JOHN LING

I have moved to a new blog at johnling.wordpress.com

Please adjust your links accordingly.

It is always good to see a dear friend doing so well. 

My one-time protege Yvonne Foong has crafted a sensational book. I'm Not Sick,  Just A Bit Unwell has peaked at #2 on the MPH Bestseller's List. Yvonne has achieved a feat many can only dream of. While I was not there to witness it, her recent book launch at MPH One Utama was a great success. The place was packed with fans and all copies were sold out in a blink.

Way to go, Yvonne.

Yes, Michael Backman is back with yet another hard-hitting article about Malaysia stupidity:

Rafidah added to her remarks about my column that no Malaysian should say such things. It's little wonder that she doesn't welcome scrutiny from her own people. But then the idea that Malaysians cannot comment publicly about how their country is run but a non-Malaysian can, is disgraceful.

Perhaps Rafidah needs to be reminded who pays her salary.

As a certain V reminds us: People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people. This is a concept that many Malaysians, tragically enough, do not take to heart.

Malaysia is unique.

While other countries are feverishly developing new communication technologies, Malaysia still casually relies on an ancient instrument known as the keris. Historically, the keris is neither a knife nor a sword, and in every instance of combat, is outmatched by everything EXCEPT another keris. However, it appears that the unsheathing of the keris is able to silence all arguments---no matter how legitimate---via some sort of mystical power. Despite extensive research, I am still a little fuzzy on how a relatively weak and poorly-conceived weapon is able to conjure up such power.

Michael Backman's article on Malaysian wastefulness has drawn flak, most notably from International Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz. "What do we care? Obviously, this person doesn’t know Malaysia. He is an outsider and he can say what he likes. I don’t really care about what others say – as long as it is not a Malaysian saying it."

Well, gee, Rafidah, how can any Malaysian say it when you continue to censor us, intimidate us, lock us up, and even flash your keris? This is why only 'outsiders' can speak the truth about Malaysia.

An excerpt from Mr. Backman's response:

Since my column was published, plans for a new RM400 million Istana have been announced and the Agriculture Ministry parliamentary secretary has told Parliament that Malaysia's first astronaut will be playing batu seremban and spinning tops and making teh tarik while in space. There are countless scientists around the world who would give anything for the opportunity to go to space and do real experiments.

For the Malaysian government to send an astronaut into space to play Malay children's games serves only to re-emphasise my point about waste. Not only that, it makes Malaysia look infantile in the eyes of the rest of the world, which is a great pity when Malaysia has made so many real achievements. The world is getting more clever, more competitive and more dynamic every day. There are too many in Malaysia who don't seem to understand this.

I dare say this Aussie bloke loves Malaysia more than many Malaysians profess to. Why? Because he dares to criticize, reflect, and provoke. Consider, for a moment, if you witness a loved one descending into drugs. Will you say and do nothing, and consider your actions love? You will be doing him a great disservice. Apply this analogy to Malaysians and patriotism, and you will fathom what I mean.

With baited breath, I look forward to Mr. Backman's next article.

Former UMNO leader Mohamad Rahmat was among the first off the starting post when he uttered the dreaded A-word: “Don’t test the Malays, they know ‘amok’”. Melaka delegate Hasnoor Sidang Hussein added more blood to the feast when he bluntly stated that “UMNO is willing to risk lives and bathe in blood in defence of race and religion”. UMNO Youth Exco member Azimi Daim added that “when tension rises, the blood of Malay warriors will run in our veins”. (Prompting the obvious question: What happens when there is no tension? Whose blood is running in their veins then?) But the first prize for grandstanding has to go to Perlis delegate Hashim Suboh who directed his question to UMNO leader Hishamuddin Onn: “Datuk Hisham has unsheathed his keris, waved his keris, kissed his keris. We want to ask Datuk Hisham: when is he going to use it?”

