Some people would wonder why I wrote this blog, I cant deny self indulgent plays a part but it is more than that. I believe in writing this blog it would be a way of letting people now the truth about a lay malay man view about the world, his believe, his family as he sees it. It is an unblemished record, untainted without any political leanings but an honest, as far as the writers understand, ideas about life. So much tension is going on this country I live, unseen but beneath it, it is rumbling. As Lim Kit Siang our opposition leader says a time bomb waiting to explode. We have the Malay elites, anglophile,rich but cocoon in their world, magazine of choice is the Malaysian Tatler. We have the Religious elite which has such a hold on the Malay masses it is suffocating. And the masses as divided as they are by race, colour and creed. I pity my fellow countryman and I pity my race. For once I cannot condone religious prejudice neither I condone act done in the name of religion. I came from a family who is neither here nor there, neither are we elite or representing the Malay masses. We are lost between what constitute malay and what is not. My Grandmother hobbies were doing crossword puzzle and jigsaw puzzle but she is also at ease as a shaman(bomoh) to the family and being the matriarch of the family when they were left abandon by their father. My father was brought up in his early years by his grandma so his friends and families were all the princes and princesses from the Istana but never did he absorb their trait. We have no kampong because we never stay in one. we do not know how to plant padis because our families were formerly land owners so we got workers doing that. During the war we lost basically everything of value, my grandfather wasted his inheritance, throwing it all out by having fun. He also would waste his wife inheritance away. My Great grand ma would always make the remark 'harapkan pagar, pagar makan padi' which means my grandfather was a philandering fool! My Grandma never forget her roots that she was adopted and that her real parents were poor but at times when in exasperation against his siblings she would utter that is your siblings not mine. She share her wealth with them taking in their children when they were gone yet somehow there is the aloofness among her children. Aside than my father who were taught to be the man of the house when his father left, the others are a bit snooty. I never like this snootiness that exist. Perhaps I am the least pretentious of the lot because I have no Mum thus I welcome family members with open arms. True, also my father remarried and the world I know off come crashing down, it does help. That is why I am a bit different, I always taught myself to keep everything inside, bottling this pent up frustration, unlike my brothers, at the slightest slight they will inform my father and he would listen. They always use my mother's death to get their way and they did. I have no one to turn to partly I chose too, partly because there is no one. I trust no one with my feelings and I for once fear betrayal. I have my father in me in that sense, I do not know why, I always care for other people feelings beside my own, yet I am a tyrant to my Friends but not to my family. I make sure my father feelings would never be hurt or he is put in a way to make a choice between my life and his other family. I always give way. When we were in Penang and my Mom's power were reaching its pinnacle I try to make sure that food is left for my elder brother to eat when he comes home at night, after work. Because sometime food were not left for him, and when I remember his face, it was pitiful. He would later die of cancer and I remember that day as it was yesterday. and when I sacrifice my studies to be with him at the hospital so he would not be alone, I didn't do well. When i try to give excuses he says no because the choice was mine and i do it gladly. I was also responsible to put my brother Put in the rehab detention place for drugs when we were ask to study together after Penang. I have to do it or not he be cane and whip because he was caught pushing drugs. I devise the plan with my cousin, my Uncle and my Step Grandfather whose house we were staying in. I gave the green light to trick him and catch him during the fasting month when my parents were away in Sarawak on duty. That pain is still there, whom can I turn too and who could understand. To whom could I pour my heart too, no one. Just like death we will end up alone so is life as precious as it is we always be alone. I am sorry to digress, but my feeling for my people is real. They romanticised so much about the Islamic empire that they forget during the time of Abbasid Ottoman and other empires of Islam lots of debauchery, white slavery persecutions happen in the name of the religion. Surprisingly, since we are Sunnis, it is to note the Sunnis were never the fountain of knowledge in fact they were responsible for the dearth of knowledge in the Islamic realm nowadays. Alfarabi, Averrroes, Ibnu Sina(Avvicenna), Ibn Khaldun were Syiah and some were Muktazillah. A sunni of repute would be Al Ghazali who were ask to rebuke all this rational thinking yet he nearly went mad, of despair. He turn to Sufi to find his path back and from this knowledge to come to his conclusion to come out with his own book. Yet Sufi is panned by the Sunnis as deviant. To me, since I am a Sunni, Sunni thought and ideas are stifling the Ummah. Yet they come to us and on purpose forgot to tell that the great thinkers of Muslims were not Sunnis to begin with but their sworn enemies whom they have already sentence as heretics, liars and citizen of hell! Please take note too Ibnu Sina died of too much debauchery in his blood. He died following a night of wine and woman at the age of 56. This the Muslim historian would never tell, I wonder why? For me, they are humans and being human doesn't make them bad but deny human fallacies are. I do not understand of qouting hadiths and taking it out of context decrying that Muhammad says the Jews and Christians would not rest until you follow them yet they choose to forget that Muhammad also says if whoever of my Ummah who wrong a Jew or a Christian he will have me as a witness in the day of judgement. Whom am I to believe? Osama bin Laden is a Sunni and he terrorise people while Prince Aga Khan an Ismailite is a Syiah and he is a philanthropist. Which is the better gentlemen? Your guess is as good as mine.