Not So Pearl & Gem :Let Us Separate The Leaves And Twigs from The Tree

Friends ,

"Say : Truly , my prayer , my sacrifice , my life and my death are all for Allah , Lord of all the worlds " [Surah Al An'am 6 : 162] .

Very strong definitive words that separate the leaves ,twigs and branches from the tree .I wished when Pak lah met his deputy yesterday he was of clear mind and healthy body to be as definitive as the above Ayat.Let us examine the facts :

1.Malaysia is in turmoil .Of course it is not yet Thailand ,Stupid ! .With due respect to Pak Lah ,currently it seem rudderless ,to be blunt , leaderless !

2.Economic indices are spiralling down .Yes one can blame that as off 2 days ago to Lehman Brothers and Merryl Lynch .But just look at 1 counter alone ,Sime Darby for instance ,our biggest single conglomerate .Since Synergy Drive [ whose brilliant idea is this anyway ? The 4th Floor Boys ?] ,this giant has been spiralling down from 13 plus RM per share to the present miserable 6 plus !This represent 20 billion RM paper loss .60 % of this is hard earned "Bumiputra 'money !!Your ASB 's and my ASN .This is just one counter ,mind you ,not withstanding the meteoric rise in CPO .Let us not examine the other counters lest you get a cardiac arrest .

3.Now we have Pak Lah in Defence and Mr Najib looking at Finance .Some joked that this is OK with a proviso that the Mrs is at least 5 kilometres away from the Ministry of Finance and remain that way .That to me is below the belt ,a rude joke of course !Some even surmised that Pak Lah wanted to look into the 'goings on in Defence ' spending the last couple of years .An even worse joke !C'mon give the old man some credit ! He is doing his level best .The one billion dollar question now though is : Is Pak Lah's very level best good enough for the Nation now .In CCU lingo the 'patient' is in pulmonary oedema ,choking to death with his own body fluid backlogged in the lung , and the doctor in charge is still waiting for the blood test results before giving the IV 's .Pak Lah the man seem to be tottering on all fours and dont seem to know what he is doing now !With all due respect to Mr Najib ,his B A [econs] from Nothingham University years back may not be enough panacea to deal with the current global crisis .He lacks experience when experience and wisdom and a sixth sense are most wanted !Even Dr M and his own banker brother aknowledge this today .

Now more than ever before , responsible and thinking people in UMNO must be hoping for TIME to move very fast .Even December seem very far away .They would now wished that UMNO 'erection' would not be so 'convoluted ' and complex that just to change 'course' you would nearly need to break the PARTY .Whose fault was this in the first place ?

For the rest of the raayats like us ,non card carrying members of any party ,we have to wait with bated breath of what is in store for us all .A tyranny imposed by the elite few on the many !

Will it be the ???consensual 'sodomist' with his diagonally 'fractured' band of people ,or Mr Najib ,tainted , 'pregnant' and weighed down by extra baggage and 'unproven' slander or Ku Li with his band of merry men , to pull all of us out of this self imposed quigmire ?

The feeling on the ground is ,anyone of them ,just anyone of them could be better than the 'autopilot' state we have been in the last couple of years .We do not want to end 'John Denver style' somewhere in the desert sand somewhere when the gas run empty .It seem now December is too , too far away .

Not So Pearl & Gem : Anwar Is A Bad Poker Player ...

Friends ,

16 Sept has come and gone !Nothing is moving .Anwar may be showing his true colour .Very high on rhetorics and nothing up there .If before we can blame his advisers ,??KBJ et al for advising to go direct to the jugular too prematurely and underestimating the strengh of his enemy ,now who is his adviser or think tank ?? Nik Nazmi ,that young punk ?Also following in the ways of Pak Lah with his KJ ?

Should have stayed quiet ,work very hard on the current 5 States under Pakatan .Pump in massive amount of Arab fund .Bring in development to Kelantan ,Perak , Selangor ,kedah and Penang and then win the 'Erection' .

If Anwar is a poker player probably he is the type who get hyper excitable early when he has a pack of good cards .Hardly 'great news' for a future PM material .Belum cukup cerdik lagi or 'tak cerdik sokmo' !How to play ball with the US ?