 

The threat of going keris-waving bloody amok has become so commonplace by now that we have grown accustomed to it. Ranked alongside other familiar threats like the recurrence of ‘May 13’ or yet another ‘Operasi Lalang’, the ever-present threat of the Malays going amok is now seen as part and parcel of the political vocabulary of Malaysia and Malaysian politicians in particular. Blood and violence have become part of our political language.

Yup, James Bond has gotten more gritty and dynamic in an attempt to upstage Jason Bourne.

Check out this clip from CASINO ROYALE which features a well-staged stairwell fight. Not since Sean Connery and that brutal train compartment fight in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE have we seen Bond getting down and dirty like this.

It's about time.

Michael Backman of the The Age writes:

MALAYSIA'S been at it again, arguing about what proportion of the economy each of its two main races — the Malays and the Chinese — owns. It's an argument that's been running for 40 years. That wealth and race are not synonymous is important for national cohesion, but really it's time Malaysia grew up.

It's a tough world out there and there can be little sympathy for a country that prefers to argue about how to divide wealth rather than get on with the job of creating it.

The long-held aim is for 30 per cent of corporate equity to be in Malay hands, but the figure that the Government uses to justify handing over huge swathes of public companies to Malays but not to other races is absurd. It bases its figure on equity valued, not at market value, but at par value.

Many shares have a par value of say $1 but a market value of $12. And so the Government figure (18.9 per cent is the most recent figure) is a gross underestimate. Last month a paper by a researcher at a local think-tank came up with a figure of 45 per cent based on actual stock prices. All hell broke loose. The paper was withdrawn and the researcher resigned in protest. Part of the problem is that he is Chinese.

"Malaysia boleh!" is Malaysia's national catch cry. It translates to "Malaysia can!" and Malaysia certainly can. Few countries are as good at wasting money. It is richly endowed with natural resources and the national obsession seems to be to extract these, sell them off and then collectively spray the proceeds up against the wall.

Can you say, living on borrowed time? Yes, you can. Read the full article here.

Sharon Bakar has interviewed Stephen Ling, a writer that she bills as our very own Frank McCourt:

WHEN Stephen Ling ran away from Sitiawan, Perak, as a young man, he thought it was for good. Ling’s childhood, recorded in his memoir For My Hands Only, had been a particularly difficult and unhappy one.

His family lived in poverty, depending on a rubber smallholding and pig farming for their livelihood and Ling (pic) felt that he was valued only for the manual work he could do (hence the title of the book).

Denied the opportunity of an education, and desiring a great deal more for himself, Ling left for Singapore to train as a pastor and later won a scholarship to study in the United States, where he built a successful career as an teacher.

That's right, a fellow clan member and a Sitiawan native.

It is good to know I'm not the only FooChow chasing literary dreams.

The critics are going gaga over Casino Royale, singling out Daniel Craig's performance as a masterstroke:

The Times declared: "Craig is up there with the best - he combines Sean Connery's athleticism and cocksure swagger with Timothy Dalton's thrilling undercurrent of stone-cold cruelty."

Craig's impressive physique makes him "a far more plausible Bond than many of his predecessors", it added. "But his main asset quickly becomes evident. He can act."

The action was "edgy", the paper said, with stunts that were more physical and violence that was more raw.

The Mirror said the James Bond rule book had been "well and truly torn up" for the 21st official film.

Was there ever any doubt? 

Mozilla has just released version 2.0 of their popular Firefox browser.

No surprise, it is a great deal better than its competitor Internet Explorer 7.

It now sports a Session Restore feature; if you have a bunch of websites open, but shut down or crash, it remembers the pages and goes right back to them. There is also a nifty spellchecker. If you're typing in an e-mail or a blog entry, it corrects dubious spellings. Last but not least, Firefox 2 has a new interface and a slew of safety improvements.

Best new upgrade I've had in quite a while.

For those of you who couldn't get enough of Lord of the Rings, here's some exciting news. MGM and New Line Cinema have announced plans to bring two films to the screen based on The Hobbit. A prequel, The Hobbit follows Bilbo Baggins on an adventure with a band of dwarves and the wizard Gandalf as they attempt to reclaim the dwarves' stolen treasure and restore their kingdom.

