Al-Fatihah YM Raja Aziz Addruse

I read that Yang Mulia Raja Aziz Addruse, passed away peacefully earlier today at the age of 75.

The Malaysian Bar's website had this statement on Raja Aziz who was a Past President-

Allahyarham was called to the Malaysian Bar on 8 Jan 1966.  From Lincoln’s Inn, Allahyarham was the first President of the Malaysian Bar to serve three terms — 1976-1978, 1988-1989 and 1992-1993.  A leading advocate, Allahyarham continued to be active in Bar Council work, and appeared regularly in the Appellate Courts as a senior counsel.  He had led and argued many of the difficult and controversial cases for the Malaysian Bar.

I am wistfully reminded of this poem by Wordsworth which, in my humble view, does some justice to a life fully lived by one of Malaysia's great sons-

Character of the Happy Warrior

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he

That every man in arms should wish to be?

—It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought

Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought

Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought:

Whose high endeavours are an inward light

That makes the path before him always bright;

Who, with a natural instinct to discern

What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;

Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,

But makes his moral being his prime care;

Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,

And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!

Turns his necessity to glorious gain;

In face of these doth exercise a power

Which is our human nature's highest dower:

Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves

Of their bad influence, and their good receives:

By objects, which might force the soul to abate

Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;

Is placable—because occasions rise

So often that demand such sacrifice;

More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure,

As tempted more; more able to endure,

As more exposed to suffering and distress;

Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.

—'Tis he whose law is reason; who depends

Upon that law as on the best of friends;

Whence, in a state where men are tempted still

To evil for a guard against worse ill,

And what in quality or act is best

Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,

He labours good on good to fix, and owes

To virtue every triumph that he knows:

—Who, if he rise to station of command,

Rises by open means; and there will stand

On honourable terms, or else retire,

And in himself possess his own desire;

Who comprehends his trust, and to the same

Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;

And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait

For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state;

Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,

Like showers of manna, if they come at all:

Whose powers shed round him in the common strife,

Or mild concerns of ordinary life,

A constant influence, a peculiar grace;

But who, if he be called upon to face

Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined

Great issues, good or bad for human kind,

Is happy as a Lover; and attired

With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired;

And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law

In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;

Or if an unexpected call succeed,

Come when it will, is equal to the need:

—He who, though thus endued as with a sense

And faculty for storm and turbulence,

Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans

To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes;

Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,

Are at his heart; and such fidelity

It is his darling passion to approve;

More brave for this, that he hath much to love:—

'Tis, finally, the Man, who, lifted high,

Conspicuous object in a Nation's eye,

Or left unthought-of in obscurity,—

Who, with a toward or untoward lot,

Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not—

Plays, in the many games of life, that one

Where what he most doth value must be won:

Whom neither shape or danger can dismay,

Nor thought of tender happiness betray;

Who, not content that former worth stand fast,

Looks forward, persevering to the last,

From well to better, daily self-surpast:

Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth

For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,

Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame,

And leave a dead unprofitable name—

Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;

And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws

His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause:

This is the happy Warrior; this is he

That every man in arms should wish to be.

Invictus

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. By

William Ernest Henley

Snake

Ever since I came across DH Lawrence's poem Snake, the last 2 lines has intrigued me. "And I have something to expiate: A pettiness".

And, for some strange, unfathomable reason, when I recoil at reading the stuff and nonsense being spewed by Malaysian politicians and their minions about race and racial what-nots, I was, reminded of DH Lawrence's poem.

I am literally an ophidiophobiac. But, to focus on DH Lawrence's poem from the perspective of the fear of a snake would be too superficial. In the current climate of divisive racial mindsets, the poem points to irrational emotions and a thorough lack of tolerance for diversity.

Some may say that this blog has over-intellectualised and under-analysed of late and, that, this post is along the same mundane lines. I wouldn't really care if this is the widespread view. This is the tone and timbre that has defined Malaysia for 53 years. Why should we descend into the depths of the Id now? Just because Dr M sets this basal tempo? I think not. We should rise from the murky morass.

Perhaps this descent into racial epithets gives rise to a groundswell of sentiment that, to paraphrase what the Jack Nicholson "Joker" said in Batman, "This (country) needs an enema".

Be that as it may, I have reproduced DH Lawrence's poem in full below:

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Mending Wall

Here's a pertinent verse from Robert Frost's poem, Mending Wall that is relevant for Malaysians in recent times:

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.

And,

One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.

Read the entire poem here.

There's a useful analysis of the poem here.

Pix from here.

