoutly Catholic Singapore Peranakan family. As a lad he sang in the Singing Khoos with his brothers and at an early age developed a passion to work for the rights of the oppressed. Once admitted to the Singapore Bar, Frances began working on sensitive civil rights cases that many other lawyers preferred to avoid.

Francis had earlier developed a reputation as a defender of the downtrodden and while as an undergraduate at University, or later as Vice President of the Student Law Society, he opposed the introduction of the Suitability Certificate, fought the abolition of the jury system in Singapore and condemned the indiscriminate criminal 1972 Christmas Day bombing of Hanoi ordered by President Nixon.

Before long Francis found himself being accused of violating Singapore’s Internal Security Act, which particularly during the 1977-1987 period was used to arrest hundreds of Singaporeans who were held without trial. A fortnight following their January 1977 marriage, the international security police came for him. His young wife Dr. Swee Chai Ang, was also sought by authorities who came for her and threatened to handcuff her while she was in the operating theatre performing surgery. Eventually, and following continuous interrogation, sleep deprivation and solitary confinement, Dr. Swee was released as part of a government scheme to try to lure back to Singapore Francis, who by then had escaped and left for England and he began his 34 years of exile from his country. Swee joined her loved one and they developed their remarkable careers in London.

Francis’ niece recently wrote that, “They could kick Francis out of Singapore, but they could not kick the Singaporean out of Francis,”as he followed events in his country, frequently wore his Peranakanskirt-the Sarong, and wrote about his homeland including the well-known song, “And Bungaraya Blooms All Day.” Francis had hoped that 2011 would be the Singaporean Spring.
Some friends saw a parallel between Francis’ wish to return to his homeland and his decades of advocacy of the Palestinians Right of Return.

Francis Khoo, was a gifted humanist. He had many God given and self-discipline acquired talents that included using his legal education and life experience to challenge injustices and using his energy and organizational abilities to defend the oppressed.
Just three examples, out of many, include his important work in support of the 1984 UK striking miners and working as Director of War on Want, established by the late British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson.

Francis also co-founded with his wife Swee, and their and my friends, Pamela and Major Derek Cooper who spent the summer of 1982 with Janet Lee Stevens with me in West Beirut, Medical Aid for Palestinians. Francis served as MAP’s Vice Chairman from 1984 to 2007, while also donating his time and abilities to numerous other charitable works.

Francis’ passions included writing, especially articles, poetry and songs, photography, and drawing. He possessed a particularly unique skill, as explained by his niece Melissa, currently doing her residency in surgery and using the medical term ‘eidetic memory’ in describing her uncle’s photographic memory, that gave Francis the ability to recall images, sounds or objects as well as dates with remarkable precision.

Francis Khoo lived a full and valuable life and left this world a better place because of his lifelong labors for justice. Those of us who were honored to know Francis Khoo Kah Siang and who share his commitment for the liberation of Palestine and the full return of her six million refugees will pay him tribute by continuing his work for peace and justice.

This includes advocating in Lebanon and internationally for the end of the politically motivated excuses from Lebanese politicians and religious leaders, across a wide spectrum, who continue to counsel a go slow approach, after 63 years, for the implementation of even the most elementary, morally and legally mandated civil right to work and to own a home for Lebanon’s quarter million Palestinian Refugees.

Franklin P. Lamb, LLM,PhD
Director, Americans Concerned for
Middle East Peace, Wash.DC-Beirut
Board Member, The Sabra Shatila Foundation and the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Beirut-Washington DC
Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp
Beirut Mobile: +961-70-497-804
Office: +961-01-352-127
fplamb@palestinecivilrightscampaign.org

HEIMAT

2011-04-25T06:49:00.000-07:00

“Heimat” is one of those German terms that is practically untranslatable. The word “Heimat” is a noun and means something like ‘home’, ‘native country”, ‘homeland’, ‘home town’, ‘where I was born’, etc.

Malaysians sing the ‘Negara Ku’: Negara ku, tanah tumpahnya darah ku (My country, where I have spilt my blood); a description of “Heimat” in Malay. The other Malay word is ‘tanahair’ (land/water), which means the same.

The popular Swiss music group Züri West in one of their songs in Bernese dialect describe it like this: “…irgendwo uf em e Parkplatz / plötzlech schmöckt’s wieder wie dahei / irgendeinisch fingt ds Glück eim / irgendwänn weisch wär d’bisch / irgendwänn weisch genau wo de häre ghörsch / öpper schteut es zwöits Tassli uf e Tisch…” [“…somewhere on a parking place / suddenly it smells like home / some day happiness will find you / some day you will know who you are / some day you will know where you belong / someone puts a second cup on the table (for you) … “.]

Maybe I like this song so much because it reminds me of my own “Heimat” smell: Whenever I arrive in Zurich Main Station, step out of the station, and cross to Central to take the tram, I smell the water of the lake of Zurich and the river Limmat, a green, cold, fecund smell; that is “Heimat” for me, then I know that I am home!

“Heimat” means different things to different people and is expressed in different ways.

A few weeks ago we had “Green Day” at the Sahabat Support Centre. Some students from UIA came to the centre to organize different activities for children around environmental issues, such as recycling, reusing, and composting, things that they could do at home. Some films were shown, there were role plays, quizzes, games and other fun. The parents and other family members of the children who were present and the staff also joined.

To conclude the workshop, the students brought out big sheets of paper, groups of children settled around the papers on the floor. The last task was to draw the spoiled, polluted world on one side, and the green safe, clean world on the other side, and in the end present the paper to all, and explain the drawing.

One of the Afghan teenagers began drawing a tree on the green side of the paper: Carefully he drew one line for the trunk, another for a branch; he was adding line after line, slowly a tree emerged, as if chiselled, an intricate structure was built, line by line. The drawing reminded me of a fine Iranian carpet, the best kind, with the Tree of Life in the centre; the foundation of “Heimat”.

A young man from Gaza took the pen and drew a palm tree. Not the usual kind with a stem and lines representing leaves extending on the top. Carefully he drew one line for each palm frond in all detail. Then he drew two big bunches of dates, hanging from the centre, each date fully formed. That date palm was his symbol of “Heimat”.

Then another refugee from the Middle East came forward and drew thick rainclouds over the whole “green” side of the drawing, with drops and rivulets of water showering the Tree of Life and the date palm.

At first I was taken aback, thinking like a European, who identifies rain with something negative, like sadness. But I soon understood that rain in the Middle East is the blessing of Allah for all living things; so that rain over the green, fertile, safe, clean world is indeed the life-giving force of nature, together with the sun.

The Malays express it like this: “Hujan emas di negeri orang, hujan batu di negeri sendiri, lebih baik di negeri sendiri” (Rain of gold in foreign lands, and rain of stones in your own land, still your own land is better).

We all, Malaysians and people of other countries and with other nationalities, refugees, need the bounty and blessing of nature, rain and sunshine, the blessing of God; and everybody and all need a “Heimat”, if not in the country where we were born, we still need a place where someone puts a second cup on the table for us in a place we can call home.

Mohammad’s Birthday

2011-04-21T01:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Mohammad’s 24th birthday. That is, it would have been if he would be alive.

Mohammad died last December 26; he was 23 years old.

