KDYMM: Letakkan ugama paling hadapan sebagai suluh dan panduan

Titah Kebawah DYMM Sempena Hari Raya Aidilfitri Tahun 1435 Hijriah / 2014 Masihi

KEBAWAH DYMM berkenan mengurniakan titah dalam Titah Perutusan
Sempena Hari Raya Aidilfitri Tahun 1435 Hijriah/2014 Masihi

Assalamu'alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Bismillaahir Rahmaanir Raheem
Alhamdulillah Rabbil 'Alameen, Wabihiee Nasta'eenu 'Alaa Umuuriddunya Wadden, Wassalaatu' Wassalaamu 'Ala Asyarafil Mursaleen, Sayyidina Muhammaddin, Wa'alaa Aalihee Wasahbihee Ajma'een, Waba'du

Allahuakbar, Allahuakbar, Allahuakbar, Walillahilhamd.

Setinggi-tinggi syukur kita rafa'kan ke hadrat Allah Subhanahu Wata'ala kerana mengurniakan nikmat sihat dan nikmat rezeki luas, sehingga dengan kurnia itu dapatlah kita menunaikan ibadat puasa dengan sempurna.

Di samping nikmat sihat dan rezeki Iuas, kita juga menikmati keamanan dan kesejahteraan yang berterusan.

Dua nikmat yang bernama keamanan dan kesejahteraan ini, pada hemat beta, adalah lebih sukar untuk memperolehinya berbanding yang lain-lain.

Ini dapat dikesan daripada keadaan-keadaan yang ada, di mana di seluruh pelusuk dunia ini, telah sedia wujud kejadian-kejadian yang menggugat keamanan dan kesejahteraan itu.

Selain daripada fenomena alam yang datang bertali arus, juga krisis-krisis dalaman yang mencetuskan pelbagai kekacauan, sangat berpotensi untuk menghancurkan keamanan dan kesejahteraan itu.

Apatah lagi jika di dalam sesebuah negara itu sedang bersarang gejala sosial, terutama sekali gejala jenayah, maka tidak syak lagi, ia akan menjadi ancaman kepada keselamatan, keamanan dan bahkan nyawa.

Alhamdulillah, di negara kita perkara-perkara ini tidaklah berlaku. Tiada sesuatu pun yang boleh dianggap mengganggu keamanan. Semuanya adalah berjalan dengan baik belaka, dengan rakyat pula sentiasa bersatu padu tanpa sebarang pertelagahan.

Beta percaya, ini adalah tuah Brunei, berkat ianya sentiasa dikemudi dengan ugama. Kita dalam semua aspek kehidupan tidak akan membelakangi ugama, tetapi sebaliknya meletakkannya paling hadapan sebagai suluh dan panduan.

Adalah ugama itu tidak pernah salah, tetapi yang salah itu ialah kita sendiri, bila mana kita memilih yang lain dari ugama.

Oleh itu, pastikan kita ini akan kekal dengan ugama. Dalam menjalani kehidupan harian dengan ugama. Dalam membangun dengan ugama. Dalam mentadbir dengan ugama, bahkan semua urusan kita dengan ugama.

Jika semuanya itu dengan ugama, maka sudah pasti tidak akan ada lagi satu ruang pun untuk diisi atau ditempati oleh keburukan.

Bukankah suasana tidak aman atau huru-hara atau kacau-bilau atau jenayah itu satu keburukan? Semuanya ini, oleh ugama, adalah tidak dibenarkan berlaku, malah mesti diatasi atau dicegah daripada berlaku.

Kewajipan kita, selaku siapa yang dikurniai dengan nikmat keamanan dan kesejahteraan itu ialah bersyukur dan terus bersyukur, serta sambil berazam untuk memelihara dan mempertahankannya sampai bila-bila.

Ia adalah aset untuk dinikmati, bukan saja oleh kita pada hari ini, malahan juga oleh generasi akan datang sambung-bersambung. Kerana tanpa keamanan dan kesejahteraan, hidup akan hambar dan tidak mungkin untuk mengecap kebahagiaan.

Adalah tidak adil rasanya, jika kita sendiri saja yang asyik menikmati keadaan aman dan sejahtera itu, sedangkan saudara-saudara kita di luar sana ada yang tidak dapat menikmatinya, kerana negara mereka sedang mengalami pelbagai kekacauan ataupun peperangan atau bencana yang datang dengan tiba-tiba.

Kepada mereka itu, kita hulurkan simpati yang mendalam serta doa, semoga situasi akan segera bertukar kepada yang lebih baik hendaknya.

Allahuakbar, Allahuakbar, Allahuakbar, Walillahilhamd.

Mengambil kesempatan di saat yang mulia ini, beta dan keluarga beta dengan ikhlas lagi sukacita mengucapkan Selamat Hari Raya Aidilftri kepada sekalian rakyat dan penduduk di mana jua mereka berada, semoga kita sama-sama dapat menyambut hari bahagia ini dalam suasana riang gembira.

Allahuakbar, Allahuakbar, Allahuakbar, Walillahilhamd.

Sekian, Wabillahit Taufeq Walhidayah, Wassalamu 'Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.

KDYMM: Tuah Brunei

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, 28 Julai – Kebawah Duli Yang Maha Mulia Paduka Seri Baginda Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah Sultan dan Yang Di-Pertuan Negara Brunei Darussalam bertitah selain nikmat sihat dan rezeki luas, negara juga menikmati keamanan dan kesejahteraan berterusan.

“Dua nikmat yang bernama keamanan dan kesejahteraan ini, adalah lebih sukar untuk memperolehinya berbanding yang lain”.

Dalam titah perutusan Sempena Sambutan Hari Raya Aidilfitri bagi tahun ini, Kebawah Duli Yang Maha Mulia bertitah ini dapat dikesan dari keadaan yang ada di mana di seluruh pelosok dunia, telah sedia wujud kejadian yang menggugat keamanan dan kesejahteraan itu.

Selain dari fenomena alam yang datang bertali arus, titah Baginda, krisis dalaman mencetuskan pelbagai kekacauan juga sangat berpotensi untuk menghancurkan keamanan dan kesejahteraan tersebut.

“Apatah lagi jika dalam sesebuah negara itu sedang bersarang gejala sosial terutama gejala jenayah dan ini tidak syak lagi, akan menjadi ancaman kepada keselamatan, keamanan malah nyawa,” tegas Baginda.

Baginda seterusnya bertitah di negara kita perkara ini tidak berlaku, tiada satu pun yang boleh dianggap mengganggu keamanan di mana semua ini berjalan dengan baik belaka dan rakyat sentiasa bersatu padu tanpa sebarang pertelagahan.

Baginda percaya ini adalah tuah Brunei, berkat ia sentiasa dikemudi dengan ugama dan dalam semua aspek kehidupan tidak akan membelakangi ugama tapi meletakkannya paling hadapan sebagai suluh dan panduan.

“Ugama itu tidak pernah salah, tapi yang salah itu ialah kita sendiri, bila mana kita memilih yang lain dari ugama.

“Oleh itu, pastikan kita akan kekal dengan ugama dan dalam menjalani kehidupan harian dengan ugama. Dalam membangun dengan ugama dan dalam mentadbir dengan ugama malah semua urusan kita dengan ugama”.