Dr Nik Howk

Not So Pearl & Gem :Change Is Imminent and Inevitable ....

Tan Sri ,

'Nearly all man can stand adversity ,but if you want to test a man ,give him POWER' .

When I look at the Malay Mail yesterday ,1st staring at you was Pak Lah , pale ,tired ,beaten and confused .Opposite was his nemesis ,young ,vibrant and arrogant .Next page was Zaid Ibrahim's ' I do not agree with the ISA arrest '.Elsewhere in the Sun and Straits Times ,some ministers echoing the same song as Najib's ,'Muhyiddin has overstepped his bound ,but leave it to the UMNO grassroots ' . As if the grassroots can think .What the UMNO grassroots ever think about is 'how and when is the next makan ! 'Democracy in UMNO is very much alive .Leadership :Dead !

As much as I did not like Dr M ,he probably would have handled it differently .From Day 1 ,he would probably called Koh Tsu Koon and throw him a file for him to read in 2 minutes and told him to shut up or he would be thrown to Batu Gajah by evening .He would call Ahmad to immediately make 'some animal' noise' in the form of an indirect apology .One can call a sparrow by any other name ,it is still a sparrow .That was leadership Dr M style ..

To govern Malaysia you must be much better than good ,super tough minded ,wise and 'gedebe' all at the same time.Dr M was .No 2 ways about it otherwise people like Samy Vellu ,Ong Ka Tiig and Tsu Koon forget about their places in the 'scheme of things' and 'naik tonchang' ... ..{We have had too much of that lately} .

A pity towards the end of his tenure he surrounded himself with corporate figures that disappoint him and let down Bumi aspirations { no need to name names ,too many of them ,all Abdul D's boys }, and left UMNO in a huff ,leaderless , with a 2nd in command who is too feeble and too nice to be numero uno.

Now come December what do we have down the line in UMNO ?An overweight ,slow moving Muhyiddin Yasin that look like he need some boost from Tongkat Ali plus some thyroxine to peep up the brain function .Or a well tried Najib Tun Razak up to his nose with scandals ,and carrying an excess baggage in the form of Rusmah .Yes ,Rusmah !All unproven of course .Are we going to have to go another 8 years of slow economic growth and general malaise and lethargy ?These 2 candidates I mean ,both do not look wholesome .Do we have a choice ?

Is Ku Li still up to it after so many years of just being 1st there in line starting the 'suap pulut' semangat at important marriages ? Can he be the bridge ,that important bridge , before younger and more dynamic individuals grow up from the UMNO 's melting pot ?Does he still has the clout and the money .UMNO election is very much about money .

Is people like Rais Yatim ,Shabery Chik etc etc not there yet to takeover the helm ?Is UMNO' pelapis' mechanism so feudalistic ,so immovable and so 'politic wang' that real leaders cannot come up from the crevices and be noticed .Let us look beyond Tan Sri Muhd 'I do not know English' of course .

Above all does UMNO has the time ?Election is in December ,Pak Lah and his cabinet are looking very very shaky by the days .'Lost' is the right word .

This is what Dr M has left us .In his haste to remain the unchallenged numero uno ,he has weeded out all the strong challenge and personalities that could have put UMNO on a stronger foothold ,and introduced mechanism that would make an initial wrong choice in leader difficult to disengage , in short a very feudal system .

Weak leadership in UMNO and an impossible system to weed out the wrong persuasive 'mutants' that survive the initial elections .Dr M is a great man but his legacy he has left behind was not .Malaysia can support a 'weak' sultan or 2 ,since there are 9 of them to choose from ,but not a weak PM :we have to endure him until his 2nd or 3rd bypass !

On the other side of the coin ,we have Anwar of Keadilan .Anwar is Keadilan and Keadilan is Anwar .From the outside it look more 'MIC' which begs the question :Are the Malays ready for Anwar ?The Indians and Chinese are but are the Malays really ready for him ?