Mohammed was riding a motorcycle on that Sunday afternoon on the DUKE, wearing a helmet, and keeping on the left, as usual, as he was a careful driver.
The circumstances of the accident and his death are not clear. The photos of the accident show that the motorcycle was completely squeezed under the car from behind from the impact, and the police had difficulties pulling the motorcycle out from under the car. Mohammad’s body lies outside of but parallel to the safety railing at the left side of the road; he lies on the stomach, and his arms are positioned as if he is protecting his head, as if he is lying down with a headache.

There are many questions unanswered:

The car driver stated that he had parked the car on the left side of the highway. Was he really parked there– by itself an offence – or had he missed the nearby junction and was driving backwards at great speed? If he was parked, were his break lights functioning? Why did Mohammad not see him? It was broad daylight, afternoon, with bright sunshine.

What was the driver doing when the accident happened and right afterwards?
And why does Mohammad lie on the other side of the low safety railing in an orderly fashion? With his arms across his head? Was he thrown into such a position? A highly unlikely outcome of the accident.

Was he instantly dead? Or did he still live after the accident and crawled into that position himself, to succumb to his head and leg injuries? Over the safety railing? Very unlikely as well.

Was he carried there and placed in that position? By whom? He was a big, heavy young man. Who called the police?

Mohammed was the eldest son of an Iraqi Palestinian family who have sought refuge in Malaysia from persecution in Iraq a few years ago. The parents received death threats, they feared that Mohammed or another of their children would be kidnapped for ransom, or to disappear forever.

They are registered with UNHCR Kuala Lumpur and wait for their resettlement since a few years.

I had known the young man, as it was he who came to the MSRI office regarding some support for his mother’s medical treatment. He was also the one to bring his youngest sister to the school and back to the house, before going to work.
He was engaged to a very nice Malay girl, whom I finally met for the first time at his funeral. They wanted to get married in 2011, and she was set to follow him to whatever country he would be resettled in.

I accompanied the family during the whole day of the burial, from claiming the body at the morgue of HKL, to the mosque where the body was washed and prepared for the burial, to another mosque for prayers, and last to the cemetery on the outskirts of KL. There were about forty men with the father and brothers of Mohammad. I accompanied Mohammad’s mother on that day in a journey that no mother should have to make. His sisters, nieces and fiancée were also there. I knew of the bad health of the mother, and I feared that she would break down.

I was a witness to the strength of a mother who has to bury her son. Who called her firstborn to wake up and come back, to acknowledge her presence, to reminisce his life with her. She sat on the ground next to the grave after the burial and did not want to leave her son. She talked to him, pleading. Trying to accept, struggling to understand.

But she did not break down. I think that comes later.

Mohammad’s family is still waiting for the police to investigate the accident to find out what happened and whose fault it was. The autopsy report, which was promised to take 1 or 2 months is also not ready yet. RM 80.00 were paid in advance for the report. There was an error in the Death Certificate, which had to be rectified. Time of death was given as a.m., instead of p.m.

The family feels that the Malaysian authorities, the police, hospital personnel, JPJ officers are dismissing their case because they are foreigners, refugees even. They think that the authorities involved are not taking them seriously, are biased against them, and wait for them to be resettled and go away so as not to have to take any action.

Without the police investigation report and the autopsy report the family cannot find out the facts about the accident. Without knowing all the facts they cannot come to terms with their loss. Without these reports, the driver of the accident car will not have to face up to and account for his actions during and after the accident.

The father walked around with red, teary eyes yesterday.

Mohammed would have celebrated his 24th birthday, yesterday.

Abused Children - suffering any time, any place

2010-07-26T14:52:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in the train to Berlin. I still have two hours to go, before arriving. I am visiting one of the best European centres for the treatment of torture victims.

I have just finished reading the Amnesty International publication: “Abused and Abandoned: Refugees Denied Rights in Malaysia”. It is a very depressing document to read; the reality of the lives of these refugees in Malaysia is a shame for the country.

A brief quote from the conclusion of the report: “For those refugees and asylum-seekers who are forced to flee their homelands in search of protection, Malaysia is an unwelcoming and dangerous place. The failure of the Malaysian authorities to formally acknowledge their existence has tangible consequences which compromise their safety and are in direct contravention of international human rights standards. Risk of arrest and prolonged detention, ill-treatment, refoulment [being sent back to the place of origin], and a lack of durable solutions are not just fears but realities for refugees in Malaysia.”

MSRI is frequently confronted by refugees, especially from the Middle East, who – as a last resort – come to MSRI for help; help for medical treatment, help with the education of their children, requests for food aid, and other ‘emergency situations’ that refugees find themselves involved in Malaysia. You can find some stories on refugees in Malaysia in some of the older postings.

Life is never harder than when you find yourself in a foreign country where you have no civil rights, no right to work, or exist legally, where you do not exist at all and have no legal identity.

Well, maybe I am wrong, and a life without love and care in your own country can be as hard.

I remember the exhibition I saw last week in Baden, Switzerland. It was on ‘Verdingkinder’, children, who had to be placed in the care of strangers or homes until they were grown up, with a programme under the equivalent of ‘child care services’ in the 19th until the middle of the 20th century.

From my mother I know that her father, my Grandfather, had been a ‘Verdingkind’. He had been orphaned at an early age, and had been given to a farmer in Herisau, Canton Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Switzerland. As so many such children, he had been abused, had to work full-time like any other farmhand (except that he did not get any wages for his work) and if he then still had any energy left, he was allowed to attend school.

He was beaten and starved and had no prospect for a bright future.

He could not take such abuse, and at the tender age of 14 he escaped, yes, he ran away, and spent his following years with woodcutters in the mountains, a very hard life, as you can imagine. During summertime he worked as a rafter, guiding huge rafts made up of the stems of trees down the river Rhine until Rotterdam, where the wood was sold with a nice profit. This was a very dangerous job, especially for someone so young as my Grandfather was at that time; but it also provided him the opportunity to travel and see Germany and Holland, huge countries, compared to tiny little, narrow Switzerland.

From the money earned, he was able to get a place as an apprentice, becoming a painting and plastering craftsman, and later set up his own business in Wetzikon, ZH, Switzerland, as a master craftsman. He had eight children –actually twelve, but four died in their infancy – of which my mother was the last, the bongsu. He died long before I was born, my mother was still in school. So the only things I know about him are those stories that I can still remember from what my mother had told me.

It was a big shame to be a ‘Verdingkind’. These children were all deprived of a family, be it that they were full or partial orphans, be it that they were born out of wedlock, be it that they were perceived as ‘trouble-makers’, or simply that their parents were very poor and had too many children to raise. All the children to be ‘verdingt’ were brought once per year to a particular place, all those who wanted to take such a child also came there, and thus the children were matched with ‘caretakers’ who were actually more slave owners than foster parents. At such ‘slave markets’ sometimes children were matched with ‘caretakers’ with a lottery system.

The Welfare Department would pay a very small amount of money to the ‘caretaker’ for the ‘upkeep of the child’. Very often the money was used for other things. Many of the children were barefoot even in winter and were given rags to wear, not warm and decent clothes. Many were also given bad food and had to eat in the stable with the animals, not with the farmer in the house.

When a child rebelled against this abuse and stole extra food because he or she was hungry, or warm clothes, or worse - ran away, the child was immediately labeled as a ‘trouble maker’, a ‘bad boy’ or a ‘bad girl’, and as punishment sent to an institution for ‘difficult children’, the type of establishment which is more reminiscent of a prison or a military school in the worst sense of the word.