And of course, the studios are looking to bring back everyone's favourite Kiwi director.

"Peter Jackson's phenomenal success with The Lord of the Rings trilogy makes him the first and most ideal choice for directing The Hobbit. MGM would be thrilled to collaborate with the Academy Award-winning director on this MGM New Line Cinema production," said Rick Sands, MGM CEO.

Joseph Campbell, in his book Hero with a Thousand Faces, first explored the symbolism of the monomyth; a universal pattern that is common to all heroic stories. It is essentially a rite of passage that can be divided into three segments—Departure, Initiation, and Return. In Departure, the hero learns there is something wrong with his familiar surroundings, and sets off into the unfamiliar world to find a solution for it. In Initiation, he faces many adventures, loses his naiveté, and gains new skills. In Return, he uses his newfound strength and wisdom to restore balance to his home.

Not surprisingly, the mechanics of the monomyth is deeply entrenched within Hollywood storytelling. Everything from Star Wars to The Lion King makes abundant use of it. Yet, the triumphant journey of Hollywood’s heroes is peppered by Americanized archetypes and stereotypes. They have traditionally been white males, who use militant means to restore balance. They are seen as noble only because they practice American values and norms. We can observe this in the deadly loner who dispenses justice in the Dirty Harry films, or the enlightened warriors who fight for common good in the X-Men films.

More recently, black, Latin, and Asian heroes have emerged and grown in prominence. But even so, their portrayals are clearly Americanized. They are every bit as jingoistic and aggressive as their white counterparts. Female heroism is also distorted, with suggestions that women can only be strong and equal when they behave like men. This is evidenced by the Alien and Tomb Raider movies.

Just as heroes are stereotyped, so are villains. Arabs and other Middle Easterners, naturally enough, are commonly depicted as bloodthirsty terrorists with little regard for human life. On the other end of the spectrum, megalomaniacal white villains are often depicted as being European, such as Scar from The Lion King and Hans Gruber from Die Hard.

There can be little doubt that Hollywood cinema does exert some degree of hegemony. But is this hegemony deliberate? And how far exactly does it stretch?

The key lies in the idea of American exceptionalism.

Due to its roots, the United States has traditionally seen itself as a nation that is both different and special. By rejecting monarchy and socialism, and embracing individualism and capitalism, Americans perceive themselves as a template for the rest of the world to follow. Indeed, even before the age of mass media, the United States was already producing symbols and metaphors.

This can be traced back to the concept of the mythical City upon a Hill, made popular by a leader of the colonists who founded Massachusetts: “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken... we shall be made a story and a by-word throughout the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God... We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us til we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.”

The United States has adopted a rigid perspective of itself and the world at large. This is made clear through the coining of Manifest Destiny—‘manifest’ symbolizing obvious, and ‘destiny’ symbolizing inevitable—which bestowed the United States with the divine mission to spread freedom and democracy. As the fiction of Superman makes clear, Hollywood may well be on an eternal crusade to champion “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.”

But is Hollywood consciously directed by the ruling class? Or does it just so happen that Hollywood automatically flows in the direction of pro-capitalist ideals?

Gramsci cautions that hegemony is not necessarily a fixed, direct equation. Dominic Strinati goes one step further by suggesting that while the infrastructure does exert a big influence on Hollywood, it is not the sole determinant of content. Capitalism, by nature, is highly fluid and dynamic. There is room for creativity and innovation.

For example, the recent film V for Vendetta was clearly not pro-capitalist. It espoused Marxist philosophies about false consciousness and mass revolution. It also depicted ordinary citizens rallying against an oppressive ruling class. Interestingly enough, the film was produced by a major studio.

Alternatively, Strinati suggests that Hollywood may simply be driven less by ideology, and more by supply and demand. In other words, media producers strive to fulfil the desires of the market. For example, Big Love is a television series about a polygamous family, produced even though the American government is dominated by neoconservatives who favour the traditional nuclear family. This is because public curiosity about polygamy has become overwhelming.