Menurut Baginda, jika semuanya itu dengan ugama, sudah pasti tidak akan ada lagi satu ruang pun untuk diisi atau ditempati oleh ‘keburukan’. “Bukankah suasana tidak aman atau huru-hara atau kacau bilau atau jenayah itu satu keburukan?” tanya Baginda sambil menambah semua ini, adalah tidak dibenarkan berlaku oleh ugama malah mesti diatasi atau dicegah daripada berlaku.

Kewajipan kita, titah Baginda selaku siapa yang dikurniai dengan nikmat keamanan dan kesejahteraan itu ialah bersyukur dan terus bersyukur serta sambil berazam untuk memelihara dan mempertahankannya sampai bila-bila.

“Ia adalah aset untuk dinikmati bukan saja oleh kita pada hari ini tapi oleh generasi akan datang sambung bersambung dan tanpa keamanan serta kesejahteraan, hidup akan hambar dan tidak mungkin mengecap kebahagiaan.

“Adalah tidak adil rasanya, jika kita sendiri saja yang asyik menikmati keadaan aman dan sejahtera itu sedangkan saudara kita di luar sana ada yang tidak dapat menikmatinya kerana negara mereka sedang mengalami pelbagai kekacauan atau peperangan atau bencana yang datang dengan tiba-tiba,” titah Baginda lagi.

Oleh itu Baginda bertitah, dalam perkara ini, kepada mereka itu kita hulurkan simpati yang mendalam serta doa semoga situasi akan segera bertukar kepada yang lebih baik.

Pada akhir titah sempena Hari Raya Aidilfitri tahun ini, Baginda serta keluarga Baginda dengan ikhlas sukacita mengucapkan Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri kepada sekalian rakyat dan penduduk di mana juga mereka berada, semoga kita sama-sama dapat menyambut hari bahagia ini dalam suasana riang gembira.


Sumber - Media Permata

Subdued Aidilfitri For Palestinians As Death Toll Tops 1,000 In Gaza

By Nik Nurfaqih Nik Wil

KUALA LUMPUR, July 27 (Bernama) -- It will be a subdued Aidilfitri celebration for the Palestinian community here, in light of Israel's military operation in Gaza which has so far killed over 1,000 Palestinians.

At least eight members of the community here have had their family members killed in the brutal military offensive, according to Mohammad Alherbawi, the media director with the Palestinian Cultural Organisation Malaysia (PCOM).

"The Israeli war machine has deprived us from being happy on this holy day. However, we'll still celebrate Eid and gather to prove to the world that the Palestinian people deserve to live as people in other countries in the world," he told Bernama.

Mohammad said members of the community would gather for small-scale events featuring talks, as well as sessions tailored for the children.

He said there were currently about 3,000 Palestinians in Malaysia.

Sharing his views, Muslim Imran, who has been staying for about 10 years in Malaysia, admitted it would not be easy for any Palestinian to enjoy 'kuih raya' when their fellow countrymen were being massacred by the Zionist regime.

"Many Palestinians here have decided that the Eid celebration this year will be a small affair or called off altogether," said the PCOM board of directors chairman.

He said a special reception might be organised for the families of those killed in the Israeli offensive.

Meanwhile, Yayasan Al-Quds Malaysia executive director Mohammad Makram Balawi lambasted Tel Aviv for launching the attack during Ramadan, a blessed month that had been "smeared with the blood of the innocents".

"I harbour the hope that our children could once again celebrate Eid in a free Palestine and displaced Palestinians could return to our homeland. It would be a very happy time for all of us," said the Jordanian-born.

The PhD student at a local university here has stayed in Malaysia for the past five years with his wife and children.


Sumber - BERNAMA

Lapan cara boleh bantu Gaza

DUA puluh hari telah berlalu sejak serangan rejim pengganas Zionis di Gaza yang bermula pada awal Ramadan. Jumlah syuhada di Gaza makin bertambah. Hospital tidak lagi mampu menampung bilangan mereka yang tercedera. Bilangan wanita dan kanak-kanak yang dibunuh juga makin meningkat.

Kerosakan harta benda, bangunan dan tanah pertanian tidak dapat digambarkan. Setelah bangkit dari serangan sebelumnya yang mengorbankan ribuan nyawa, Gaza berdarah kembali, dan mereka memerlukan bantuan kita lebih dari sebelumnya.

Bagi Muslim, tuntutan untuk membantu saudara-saudara kita di Gaza adalah jauh lebih besar daripada tuntutan kemanusiaan, ia adalah manifestasi keimanan dan persaudaraan Islam.

Kita boleh membantu Gaza dengan banyak cara, di bawah ini disenaraikan lapan cara yang efektif bagaimana kita boleh bantu Gaza, sekali gus membuka jalan untuk membebaskan Palestin dan Masjid Al Aqsa daripada cengkaman rejim pengganas Zionis.

Memberi sumbangan harta: Mereka amat memerlukannya bagi membangunkan kembali kehidupan selepas peperangan ini berakhir. Sudah tentu dana yang diperlukan adalah bagi tujuan perubatan, pendidikan, makan-minum, pembangunan semula bangunan-bangunan yang dimusnahkan, pembelaan anak-anak yatim dan macam-macam lagi.

Sumbangan kewangan ini boleh disalurkan melalui banyak NGO di Malaysia yang amat aktif berperanan seperti Aman Palestin.

Berdoa: Doa adalah senjata mukmin yang paling efektif, terutamanya dalam waktu-waktu krisis. Antara doa yang diamalkan oleh Rasulullah adalah Qunut Nazilah. Jangan lupa doakan kemenangan umat Islam setiap kali selepas solat fardu dan juga pada kesempatan-kesempatan lain.

Boikot produk penyokong Zionis: Boikot adalah satu mekanisme efektif yang telah berjaya di banyak negara dalam memberi tekanan kepada Israel. BDS movement, sebuah gerakan anti aparteid yang berusaha keras untuk memboikot rejim pengganas Zionis melaporkan bahawa nilai eksport Israel berkurang dengan signifikan kesan daripada boikot.

Perbaiki kualiti ibadah: Seorang jeneral tentera Israel bernama Moshe Dayan pernah menyatakan dia hanya akan gentar bila umat Islam mampu untuk solat Subuh berjemaah di masjid sepertimana solat Jumaat. Ini adalah petunjuk bahawa Israel memahami hakikat agama ini, iaitu mereka hanya akan ditumpaskan oleh kelompok Muslim yang berkualiti. Maka kita mesti memulakannya dengan memperbaiki kualiti ibadah, diulang MESTI, terutamanya ibadah wajib. Ibadah sunat juga mesti dipertingkatkan. Biasakan diri kita dengan zikir-zikir dan bacaan al-Quran.

Lebih cakna tentang isu Palestin: Untuk memahami isu ini dengan lebih baik, tidak cukup sekadar kita beremosi pada waktu krisis berlaku. Namun, kesedaran bermusim ini lebih baik ada dari tiada. Kesedaran ini mesti diisi dengan maklumat yang sahih. Kita mesti mengetahui sejarah penjajahan Palestin, terutamanya sejak tahun 1948. Isu Palestin bukan sekadar isu serangan di Gaza.