Once grown up and responsible for themselves, these ‘Verdingkinder’ would not talk about their childhood even though the scars were deep and many, and stayed with them all their lives, because somehow it was a shameful thing to be a ‘Verdingkind’. Many ordinary people in Switzerland at that time thought that these children must have been bad in the first place to be put out to strangers like that.

When I look at the children of refugees in Malaysia today, I ask myself what kind of scars these children will have to bear all their lives because of their parents making the decision to leave their home and come to Malaysia, not least because it is a Muslim country and has Visa on Arrival, and because Malaysia is highly respected in the Middle East.

When we had a seminar recently on Non-Burmese Refugees, an Iraqi refugee woman said that she felt completely isolated, lonely, and shunned, just like the ‘Verdingkinder’ telling their stories in that exhibition. As true human beings we must reach out and build bridges between the people so that nobody has to go through such devastating experiences.

If you want to reach out to a refugee, please sign up to join MSRI’s “Sahabat Programme”. You can find all information on our website www.msri.org.my from next month.

A Tale of Three Brothers

2009-10-24T07:15:00.001-07:00

I have practically absorbed my love for fairy tales together with my mother’s milk. She used to sing me to sleep when I was but a baby, and later would tell me stories of all kinds, including all the Grimm Brothers’ folk tales, the Hans Christian Andersen Tales, Hauff’s fairy tales, stories from 1000 and One Nights, and Lisa Tetzner’s collection of Tales for 365 and One Days, and many, many more. In fact, until I was about 10 years old I would not sleep without a bedtime story from my mother.

Later, when I had kids of my own, I would also tell them stories. But none of my boys was as interested in those tales as I had been.

As a young adult, I began collecting folk and fairy tales – among other genres – and now have a sizeable collection.

But this Tale of Three Brothers has nothing to do with any folk or fairy tale. It is the story of real people and has really happened. The names and some details have been changed so that they cannot be easily recognised, but the story is nevertheless true.

A Tale of Three Brothers

Once upon a time, in a country far far away, in the Middle East, in a place called Palestine, a family was forced out of their home, their lovely house in Jaffa , at gunpoint , by evil, armed terrorist groups, like Irgun and Stern Gang. They had to flee for their lives, together with tens of thousands of other Palestinians. They could not take anything with them. Only the key to the main house door and some paper documents could be taken on the long track to Baghdad, and other places of refuge.

In Baghdad, they were very poor. But their neighbors helped them to survive the first few years. They settled down and lead a normal life. They had a son, who was born and grew up in Baghdad, who later married a girl, who was also born in Iraq, but whose parents had also fled the evil terrorist groups in their home country of Palestine in 1948. All they really wanted was to go back to their homes in Jaffa, but the rulers of the world would not let them go back, although they gave them a promise called "Right of Return".

So the young couple settled down in Baghdad and had three sons: Amin, Basim, and Karim. The three sons grew up, went to school, started working in different professions in Baghdad, and married women from among the Palestinian community in Iraq. All three of them had several children of their own.

Then came the war. George W. Bush, the leader of the ‘land of the free’ had solid evidence that Saddam Hussein, the leader of ‘the cradle of civilization’ possessed weapons of mass destruction which could be used against the ‘free’ people. So George W. waged war on Saddam to topple and kill him. Saddam Hussein, since the early days of his leadership, had held his protective hand over the Palestinian refugees in Iraq.

The war turned power structures in Iraq around; Saddam was captured and killed. The new rulers despised and hated the Palestinians in their country. Palestinians were arrested, tortured, killed. They received death threats; some disappeared; they were afraid for their lives.

Amin, Basim and Karim decided to take their families out of Iraq to safety. Amin and Basim, who had held good positions and earned a decent income for the past 25 years, sold their houses, bought fake Iraqi passports, and travelled via India to Southeast Asia. They were in two minds about which country they should actually go to. So in the end, Amin decided to go to Thailand, and Basim took his family to Malaysia. Basim argued that they would be better off in Malaysia, a Muslim majority country, rather than in Thailand, a Buddhist country. Amin, Basim and Karim were Sunni Muslims themselves.

Amin and Basim, in their respective country of refuge, ‘lost’ their fake passports and went to the local UNHCR (United Nation High Commissioner of Refugees) office to register as refugees, so they could be resettled in a country, that would accept them as citizens, where they and their children and children’s children could and would not be expelled anymore. Just about any country would do, as long as they were accepted there.

Karim, who did not have enough money to buy passports or air tickets to leave Iraq had waited too long, and in the end he just managed to take his wife and children and his old, ailing mother to the Iraqi border with Syria. Syria refused them entry, as there were already hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees in Syria. So Karim and family were stranded in no-man’s-land between Iraq and Syria, in a tent city, in the middle of the desert, without water, electricity, or anything else that is necessary for survival.

So, that was the situation of the three brothers three years ago.

What has happened since then? How is their situation today?

The first to find a country of resettlement for the family was Amin in Thailand. He was lucky. After the registration process to become a recognized refugee, which took about six months, he and the family had to wait almost a full year, before they were resettled in Norway. The UNHCR office in Bangkok, Thailand, is the regional hub for Southeast Asia. Amin was very lucky indeed, as many countries who traditionally accept refugees only accept refugees who remain in their geographical area. Non-Asian refugees in Bangkok, e.g. refugees from the Middle East or Africa, were out of their geographical area, and were only accepted for resettlement by a very small number of countries.

The second brother to find a ‘third country’ was Karim. After staying in the tent camp in the middle of nowhere in the desert for a year, together with hundreds of other families, the deplorable, most miserable and inhumane situation they were in finally resulted in the UNHCR office in Beirut, in charge of resettlement of the Middle East region, issuing a special emergency call to countries imploring them to accept these most unfortunate people for resettlement. Some South-American countries accepted a few hundred, including Karim, Karim’s wife, his mother, and all of his children.

And what has happened to the third brother, Basim?

He is still in 1Malaysia-truly Asia, waiting to be resettled with his family.

His eldest child, a daughter, has given up on ever going back to university to complete her studies. She had studied three semesters in Baghdad, but the Malaysian universities she applied to continue did not accept her papers and told her that she would have to start from scratch. She had no money anyway to go to any university.

Basim’s second child, a teenage son, began working illegally in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Refugees and asylum seekers are not allowed to work in Malaysia and cannot get work permits. So the son had to work longer hours for lesser pay, as he was in no position to argue with his boss. About a year ago, he was detained and sent to a detention centre for illegal migrant workers; but because he was a recognized refugee with a UNHCR card, and because someone with connections intervened on his behalf, he was released after a few weeks.

The whole family was so shaken by this experience, that they were scared for a few months to even try to go out into the city to earn a living, and had to depend on food aid from an NGO and other alms, until the necessity of survival kicked in again.

But the biggest worry of Basim was his youngest child, a fragile, shy, beautiful girl, who had just turned 6 when the family had arrived in Malaysia. “She should be going to school!”, he repeated often to everybody who was there to listen to his worries. “She should be going to school!” This sentence would turn and turn in his mind when he could not sleep, because the humid heat was too stifling in the small room they all shared at night.

