Some random stuff

In my hands
I holds fragments of memories
I can hear you say my name
I can almost see your smile

If I lets go

It will vanish 

to the strains of a distant wind

One single memory floating away

There is nothing but silence now

Is this our farewell?

The scene half-drawn behind my eyelids is fading
Even when I rub them with my palm
The tenderness I once glimpsed is no longer there
I look only at the foot falling in front of me

I'd been forever listening to the song that we played

Inside that room

We played the song together
In the midst of the gentleness I once knew
I hope the scenery remains the same

Never thought
This day would come so soon
The time to say goodbye
How can the world just carry on?
I feel so lost when you are not at my side
But there is nothing but silence now
Around the one I loved
Is this our farewell?

I'd been forever listening to the song that we played together
Forever chasing after the foot prints we left behind

I'd been forever listening to the song that we played together
Forever chasing after the foot prints we left behind

Such an ending is the stuff of farewells, and so I leave everything behind
In the sunlight of morning, I played a new song myself

Sayonara TPJC

Yesterday was graduation ceremony. It was really time to say goodbye. The teachers done several performance for us. Mr Wong's performance was really spectacular. He is not only a good motivator and joker but he also got some skill in vocal and guitar. Clap of hand for him. I was happy that we (performing art students) was given the recording of our performance in the durian building (dad was asking for it). OK, time is up. Next year must treat my CO juniors (I promised them if I do well I'll treat them a feast).

Prelude to the battlefield.

Days had passed, the battle draws near. The time is extremely critical, yet yesterday I wasted almost the entire day playing my newly hacked PSP, yes newly hacked it is a v3 mobo. We just left 27 more days to the beginning of A level, our maths paper. It is kinda terrifying to think about it and we lack much of the preparation. Time really flies rapidly.

Role of religious fundamentalism in conflicts

Religious fundamentalism, especially Islamic played a significant role in several conflict. Notable cases of involvement of religious fundamentalism could be seen in Arab-Israeli conflict, India-Pakistan conflict, Yugoslavian conflict, Chechen conflict and Iran-Iraq conflict. It could be argued that fundamentalist creates a new conflict with religious elements rather than adding religious elements in an existing conflict. However, it seems that in most cases religious fundamentalists are adding religious elements in conflicts between 1970 to 2000 rather than creating a new one.

Religious fundamentalism play significant role in fueling the tension in several conflict, derailing the peace process or simply complicating conflict that is already happening by adding religious elements in it. There are several examples of this kind of conflict, such as Arab-Israeli conflict, India-Pakistan conflict, Yugoslavian conflict, and Chechen conflict.

In the case of Arab-Israeli conflict, the emergence of Hamas served as a hindrance to peace process promised in Oslo. Hamas frequently launched attacks from the Gaza Strip which often frustrate the Israeli government. Hamas challenged the PLO government which was seen as too weak as not going to regain Palestinian land. Hamas is much more demanding compared to the PLO, they reject the idea of two separate states which is already accepted by the PLO. The victory of the Likud Party which is strongly Jewish fundamentalist in 1996 make the matter worse. Benjamin Nethanyahu as the leader of Likud insisted on biblical land which include the occupied zones of Gaza and West Bank. Under his leadership, Jewish settlement in occupied territory is continued against the spirit of Oslo, much to the dismay of Palestinian. This creates much unhappiness among the Palestinians who seek refugee in Hamas who promised to remove Israel from the map. This derailed the peace effort as the fundamentalist Israeli government and religious motivated Hamas refuse to recognize the Oslo Accords, thus prolonging the conflict with this added religious elements.

The Yugoslavian conflict could be seen as another example of a conflict that turned more bloody with the involvement of religious fundamentalism. With the withdrawal of Red Army and Collapse of Soviet Union, there is no longer a force to keep this multi-ethnic and multi-religious country united. Conflict arisen between the Serbian Christians and the Bosnian Muslims. In the middle of the conflict, battle hardened Afghan fighters join side with the Bosnians, training them and leading them to fight the Serbians. There was a huge influx of foreign jihadis since 1992. The involvement of this battle hardened fighters prolongs the conflict as it is harder to end a conflict which involve more skilled fighters. After the conflict resolved, many of these Mujahideen fighters stayed in Bosnia as clerics, preaching for another struggle against the Serbians.