Leisure

As the weekend approaches, I need to remind myself of the need to detach myself from the deafening din of politics, economics and business. Wm Henry Davies' poem, Leisure, is a gentle reminder to me and, hopefully, to you...

LEISURE

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Wm. Henry Davies (1871-1940)

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold

This poem by William Butler Yeats is relevant to our times. The poem was written in 1919 in the aftermath of the First World War. Chinua Achebe titled his most famous novel Things Fall Apart (1958), prefacing the book with the poem's first four lines. Achebe's novel adheres to Yeats' theme by evincing the sudden collapse of African societies in the age of European colonialism.

-
The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold ;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
-
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Escapist - Never!

This is a Robert Frost poem that I dedicate to all Malaysians who desire a better future under a better government and, who are doing their part to make it happen...

-

Escapist - Never

He is no fugitive - escaped, escaping.
No one has seen him stumble looking back.
His fear is not behind him but beside him
On either hand to make his course perhaps
A crooked straightness yet no less a straightness.
He runs face forward.
He is a pursuer.
He seeks a seeker who in turn seeks
Another still, lost far into the distance.
Any who seek him seek in him the seeker.
His life is a pursuit of a pursuit forever.
It is the future that creates his present.
All is an interminable chain of longing.

Federalism: Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold

Reading Malaysiakini and Malaysia-Today.Net we can see the strenthening of federalism in Malaysia. This is a sight that is very refreshing. I had written about this earlier (see http://ctchoolaw.blogspot.com/2008/05/good-times-for-federalism-in-malaysia.html) but I strongly recommend this recent article by Dr Francis Loh, entitled "Restructuring federal-state relations" in Aliran magazine which is excellent even by his usual high standards (see http://www.malaysia-today.net/2008/content/view/9097/84/).
-

Federalism describes the dynamic legal, constitutional and administrative relations between the federal government and state governments. Over the past 50 years, due to the emphasis on giving revenue and many powers to the federal government many Malaysians, analysts and academics have despaired over the display of arrogant power by the federal government to the point that Professor Andrew Harding made the observation that Malaysia was very much a "unitary" state instead of a federal state. This was especially so in the Mahathir era.

-

But a refreshing change is setting in. With 5 Pakatan Rakyat states and a wavering Sabah (still nominally under BN control?) I am reminded of the phrase used as a book title by Nobel Literature Prize-winner Chinua Achebe, that was part of a poem by William Butler Yeats, "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold".

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold (or Serigala lawan lembu, kuching menunggu!)

In the aftermath of the Malaysian General Elections of May 8, 2008 major convulsions are taking place within Barisan Nasional component parties, particularly UMNO. Instead of soul-searching and reviews of the electoral debacle, UMNO is fracturing. The cracks and fissures are the product of one man, Dr. Mahathir.

-

Having ruled UMNO and Malaysia with an iron fist for 22 years Dr. M has quite characteristically acquired a proprietary attitude towards UMNO. Dr. M has been attacking the present UMNO leader, Pak Lah for some time. Naturally, there are many theories being proferred on Dr. M's motivation for attacking Pak Lah and his son-in-law, Khairy Jamaludin.

-

But, whatever the motivations, Dr. M's inability to accept Pak Lah's leadership of UMNO or Malaysia, is inevitable. Why? Let's take a few examples:-

• Tunku Abdul Rahman, in retirement, was a fly in the ointment for Tun Razak. His weekly column Viewpoints in The Star during the 1970s was an constant irritant to Tun Razak.
• 
  
• Tun Hussein Onn was more discreet than the Tunku. But Tun Hussein's opinion of Dr. M's leadership was well-known to political insiders culminating in Tun Hussein's support of the attempt to register a new UMNO Malaysia after UMNO was deregistered in 1987.
• 
  
• Margaret Thatcher, in retirement, was openly critical of her chosen successor, John Major.
• 
  
• Let's not forget the tension that existed between Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong in Singapore when the latter was Prime Minister.
• 
  
• And, the list goes on.

So, from a historical perspective, there is nothing unusual about a former leader feeling that his successor has failed to measure up to his high standards.