“She should be going to school!”, he thought again, “what will ever become of her without an education?” He suffered remorse worse than torture. It was his fault that they were stranded here, that their lives were suspended for almost three years now!he thought. If only he would have listened to his brother Amin and go to Thailand; if only he would have listened to his brother Karim and waited with leaving Iraq; if only; if only; if only.

Tomorrow he would go out again, looking for a job, any job; begging from Arab businessmen or tourists some contributions to pay for his daughter’s school; going again to the nearby mosque to ask for money. Last week they had given him RM 50.00. He had felt insulted, but the cheapest school for his daughter was RM 2000.00 per year, payable in advance. He needed any money he could get. He needed to forget his pride. He had no pride left.

How will this story end? Will this true fairy tale have a happy end?

Yesterday, Basim was informed that the ‘land of the free’ has shown an interest to accept him and all his family members. He was told to expect a phone call from the embassy soon to make an appointment for an interview.

Basim has now hope beyond hope. If they accept him and his family, he, his children and his children’s children will finally be free in "the land of the free"!

Yes, most probably this fairy tale will have a Happy End.

THE END

Eid ul Fitr

2009-09-21T06:26:00.000-07:00

Always, but especially so this year, I am reminded during this joyous season of Eid ul Fitr of people who are far away from their loved ones. Not the sons and daughters who study abroad, fathers and mothers who work in foreign lands to make a living, but the people who have family members who are in prison, in lock-ups, detention or rehabilitation centres. While we phone and sms our friends and family members, telling them that we love them and think of them, the fathers and mothers who have a son in prison, the women and men who have a brother, sister or parent in rehab do not even mention the names of their loved ones to anybody. They are ashamed to do so.

Visiting the family of a close friend on the first day of Raya, nobody asks the father where Aladdin (not his real name) is. He has been an addict for the last 15 years, in and out of Pusat Serentis (rehabilitation centres), and in and out of prisons. None of the visitors know whether Aladdin is in prison or rehab. Nobody dares to ask, as nobody wants to embarrass the family. So later, at the house of an uncle of Aladdin, we ask. “Dia ambil khursus” (He is attending a course), is the laconic answer. “Where”, we ask. The uncle did not know.

I know that it is very bitter for the family that the only son is a drug addict. But if they do not support his recovery, how is Aladdin going to make it? If we just leave him alone in rehab or prison, how is he going to recover? Pusat Serentis’ failure rate is tremendous – less than 10% of ‘rehabilitated’ drug users stay off drugs permanently (see: http://www.med.cmu.ac.th/dept/psychiatry/AJP-2/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20064070_Gill070910.pdf), and prison sentences are for punishment, not rehabilitation.

I have known Aladdin since he was born. His mother was a close friend, and the family were our neighbors for many years, until they moved away. He used to come to my house to play with my children. He is like family to me.

Family members of rehab or prison inmates suffer in silence. They feel as shunned as the prisoners themselves. How did Aladdin become addicted? We do not really know the details. All I know is that when he was in his late teens, his mother died of a serious illness. As she had been a government servant, the family got quite a lot of money from insurance. Aladdin and his three younger sisters got around RM 25,000 each. The two teenaged sisters put the money in the bank and used it later for setting up their own families, the youngest was just a small child and her money was kept safe by the father. But Aladdin, who is the eldest, insisted on being in charge and managing his own money.

First he bought a car. Then he started to hang out with all kinds of new ‘friends’. He lost his job and his fiancé. About then we heard that he was addicted to drugs. He sold his car. He had used all money on drugs in a short while. He visited our house, and my husband’s new expensive leather shoes and my ‘good’ walking shoes disappeared. Right after that he ‘took his first course’.

Today we have lost count of all the ‘courses’ Aladdin has taken over the years. But going to visit his father’s house yesterday made me realize how sad it is for the family for not having Aladdin there with them to celebrate Hari Raya. And how deafening and artificial the silence is regarding Aladdin. A presence through absence!

Why do we not speak openly about him? I don’t really know. But I am determined to find out where he is and to visit him, as soon as I can. We cannot bring his father with us, he is bedridden. But maybe we can get one of the sisters to come with us. Maybe with renewed family ties Aladdin can find new strength to fight his addiction better?

On this day of forgiveness, I feel the pain of the loss these families have to endure, and I wish to make a commitment to help and support mending and reinforcing broken family ties in whatever way I can.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri everyone.
Maaf, zahir, batin.

T*

2009-09-12T01:02:00.000-07:00

When you come around the corner of the long corridor and enter ward 4C at the Selayang Hospital, you can hear some of the patients moaning. In that ward you can find men who are in great pain, some dying. It is a ward where “pain management” is the cornerstone of medical treatment.

So when I went there to visit one of “our” patients, I could hear the long drawn-out moaning long before I could see that T* had the curtains pulled all around his bed. The nurse asked me if I wanted to talk to T* and then pulled the curtain away from the bed to announce me, a visitor.

Apart from MSRI’s interpreter/translator Mohammad, T* had no visitors during his whole stay at Selayang Hospital. He has no family here, only very few friends, he is a Palestinian refugee who suffers from Buerger’s Disease.

We had come to know about him in the course of a survey that MSRI is doing among the refugee community in Kuala Lumpur. One afternoon in July, I got a phone call from our researcher, who told me with agitation in his voice that he has just met one of the people he was supposed to interview and found that that man, T*, had gangrenous feet and fingers.

I immediately phoned one of the doctors who extend medical care to people referred by MSRI to them. He suggested to bring the patient to a private hospital. We did that, and T* was seen by three specialists there. He was then referred to Putrajaya Hospital. From there he was referred to Selaying Hospital, to Dr. Mary Cardoza, a pain specialist.

Buerger’s disease is a relatively rare disease which is very little known. It is thought to be an auto immune disease which is triggered by a substance in tobacco. The initial symptoms are pain induced by insufficient blood flow in feet and hands, which may radiate into other parts of the body; numbness and tingling in fingers, toes, hands and feet; extremities turning white when cold; skin ulceration and gangrene of the fingers and toes. Pain may be very intense in the affected limbs.

There is no known cure for the disease, only some treatment for the symptoms. As the illness has a ‘tobacco connection’ any further primary or secondary contact with tobacco has to be prevented as this would aggravate the situation. Ultimately, if the progress of the disease cannot be stopped, the affected limbs have to be amputated.

T* is a young man who just has turned 30 this year. His family is originally from Gaza, but he grew up in Jordan. He is a Palestinian refugee.

The last time he was discharged from the hospital, on the way back to his squalid little room, he told me: “You know, before I had many dreams for my life. Now I have only one: to be able to walk again!”

What lies ahead for T*? How will his future be? Does he have a future?

He left Jordan, the place he was born and grew up in, because as Palestinian with a temporary passport T* did not qualify for medical treatment. He came to Malaysia because it was the only country for which he did not need a visa. But his ultimate aim is to be resettled by UNHCR to a third country, if possible, to Germany because there is a doctor in Germany who has assured T* that he could cure him of his disease. And that is T*’s one remaining dream. Can it be fulfilled?