India-Pakistan conflict could be seen as another conflict where fundamentalist complicates matter. Before the conflict, Kashmir served as a platform for India and Pakistan ideological rivalry. India's secularism and Pakistan's theocracy. With the influx of fundamentalism, the mosque in Kashmir become central rallying point of Kashmiri Muslim while the rapid growth of madrasah sponsored by Iran further injected fundamentalist doctrines in Kashmiri society. Afghan fighters who are left aimless with the withdrawal of Soviet Union joined in the conflict,believing that they are carrying out another jihad against India. With the victory of Hindu hardliners, the BJP casted Kashmir problem as a thread to Indian national security, leading to huge military expenditure. In addition their call for protection of Hindu minority casted an image of Hindu tyranny, further angering Kashmiri Muslim. The BJP decided to continue the nuclear programme planned by previous government. This very act provoked Pakistan to do the same, thus further fueling the conflict the the possession of nuclear arsenal on both sides.Thus fundamentalism, make the conflict worse as it changed the nature of the conflict and escalates the tension between both sides.

Even though religion act as a factor escalating conflicts, there are times that the motivation of starting a conflict comes from religion itself. A clear example can be seen from Iran-Iraq conflict.

Iran-Iraq conflict caused as Iraq feel threatened with Shiite based theocratic government of Iran formed after the Iranian  Revolution which might supports the Shiite majority in Iraq to rebel against the Sunni based government. This conflict is a form of clash between a nationalistic and militaristic regime against Islamic regime. Saddam decided to launch a preemptive attack, making use of the hole left by purging of the Shah army by the new republic. Saddam underestimated the religiously committed Iranian Revolutionary Corps ability to repel attacks by recruiting large number of young men, leading to 8 years long war. Therefore it could be seen that religion played a role in sparking new conflict as what is seen from the case of Iran-Iraq conflict as Iraq feel threatened by religious movement in Iran that might influenced oppressed Shiite majority in Iraq.

Without a doubt, we can see that religion often mix in a conflict, be it as the main cause or prolonging the conflict or intensify the conflict. Since the ancient past we already had a lot of religiously motivated conflicts as at that time a lot of countries are theocratic monarch. It is true that there are many conflict caused by religion. However, from 1970s - 2000, most of the conflict are secular conflict that turned religious with the involvement of fundamentalist into the conflict. With the involvement of religion, the conflict turns more bloody with indiscriminate suicide bombings motivated by religious believe that dying for religion guarantee a place in heaven. Therefore I would say that fundamentalist worsen a conflict rather than starting a new one.

Questioning faith

Zeus, Jupiter, Baal, Wotan, Odin, Amon Ra, Amaterasu, Flying Spaghetti Monster, you name it. We had incredibly a lot of (main) God we could name of. If I list all the Gods ever identified (made?)  by human, the list could be incredibly long, Which one is the real God? If we assume there is only one God - which most of human population believe - the chances of us worshiping the right God is less than 1% (or even lower than 0.1%). So, I question you, are you sure you choose the right God? Since I'm more familiar with Abrahamic religion, especially the one with the unicorn, I'll start my point primarily from there.

Most of us who come from christian school probably had known that the bible cite that the world is created in "6 days". Literalist will seriously take it as 6 days, yes 6 days of our time. The more rationale thinker will take it as a prosaic way of describing the flow of event. What is the flaw in this? Not only bird comes first before reptiles, but also several others like light without sun or stars (from where?), the earth is born before the sun (when logically the sun should be older), man as an image of God (how arrogant and sexist, does God even look like ugly fat preachers? Does God even has penis?).

From the perspective of modern science, we had no real answer on how the universe is born, but we had a hint on the process of the birth of the universe. Just look at the giant burning mass of gas, doesn't it seems to be older than the small puny planet we lived in? Unless you can prove the world that the big bang is true, the creation of the first day has a higher chance to be accurate (explosion does not always produce light). The order of creation of living being does not make sense at all.It is plain weird that birds come first before reptiles and they do not mention insects and other small land creatures. Logically bird come after reptiles as birds has much more complex internal structure compared to reptiles. Archeologist had discovered fossils of feathered (the feather is gone, but there is distinct traces of feathers on the fossil slab) birdlike dinosaur which was hypothesed to explain the missing link. But it should be noted that the fossil is much younger than the famous T-Rex and it is the oldest bird fossil ever found.

The power of prayer is highly questionable. Some churches reject the idea of miraculous power of prayer. It is really does not make sense. Several experiment had been done to prove the power of prayer. All of it failed. The first person to test the power of prayer was Francis Galton. He points out that every Sunday churches throughout Britain prayed publicly for the health of entire royal family. Shouldn't they therefore unusually fit, compared with the rest of us, who are prayed only by our nearest and dearest? Galton looked into it and found no statistical difference. Galton done an experiment where he prayed over randomised plot of land to see if the plants would grow any faster (they didn't). Russell Stannard, one of Britain most religious scientist done another experiment in an effort to prove the power of prayer. Patient from 3 hospitals are divided to three group, one that receive no prayer and do not know about it (group I) and two that receive prayer where one of the group unknown about it (Group II) and the other knows about it (Group III). The result shows no big statistical difference between Group I and II, but there is a difference when Group II and III compared. Group III perform worse compared with the rest.