Bacalah buku-buku yang membicarakan perkara ini secara ilmiah. Laburkan sedikit wang dan luangkan sedikit masa untuk memahami. Hadirkanlah diri ke program-program anjuran Aman Palestin yang memberi maklumat tentang Palestin.

Kempen kesedaran: Kesedaran tentang isu Palestin mesti dipromosikan seluas-luasnya. Gunakanlah apa sahaja medium komunikasi yang ada untuk menyedarkan masyarakat tentang kepentingan isu ini kepada umat Islam seperti Blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube atau apa jua medium yang ada.

Didik anak-anak dengan semangat pembebasan Al Aqsa: Isu Palestin juga mesti diterapkan dalam diri anak-anak. Bagi mereka yang telah berkeluarga dan mempunyai anak-anak, letakkanlah agenda cakna Palestin sebagai salah satu agenda utama dalam keluarga.

Boikot cara hidup Zionis: Akhir sekali, cara hidup tajaan rejim pengganas Zionis untuk melalaikan umat Islam seperti berhibur secara berlebihan, membuang masa dengan aktiviti lara, membazir dengan kemewahan melampau dan terlibat dalam pergaulan bebas tanpa batas mesti diboikot, jika kita benar-benar serius untuk membebaskan Al-Aqsa.

Kesimpulannya, iltizamkan diri dengan Islam. Insya-ALLAH, setiap langkah ke arah kebaikan yang kita buat, maka masa untuk pembebasan Al Aqsa juga akan semakin hampir.


Sumber - Sinar Harian

TPP risks weaker world trade system - ex WTO boss

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a step backwards to the days before the World Trade Organisation when the US and Europe controlled the global trading system to the detriment of developing economies, says a former director-general of the WTO, Supachai Panitchpakdi of Thailand.

In New Zealand for a meeting of the honorary advisers to the Asia-New Zealand Foundation, Supachai told BusinessDesk in an interview that Asian economies had more to gain by pursuing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which includes China and India but not the US, than TPP, which he described as a "US-centric" trade deal.

New Zealand is one of three countries that initiated the TPP concept and has committed substantial resources to its negotiation, but it only gained momentum once the US became a member of the 12-country grouping seeking a new set of trade rules for an Asia-Pacific trade bloc. The US and Europe are also negotiating a TPP-style deal, known as TTIP (Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership).

"TTIP and TTP together could drive the world back into the old days before the WTO was conceived, a world trading system predominated by major trading nations, which was something I thought we tried to adjust with the more democratic participation of membership of the WTO," said Supachai, who was director-general of the WTO from 2002 to 2005, immediately after former New Zealand prime minister Mike Moore.

New Zealand belongs to both TPP and RCEP, which was initiated in 2012, and is part of the four year-old Association of South-East Asian Nations Free Trade Area (AFTA), most of whose members are involved in both TTP and RCEP.

"For me, the priority should be for Asia to move in the direction of RCEP," said Supachai. "If there should be a need for the US to join in or others, it should be in the context of RCEP."

As secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) between 2005 and 2013, Supachai also oversaw analysis of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which found that Mexico had done poorly from the deal while the developed economies in NAFTA - the US and Canada - had benefited.

"At UNCTAD, we pointed out that for a developing country that joins a regional agreement with major, much more advanced economies, they are not easily going to gain much."

That risk existed with TPP, which would be "mainly driven by the major players of the world trade system to set up very forward-looking, very avant garde" rules in areas that less developed economies would struggle to accommodate. These included intellectual property restrictions that could thwart the availability of affordable universal healthcare and rules requiring privatisation of state-owned enterprises with certain timeframes.

TPP negotiations have stalled for more than a year on such sticking points.

"TPP is US-centric," said Supachai. "It leaves the question as to what would the rest of the membership of the TPP be able to contribute fairly to the outcome? My general basic principle on the two so-called mega-deals (TPP and TTIP) is that we have to be a bit cautious about the way we are practicing regionalism these days. I'm open-minded, but regionalism should ultimately prove to strengthen the multi-lateral processes."

Regional trade deals have become increasingly commonly pursued as the global process overseen by the WTO has failed over the last 13 years of the so-called "Doha Round" negotiations to produce a new global trade agreement.

The RCEP initiative was better suited to bolstering Asian economies' growing role in the world economy, said Supachai.

"RCEP is more ASEAN-centric and, for better or worse, ASEAN has a good record of expanding trade. Intra-ASEAN trade is now 53 to 54 per cent," he said. "This is only lower than Europe, which is 70 to 80 per cent."

New trade agreements needed to be favourable to Asia if only because of the region's status as a "global public good."

"We are the ones now generating more than half of world growth and 67 per cent of world trade and the area has been excessively accumulating financial reserves," said Supachai. "That's why RCEP is important. TPP comes in between."


Sumber - NZ Herald

Government Effectiveness in Asean

by Ezila Kamari

How Effective Are Asean Governments?

Government effectiveness in Asean as measured by the World Bank is defined as ability of a government to formulate and implement policy.  Factors which affect this include the quality and the independence of the civil service, quality of public services, quality of policy formation and its implementation, and the credibility of the government’s commitment to policies.  The World Bank indicators measure perceptions of this  as an indirect measure of government effectiveness.

This is the second indicator, this series of infographics is looking at.  The first was political stability.  (See: How stable are Asean countries? ) where for 2012 According to the World Bank governance indicators for 2012, the most stable country in Asean was Singapore followed by Brunei, then Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand in that order.

While the top ranked country correlated well, the other countries are not that well correlated with the political stability measure.  The countries which registered a positive result after Singapore are Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand and Philippines in that order.  All the other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) countries registered a negative result. Brunei was the next most closely correlated on these two measures followed by Malaysia.  Thailand and the Philippines were at least positively ranked although they came in quite low on the stability score. Perhaps one possible insight is that political stability helps but is not sufficient for governments to be effective.

Conversely, the countries around the Mekong subregion on the whole did not rank well other than Thailand.  The Myanmar government was seen as largely ineffective.  Cambodia and Laos were also perceived as being not very effective.  Vietnam and Indonesia were both seen as mildly ineffectual given the slightly negative rankings.  Countries like Vietnam and Laos and even Cambodia did generally better on the political stability measurement.  Again, this tends to raise the issue of political stability being insufficient to guarantee effectiveness of government since some governments are clearly scoring well on stability but not on effectiveness.

Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei generally have well developed  judiciaries, economies, infrastructure and education systems. Despite this, there was a small declining trend for these three countries in the period 2010-2012. Thailand and Philippines on the other hand are countries in which people have generally had small but improving perceptions of government effectiveness in the same period.

For the remaining countries there is no clear trend over the last three years.

There does appear to be a rough correlation between the level of development in a country and the effectiveness where better developed nations on an economic level tend to do better on scores for effectiveness.  This is unsurprising although the data does not indicate which is cause and which is effect.

The kind of political regime does not seem to have had that much of an effect although many of the centrally controlled economies such as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar whether these are by communist or military regimes did not score well.  A better view of this correlation will be seen when one of the other factors, accountability, is examined alongside government effectiveness in Asean and political stability in later columns on this subject.