The ongoing perception is ,in supporting Keadilan ,the Malays will be paying too high a price .HINDRAF and Chinese support for Anwar come at a hefty price !Just perception .Of course there is PAS in Pakatan but PAS now stand for Islamic universalism and going big on this .Will the Malays ,currently disapointed with the relative immobility of UMNO , to pay too dearly in supporting Keadilan .Karpal Singh and Lim Kit Siang can appear angelic and Malaysian Malaysia can sound and look ideal but we all know who MrLim and Karpal are ,right through to their heart .

Will Malay interest be further diluted ? Put more bluntly ,is Anwar going to sell the Malays just to satisfy his ambition to be PM ?How strong is PAS as a balancing power in Anwar's fractious Pakatan ?

But again let us Malays be not too harsh on Anwar .5 years of solitary confinement under ISA either break a man or make his resolve even stronger .Iman ,ilm and amal .Anwar and his family does not look like one who would perhaps in years to come be likely to 'hoard' millions from the public domain .Unless his daughter or daughters got married to another 'KJ' clone .We hope ,for the sake of survival of our ummah he has come out a better man ,from those years of confinement and self examination ,to usher Malaysia to a new beginning .

Is this going to be the end of UMNOputraism and the beginning of a new Malaysia ?DAP ,despite it's overwhelming Chinese chauvinism knows they cannot go any where in a thousand years near Power in Malaysia .They have to piggy bag on the Malays .Despite the rhetorics ,Karpal Singh and Lim kit Siang know this power dynamics ,and I think they know , otherwise Anwar has to make them both know about this in no uncertain terms !.

"You guys want to piggy back with me ,OK ,but you better know your place and my turf '".PAS will need time to sell the concept that Islam is for everybody ,especially for the non Muslims .They need time to change their parochial image and be seen to be adept to both the next world and the present .

Hail to the new Chief .We are living in interesting time !

Dr Nik Howk

PS :Perhaps on the subject of 'anak and menantus' it would be good to incorporate in our 'new' political culture some mechanism for stronger abhorrence of 'big business' related to the 1st and 2nd political family .We have seen the downfall of 2 previous PM mainly related to this issue .

We are not asking all PM's 'anak and menantus' to be dancers like Ronald Reagan's son or to have to migrate like Mark Thatcher ,but I am sure certain lines can be drawn so that conflict of interest would not recur .If anyone aspires to be PM ,there are certain price his family has to pay for such 'historical' priveledge .Their 'anak menantus' can be great doctors ,bankers ,performing arts ,excellent engineers or 1st class architects but once they dabble into big business and failed at it miserably and get 'daddy ' or daddy influence daddy's colleagues to help ,conflict of interest invariably creeps in .

You cannot have the cake and eat it as well .This is 1st world culture and if we aspire to be 1st world we have to behave like one !

Pearls & Gem :Surah Al Baqarah [ 2 ;119 ,120 ]

Friends ,

On the economic front we are far lagging behind .In the field of technology and commerce ,we are just 'dirty factories' and cheap manual labourers for the world at large .In the field of knowledge ,some bright sparks among us are not even allowed to examine and play around with 'atoms' .Even soon our very own genetic codes and the food and plants we grow and eat for centuries will be codified ,patented and owned !

Yet just a milenium years ago a small unknown band of desert nomads had beaten the combined might of the superpowers of the kufr West and the East : the Romans ,the Persians ,China and India .When the streets of Florence and Rome were still full of filth,plague and dark at night ,Spain's Cordova was brightly lighted and gay .A centre of fine arts , renaissance and learning .

Where have we gone wrong ?

"Lo !We have sent thee [ O Muhammad ] with the truth ,a bringer of glad tidings and a warner .And thou wilt not be asked about the owners of hell fire .[119] And the Jews will not be pleased with thee ,nor will the Christians ,till thou follow their creed .Say :Lo !The guidance of Allah [ himself ] is guidance .And if thou shouldst follow their desires after the knowledge which hath come unto thee ,then wouldst thou have from Allah no protecting friend nor helper .[120] "

It is back to ilm ,ilm , ilm .and ilm .And of course ,amal and iman !Ilm ,amal and iman .

Dr Nik Howk

Pearls & GeM :I Put It To You , Sir......