Dr. M is a predator. He is on the hunt. The prey is Pak Lah. Dr. M's single-minded focus to bring about the downfall of Pak Lah is very much in character. Just have a look at Dr. M's predatory and iconoclastic past:-

• In 1969, after he had lost his parliamentary seat he wrote an open letter to demand the resignation of the Tunku. This was in an era when UMNO politics was supposed to be genteel, when UMNO was led by blue-blooded princes such as the Tunku, noblemen such as Tun Razak (who was Orang Kaya Indera Shahbandar of Pekan, Pahang) and Tun Dr. Ismail (whose family was closely linked to the Johor palace).
• 
  
• In 1981, when he became Prime Minister he brazenly instituted the Buy British Last campaign and the Look East campaign which put a lot of stress of a traditonally warm relationship between Malaysian and the UK.
• 
  
• He also arranged the dawn raid of Guthrie at the London Stock Exchange that stunned the British establishment.
• 
  
• He then tried to corner the world tin market using Maminco with disastrous results when the United States released their tin stockpile.
• 
  
• In 1987, in an effort to stave off a serious challenge from Tengku Razaleigh, he allowed the old UMNO to be deregistered to enable the creation of UMNO Baru on his own terms.
• 
  
• He then caused the dismissal of the Lord President of the Malaysian Judiciary, Tun Salleh Abas and put in place Tun Hamid Omar who emasculated the Judiciary.
• 
  
• Let us never forget Operation Lallang where Dr. M jailed 106 Malaysians under the Internal Security Act in 1987.

Clearly, Dr. M does not respect tradition and he certainly has no respect for constitutional institutions. He has held on to an unusual self-belief that he knows what is best for UMNO and Malaysia. Whether it is a psychosis or genius, Dr. M's vulpine ability falls within Max Weber's description of charismatic and legal leadership.

The characteristic of “charisma”, in Weber’s view was stated thus; “There is the authority of [charisma], the absolutely personal devotion and personal confidence in revelation, heroism, or other qualities of individual leadership. This is ‘charismatic’ domination, as exercised by the prophet or – in the field of politics – by the elected war lord, the plebiscitarian ruler, the great demagogue, or the political party leader.”

The characteristic of “legal” leadership was described thus by Weber; “Domination by virtue of ‘legality’ by virtue of the belief in the validity of legal statute and functional ‘competence’ based on rationally created rules. In this case, obedience is expected in discharging statutory obligations. This is the domination as exercised by the modern ‘servant of the state’ and by all those bearers of power who in this respect resemble him.”

The bovine nature of Pak Lah and UMNO

As the vulpine Dr. Mahathir circles the bovine herd that is UMNO, aiming to take a fatal bite at the jugular of the bovine leader, Pak Lah, the herd can only exhibit panic and fear. They are stampeding into each other.

As bystanders and observers, we are watching unfolding events the same way we watch the nature documentaries on the Discovery or National Geographic channels. It is a real spectacle to behold.

If Pak Lah is mindful of the political career of Dr. M, it will be patently obvious that Dr. M does not care if UMNO is torn asunder. After all, the present UMNO is only a 22-year old UMNO Baru. Many political wits have speculated that there can always be another UMNO Baru Baru! So, the destruction of UMNO Baru to bring about the downfall of Pak Lah is not big deal for Dr. M. It is in his character.

Marah nyamuk bakar kelambu and beyond

This Malay idiom is now often used to criticise Dr. M's attacks on Pak Lah. Its English equivalent may be, cutting off your nose to spite your face. But in this fratricidal saga of Dr. M versus Pak Lah the main beneficiary can only be Pakatan Rakyat, particularly Parti KeADILan Rakyat and Anwar Ibrahim.

With each notch that Dr. M removes from Pak Lah's stature as leader of UMNO and BN, the old empire that was UMNO's and BN's is crumbling. Those of us who are familiar with Chinese dynastic history, the history of the Roman empire or the fate of the Soviet Union will see clear parallels.

The cries of discontent from Sabah are reminiscent of the distant provinces that start asserting their autonomy as the center of government is weakened. Wasn't it William Butler Yeats who wrote in his poem, Second Coming, "things fall apart; the centre cannot hold"?

So, picture this - the vulpine Dr. M leaps into the bovine herd that is UMNO, snarling with bared teeth - to bite into the leader of the herd, Pak Lah's jugular - throwing the herd into disarray - the camera pans away from the dusty swirls of the life-and-death struggle - the vista and landscape opens up - we see the verdant green of the lush tropical landscape and the clear azure sky - and, the camera pans and zoom into a rocky outcrop overlooking the terrible struggle in the plains below - behold! it is the outline of the feline guile of Anwar Ibrahim! - waiting to pounce on whomever that survives - and, then, the dust settles - the natural order of things is restored - the cycle of life is renewed!

Maybe a new Malay proverb has been invented, "Serigala lawan lembu, kuching menunggu"!!!!

The Road Not Taken

Written in 1916 by the late American poet laureate, Robert Frost, this poem has resonance. Certainly in light of the events in the early months of 2008, many of verses will be found to be very apt and resonant.

-
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be the one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
-
Then took the other, just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

-
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
-
I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.