There are no easy conclusions in this rather complex area.  For those of our readers who wish to dig deeper, the list of individual variables for each data source and methodology used to produce this measure can be found on the World Bank site.


Sumber - The Establishment Post

Asean must re-invent itself

By Victor Avecilla

The Association of South East Asian Nations or Asean sounds like a potential check against the maritime expansionism Red China is currently engaged in. To those who don’t know it yet, the communist bully northwest of the Philippines has unilaterally altered the map of its territory to include islands, islets, and shoals obviously within the territory of other countries or which are disputed by different nations.

Sadly, Asean is not what it sounds like.

The concept of a regional organization in South East Asia did not begin with Asean. After World War II, the threat of communist expansionism was stalking the fledgling democracies in the region, including the Philippines. By the end of 1954, mainland China was under communist control, and the communists in North Vietnam kicked out their French colonizers. South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines had to fight communist insurgencies in their backyards. All these led to the creation of the South East Asia Treaty Organization or SEATO, which was envisioned to contain communist expansion in the region with military and economic assistance from the United States. The Philippines became a member of SEATO in 1954.

SEATO was supposed to be patterned after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance established in 1949 by the US, Canada and countries from Western Europe. NATO was to guard against any invasion from the now-defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (also known as the Soviet Union) and the communist countries in Eastern Europe. In the end, SEATO proved ineffective because unlike NATO, an attack on a SEATO member was not necessarily construed as an attack against the others. With communism on the rise in South East Asia, SEATO proved to be a failure.

In 1963, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia put up an association called Maphilindo. It was basically an ethnic alliance of Malay peoples to promote better understanding among the nationals of the three countries. The concept of Maphilindo was first suggested before World War II by the great Filipino patriot and nationalist Wenceslao Vinzons. Unfortunately, Maphilindo was doomed from the start because of the Sabah conflict between the Philippines and Malaysia. Another sort of regional alliance was created after that but like SEATO and Maphilindo before it, the next organization was short lived.

1967 saw the formation of the Asean by five founding countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Ostensibly, Asean was meant to be an economic alliance and not a military pact.

In the 1970s, the countries then comprising Asean tried to comport themselves as non-aligned countries in the Cold War between the US and the West on the one hand, and the Soviet Union and its Eastern-block allies on the other. This move was simply wishful thinking on the part of ASEAN members—that its protestation of political neutrality will convince the Soviet Union and Red China not to support the communist insurgencies in South East Asia. At any rate, Asean’s self-proclaimed non-aligned status was a charade because the US had bases in Thailand and the Philippines at that time.

When South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos fell to communist forces in 1975, there was nothing Asean could do about it. Asean just watched when the murderous Cambodian communist madman Pol Pot ironically re-named his country Democratic Kampuchea and killed a third of the population. The alliance was also unable to do anything about the Thai pirates in the Gulf of Thailand who preyed on “boat people”–desperate, destitute Indo-Chinese refugees fleeing communism in their homeland.

Asean eventually expanded its membership to include Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar (the new name of Burma). The admission of Myanmar to Asean supposedly made a big time American business tycoon withdraw his investments in South East Asia, resulting in the 1997 Asian economic crisis.

Today, the relationship among Asean members is bedeviled by bilateral issues. Years ago, after Vietnam tricked the Philippines into relinquishing an islet in the disputed Spratly island chain, Vietnam seized the islet. Cambodia remains a stooge of Red China and refuses to condemn the current spate of Chinese maritime expansionism. Sabah remains a source of friction between the Philippines and Malaysia so much so that in 2013, Kuala Lumpur virtually allowed the maltreatment of Filipinos there. Just recently, Singapore revealed its disdain for Filipinos by promoting, among others, a racist attitude against them in restaurants and in other public places. Thailand in now governed by a military junta, and Malaysia currently discriminates against its minority Christian population.

There are announcements that by 2015, Asean nations are expected to take steps towards creating a common economy for the region, something akin to that of the European Union. That goal may not be easy to achieve because Asean countries actually compete for the same markets—foreign investors, tourists and importers. Also, the economies of Asean members are largely incompatible with each other. There are capitalist economies (the Philippines and Singapore); socialist economies (Vietnam and Laos); command economies (Myanmar, Brunei, and Thailand); sectarian economies (Malaysia and Indonesia); and a fledgling economy (Cambodia). 2015 is less than a year away and Asean has yet to explain how such a common economy can be realized in so short a time.

While Asean has done a lot to promote trade among its members, e.g., the visa-free arrangement among Asean members, current events in the East China Sea, however, require Asean not only to rethink its role as an economic fraternity, but to likewise re-invent itself as a collective force, perhaps even as a military alliance, to stop Beijing’s plans of converting that strategic maritime highway into a Chinese lake. It is obviously in the best interests of Asean to do so, because if China gets away with its bullying tactics, the economies of Asean countries will face a collective crisis of unimaginable, unprecedented proportions. Should that situation arise, Asean will end up a failure.


Sumber - Manila Standard Today

GPH, MILF seek Brunei's help in decommissioning of guerillas

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - The government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have urged Brunei to help in the decommissioning of guerillas as part of a normalization process stated in the GPH-MILF peace compact.

Brunei, since late 2003, has representatives to the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team (IMT), which is helping oversee the enforcement in flashpoint areas of the July 1997 Agreement on General Cessation of Hostilities between the government and the MILF.

MILF Chair Al Haj Murad Ebrahim told reporters about Brunei’s having been asked to join the Independent Decommissioning Body (IDB) after last week’s visit to Camp Darapanan of Major Gen. Dato Seri Pahlawan Mohd Tawih Abdullah of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces.

Abdullah and Murad discussed the prospects of the Mindanao peace process during their meeting in Camp Darapanan, the MILF main bastion, located in Sultan Kudarat town in the first district of Maguindanao.

“Brunei is honored with the invitation to join the IDB and the Brunei Armed Forces is optimistic about this invitation,” the visiting Abdullah was quoted as saying in a statement released by the MILF on Wednesday.

The IDB will help the government and the MILF decommission guerillas as part of a normalization process meant to gradually integrate them into the unarmed mainstream for them to have normal lives under a Bangsamoro political entity.

Murad had said the MILF was elated with the visit of Abdullah to Camp Darapanan, done during the Ramadhan fasting season, which started June 29 and will end upon the sighting of the new moon in the last week of July, which will mark the start of the month of Shawwal in the lunar-based Hijrah calendar.

Murad had reportedly told the visiting Bruneian military officer and his official entourage that the MILF is grateful to Sultan Hassannal Bolkiah for having been supportive of the Mindanao peace process.

Abdullah, while in Cotabato City, also met with IMT officials, who briefed him on the security situation in areas covered by the government-MILF ceasefire accord.

The government and the MILF had also invited Norway and Turkey to join the IDB, according to sources from the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process.

A team of soldiers from Brunei has been helping monitor since 2003 the 1997 government-MILF ceasefire accord under the multinational IMT contingent, which is also comprised of soldiers and policemen from Malaysia, Libya, Indonesia, and non-uniformed conflict resolution and socio-economic experts from Norway, Japan and the European Union.