Friends ,

The science of Tawheed was non- existent during Rasulallah's time as the principle of Unity of Allah was as straightforward as A,B ,C then but as Islam began to spread across the globe into Zorastrian Persia ,trinitarian Christian and polytheistic Hindu hinterland s and cross its path into Greek classical thinking and philosophy there were abberations and cracks in the actual appreciation of 'There is no god but God' and the science of Tawheed became a neccesity.

Even now if you ask a Christian , a Jew or a Hindu ,who is the Creator ,they will unanimously say Allah !This was even noted in the Quran :
"If you asked them who created them ,they would surely say ,Allah ." Surah Al Zukhruf [ 43 :87 ]

"If you asked them who brings down water from the sky and with it brings life after its death ?They will most certainly say ,Allah ." Surah Al Ankabut [ 29 :63 ]

But yet none of them were Muslims as :
"Most of them do not believe in Allah except while joining partners to Him " Surah Yusoff [ 12 :106 ]

And of equal importance to us present day practising Muslims across this small global village ,of course is :
"Those who do not rule by what Allah has revealed are disbelievers !" Surah Al Maidah [ 5 :44 ]
Mashaallah !!!! Disbelievers !Nothing 'utopian' as a 'very clever with words' cynic put it earlier .There is no 2 ways about it .Either you are on the side of Allah or you are with 'Bush et al' !

We do not have to hide behind Islam Hadhari or any other Islam of any shade or colour ,to appear more acceptable to people .There is only one Islam i.e Islam as brought forth ,preached and practised by Prophet Muhammad .Fullstop .

Very difficult to swallow ? Let us examine one well known prophetic conversation with a newly converted sahabat some 1450 years ago :

On one occasion ,the Prophet's companion ,Adi ibn Haatim ,who was a convert from Christianity ,heard the Prophet recite the Quranic verse , "They have taken their rabbis and monks as lords besides Allah" Surah At Taubah [ 9 :31 ]

So he said :'Surely we did not worship them ',The Prophet turned around to him and said "Did they not make forbidden what Allah had made allowable ,and you all made Haram and did they not make Halal what Allah made Haram and you all made it Halal ?He replied ,'We certainly did .' The Prophet then said ,"That was how you worship them .' Hadith Al Termizi .

Hence ,a significant part of Tawheed al Ibadah involves the implementation of Shariah especially in lands where Muslims form the majority of the population .Divine law has to be re introduced in the many so-called Muslim countries where governments now rule according to imported capitalist or communist or socialistic constitutions ,and Islamic law is either totally extinct or relegated to a few areas of minor importance .

Likewise ,Muslim countries ,where Islamic law is on the books but secular laws are in force ,have also to be brought in line with the Shariah as it pertains to all aspects of life .The acceptance of non Islamic rule in place of Shariah in Muslim lands is SYIRIK and an act of KUFR .Fullstop .No argument about it !

Those in a position to change it must do so ,while those unable to do so must speak out against the rule of KUFR and call for the implementation of Shariah .If even this become impossible ,un-Islamic government must be sincerely hated and despised for the pleasure of God and the upholding of Tawheed .

{Some parts of this blog are exceprt from "The Fundamentals of Tawheed" by Abu Ameenah Bilal Phillips , a Jamaican by birth ,Canadian by upbringing ,and above all Muslim by profession .}

Mashaallah !! It is writings like this that made me wanting to be just that greenish slime in between the rocks , several milenium from now while waiting ,all dusty ,dishevelled ,bewildered and frightened ,for my turn to move across that abyss into Hell !

Make one wonder why those millions of RM changing hands for years back in earthly distant place once called Malaysia ,just to be a god forsaken leader among men , called UMNO division head !The going rate in 2004 was a couple of millions .For a vice president within the Supreme Council positions ,if you have less than 10 million RM , you do not talk my friends .

But at the end of the road to be grilled unceremoniously :
" I put it to you ,Sir ,that while you were the substantive PM of Malaysia for so and so years ,you have not made any substantive move towards the actual Islamization of Malaysia .In fact during your term you have politically surpressed Islam and organizations Islamic in nature and spirit to nurture and grow .I put it to you that you were rather more comfortable making unholy alliance with the kufar than work sincerely and closely with those who are expressedly working for Islam .That you have put self ,family and friends interests before country ,ummah and Allah . "......urrrrgh

Who still wants to be PM ,having to carry all those excess baggage ?