On 8 December of this year, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees in the Near East will be 60 years old. This agency was set up as a response to the suffering of the Palestinian people displaced and disempowered after the partition of Palestine - in UNRWA’s own words: “UNRWA is unique in terms of its long-standing commitment to one group of refugees and its contributions to the welfare and human development of four generations of Palestine refugees. Originally envisaged as a temporary organization, the Agency has gradually adjusted its programmes to meet the changing needs of the refugees. Today, UNRWA is the main provider of basic services - education, health, relief and social services - to over 4.6 million registered Palestine refugees in the Middle East.” (from: http://www.un.org/unrwa/overview/index.html).

Where there is no UNRWA office – like e.g. in Malaysia – the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is responsible for Palestinian refugees. And for a better understanding of the situation of Palestinian refugees it must be said here that UNRWA does all of the above mentioned, but does not have a resettlement programme. Through UNRWAs work, the misery of Palestinian refugees in the Near East is – in a way - perpetuated indefinitely, as the money invested for education, health, relief and social services is just enough to maintain the status quo, not enough to change their situation.

It is only the UNHCR that will help Palestinian and other refugees to find a new home in a third country, where – usually after a number of years – they will become full citizens, a dream for any refugee. However, will resettled refugees forget about their ultimate dream to return to their place of origin? I don’t think so.

So how does T*’s dreams for the future look like realistically? First, to be resettled and become a healthy, painfree, able-bodied man again. This might yet happen. Even though he still lives in utter squalor and poverty, and in constant pain, with only a minimum of financial and medical support, he might get resettled in a developed country that not only provides him with a home and citizenship, but also sophisticated medical treatment which can completely cure his illness. With the fulfilment of this dream, the life of T* would again be whole. With his newfound health and a passport from his new home country he might even be able to travel to his place of origin, Gaza. What are the chances that by then Gaza will be a free and independent country, part of a nation called Palestine? Very slim indeed.

But I have been proven wrong before. So don’t lose hope, for Hope is Born of Lack of Hope (Sufi proverb).

SOLIDARITY

2009-08-17T20:19:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the honour to meet two founding members of the International Solidarity Movement, Huwaida Arraf and Adam Shapiro. ISM was founded as an international response to the Intifada to invite people from all over the world to witness and to challenge peacefully the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank (www.palsolidarity.org). These are the people who stand still with outstretched arms in front of Israeli army tanks in the Occupied Territories to prevent the tanks from passing though the occupied land to destroy houses, orchards, wreak devastation wherever they go, and kill, exterminate the Palestinian population.

In the film ‘Visit Palestine’, which depicts a short time period in the life of an ISM activist, Caiomhe Butterly, she is shown resisting in the above described manner an IOF army tank in Jenin, West bank, together with other ISM members (see below excerpt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX0Y75b6XeA). I get goose pimples just thinking about it.

What is it that brings people to defy the possibility of death in order to take a stand; to stand with fellow human beings, Palestinians? In my view, these people are real heroes. One of these ISM heroes was Rachel Corrie, a young American woman. She stood in front of an IOF army bulldozer to prevent it from destroying the family home of a Palestinian in Gaza, when the bulldozer just rolled over her, crushing and killing her (http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/site/about-rachel-corrie/). Despite Rachel’s death, the volunteers kept coming from everywhere in the world to serve as ISM members in the Occupied Territories.

In the words of Rachel Corrie: “We should be inspired by people … who show that human beings can be kind, brave, generous, beautiful, strong – even in the most difficult circumstances.”

In “Visit Palestine”, Caiomhe Butterly says: “When you are surrounded by violence it is a very human reaction to try to struggle for people to be allowed basic human rights. One has a responsibility to stand by - not necessarily to stand up - not be removed from the people you are trying to protect, to try to minimize the brutality they suffer on a day-to-day basis in any way that you can, but to stand with them to coexist, to live, to breath, to exult in their strength, and to try and comfort them in the times like the times we are living through now, in which people are suffering.”

This is solidarity: to stand side-by-side with our fellow brothers and sisters in defiance of the dehumanizing treatment from aggressors; to stand firm peacefully in the face of the violence and brutality of the occupation; to stand in solidarity in whatever way we can with our fellow human beings in Palestine, and any other place or time people, human beings, are supressed and subjected to dehumanizing treatment.

1st of August 2009

2009-08-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

The 1st of August 2009 has been a special day in so many different ways for me.

The First of August each year is the Swiss National Day, and as you know, Switzerland is my place of origin. On that day in 1291 – yes 1291 – 718 years ago, the ordinary Swiss people of Uri , Schwyz and Unterwalden (three Cantons in today’s Central Switzerland), farmers, traders, craftsmen, afraid to become subjects again of the House of Habsburg after Rudolf of Habsburg, the first German emperor had died, swore an oath to help each other against anyone attempting to subjugate them.

The legend goes that on that day in 1291 they ousted all overlords, chased them from their castles, their land, and as a sign that they had freed themselves they lit fires on mountain tops to signal to the others that they had succeeded. So Swiss people for a little more than a hundred years have been celebrating this day in Switzerland with huge bonfires on each hill, mountain top, in village places and other places where people usually congregate, and nowadays also sometimes with splendid fireworks, particularly in the cities, to reaffirm their freedom from all overlords.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.panoramio.com/photos/original/21083210.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.panoramio.com/photo/21083210&usg=__RybuR8xD4OfHN12LEEoACxP0T80=&h=950&w=1388&sz=1076&hl=en&start=12&sig2=S_4PJyDvALOIXvOHCSnunQ&um=1&tbnid=psghuYTLS1xJ9M:&tbnh=103&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3D1.%2BAugust%2BFeier%2Bpictures%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-my:IE-SearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7SKPB_en%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1&ei=lwevSqGmN5TW7AP5kKDqDA

That much for Switzerland.

In Malaysia, on the 1st of August 2009, other significant things have been happening. As many as 20,000 people have been demonstrating against an oppressive law, the Internal Security Act (ISA), a law that allows for incarceration of anyone without trial. The Government tried to suppress the demonstration by setting up roadblocks on roads leading into Kuala Lumpur and arresting people who had t-shirts etc. with slogans against the ISA even before any demonstration had begun. A group of NGOs also had announced their counter-demonstration, in support of the ISA. The Abolish-ISA demonstration was brutally squashed by the police with teargas and water cannons; but the demonstrators had made their point!

On the same day, in the Songket room at Damansara Specialist Hospital, another event took place. MSRI had organized on that day (without having known of the demonstration when organizing the event) a forum with four medical students from Universiti Islam Antarabangsa, who had done their elective posting at Haifa Hospital, in Burj al-Barajneh Palestinian Refugee Camp in the south of Beirut, Lebanon, in May and June. They had chosen to go there in response to the attack on Gaza in early 2009. MSRI had supported their stay in Lebanon financially as a part of MSRI’s programme of medical aid and other support for Palestinian refugees. The forum was to inform interested Malaysians on the situation of health care in the refugee camps in Lebanon and the kind of life Palestinians have in those camps.

The event was not well attended. Just a dozen or so people turned up. Did potential participants join the demonstration instead, or were they just too scared to come out of their houses? We will never know.

In the Welcome Speech, I quoted from a book, published by MSRI titled: “I painted the snow black, because we are afraid of the days”, which contains many stories of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. In the preface, written by the late Dato’ Dr. Alijah Gordon, MSRI’s founder and chairman, all medical volunteers who went to serve in the camps from 1987-95 in Lebanon were mentioned. I wanted to show at the forum that MSRI has a long history of sending medical volunteers to the refugee camps in Lebanon, was in fact the first Malaysian NGO to do so.