Sumber - philstar.com

KENYATAAN MEDIA NDP MENGUTUK PENCEROBOHAN SERTA PENINDASAN ISRAEL TERHADAP BUMI DAN RAKYAT PALESTIN

KENYATAAN MEDIA

Dewan Harian yang bersidang pada hari ini 18 Ramadhan 1435 bersamaan 16 Julai 2014 sebulat suara menyatakan sokongan yang tidak berbelah bahagi di atas pendirian kerajaan Kebawah Duli Yang Maha Mulia menyokong perjuangan rakyat Palastine membebaskan tanah air mereka daripada cengkaman penjajahan rejim Israel.

NDP sejak ditubuhkan Tahun 2005 konsistan mengutuk pencerobohan serta penindasan Israel terhadap bumi dan rakyat Palastine; dan menggesa supaya Israel segera berundur ke sempadan 1967.

Dewan Harían juga menyeru pihak berkenaan supaya terus memberikan sokongan dan bantuan selain daripada doa dan munajat dalam bentuk yang lebih bermakna seumpama bantuan kemanusiaan.

Dewan Harían juga telah menubuhkan sebuah Jawatankuasa Bantuan Kemanusiaan Rakyat Palastine di ketuai oleh TYT Timbalan Presiden, Saudara Juned Haji Ramli.

Jawatankuasa ini akan mengadakan pertemuan dengan Yang Berhormat Menteri Hal Ehwal Dalam Negeri untuk membincangkan kaedah terbaik bagi melaksanakan arahan tersebut terutama sekali bagi mendapatkan nasihat dan garis pandu pengutipan yang akan melibatkan orang awam.

Jefry Haji Mohd Daud
Setiausaha Agung NDP
Limbaruh Hijau
No.15 Spg 323, Jin Jerudong,
Negara Brunei Darussalam.
18 Ramadhan 1435 / 16 Julai 2014

Western media and art of distorting narrative

Palestinians flee their homes to take shelter at the United Nations school in Gaza City, yesterday.
Israel briefly deployed ground troops inside the Gaza Strip for the first time early Sunday as its military
warned northern residents to evacuate their homes, part of a widening campaign against militant
rocket fire that's seen more than 160 Palestinians killed

Asif Ullah Khan
Bandar seri Begawan

“ISRAEL under renewed Hamas attack”, says BBC while CNN headline is more dramatic “Rockets rain on southern Israel”. The front page of USA Today reads “Israel: rocket fired every ten minutes” and “How Hamas reached deeper into Israel”. The New York Times ran the headline “Israel vs Gaza: for now, it’s rockets vs interceptors”.

If this was not enough, doyen of broadcast journalism ABC News’ Diane Sawyer went overboard to paint Israel as the “victim”. She in her news programme says “We take you overseas now to rockets raining down on Israel today as Israel tried to shoot them out of the sky. Then she shows video footage of a Palestinian family gathering belongings in the smoking debris of a missile-hit home in Gaza. But Sawyer identifies it as “an Israeli family trying to salvage what they can.”

Sawyer then describes an image of a Palestinian woman surrounded by destroyed homes as “one woman standing speechless among the ruins,” with the implication that she is Israeli.

We must bear in mind that the above mentioned cases come not from right-wing Fox News but the mainstream news organisations which are not only known for their accuracy but also their balanced coverage, meaning showing both sides of the picture, in this case — the conflict.

The irony is that BBC, the epitome of fair and balanced journalism, has become a propaganda tool for Israel. Writing in The Guardian, Owen Jones says the macabre truth is that Israeli life is deemed by the western media to be worth more than a Palestinian life – this is the hierarchy of death at work.

Jones further says: But the media coverage hardly reflects the reality: a military superpower armed with F-15 fighter jets, AH-64 Apache helicopters, Delilah missiles, IAI Heron-1 drones and Jericho II missiles (and nuclear bombs, for that matter), versus what David Cameron describes as a “prison camp” firing almost entirely ineffective missiles. Twenty-seven Palestinians are reported to have died in Gaza – and, mercifully, no Israelis have been killed by Hamas rockets – and yet the BBC opts for the Orwellian “Israel under renewed Hamas attack”.

Jones goes on: And so it goes for the events surrounding the abduction and vile murder of three Israeli teenagers. What was not widely reported by the western media was that – in the raids that followed their disappearance – six Palestinians, including a child, were killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank. As Amnesty International put it, these were “blatant violations of international humanitarian and human rights law”.

Such concerted campaign against the Palestinians cannot be termed as an editorial oversight. As they say there is method in the madness. Israeli propagandists infiltrated into major news organisations have very sinisterly changed the narrative. Israel has become the “victim”. The Goliath of the Middle East armed with world’s most modern war machine has become David, defending itself against onslaught of rockets fired by Hamas.

The entire Western media is in sync as far as the narrative of the conflict is concerned. Israeli atrocities, its illegal expansion of settlements and denial of basic human rights to Palestinians do not find place in news headlines rather a new term has been introduced Hamas-run, Hamas-run hospital etc.

People are surprised how a journalist of Diane Sawyer’s calibre could commit such a silly mistake.

Sawyer is not new to the Middle East. She has extensively covered this region and even interviewed Yasser Arafat.

All this is the result of a powerfully sophisticated public relations strategy orchestrated by Israel and partially paid for by US tax dollars, which has even made inroads into BBC.

According to Redress Information & Analysis, an independent website dedicated to exposing injustice, disinformation and bigotry, Raffi Berg, the editor of the BBC News website’s Middle East section, has been sending his staff emails advising them to write more favourably about Israel. In one email, sent during Israel’s eight-day assault on Gaza in November 2012, which killed nearly 200 Palestinians, Berg asked BBC colleagues to word their stories in a way which does not blame or “put undue emphasis” on Israel for starting the prolonged attacks. Instead, he encouraged journalists to promote the Israeli government line that the “offensive” was “aimed at ending rocket fire from Gaza”.

The pro-Israeli media has not only distorted the reality but also changed the entire narrative of illegal occupation of the Palestinian land. The Israeli viewpoint is presented in such a way that it is divorced from the history of the conflict. Like the present situation, the main story is rockets fired by Hamas but the context and background of what Israel has done in Gaza is completely absent from the narrative and this is done with such finesse and subtlety that the aggressor and oppressor becomes the victim and real victims are portrayed as aggressors or attackers. Pictures of Palestinian children throwing stones at tanks are prominently shown to justify every killing by Israeli soldiers and bombing raids by F-16s. Words like Israeli war crimes, massacres, assaults, invasion, raids and offensives are not used while reporting Israeli aggression and any reference to previous Israeli killings or attacks is missing.

All Israeli bombings are referred to as a defensive measures or retaliation which can’t be any farther from the reality as it is the Palestinians who are resisting and taking defensive measures against the Israel aggression. No matter how many innocent civilians, including children, are killed, no matter how many homes are destroyed, the western media narrative remains pro-Israel, echoing the policies of their governments. One TV anchor has rightly called US journalists as stenographers for the US government.


