Sim Kwang Yang

When was the last time that anything of great note was decided by Parliament on its own steam, to change the destiny of the people and alter the course of our history for the better?

The real fruits of independence have continued to elude the poor natives out there in the far-flung shadow of our national life. They are still fending for themselves today at the expense of much suffering and humiliation.

Unfortunately for the ministers, malaysiakini was a little too close to home with their April Fool's joke, striking at the jugular vein of the entire government credibility in combating corruption.

Teochew is a colourful language, especially when it comes to cursing and swearing, says the writer whose mother tongue is, of course, Teochew.

In short, we understand and think in terms of language; we make sense of our world and its worldhood only through language. Without language, there is no 'world', and there is no 'self'. There would be no 'God' without it.

The issue of Chinese education has once again stirred up heated debate on nation-building and ethnic relation. The status quo, which is an impasse, will be dissolved only when there is a radical structural transformation in our political culture.

Our education philosophy will never cease to frighten away the young from learning the really important things in their adult life, like how to be concerned citizens in participating in the public life of the nations.

Those conditions for an ideal inter-faith conversation are far from present in present day Malaysia. They are far from present all over the world for that matter!

The crisis of our post-modern age may be precisely this: all men crave and pursue knowledge with frenzy, while ignoring the value of wisdom.

Why should we torture ourselves with the unsavoury business of pursuing Truth, Beauty and the Good? Anyway, what is the use of Truth, Beauty and the Good?

The idea of Malayness, Chineseness and Indianness, or the idea of ethnic identity of any of the 70 other communities in Malaysia, is itself subject to some kind of historical metamorphosis and evolution. The call for the emergence of a Malaysian race is itself a symptom of this restlessness.

Of all the premises and assumptions that govern most Malaysians' worldview and judgement of human affairs, ethnicity and religion are probably the two foremost terms of reference.

The Lunar New Year is the only time when all Chinese business activities come to a complete halt. They deserve to celebrate their success with a vengeance as they have worked hard all round the year.

There were no Coca Cola and F&N then. Most of us were more than happy to see the wooden crates packed with those small aerated drinks of different flavours and colours, the manufacturers of which had since long gone bust.

In the face of so much mystery in our lives that is so hard to understand, we have to accept that there is a limit to what we can ever know, especially in matters of religion.

Our Earth will continue to work out its incomprehensible and violent history without any regard for the puny will of a puny species like ours.

Constitutional guarantees about freedom of religion is one thing, but the actual historical working out of political forces is quite another. Religious tolerance is therefore paramount. Merry X'mas.

To give up developing the healthy culture of freedom of speech, just because there is a whole legion of monkeys out there, is like throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Human nature seems to be such that, if and when people do possess the ring of invisibility, or the anonymity in cyberspace, there would always be those who would be more than tempted to not follow moral or juridical laws.

What will hold for malaysiakini in the next five years is anybody's guess. All I know is that malaysiakini is a medium of communication like none other in Malaysia.

Education for knowledge's sake is sadly absent, as education in the country has led to generations of students studying only for exams and profit.

Our relationship with the faithful of another religion ought to be grounded on humility and love and a readiness to talk reasonably with our neighbours.

Living in a multi-religious environment has made Malaysians a tolerant and civilised people, to overreact on the issue of 'insulting Islam' would not do justice to the teachings of the world's great religions.

The achievement of real reform in Malaysia lies in the development of an engaged and cohesive civil society, rather than in one political saviour.