Pearls & Gem :A Couple of Milenium Forward ,A Couple Back

Friends ,

Fast forward ourselves a couple of milenium forward :a big group of us ,naked ,dusty from heads to toes ,disorientated ,bewildered ,frightened huddled together like cattle waiting to be slaughtered ,by the abyss ,beyond which lies Hell.The Lord of The Universe say :

"This is the Hell of which ye were [repeatedly] warned ![63] Embrace ye the [ Fire ] this day ,for that ye persistently rejected [ truth ] ![64] "
Surah Yassin [ 36 : 63 ,64 ]

Leaders of nations ,CEO's ,COO's ,head of families ,lawyers ,doctors ,shakers and movers of societies ,gardeners ,plumbers.......

We chose to live by our standards ,Westminster style ,socialism ,democracy ,capitalism ,philosophy , ,secularism and all .We traded at the market place according to our law of the jungle :maximum profit ,minimum loss .We dressed as we please .Some squandered ill gotten wealth like they would live a thousand years .Worse than that crazy ,lonely schezophrenic that paced the street corners picking junks and all .We satisfied our biological need as if there was no tomorrow .We lived like as if we have no souls !

But yet a couple of milenium years back we all have been forwarned :

"If only then we could see when the guilty ones will bend low their heads before their Lord ,[ saying ] :Our Lord ! We have seen and we have heard.Now then send us back [ to the world ] .We will work righteousness .For we do indeed now believe ."
Surah Sajdah [ 32 : 12 ] .

By now closely huddled together by the abyss beyond which lies Hell , we all wished we were never ever been born at all or just that slimy growth among the rocks.

We have been forwarned .We read Surah Yassin and the Quran just like parrots . Many of us did believe ,but that 'time' would be a couple of milenium forward .Will cross the bridge when we reach it .

When our life are just measured by that finite number of breath left ,that couple of milenium forward ,could just be tonight !Mashaallah !

Friends ,shakers and movers of society ,wake up !

Dr Nik Howk

Do We Need to Apologise For Calling A Spade A Spade ?

Friends ,

I cannot sleep .I am sure Pak Lah ,Anak Pak Jab and a host of others cannot sleep as well for probably different reason ,losing their grip on the Nation perhaps ?.Suits me fine .Perhaps the best thing to do is to wake up and do the tahajjud and while doing that may I suggest to these people to do the Taubat prayer as well ,for they have a lot to taubat about .

Collectively they have all let us all down , the simple raayats who voted them in elections after elections ,despite some of them behaving like clowns and stooges , in the simple hope that their leaders could one day separate the leaves from the branches and ,Presto ! ,come out with the brilliant conclusion that they need to change !

Yes ,the whole lot of them ,including Dr M are at fault for taking the raayats trust and hope for granted !Especially Dr M .He and his great friend ,where is that chap now ,in Bermuda ?While in power they emptied the national coffers ,right left and centre ,enriched themselves ,their families and their cronies .UMNO became Urban Malay National Organisation ,a body comprising of corporate pirates specialising in daylight robbery and plunder .

A 200 million ringgit project would become inflated to 550 .Now even a 2nd hand submarine become a couple of billion rm transaction .Never mind ,throw in an astronaut or two to make the stupid raayats happy .The last time I heard ,someone very lucky got a 250 million rm soft loan to play around with 'lembu' .

This may not be right at all and in any court of law may be very difficult to prove , but yet again by the very end of Dr M's tenure ,do we still have a reputable Court of Law ?.This can be heresay but yet again that is the general impression .Just general impression .Dr M is a great man but towards the end of his career his vision got blurred . Again another general impression and very public heresay .

The once impregnable UMNO is now looking very much like a sandcastle ,with clowns and court jesters to the brim ,unable to change and living in the past .Permatang Pauh is just the end of a beginning but let me tell about Permatang Pauh [ I was not there] from the viewpoint of a young man ,a patient of mine ,most probably a diehard UMNO man I initially reckon ,or at least his father was a card carrying member of UMNO .An engineer ,Manchester graduate ,same year as the Oxbridge chap still 'wet in between the ears' .