Sumber - The Brunei Times

Tolak aliran tidak senada dengan Islam

KDYMM berkenan mengurniakan titah pada Majlis
Sambutan Nuzul Al-Quran Peringkat Negara Tahun 1435 Hijriah

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Isnin, 14 Julai. - Kebawah Duli Yang Maha Mulia Paduka Seri Baginda Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar 'Ali Saifuddien Sa'adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan dan Yang Di-Pertuan Negara Brunei Darussalam bertitah menegaskan bahawa segala aliran atau pemikiran yang tidak senada dengan Islam seperti Sekularisme, Pluralisme, Liberalisme, Feminisme dan lain-lain dapat ditolak dengan pemahaman dan pengamalan berterusan ajaran-ajaran Al-Qur'an.

Umat Islam titah baginda, adalah dituntut untuk berpegang teguh dengan ajaran-ajaran Al-Qur'an, sebagaimana juga Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam dan para sahabat berpegang teguh dengannya dan bukan setakat menghafaz dan membacanya sahaja, tetapi juga memahami dan mengamalkan segala isi ajarannya.

Bertitah pada Majlis Sambutan Nuzul Al-Qur'an Peringkat Negara Bagi Tahun 1435H / 2014M di Pusat Persidangan Antarabangsa, di sini, baginda seterusnya menegaskan, mengambil atau mengamalkan apa-apa jua yang bertentangan dengan Islam, bererti kita tidak mengikut Al-Qur'an, atau dengan kata lain mendustakan ayat-ayat suci Al-Qur'an itu.

Perkara itu titah baginda, sangatlah dilarang dan bahkan dikeji oleh Allah Subhanahu Wata'ala dengan menyifatkan mereka itu sebagai keldai, sebagaimana firmanNya dalam Surah Al-Jumu'ah ayat 5.

"Sebab itulah di Brunei, pastikan kita ini adalah benar-benar mengikut Al-Qur'an. Jangan diringan-ringankan ajaran Al-Qur'an dan jangan sebahagiannya saja yang diikut, sementara sebahagian yang lain lagi ditolak ini tidak boleh," tegas baginda.

Kebawah Duli Yang Maha Mulia menambah titah, di Negara Brunei Darussalam, kita tidak memakai budaya menebuk-nebuk atau memilih-milih, tetapi budaya kita ialah beramal bulat-bulat dengan kebenaran seperti yang disuruh oleh ugama dan Al-Qur'an.

Justeru itu, baginda bertitah mengingatkan agar umat Islam jangan sembarangan dalam perkara menghidangkan dakwah kepada masyarakat.

"Biarlah kita lebih berhati-hati dari terjebak kepada sikap meniru-niru atau menerima pakai resipi orang lain secara melulu. Kita elakkan dari mengimport masalah, terutama dalam aspek amalan berugama," titah baginda lagi.

Baginda seterusnya bertitah, Mushaf Brunei Darussalam yang baru dilancarkan pada majlis tersebut merupakan satu pencapaian bersejarah bagi Negara Brunei Darussalam dan adalah hasil usaha anak-anak tempatan dari kalangan ulama dan ilmuan lulusan Universiti Al-Azhar.

Dalam hubungan itu, baginda melahirkan harapan agar ia akan menjadi bacaan dan rujukan umat Islam di negara ini dan berharap tafsirannya akan muncul kemudian, walaupun mengambil masa yang lama.

Kebawah DYMM seterusnya bertitah menyentuh mengenai satu anugerah yang telah mengharumkan nama Negara Brunei Darussalam yang diterima oleh Institut Tahfiz Al-Quran Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah dan mendapat pengiktirafan di peringkat antarabangsa dengan menerima Anugerah Ma'had Tahfiz Al-Qur'an Al-Karim Mithali Bagi Tahun 1435 Hijriah di Majlis Penganugerahan Antarabangsa His Majesty King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud bagi Al-Qur'an Al-Karim Kali Ketujuh di Arab Saudi.

Dengan pengiktirafan yang sangat bermakna ini, baginda melahirkan keyakinan ianya mampu untuk menjadi pembakar semangat Negara Brunei Darussalam untuk terus menjadi ahli Al-Qur'an yang terbaik yang meletakkan Al-Qur'an itu di tempatnya yang paling tinggi dalam semua aspek kehidupan.


Sumber - Pelita Brunei

TPP Negotiations Go Further Underground with Unprecedented Secrecy Around Meetings in Canada

EFF is in Ottawa this week for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, to influence the course of discussions over regressive digital policy provisions in this trade agreement that could lead to an increasingly restrictive Internet. But this round is different from the others—the secrecy around the talks is wholly unprecedented. The Canadian trade ministry, who is hosting this round of talks, has likely heightened the confidentiality due to the mass public opposition that is growing against this undemocratic, corporate-driven trade deal.

The trade offices from the 12 countries negotiating this deal no longer pre-announce details about the time and location of these negotiations. They don't bother releasing official statements about the negotiations because they no longer call these “negotiation rounds” but “officials' meetings.” But the seeming informality of these talks is misleading—negotiators are going to these so-called meetings to secretly pull together a deal. As far as we know, they're still discussing whether they could expand the international norm of copyright terms to make it even longer. They are negotiating provisions that could lead to users getting censored and filtered over copyright, with no judicial oversight or consideration for fair use. And trade delegates are deliberating how much of a crime they should make it if users break the DRM on their devices and content, even if users don't know it's illegal and the content they're unlocking isn't even restricted by copyright in the first place.

So for this negotiation, we had to rely on rumors and press reports to know when and where it was even happening. At first, there were confirmed reports that the next TPP meeting would take place at a certain luxury hotel in downtown Vancouver. So civil society began to mobilize, planning events in the area to engage users and members of the public about the dangers of TPP. Then seemingly out of the blue, the entire negotiating round was moved across the country to Ottawa. There's no way to confirm whether this was a deliberate misdirection, but either way it felt very fishy.

Already given this level of secrecy, it goes without saying that there will be no room for members of civil society or the public to engage directly with TPP negotiators. Towards the beginning of TPP talks, we were given 15 minutes to present to stakeholders, in addition to a stakeholder event that allowed us to hang around a big room to meet and pass information to negotiators who walked by. Then it was cut down to ten minutes (after we made some noise that it was going to be cut down to a mere eight minutes). In the following rounds, the stakeholder event was completely removed from the schedules of the official rounds. These didn't provide sufficient time to convey to negotiators about the major threats we saw in this agreement, so those events already seemed to be a superficial nod to public participation. But now, they don't even pretend to give us their ear.

Of course, corporate lobbyists continue to have easy access to the text. Advisors to major content industries can comment and read the text of the agreement on their private computers. But those of us who represent the public interest are left to chase down negotiators down the halls of hotels to let our concerns be heard and known to them.

As we watch TPP crawl its way towards getting finalized, signed, and eventually taint our laws with its one-sided corporate agenda, we need to continue to remember this fact: laws made in secret, with no public oversight or input, are illegitimate. That is not how law is made in democracies. If we're to defend the fundamental democratic rule that law is based on transparent, popular consensus, we need to fight back against an agreement that engages in such a secretive, corporate-captured process.