The expansion of cheap, accessible multimedia technologies has also allowed radical viewpoints to flourish. For example, the independent film Hotel Rwanda is a stark, sobering account of the 1993 Rwandan Genocide. The film highlights the shocking failure of the United States to intervene and halt the genocide. The hero—a black African—grapples with the possibility that Rwanda may have been abandoned because of racism and apathy. This is a sharp contrast to the heroic, humanitarian, interventionist image that many Hollywood big studio films seek to portray.

The relationship between Hollywood and us is therefore always multilayered, always in motion. We are not merely passive drones who digest popular culture without question. Rather, we interact with it, contemplate it, and even agonize over it. We still possess the freedom to shape and articulate meaning, as we see fit.

Gramsci points out that there is always a war of position (a culture war) raging all around us. Those against American imperialism will always find ways to subvert it. Today, new technologies are able to challenge Hollywood’s power, allowing viewers a chance to step outside established viewpoints, in order to glimpse different cultures, different values, different experiences.

Yes, Hollywood cinema is hegemonic.

But its hegemony is by no means absolute.

Here's an essay I had to write for Contemporary Media class. I am posting it up for your reading pleasure:

The muscle of Hollywood is immense.

Some say too immense.

In 2005, its earnings were estimated at just over $17 billion. This is larger than the GDP of countries such as Iceland, Brunei, or Jordan. This is made possible because four of the five largest media conglomerates—Time Warner, Viacom, News Corporation, and Disney—are based in the United States, forming the backbone of Hollywood as we know it today.

With its vast capital outlay, limitless access to talent, and elaborate distribution networks, it is capable of creating pricey, glitzy productions and getting them out into the mainstream, with maximum visibility and maximum penetration. Not surprisingly, the average Hollywood film boasts a budget that hovers around $100 million. By far, this outstrips any film produced elsewhere.

Consequently, Hollywood has come to occupy roughly 80% to 90% of the international film market. Even in New Zealand, its influence is inescapable. As I write this, there are 19 films currently screening in Hoyts theatres, with 14 that I can readily identify as Hollywood productions.

The popularity and accessibility of Hollywood is so profound that many non-Hollywood productions often have no choice but to emulate American benchmarks and sensibilities. In 1999, the Korean film Shiri out-grossed Titanic in its domestic market, but only because it imitated the blood-soaked melodrama of a Jerry Bruckheimer action film. Interestingly, much like a Hollywood production, Shiri was backed by a conglomerate—Samsung.

Today, few can deny that the proliferation of Hollywood is pervasive. Its imagery is everywhere at all times. Even when we are not watching its films, we are still exposed to its gossip, fanfare, trailers, and advertisements.

So, is Hollywood cinema hegemonic?

We must first understand how hegemony comes about.

Marx believed that the infrastructure of society is controlled by capitalists who form the ruling class. They own the means of production (tools, machines, factories), which they employ to manufacture commodities that are then sold for profit. This is only possible because the labour of the working class transforms raw materials into finished products. In other words, it is the working class that creates commodities, not the ruling class. Without them, there can be no production. And yet, they are short-changed and oppressed.

The ruling class therefore exercises its power directly and indirectly to keep the working class passive and obedient. Society’s superstructure—its institutions and values—will reflect this power. This gives rise to false consciousness; the working class being blinded to the nature of their oppression.

Marx famously singled out religion as a side-effect of false consciousness: “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

Gramsci advanced Marx’s basic theory, by stressing that false consciousness paves the way for hegemony, a condition where the working class has come to accept the moral, political, and cultural values of the ruling class. This can happen in a coercive, non-violent way, allowing the ruling class to easily dominate the working class.

Jás Elsner, in his book Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph, reinforces this by pointing out: “Power is very rarely limited to the pure exercise of brute force. The Roman state bolstered its authority and legitimacy with the trappings of ceremonial—cloaking the actualities of power beneath a display of wealth, the sanction of tradition, and the spectacle of insuperable resources. Power is a far more complex and mysterious quality than any apparently simple manifestation of it would appear. It is as much a matter of impression, of theatre, of persuading those over whom authority is wielded to collude in their subjugation. Insofar as power is a matter of presentation, its cultural currency in antiquity (and still today) was the creation, manipulation, and display of images. In the propagation of the imperial office, at any rate, art was power.”