Another thing that I'd like to point out is do God really meddle with human affairs (which many of us believe he is)? If God really does that, why God abandoned people who are trapped in famine? Why not even a young child is spared in the middle of conflicts and or famine? If God really meddle with human affairs, why he God do not stop criminals before he did the crime? If God is all knowing, why he make that stupid tree, knowing that Adam and Eve will fall to it?

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins

Don't think of the book as "evil" just because of the title. If you think that Dawkins purposely sensationalised the title, you are wrong. It is highly informative, touching several aspect of religion in the society and also relationship of religion and science. Dawkins also mention several common misconception about science and religion such as the use of the word "God" by several scientist such as Einstein. The book mainly focused on argument on the existence of higher being and his whether he influence human lives. Something very controversial that the church prefers we know nothing about it. The book might pissed of readers whose faith challenged by its content. Those who are easily offended better stay away from this book!

Neo-sexism? Maybe?

I find the issue of gender equality intriguing with many complains of unequal treatment, not in nations like Afghanistan or Pakistan where Woman's Right is not that respected. I'll focus my area on modern country like Japan and Sweden. I'm not being sexist here, but just showing how what called "gender equality" had gone in the pursuit of it.

You guys might had often heard about rampant train groping in Japan. There is a lot of such cases is not a fact, but something made up by the women to extort money from the so called "groper" or just some misunderstanding. Once a man is accused as train groper (also known as chikan), he is assumed to be guilty unless proven innocent (You are in deep shit if someone suddenly accuse you doing it). It is not that easy to prove yourself innocent given that most of the incident happen when the train is so full that you will feel like squashed orange inside (how the camera can show your where your hand is). It is true that police had given male passengers advice on how to prove their innocence by holding the rails with both hand and put the baggage above the seats (but please, at that time the train conformed to be so full that putting your baggage above the chair might cause you to miss a stop and there might be no space for you to hold the rails). It is true that there is women only carriage in Japan, but interestingly they are underused. Recently men are complaining the transportation authority about the missing men only carriage. What was their reason for complaining about it? It was about high frequency of wrong accusation.

I think that this applies to many country. Women are not to be charged of raping men unless underaged boys even if the men don't give consent of doing  XXX (only rape not other kind of crime might be related to raping, such as kidnapping or torture). Even our senior who currently doing his service as police tell me this. If woman rape man, the man can't bring the woman to court, since to do it the man's XXX must be XXX so the man's XXX XXX is a sign of consent (get the reason?) but if it is the reverse, there is a high chance the man will end up in jail (if this is the way women can get away from being charged of raping, why men can't use similar argument?).

Recently, there is an outrage among otaku community, because of what? Ban in loli. Even though previously the ban was cancelled there is a new surge of activist who wan it to be banned, not long after a group of feminist who call themselves Equality Now (ironically they are not advocating equality but over-protection of women that will make man in deep shit if a woman decide to bring him to court even if there is no sufficient evidence. What is more stupid is that they advocate protection of non-existent girls in manga, anime and games after they failed to protect real girls in those traditionalist states like the Arabs where women might be treated as property.) I wonder why they only advocating the protection of loli characters but not shota when both are quite often used in echi. What I can't believe is that even UNICEF stepped in to pressurize Japan to ban loli, but not shota.

If you notice it, the law of of the nature itself is sexist. Men are physically stronger than women but it doesn't mean that men are superior to women. Without women, the humankind will perish. Strangely in some animals, we can witness female only organism or virgin birth. Certain species of reptiles are female only. Some sharks had been witnessed giving virgin birth. Maybe there will be one day women no longer need men, even for preserving human species, but it will be a long way to go. The day of men and male dominance is numbered. The Y-Chromosome in men are slowly disappearing, scientist predicts that if the rate goes on, men will be no more in thousands years.

Freaking Prelims Final Update.

History

The result is quite bad, a huge drop since SA2. Well, actually I kinda expected that. Fatigue and exam panic was the reason. I did the stupid mistake of not answering the question directly and get carried away with it. The facts, I already know more than needed and put too much example without explaining its significance. DARN IT!!! It is a good essay lesson nevertheless.

Verdict : More SBQ exercise. AIM FOR 20/25. Write more essay, target for essay is 16-17/25. I WANT MY A!!!

Overall result is like crap only 2 H2 passes and not an excellent pass.