So, let me quote here the same passage I had chosen for the Forum:

“On Hari Raya, I [Dr. Alijah Gordon] sat in the home of a Malay journalist with Bernama. But I could not share the day. The more I saw Malaysians cheerfully eating and laughing, oblivious to what was happening in the camps (in Lebanon), the more soul-sick I became. I told my host I had to leave, which disturbed him and he insisted on knowing why. When I shared with him my revulsion, he asked what I wanted to do about it, and I said I had the feeling to go to the press and beg support from the Malaysian people for the besieged Palestinians in the camps. Zulkafly Baharuddin’s response was that on the next day he would organize a Press Conference so that I could do precisely that. From the time of the television coverage our phones never stopped ringing. … Malaysians poured in empathy and financial support to send medical volunteers and medicines to the camps. …

By July [1987] we were able to put our first team on the plane: four Malaysians: Staff Nurse Dolly Fong, Hospital Assistant Tengku Mustapha Tengku Mansur, Nurse Hajah Rosnah Nayan, and Staff Nurse Mathina Bee Ghulam Mydin. At the time journalists were not allowed into the camps, so we sent Zulkafly Baharuddin in as an ‘ambulance driver’ that he might feed back information to the Malaysian people. The second team, dubbed the “Magnificent Seven” left for Beirut on 30 August, included Staff Nurse Pok Looi, Acupuncturist Hor Fah Thye, Budik Busu, an ex-army Medical Assistant, Staff Nurse Hamidah Ghazalli, Dentist Dr. Mohd Yusuop Ali, Hospital Assistant Dr. R. Naidu and ex-army Medical Assistant Ahmad Bakri.
When all foreign aid workers were ordered out of Lebanon, Dolly Fong and Pok Looi opted to remain in Burj al-Barajneh, as did Hamidah Ghazalli in Rashidiyeh, the most southern camp. [They did not leave their medical posts even when coming under heavy military attack.] Staff nurse Pok Looi remains to this day working in a camp clinic. She is married to a Palestinian and has a Palestinian son, Jihad.

19 Malaysian volunteers served over the coming 8 years [in the refugee camps in Lebanon]. Eventually we opened our own free Dental Medical Clinic in Bar Elias. No one in need was turned away, be they Palestinian, Lebanese, Roma, or even a Syrian soldier. The volunteers were Buddhist Chinese, Muslim Malay, Hindu Indian, and later a Christian Chinese. When I went to visit the volunteers I found them with their arms wrapped around one another, closer than any family. There was no divisive race or religion, only humanitarian unity.”

What comes to mind when reading the above excerpt is that ultimately it does not matter what colour of skin or religion or political affiliation we have; ultimately, what counts is how we treat our fellow human beings who are suffering, the unfortunate and poor, the downtrodden, and the suppressed. A good way to begin is by honoring the tenets of human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Genetic Impact of Violence

2009-06-07T03:19:00.000-07:00

Recently, on 20 May 2009, the Klaus Grawe Award for the Advancement of Innovative Research in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy (that’s quite a mouthful!) was awarded in Zurich, Switzerland. The recipient of the award in 2009 is Terrie Moffitt, a psychologist, who is researching the impact of trauma on the genes.

In a long-term study she found that when a woman gets raped, or when a child is abused, it will have a measurable impact on the genes of their children and grandchildren. This traumatic event will result in a much less active form of a particular gene. The less active these genes are, the weaker these children are to recover from negative events in their lives. So, a child whose grandparents have been abused will be less able to cope for example with the divorce of the parents, or a war situation, or another stressful event, because of genetic reasons.

As a result, the child or youth might develop disturbed behavior, become aggressive, or even violent. But Terrie Moffitt also found that the weakened genes did not necessarily have to lead to disturbed behavior and that the genes can be positively influenced as well. This is contrary to popular believe and previous research which suggest that we are completely helpless to change our genetic ‘layout’. Moffitt says that by giving affected children more time and love, the negative genetic impact can be reduced.

Moffitt is saying that we are not the ‘product’ of our genes. There is no ‘crime’ gene, or an ‘intelligence’ gene. But the genes determine how we react to events in our environment.

Now what does this mean for children of refugees, in particular children of Palestinian refugees?

The children living now in the refugee camps in Lebanon, for example, are fourth generation refugees. Their great-grandparents had to flee their homeland in 1948, their grandparents were born as refugees, their parents were born as refugees, and they themselves were born as refugees. Their collective trauma, experienced over four generations, must have left those genes that Moffitt is talking about very weak indeed. This means that they cannot deal as well as healthy children with negative situations, and their lives in the refugee camps in Lebanon are full of negative situations.

(Photo by the author)

(http://www.spiegel.de/)

The same holds for the children of Gaza, where 80% of the population are registered refugees, and about half of the population is living in camps. The violence and depravation experienced for more than 60 years would have put these children at an immense disadvantage and must have weakened the genes much more than one violent event would have done.

During my 2008 visit of the refugee camps in Lebanon, I had the opportunity to have a long discussion with the psychologist who treats the children and adults at the mental health facility of Beit Atfal as-Samoud – our partner in Lebanon – in Beddawi Refugee Camp, near Tripoli in the north. She told me that for every new patient who will come to her she will begin by taking his or her story, beginning with asking the mother of the patient what kind of pregnancy it had been: mentally and physically easy or difficult, family conditions at the time of pregnancy, etc. etc. Then she would continue to take the patient’s history up to the present day.

The really interesting part of her explanation was when she told me that after the 2006 War on Lebanon, the Lebanese children who were brought to her for treatment because of trauma recovered much faster than the Palestinian children from the camps who had been equally traumatized by the war. There are now two explanations, equally compelling; but most probably both reasons have a combining and mutually reinforcing negative effect on the children:

1) The above mentioned weakened activity of the gene to withstand impact of negative events in the lives of the children,
2) The deprivation of the children during the fetal stage in terms of sufficient nutrition, and flooding with stress hormones due to negative events in the lives of their mothers during the pregnancy.

Under the best of circumstances, after warfare comes a time of recovery. During such time, much of the deprivation of children and adults can be made good again. As Moffatt has found, even damage to the genes can be healed with an extra load of love and care for these children.
What is extraordinary about the Palestinian refugees is that many of them have not come to this stage of recovery and calm, but have accumulated negative events for four generations. This heap of negative impact – the collective trauma - can be seen clearly when visiting the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon: the children are beautiful, but many look malnourished, with black rings under their eyes who look at you with the experience of old people. Many are extremely quiet, depressed and sad; many are extremely active and outright aggressive.

The children in the refugee camps in West Bank also look the same.

(http://spiegel.de/)

According to a Queen’s University study entitled ‘The Psychological Effects of War on Palestinian Children’ (John Pringle, 2006) “there is a pattern of violence against Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip that has serious and debilitating psychiatric and psychological effects.”
According to the study, a child in Gaza who has had a severe head injury has 4 times the risk of emotional disorder. A child who has been severely beaten has 3.9 times the risk of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. A child who has witnessed friends injured or killed has 13 times the risk of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. A child in a refugee camp has 5 times a greater chance of witnessing traumatic events and 4 times a greater chance of direct physical trauma.

