Mind your own business

I received a forwarded sms from a friend lately that asked everyone to take off any religious article in the car such as rosary and car sticker that indicates they are Christian because people will harm you if they know that you are a christian. I ignored the sms, kept my rosary in my car and deleted the sms. Although we must be aware of our surrounding and try not to place ourselves in danger, I will not back down on this.

I am a Catholic, follower of Christ and I am proud to be so. Why should I be worry that people will harm me because of what I believe? Should I just proclaim other faith to avoid placing myself in danger? I will not, I never will. God has stand by me in every moment of my life, through good and bad, and He has blessed me with every wonderful things that has happened to me. I will do the same to Him.

Christian teachings say that we should be tolerant, forgive and love your enemy, be a peace keeper and stand up for any injustice. But there is a big different of being tolerant and being indifferent. Being tolerant is to accept other people's point of view without jeopardizing one's value and believe. For example, in a marriage life, there are always arguments, what keeps a marriage going is for both husband and wife to accept different point of view and work together to find a solution best suits both party. It is not stand back and says, "Hey, do what you like, because I don't care.".

Being tolerant is not a simple thing to do, as you need to put down your ego, evaluate both opinions and come out with a compromised plan calmly. Being indifferent is a lot easier, just back off, let the other party do whatever they want as long as you're not harmed. In other word, just mind your own business.

"Mind your own business", I always hear this term. But can we really do that? Or should we really do that? We can't and we shouldn't. We are living in a society where everything is interconnected, what happens to our political scene will transverse into our everyday living, finance, education, social welfare and security.

I used to think that politics are for big guns and businessmen, as I am only a normal middle class, there is nothing to do with me. But I was wrong, politic has everything to do with everyone of us. Unstable political scene will bring a country down like a shooting star. That is why I choose to do what I can, at least to keep myself aware of the political situation in our country, I signed a few petitions before that asked the government not to relocate the church, use of the word "Allah" in Herald and to abolish the coal power plant project in East Coast Sabah. Although that is not a major effort, but I will support any movement that speaks up my mind and stand for justice. I will not go on strike but I will do whatever I can within my own limit to stand up for justice and peace. For our good and our children's future.

God has stand by me in every moment of my life, through good and bad, and He has blessed me with every wonderful things that has happened to me. I will do the same to Him.

Environmental problems - Palm oil plantation

There's a lot of environmental problems in Sabah, didn't notice that before I met Mr. Wong. Mr. Wong is an environmental activist based in Lahad Datu.

Before this, I thought that the palm oil plantation is a big plus to the environment, because we are actually planting trees. That's partly true, but the plantation in Sabah and Sarawak is large that it has become a hazard to environment.


First of all, the lands that palm oil plantation takes up can threaten the extinction of Orang Utan and other species of animals. Oil-palm plantations could be responsible for at least half of the observed reduction in orang-utan habitat in the decade between 1992 and 2003. Almost 90 per cent of orang-utan habitat has now disappeared. Some orang-utan populations have been halved in the past 15 years, and from a total remaining population of less than 60,000, an estimated 5,000 are lost each year. If this rate of decline continues the orang-utan will be extinct within 12 years.


Then, there's the problem of carbon dioxide emission due to land clearing for plantations. Biofuels from palm oil actually release less carbon dioxide than fossil fuels when burned. But the land clearinng of rainforest and drained swamps (peat soil) released a lot of carbon dioxide. Rainforest and drained swamps are known to trap carbon in their watery depths for millennia. As the peat has dried, and sometimes burned, it has released huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Drained peat swamps in Indonesia and Malaysia annually released 2 billion tonnes of carbon between 1997 and last year, an amount roughly equal to 8 per cent of annual global emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

When canals are dug to drain peat swamps, the peat dries and oxygen combines with the trapped carbon, releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Because dry peat is extremely flammable, fires frequently erupt on cleared land. In 1997 fires in Indonesia sent smoke billowing throughout South-East Asia and released massive amounts of carbon dioxide.

Do you all remembered few years ago, how the haze from Kalimantan affects us?

To solve the issues, I don't think that by boycotting the palm oil will have impact on it, because other industries will have similar impact.

Recommendations:

1. No forest conversion for oil palm
2. There must be no use of fire for land-clearing
3. Companies operating palm oil plantations must minimise their impact on the environment through good management practices.

• obeying all relevant Government regulations e.g. on emissions of waste-water
• use of integrated pest management
• significant reduction in the use of pesticides and transparency in the amount of pesticides used
• recycling of POME
  

Malaysia's Education System

I studied my primary school, secondary school and tertiary education in Malaysia. I find that it is not on par to the world education standard.

The problem is, they didn't really allow their student to explore the field they love. The most common word you hear is that, "If you don't study hard, you don't even qualified to collect rubbish"... Well, there's some truth to it, since collect rubbish also need minimum PMR qualification.

But hey, what if I'm really good in drawing??? Or Dancing???

Anyway, I remembered when I was in primary 6, I used to do my homework until 11-12pm... The school wanted to be famous, and they want their students to have good result... Same goes to most of the secondary schools in Malaysia...

When I went for tertiary education in MMU, Melaka. Things turn upside down, you don't need to be working that hard to have ok result, we just have to be better than our fellow darker skin "friends"...

The best University in Malaysia is UM, and UM can't squeeze into Top 200 of world best university. What will happen in the next 20 years? I don't think UM can smell the 200th place's fart...