Seen in this light, Hollywood cinema is not merely innocent escapism, but a very real extension of American power. It can be compared to a well-oiled assembly line, continuously rolling out popular culture on a colossal scale. This makes it the chief purveyor of trends and fashions in today’s world, regardless of where we may live.

There are numerous examples.

Jennifer Aniston’s Rachel hairstyle has become a favourite among young women. Miami Vice encouraged men to abandon boxy suits for loose, casual attire. The Matrix caused sales of sleek sunglasses to skyrocket. Slang words such as “wassup?”, “yo!”, and “whatever!” have become the norm.

But beyond all this, Hollywood’s true clout is in the way it promotes a distinct worldview, shapes opinions, and reinforces stereotypes. It tends to favour viewpoints that are pro-capitalist, pro-conservative, pro-military, pro-male, and pro-white. Its sway over our collective psyche is profound.

During the height of the Cold War, a slew of thrillers such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Manchurian Candidate inflated perceptions of communist infiltration. By the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan was openly admiring Rambo’s blunt, militaristic approach to dealing with evildoers. Around the same time, the glory and romance of the American military—epitomized by Tom Cruise in Top Gun—was attractively packaged as a recruiting tool for youngsters.

In broad strokes, the freedom, individualism, and greed of the free market were painted as good and desirable. Meanwhile, the perceived authoritarianism and monotony of communism was panned, sometimes subtly, sometimes not so subtly. This took place not only in the movies, but also in television programmes such as Dallas and Dynasty.

It can be argued that Hollywood has had an effect on everything from the Solidarity movement in Poland to the eventual tearing down of the Berlin Wall. To some degree, the collapse of communism can be attributed to the American ideas disseminated by Hollywood.

For this reason, Hollywood is not only a producer of commodities, but also of symbols, both socio-political and socio-economic. It sets the tone for our aspirations and desires, as well as our fears and anxieties. It affects how we eat, work, play, and fall in love. Marxists are quick to see this as indoctrination and the transmission of false consciousness, the export of American cultural imperialism, with Hollywood acting as its proxy.

A friend asked me something obvious the other day: why doesn't the United States just invade North Korea and be done with it? Well, if it was simply a matter of a straight-up fight, they would have done it as early as 1994/1995. But it isn't.

Kim Il-Sung and his son Jung-Il have been preparing for war ever since the end of the last one in 1953. By shrewdly playing their cards right, they now hold South Korea hostage.

Seoul---with its population of 22 million---is a mere 50km from the border, where North Korea has over 10,000 artillery pieces. They could hit Seoul with half-a-million rounds an hour, leading to an exodus of refugees, and the desintegration of the South Korean economy. Losses would be in the region of $1 trillion. Asia itself would be plunged into economic chaos.

Defending South Korea is agonizingly difficult. There is only one major port in the region---Pusan, at the southern tip of the Peninsula---that can accommodate the rapid landing of American troops. Once they do land, advancing northwards would mean relying on two roads jammed with refugees. In the short run, America would suffer casualties of 50,000 to 100,000 in the first 90 days, and incur a fat bill of $100 billion.

And we aren't even talking about fighting inside North Korea yet.

The costs would be nightmarish.

The line between films and games blurs even more with the Hollywood line-up that has been announced for the latest Command and Conquer. Featuring actors from STAR WARS, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, LOST, and even real-life reporters, this looks like a turning point in interactive entertainment.

Read the full press release here.

After suffering a global drop in market share---from 96% to 85%---Microsoft charges back into the fray with Internet Explorer 7, its first browser release since 2001. On the surface, it is impressive. It now sports a new, shiny engine with tabbed browsing, ClearType fonts, a dynamic zoom feature, and other improvements.