(Photos by WAFA)

Add to this the negative impact on the genes of all the events going back to the grandparents lives, it is a miracle that any of these children is able to become a halfway happy and content adult; it also shows the resilience of the human spirit and the extraordinary ‘sumoud’ of the Palestinian people.

Nakba 2009

2009-05-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

I commemorated 61 years of Nakba together with Palestininian friends from Bourj al-Barajneh Refugee Camp in the south of Beirut. For the first time, the commemoration was held outside of the camp, in the centre of the roundabout in an underpass of an elevated highway. The event began with the opening of a small exhibition, including photographs from 1948, posters, and paintings by the camp children.

Six Palestinian NGOs working in Bourj al-Barajneh were selling handicrafts: all kinds of practical and decorative items adorned with traditional or modern cross-stitch motives.

The Palestinian map was everywhere; Handzala, the little fellow turning his back to you, barefooted and in tattered clothes, who was invented by the famous Palestinian cartoonist Naji Ali to represent the Palestinian Right of Return, decorated many paraphernalia; and like everywhere in the Westbank, there were a lot of items decorated with the famous portrait of Che Guevara, the revered freedom fighter. The third symbol you can see everywhere where Palestinians live is the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

One person from each participating NGO held a speech; journalists from Lebanese dailies and a TV station were filming and photographing the event and interviewing participants.
The children were playing and dancing to the loud music blaring from two giant loudspeakers.

Old men and women had come, some hobbling on their walking sticks across the busy road passing between the camp and the place where the event was held. They are the last witnesses to the actual Nakhba in 1948, the last of their generation to tell the now fourth generation of the loss of their homeland.

In one corner, sitting on dusty cushions on the ground, some old women were demonstrating old household appliances used by them in Palestine before, such as a coffee roaster, a hand-mill to grind corn, a stone with a wooden club for mashing food items, a mortar with pestle, etc. The hand-mill and the mortar could also have come from rural Malaya.

Many children were trying out these household tools, struggling and laughing and having a good time.

A woman brewed the freshly roasted and ground coffee and we all tried a few sips; the coffee was fragrant, most delicious and refreshing.

The tantalizing rhythms of Palestinian music got everyone dancing, whipping with their feet, nodding the head, moving shoulders, arms and hands with the rhythm. Even small children who could barely walk were dancing.

I watched the kids drawing on huge white papers which had been put up on some of the walls: they were drawing the Palestinian flag, houses, tanks, people, explosions, bombs, helicopters, and other things from their collective memories.

Then I had a closer look at the exhibited photographs of the Palestinian exodus in 1948, as well as the victims of Zionist violence in British Mandate Palestine.

The pictures immediately reminded me of pictures of Palestinian victims in Gaza 2009. It seems that nothing has changed in 61 years. Palestinians are still being slaughtered, burned, and torn to pieces by the Zionist colonial war machine. To the collective trauma that affects Palestinian refugees until today, my friends in Lebanon and elsewhere have to deal with the collective trauma that years of civil war in Leban, total depravation, dispossession, and complete disempowerment for generations have heaped on them.

How many more generations are the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and elsewhere not allowed to go back to their land in Palestine where they, their parents, grandparents and ancestors before them had been born and were living, while Jews from whatever country in this world, many of whom have been completely assimilated and culturally integrated and are full citizens with all citizens’ rights in their country have the right to hold Israeli citizenship and live in Palestine.

After having written this, I actually feel the urge to do some research on the statistics regarding the Jews and the Palestinians. Are the Palestinians the ‘new Jews’? Persecuted, gassed, burned, exterminated? The Palestinian people have the right to live peacefully in their own land. But peace cannot be achieved without justice. So what does ‘justice’ entail in the context of the conflict in Palestine?

More on this at a later date.

Beirut

2009-05-13T06:32:00.000-07:00

I have arrived In Beirut on Sunday. The weather is warm and sunny, not hot and humid like in Malaysia when I left. So after having visited the main office of our partner in Lebanon, Beit Atfal Assumoud (Home of the Children of the Steadfast) to get updated on the latest news regarding the situation of the Palestinian refugees in the camps and to discuss new programmes, I went for a long walk, down through the Hamra district, past AUB, to the Corniche, the beach promenade of Beirut.

Even though Lebanon is facing elections on 7 June, I only saw one poster on my three hours walk that is related to the coming elections.

I passed the American University of Beirut, which was founded in 1866.

I went down some very steep and long stairs which were decorated with graffiti left and right on the walls. I immediately felt removed to Zurich, the place of my childhood, where there is a similar staircase leading up to the University of Zurich. The stairs in Zurich might be a bit broader, but have the same kind of graffiti and the students are sitting in the same way on the stairs in groups.
Here are the stairs in Beirut. Please note Mickey Mouse in the forefront on the right.

In the area around the university there is a lot of graffiti on almost all walls. I have always been fascinated by these expressions of the “city guerilla”, the student underground. Graffiti is an art form by itself. But more about this another time.

The sun was already low in the sky above the sea when I finally reached the Corniche, the promenade on the shore of the Mediterranean in Beirut. I sat down on a bench, with my back to the road and the row of hotels behind that. The friendly smile of an old lady had invited me to share the place with her.

There were quite a number of cyclists with bicycles from the bicycle rental shop “Beirut on Bicycle” which I had noted on my way down. Some men and women were jogging along; some were doing other physical exercises such as stretching, bending, jumping; there were two men who were fishing with fishing rods surrounded by an admiring crowd; many young families with small children, many children with their Tamil or Philippino maids to attend to them; an old bag lady with a shopping wagon containing all her belongings; also the young and beautiful were strolling along talking on their state-of-the-art mobile phones.

The aroma of freshly brewed coffee enveloped me. A small van had stopped behind me at the kerb: it was a mobile coffee shop. For 750 cents I got a small cup with a few sips of fragrant, bitter, refreshing, piping hot coffee.

The atmosphere at the corniche again reminded me of Zurich, where half of the population will congregate at the lakeside as soon as the sun is warm enough for people to sit outside. From cyclists to old women enjoying the warmth of the sun, and the playing children, the scene was similar. The only difference: nobody in Zurich is selling Arabic coffee from a van.

When the sun had sunk into the sea, I slowly walked back to the hotel.

How similar people are. All you have to do is go to one of these places where people go in their free time to unwind and enjoy themselves and you find that they enjoy the same kind of activities, be it in Kuching at the riverside, in Beirut at the corniche, or in Zurich at the lakeside. So, if we are so similar as human beings why can’t we live together as human beings in peace? Are not our similarities bigger than our differences?