Sumber - Electronic Frontier Foundation

Liberal Western pundits – what’s the outrage over moderate Muslims?

by Dr. Nafeez Ahmed

In his recent Times column provocatively titled “Moderate Muslims – it’s time to be outraged,” David Aaronovitch asks why, despite record levels of violence across much of the Muslim world, the civil war in Syria, the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), persecution of minorities in Muslim states, “medieval” forms of Sharia implemented tyrannically by countries like Brunei all constituting late examples, there is no Muslim peace movement.

“Moderate Muslims,” he says, should be “outraged” at such crimes. The fact that they aren’t indicates how entrenched among them is a “victim mentality” which “casts Muslims as being eternally oppressed and eternal victims.”

The fundamental problem with Aaronovitch’s argument, though, is his simplistic diagnosis which paternalistically homogenises well over 1.1 billion Muslims: all such instances of violence are being committed by Muslims, largely against Muslims, and therefore we should expect Muslims to be the most vocal in opposing them. But, supposedly, they are silent.

Convenient narrative

This convenient narrative obscures the fact that while, of course, the Muslims carrying out such crimes bear direct and overwhelmingly responsibility for their crimes, so do the policies of the U.S., Britain and other Western countries which have empowered the very Muslim regimes behind violent extremism.

Why is it that Aaronovitch doesn’t see fit, for instance, to highlight the resounding silence of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who visited the Sultan of Brunei last October, lauding the country as an “Abode of Peace?” Neither Kerry nor other Obama administration (nor British) officials have said anything publicly about Brunei’s harsh new penal code.

“The interests of the Obama administration are clear,” reports the Boston Globe. “It wants to stay close to the oil-rich nation because it is located along the strategically vital South China Sea and is a participant in high-level trade talks. That makes it a key ally in the administration’s so-called Asia pivot, which is designed to strengthen U.S. economic and security alliances in the region to counter China’s rise.”

Indeed, Brunei is currently in negotiations to join the Obama administration’s favored pro-corporate Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Rise of ISIS

As for the rise of ISIS and the civil war in Syria, Aaronovitch’s framing of these conflicts as mere local problems to do with mad Muslims once again ignores the West’s role in fomenting regional crisis. In February last year, in a ridiculously ignorant Times column, the pro-Iraq War Aaronovitch claimed that: “Ten years after the war began, the country [Iraq] is more secure and democratic. The alternative was Syria on steroids.”

Only a month earlier, Washington DC’s Institute for the Study of War had highlighted escalating sectarian clashes showing that “Iraq may be tipping toward a destructive civil war.” Around the same time, one of the few unembedded journalists who has reported extensively from Iraq since 2003, Dahr Jamail, said that the country was a “failed” and “lawless state,” with most Iraqis living in “utter devastation” and facing fear of bombings, executions, kidnappings and widespread state-sanctioned torture.

Aaronovitch ignores that this situation, along with the rise of ISIS in Iraq, was rooted in a U.S.-UK divide-and-rule strategy to deliberately stoke sectarian conflict in Iraq.

Deploying Western support

Needless to say, the Muslim states which so often persecute minorities and implement harsh, repressive legal codes under the rubric of “Sharia,” are largely staunch Western allies where internal political dissent is harshly silenced by deploying Western arms and military training. In his book Why Muslims Rebel, Professor Mohamed Hafez - a lead investigator at the U.S. Homeland Security Department-funded National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) – documents how a combination of Western-backed rampant torture, political exclusion, state-surveillance and “predatory” state repression have played the central role in fuelling the grievances that have led to increasing extremism amongst Islamist movements.

What he thus misses by his skewed analysis is the fact that Muslims and non-Muslims have been direct and indirect victims of these short-sighted and self-serving policies, implemented by a partnership of Western states and their regional allies in the Middle East and North Africa.

In this respect, why aren’t Aaronovitch and his fellow liberals outraged by what their own governments have been up to over the last decades?

By accusing Muslims wholesale of a “victim mentality,” Aaronovitch in effect silences the voices of the many and varied Muslim civil society movements across the region and the West which oppose Western wars as well as Muslim terrorism and extremism.

Clear majorities across the Muslim world in places like Pakistan, Jordan, Tunisia, Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories – among other countries – are increasingly reviled by al-Qaeda terrorism and Islamist extremism, according to last September’s Pew Global Attitudes survey of 11 regional Muslim publics.

Curiously, Aaronovitch makes no mention of the new Pew survey released the same day as his column which shows that Muslim opposition to extremist groups has escalated rapidly since last year.

Such global Muslim public opinion has translated into action. The “Muslim voices against extremism and terrorism” resource compiled by Sheila Musaji, founding editor of The American Muslim journal, collects in one website literally hundreds and hundreds of fatwas, formal statements, initiatives, and non-violent solutions by Muslim leaders, organizations and civil society movements vehemently opposing extremism and terrorism. Part of this collection includes innumerable calls for non-violence inspired by Quranic texts and Prophetic traditions by Muslim groups and leaders in the U.S., UK, Western Europe, India, Pakistan, Iran, Jordan, Egypt – to name just a few.

The lack of a successful terrorist plot

As Jamie Bartlett, head of violent extremism at the UK think tank Demos, points out in a recent report, the lack of a successful terrorist plot in the UK since 7/7 “owes much” to the “sustained effort from Muslim communities to fight terrorism.”

But while such initiatives “need to be heard and amplified,” Musaji says, “The tragedy is that such voices just don’t sell newspapers.”

Indeed. Aaronovitch’s rant drowns out the cries of this growing, disparate global Muslim peace movement which he is so determined not to hear. The way forward is to stop framing violent extremism as an exclusively “Muslim” problem: Western and Muslim states bear co-responsibility for fanning the flames of terror, of which both Muslims and non-Muslims are victims. Pundits like Aaronovitch should do their bit by highlighting the Muslim voices for peace rather than pretending they don’t exist.


Sumber - Al Arabiya News

Chinese Uighurs defy Ramadan ban

The government's attempt to clamp down on religious expression has backfired among Uyghurs.

Kashgar, China - Chinese authorities have imposed restrictions on Uighur Muslims during the month of Ramadan, banning government employees and school children from fasting, in what rights groups say has become an annual attempt at systematically erasing the region's Islamic identity.

Chinese authorities have justified the ban on fasting by saying it is meant to protect the health of students, and restrictions on religious practices by government officials are meant to ensure the state does not support any particular faith.

Yet in Kashgar, in Xinjiang province, China's westernmost city, close to the border with Tajikstan and Kyrgyztan, Uighur Muslims say the restrictions have backfired. Not only have locals become more observant of Islamic practices, but many have found ways to flaunt Chinese laws restricting everything from who may attend the mosque, to which copies of the Quran are read.

"That is Mao ZeDong," said Omar, a taxi driver, pointing to a 24m-tall statue of the founder of the People's Republic of China, as he navigates his taxi through traffic across People's Square. "He brought all the Chinese here," he added, out of earshot of the soldiers lining up across the street.

A few minutes later, the soldiers pile into trucks and move to the city's commercial centre down the road, where police frisk shoppers at the entrance to a shopping mall. Across Kashgar, security forces have been deployed to thwart potential attacks by Uighur militants seeking to wrestle control of Xinjiang province from Beijing.