I saw him 2 days before the By-election as he came into my consultation room ,with his young family in tow ,for a reassurance of an atypical chest pain,and reassurance he got .He told me he was going to Permatang Pauh .I did not ask him who he would vote as 'we are supposed to be' apolitical' .A week later he came back for a review of his blood results .All normal I told him .

I asked him about Permatang Pauh .He blurted out he voted for Anwar even though he initially drove all the way from KL to Seberang Jaya just to make sure his parents and relatives would deny Anwar of their votes !Anwar would sell the Malays ,Doc ! .Anwar would push the currently marginalised Malays in their own Land to the very fringe of existence ,like the Red Indians in America .The media savvy non Malay non Muslim 'sudah naik toncang' ,bagi peha sudah mau lebih .Where in the world can you get a Hindu temple at every nook and corner built wherever they like and whenever they like ?How many percent of Malaysians are Hindus anyway Doc ?How many Malay billionaires are there compared to the likes of Ananda Khrisnan and the ' new bumiputra' Apakahnamadiadah Tan ?Etc Etc . My God !this young man is an angry young man ! , I thought to myself .

Yet this young non Oxbridge UK graduate ,son of a Permatang Pauh farmer , a product of UMNO's affirmative action voted for Anwar ,The Traitor to his race . The guy who is going to sell his ummah to be in Sri Perdana !The guy who have sold his soul to CIA ! This guy whom many would like us to believe has an unsatiable love for the 'buntut' !

He told me he got tired of seeing KJ talked about religion ,he almost vomited having to see Saiful's swearing been played a thousand time on the video at the UMNO posts ,evrywhere he went he saw UMNO ministers and speakers attacking Anwar The Traitor personally , while the other side was discusing economics and the politics of business !He was embarassed that his UMNO has degenerated to such low level that even simple people in Permatang Pauh would have voted for a monkey but not UMNO !

Unlike him ,I am not a card carrying member of any political party .But yes ,I have difficulty sleeping nowadays .Too many questions left unanswered .

If September 16th does happen ,is really Anwar capable of running the country ?Are we going to be more marginalised politically and economically in our own Land ?Will there be chaos ?Will 'they' be lagi 'naik tonchang' and is Anwar capable of handling this ?Do we need to apologise for being a marginalised marjority in our very own country ?Do we need to apologise at all for calling a spade a spade ?Do we need to apologise for being too accomodative to a fault and yet be almost a 'pengemis di Tanah Air sendiri' ?

If September 16th does not happen will UMNO change it's colours and philosophy ?Will clowns in UMNO be allowed still a free run of the economy and continue their plunder .Will Najib be able to surrvive up to 2010 and be the PM ?Is this a bridge too far for him ? Not that I care because I think we have better alternatives in UMNO and elsewhere ! Najib , then Hishamuddin ,then KJ .What the heck ,they think Malaysia is still feudal politically and it is their god given right to be there !

Or are we going to see a better governance from underated leaders like Rais yatim ,Muhyiddin Yassin etc etc ?Is Pak Lah still capable of running the country or should he just call it a day and retire into obscurity ?Or is this just a simple issue of Jeanne not yet 'puas'' with being the 1st Lady ?

Is PAS capable of modulating the excesses of clowns in PKR [ like that Petra fellow ,lately ] and the extremists in DAP ,if Anwar does come to power ?Are the young turks in PAS able to stamp their influence or are they just going to play to the PAS gallery and amble along and grow old gracefully with their kopiahs ?Is PAS capable of selling ISLAM to the non Muslims as the answer to Universal ills or are they just going to remain parochial as they have done the last 30 years ?Are they capable of that quantum leapt or are they just going to remain passive and be yet another symbol of Muslim stagnation and mediocrity ,adding to an already long list ?

I think I might as well go and do my tahajjud and add a 2 rakaat istikarah prayer as well .Too late to 'disturb' the wife now !

Dr Nik Howk