But lest we forget, IE remains a closed source, monopolistic product. It lacks the warm and earnest community support of Mozilla Firefox. Even a look at its Add-Ons reveal that it actually tries to sell you programmes that feature spyware/adware. Plus, a major security hole was discovered in IE mere hours after its release.

Nonetheless, Microsoft has fired the first salvo in a new browser war. Now let's see how Firefox 3.0 responds when it is released in the first quarter of 2007.

On 14 October, the United States instigated the UN Security Council to unjustly find fault with our self-defensive nuclear test as a threat to international peace and safety, and once again passed the vicious resolution on sanctions and blockade against the Republic.

Our successful nuclear test is a positive defensive countermeasure to defend our country's sovereignty and the people's life and safety so as to cope with the United States' increasing threat of nuclear war and the manoeuvres for sanctions and pressure; and thus was completely an exercise of a sovereign state's independent and legal right.

Because the United States, by taking advantage of the nuclear issue, gravely infringed on our state's supreme safety and our nation's fundamental interest, we were compelled to legally withdraw from the Non-proliferation Treaty in accordance with the relevant clause of the treaty and to manufacture a nuclear weapon by going through the most fair, just, and transparent process.

We also conducted the test proving our nuclear possession in a legitimate manner, after even providing advance notice, which transcends international norms.

We conducted the nuclear test under the condition where safety was thoroughly guaranteed, and we clearly declared that as a responsible nuclear possession country, we will never first use a nuclear weapon and will not allow nuclear transfer.

In addition, we clarified that we will make every possible effort to push ahead with worldwide nuclear arms reduction and the ultimate abolishment of nuclear weapons, and will also unchangingly maintain the principle to realize the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula through dialogue and negotiations.

Nevertheless, the United States, which is the ringleader that pushed us to a nuclear test, is now acting as if we had threatened international peace and security, while covering up and putting away what it did, like a thief wielding a club. This is entirely preposterous and can never be tolerated.

Our nuclear test rather serves as a great undertaking that has greatly contributed to safeguarding the peace and security of the Northeast Asian region, as well as the Korean peninsula, by demonstrating a powerful deterrent force that checks the United States' nuclear threat blackmail and attempt to provoke a new war.

To disregard all these facts; turn a blind eye to the United States' hostile policy towards the DPRK, which is the root of the nuclear issue of the Korean peninsula; regard as a crime the implementation of our sovereign right to defend the country's sovereignty in the face of the [hostile policy]; and talk about the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula are immoral behaviours utterly devoid of impartiality

Needless to say, the recent UNSC resolution is based on a scenario [prepared] by the United States that is running amok to dismantle the popular masses-centred socialist system of our style and cannot but be regarded as a declaration of war against our Republic.

The United States must not miscalculate us.

No illusion can be more ridiculous or groundless than for the Bush group to think it can bring us to our knees with sanctions and pressures after forgetting the lesson from the shameful defeats recorded by its previous administrations in the history of relations with the DPRK and remaining stuck on its already bankrupt hostile policy towards the DPRK. As our Republic had not been shaken by any wind or wave even without nuclear weapons in the past, it is nonsensical for it to yield to anyone else's pressures or threats today when it has become a dignified nuclear power.

We want peace but do not fear war, and we desire dialogue but are always ready for confrontation, as well.

We will fulfil our duty to denuclearize the Korean peninsula as we have already declared, but if anyone tries to infringe on our sovereignty and our right to existence, even a bit, under the signboard of the UN Security Council resolution, we will unsparingly launch a merciless strike.

We will watch out for any move by the United States, and will take appropriate measures accordingly.

After some tense wrangling, the United Nations Security Council has voted to enact sanctions against North Korea. Their resolution calls for:

x The elimination of all nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction, and ballistic missiles.

x The prevention of the transfer of military materials related to weapons programmes.

x The freezing of finances connected with nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

x The inspection "as necessary" of cargo moving in and out of North Korea.

x The banning of luxury goods.

The noose is tightening. What will Kim Jung-Il do next?