Lebanon

2009-05-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I am off to Beirut to attend a conference on disabled Palestinian children in the refugee camps in Lebanon. This is my fifth visit to this fascinating place. Why am I so taken with Lebanon?
Lebanon is an interface to several cultures and lifestyles. It is multi-flavoured. There is the flavour of Arab culture, language, foods; there is the flavour of French savoir vivre, very European; and there is the flavour of an international, English language and culture style.
Robert Fisk, one of my favorite writers and journalists, expresses his view about the flavours of Lebanon in the following way:
“When I arrived in Beirut from Europe, I felt the oppressive, damp heat, saw unkempt palm trees and smelt the Arabic coffee, the fruit stalls and the over-spiced meat. It was the beginning of the Orient. And when I flew back to Beirut from Iran, I could pick up the British papers, ask for a gin and tonic at any bar, choose a French, Italian or German restaurant for dinner. It was the beginning of the West. All things to all people, the Lebanese rarely questioned their own identity.” (Fisk, Robert: Pity the Nation, p. 163).
Lebanon is also one of the cradles of civilization: Byblos, called Jbail today, 37 km north of Beirut, was to celebrate 7000 years of ‘continuously inhabited city’ in 2006, when Israel wrought war on Lebanon and bombed the country and its infrastructure to bits. To no one’s surprise hardly any tourists came to celebrate.
Unlike the American army in Iraq, the Israeli ‘Defense’ Forces did not destroy any ancient sites this time around. So Byblos and Baalbek can still be visited and admired by tourists today.
The more recent history of the country is very mixed, if not to say tortured. War after war after war have come down on Lebanon during the last few decades. As soon as there is some semblance of reconstruction and normalization of life, the next conflict is waiting around the corner. At the moment though it looks pretty stable politically, despite elections looming on 7 June.
Coming from Switzerland, a mono-cultural country with mostly Caucasian inhabitants, Malaysia and Lebanon are the epitome of cultural mix. Lebanon officially recognizes eighteen religious communities within the country, and its political system reflects these communities. Malaysia also has different ethnic and religious communities which are reflected in the political parties.
Some 20 years ago, standing at one of Zurich’s busiest places, the Bellevue-Platz, waiting for the tram with my two kids, my elder son suddenly said: “ There are so many different people here.” What he expressed was the following: Coming from Malaysia, where you could easily identify the different ethnic groups by their clothes, in mono-cultural Switzerland people expressed their individuality in a thousand different ways, resulting in a variety that did not allow to identify anybody with a particular ethnic or religious group.
In Lebanon, I am still learning about the different groups.

Déjà Vu

2009-05-05T04:27:00.000-07:00

I am currently reading this thick book by Robert Fisk “Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War”. Robert Fisk is the Middle East Correspondent of the British daily The Independent. He is based in Beirut, Lebanon. The book was published 19 years ago in 1990. In it, Fisk describes the events taking place in Lebanon in the 1980s, including the Sabra-Shatila massacre.

What has been really striking is that about every ten pages I get this feeling of déjà vu.
“I had to take the babies and put them in buckets of water to put out the flames. When I took them out half an hour later, they were still burning. Even in the mortuary, they smoldered for hours.
Dr. Amal Shamaa of the Barbir hospital, after Israeli phosphorus shells had been fired into West Beirut, 29 July 1982” (In: Fisk, Robert: Pity the Nation, page 282.)

The first time I had come across information that something special is going on in the warfare of Israel with its neighbors in the Middle East was in 2006, in an article in Al Ahram Weekly, an online digest in English of the Egyptian Al Ahram newspaper sometime in June or July, during the Israeli attack on Gaza named “Operation Summer Rain”. The article included an interview with a spokesman of Shifa Hospital in Gaza, who stated that the doctors at the hospital were confronted with patients who had horrific wounds, torn limbs and burns such as they had not seen before and were helpless to treat.

Then in the July War in Lebanon 2006, which started on 12 July and formally ended on 8 September, again there were indications that Israel was trying out new chemical and other munitions with devastating effects on human beings.

In early February 2007, at the three-day War Crimes Conference at the Putra World Trade Centre, Kuala Lumpur, organised by the Perdana Global Peace Organisation, one of the speakers also showed the devastation of these new types of munitions: small entry wounds with extensive damage and burns inside, or bodies and limbs torn apart.

With all the above knowledge I am certain that Israel, after having tested the use of these new munitions and weapons in Gaza and Lebanon in 2006, used them systematically for the first time in their war on Gaza named “Cast Lead” in December 2008/January 2009. White phosphorus, DIME (Dense Inert Metal Explosives), cluster bombs and flechettes (a sort of ‘cluster darts’ that can penetrate bullet-proof vests) were unleashed onto Gaza, killing and maiming thousands of human beings, civilians, men, women and children.

Coming back to ‘Pity the Nation’: now I know that the use of phosphorus on civilians by the so-called Israeli “Defense” Forces has a much further reaching history than I had known before.

I do hope that the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.net) established on 4 April 2009 in Brussels will uncover the history of such illegal warfare, take these war crimes into account, and make perpetrators and their supporting partners in crime accountable for their horrific deeds.

Thank You for Treating Me Like a Human Being

2009-05-01T21:56:00.000-07:00

Over the last two months, three different, unconnected and unrelated people have thanked me for treating them like human beings. What have they got in common? They are all Palestinian refugees in Malaysia.

Malaysia has not signed the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Therefore, legally, the refugee status does not exist in Malaysia. So people registered with UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees) in Kuala Lumpur are considered illegal migrants. They are not allowed to work. Their children do not go to school. Their lives have been suspended.

They are waiting for resettlement to a third country through UNHCR, but this takes time. 2-3 years is no exception. Some families pull together all resources and live together in rented apartments, one family per room. Some get a bit of support from caring Malaysians, some from Arabs doing business in Malaysia. Some bachelors stay in suraus.

MSRI, the Malaysian Social Research Institute, the organisation I work for, is managing a Palestinian trust fund. Among other aid programmes, we also have a Sponsorship Programme for Palestinian Children in Lebanon. Because of these programmes, Palestinian refugees in Malaysia often find their way to my office in Jalan U Thant, Ampang. Like the three men mentioned above.

Wherever they turn to in their distress about their situation, whoever they approach will be sympathetic. But most people do not want to hear about the hardship these Palestinians face here. Malaysia is supposed to be this tropical paradise, and refugees, not only Palestinian but also for example Burma refugees only spoil the picture. So most people just turn away; the ones who have some empathy will press a 50Ringgit note into their ourstreched hands before turning away.

It is particularly bitter for Palestinian refugees from Gaza to read in the newspapers that millions of aid and support is going to Gaza; to see all the banners hanging at many places in the cities, mosques, bridges and other strategic places declaring the solidarity of the Malaysian people with the people in Gaza, while they, also from Gaza, live the lonely lives of refugees right in their midst.

Over the last two years, more Palestinian refugees from the Middle-East have come to Malaysia, ususally after having spent months beeing pushed from one country to the other, or from war zones such as Iraq. They come to Malaysia because here they can get "Visa on Arrival" which is valid for one month. So increasing numbers of Palestinian refugees are also arriving at my doorstep.

What MSRI can do to help these people is very limited. First of all, we will talk to them and evaluate their situation. We actually listen to their stories, mostly very sad and tragic stories. In times to come I might just tell some of them here. We listen when they pour out their frustration with their current situation and their powerlessness to change anything and to be in charge of their lives, their suspended lives in Malaysia. We offer a sympathetic ear and a cup of coffee or tea. This is why I hear this sentence so often: "Thank you for treating me like a human being!"

I want to cry when they say that. No human being should have to say that sentence. Particularly not in Malaysia, where we all pride ourselves to be part of a caring society.

After evaluating their situation we are looking at how we can help. The immediate support includes emergency food aid and medical support. A short-term goal must be to get the children to school. The refugees also need some sort of income to sustain themselves until they can be resettled. Mid-term goals are successful resettlements. The ultimate goal is for Malaysia to implement refugee rights according to international law.

But this will take time.

Until such time, I wonder how many times I will have to hear that sentence: "Thank you for treating me like a human being."