Home to some of China's largest deposits of oil, natural gas, and coal, Xinjiang has a majority Muslim Uighur population - a Turkic ethnic group with a language and culture closer to Central Asia. Before the region was absorbed into the People's Republic of China in 1949, almost everyone here was Uighur, but the numbers have have since declined, dropping to below half by the year 2000, as tens of millions of Han Chinese - the majority population of mainland China - were encouraged to settle here by the government.

That demographic shift, which accelerated in the 1990s as Beijing began to develop Xinjiang, combined with Chinese laws restricting Islamic practices by Uighurs and the 1997 execution of 30 Uighur separatists by Chinese authorities, triggered a wave of violence by militants that has left hundreds of people dead, mostly civilians.

Last month, a suicide bomber killed 39 people in the provincial capitol of Urumqi, and police claimed to have killed 13 men who attempted to ram an explosives-laden vehicle into their office near Kashgar.

The deadly violence - including an attack by knife-wielding men at a train station in Kuming that killed 29 in March - has sparked a massive crackdown by Beijing, with authorities announcing the convictions of more than 400 people across Xinjiang. Last Wednesday, Kashgar authorities announced 113 people had been sentenced for crimes, including supporting terrorism and inciting ethnic hatred and ethnic discrimination.

"The government says every Uighur, if they have a beard or wear a hijab, they are a terrorist," said Abdul Majid, who owns a mobile phone shop near People's Square. He says the last time tensions were this high was in 2009, after 184 people died in clashes between Uighurs and Han Chinese in Urumqi.

'All these problems started after September 11'

A world away from Kashgar's commercial centre lies the city's heart: a nearly 2,000-year-old Uighur quarter that is currently being rebuilt, literally brick by brick, by mostly Han Chinese migrant workers. Kashgar's ancient mosques are being restored and the homes in the old city re-imagined with hints of Central Asian architecture and with help from the Chinese government. It's part of a programme that authorities say is aimed at making the area earthquake-resistant.

But not everyone is happy about the renovations.

"If Allah wants to kill us, he will send an earthquake, and he will kill us," said Hajji Abdul Razzak, a silk merchant who has chosen not to have his home in the old city rebuilt. "A lot of people have left, and just put their houses out to rent."

Around the corner from Kashgar's 572-year-old Id Kah Mosque, a large notice board implores Uighurs to adopt modern attire. One half of the board is covered in pictures depicting traditional Uighurs, women in colourful dresses and flowing hair and clean-shaven men. The other half shows rows of men with beards and women in headscarves or face-covering veils, all with a red X over them.

"All these problems started after September 11th," said Abdul Razzak. "The Pakistan border [with China] was completely sealed, and when it opened a few years later, these Uighurs from Pakistan and Afghanistan came. They are doing all these [bombings], but we are being oppressed."

Restrictions ignored

Yet, Abdul Razzak and other Uighurs said the attempt to clamp down on religious expression has backfired in Kashgar, with more and more locals flaunting the restrictions.

Nearly every business in Kashgar's old city is closed during the hottest part of the afternoon when Al Jazeera visited this week during Ramadan.

In the evening, throngs of young women in headscarves or full face veils pass signs posted at Kashgar's main hospital reminding them veiled women cannot enter.

Along with government employees, children under the age of 18 are barred from attending mosques, yet dozens of men attending night prayers at one of Kashgar's medieval mosques have brought along their children. Toddlers line up next to the adults, imitating their movements during prayers.

"Sure, it's against the law to bring kids to the masjid [mosque], but we do it anyway," said Ghulam Abbas, a middle-aged Uighur man who makes a living selling fried fish on the main boulevard in the old city.

He added that, for centuries, parents sent their children to maktaps, part-time schools at the mosque, where they memorised the Quran - but this practise, along with most organised religious instruction, is now prohibited in Xinjiang.

Asked if Uighurs are forgetting how to recite the Quran as a result, Abbas called his eight-year-old son over and, after some coaxing, convinced him to recite a chapter from memory. "They want to cut our children off from Islam," Abbas said. "We are not allowed to teach them the Quran, but we do, at home - secretly."

It is not the only restriction that is being ignored by the Uighurs in Kashgar.

"The Chinese don't want us to have kids, but we just pay fines or bribe people," says Abdul Razzak, who has five children - three more than allowed by law. His three extra children, two sons and a daughter, have cost him around 60,000 yuan ($9,670) in fines. He said he is worried they will forget how to speak Uighur.

Other restrictions - like the ban on fasting for schoolchildren - are more difficult to get around. Chinese authorities require that school teachers, who are barred from fasting themselves, also discourage students.

"It depends on the teachers," said Mehmet, a high-school student in Kashgar. "[Some] bring water, bread, candy, put it in front of you, and you have to eat."

Meanwhile, certain styles of headscarf are still not acceptable to authorities. "The abaya was very popular here, starting four or five years ago," said Abdul Majid, a 20-something Uighur who imports women's clothes from Turkey. "But last year, police started bothering women, so now, I can't find anyone who wants to buy them."

Under Chinese law, only state-approved copies of Islamic literature like the Quran are allowed. "If they catch you with a different version, a different translation, or a book from Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, you go to jail," explained the owner of a small bookstore across the street form the Id Kah mosque, who asked not to be named.


Sumber - Al Jazeera

Asean should find a way to address violence in Myanmar, says JUST

PETALING JAYA: Although Asean does not interfere in the internal matters of its member states, it should find a way to address the issue of persecution against Muslims in Myanmar said the President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) Dr Chandra Muzaffar.

He explained that the Asean, which was formed in 1967 has a policy of non-interference, making it difficult for them to take strong positions with regards to injustices.      

“This goes to show that the policy of non-interference has drawbacks.

“There must be some way of recognising the sovereignty of individual states that make up Asean but at the same time address issues that concern justice and humanity,” he told the Star Online.

Angry Buddhist mobs targeted Muslims in Mandalay last week, the latest in sectarian violence in the Buddhist-majority nation.

The violence sparked off when a group of about 300 Buddhists attacked a teashop owned by a Muslim man accused of raping a Buddhist woman.

“If you see what has been happening in the past, there’s a pattern of targeting Muslim minorities especially the Rohingya. It has been going on for a while now,” said Dr Chandra.

Since June 2012, an estimated 240 people have been killed and another 140000 people displaced because of the violence. Most of the victims have been Muslim.

Muslims make up about 5% of the 60 million people in Myanmar.

Dr Chandra believed the violence could have been orchestrated because of the looming elections in the country next year.

“The military is worried about their grip in the country and has chosen to whip up ethnic and religious sentiments to maintain their power.

“They give the impression that Buddhism is under threat from Islam and supporting them is the only way their identity can be protected,” he said adding that we should not allow that sort of thing to happen in Malaysia.

Dr Chandra also warned that clashes in Myanmar could affect Malaysia, pointing to a plot to bomb the Myanmar embassy in Jakarta last year.

Clashes involving Buddhist and Muslim Myanmar nationals were reported in Klang Valley last year, resulting in several deaths.

There are an estimated 400,000 Myanmar nationals in Malaysia.


Sumber - The Star Online

Nation and State-building, Self-determination and Conflict Resolution in Southeast Asia

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