The Koboi Project is a photo-performative instantiation of identity across the discontinuities of a multi-generational diasporic experience.
Keling Maya: Post-traditional Media, Malaysian Cyberspace and Me, presented at the Aliran Semasa Symposium, 2013, at the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur.
0 Performance
1 Keling Maya
2 Cyberspace
3 Model
5 Rajinikanth
6 Heroes|
7 Telinga Keling
8 Keling Babi
9 Duchamp
10 MGG Pillai
11 Pantun
12 Praxis
13 Dochakuka
14 Post-tradition
15 Philosophia Perennis
Keling Maya: Post-traditional Media, Malaysian Cyberspace and Me, presented at the Aliran Semasa Symposium, 2013, at the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur.
CULTURE x MEDIA / PLACE = HETEROTOPIA
Foucault’s idea of heterotopia enables us to see, in spacialized terms, the relativity of norms within a given system of power. In my model, CULTURE (aspects that can be conceptualized) multiplied by MEDIA (modes of representation and communication) divided by PLACE (location or territory) equals HETEROTOPIA (plural).
DEMOCRACY x INTERNET / BUMI= MALAYSIA
At the heart of this model is the notion that media amplifies culture in an inverse relation to place (size of territory) and that heterotopic complexity increases with proximity or spatial crush. In a more specific substitution, one could say, DEMOCRACY (a specific cultural form) multiplied by INTERNET (the dominant media) divided by BUMI (the earth, and entitlements to it) equals MALAYSIA (our contemporary socio-political space).
0 Performance
1 Keling Maya
2 Cyberspace
4 Heterotopia
5 Rajinikanth
7 Telinga Keling
8 Keling Babi
9 Duchamp
10 MGG Pillai
11 Pantun
12 Praxis
13 Dochakuka
14 Post-tradition
15 Philosophia Perennis
Suicide is colonized and nothing more,
just another dead native on the floor.
Suicide is Genocide
Xhopakelxhit
Tamara Starblanket has been awarded the 2020 Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy for her book Suffer the Little Children: Genocide, Indigenous Nations and the Canadian State. In this book, Tamara makes a legal analysis of genocide, and argues convincingly that, according to international law, Canada has committed and continues to commit genocide against Indigenous Peoples. She demands, as noted in the announcement of the award on the SFU website, that a “comprehensive dialogue on Canada’s history and present be opened recognizing its culpability for the crime of genocide.”
As I contemplate the disturbing idea of a Canadian Genocide, in terms of my own life and times, I am convinced that as human beings have an innate tendency to demonize and destroy each other. When we act this out collectively, against other collectives, this is when the what we mean by ‘genocide’. It seems to me that we are deluded as to our own actions and motivations of the moment. This is what enables us to disregard the sanctity and the inherent worth of others as we pursue our own group interests. Ultimately, given our common human being, this behaviour is self-destructive. In this series of posts, I will reflect on the the relationship between genocide and suicide from the perspective of an immigrant to Canada, who is domiciled in British Columbia.
Updated from a post made in April 2016
As of Oct 5, 2022 the ammendment – Article 49A of the Federal Constitution ensures that “a member of the House of Representatives shall cease to be a member of that House and his seat shall become vacant immediately on a date a casual vacancy is established by the Speaker under Clause (3) if –
(a) having been elected to the House of Representatives as a member of a political party
(i) he resigns as a member of the political party; or
(ii) he ceases to be a member of the political party; or
(b) having been elected to the House of Representatives otherwise than as a member of a political party, he joins a political party as a member.”
UPDATE 11.11.2023: Damn those loopholes!
https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/antihopping-law-are-we-all-good
Image Source: https://katraccoon.com/comics/behind-the-gifs/frog-king-2-electric-boogaloo
20. Katakcracy: A form of government (not unlike Hypocracy)
19. Kleptocracy: A form of government (sebahagian kena tangkap dan yang lain tak nampak).
18. WEocracy: A form of government (specifically in Canada).
17. Politocracy: A form of government (di mana segala perjuangan rakyat diperalatkan oleh golongan politikus).
16. Wokeocracy: A form of government (not necessarily consonant with critical thinking).
15. Gerontocracy: A form of government (which, as Malaysians know, gives mixed results).
14. Thanatocracy: A form of government (justified by the monumentalization or erasure of genocide).
13. Xerocracy: A form of government (rule by leaflet … surat layang lah).
12. Economocracy: A form of government (sublimating private interests in public policy).
11. Albocracy: A form of government (underpinning the All Lives Matter ethos).
10. Lamacracy: A form of government (applying the middle way).
9. Democracy: A form of government (a modern ideal, a postmodern illusion).
8. Theocracy: A form of government (perhaps making a comeback near you).
7. Plutocracy: A form of government (as exercised by the 1%).
6. Idiocracy: A form of government (perhaps in a country near you).
5. Meritocracy: A form of government (a fallacy without equal opportunity).
4. Infocracy: A form of government (You know … Facebook, Google, Amazon …).
3. Hypnocracy: A form of government (proposed by Mark Parlett).
2. Ethnocracy: A form of government (more widespread than you might think).
1. Hypocracy: A form of government.
After a meeting of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet, Home Minister Amit Shah announced the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution ending the special status and relative autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir and the division of the territory into two. While his friend and fellow traveller in movie stardom and in politics, Kamal Haasan has criticized this BJP policy as an assault on democracy, Rajinikanth has, sadly, approved. Taking the spiritual allegory of the Mahabharata, quite literal, to the contemporary battlefield, the fledgling politician is reported to have said that Modi and Amit Shah were like Krishna and Arjuna.
In my own view, this is an epic political fail for Thalaiva. I was, from some of his earlier pronouncements on religious and cast politics, envisioning a more humanistic and inclusive application of the traditional Hindu ethos in contemporary Indian Politics. Indeed Rajinikanth should be wary that he does not become a ‘wooden’ politician, particularly in the sense of becoming the Trojan horse that secrets BJP’s RSS/Arya Samaj saffron remix into the black atheist heart of the Dravida polity. Such an autocratic gesture from this second term Hindutva government bodes ill for the diversity that has characterized Indian politics since independence in 1947.
As far as Thalaiva’s entry into Tamil Nadu politics is concerned, I had hopes that Thalaiva would usher in a fresh spiritually motivated universalism to the tired atheist and ethnocentric Dravidianism that has shaped the modern state. I regret to note that, as his star glows with an increasingly saffron hue, my hope of Thalaiva becoming an exemplary post-traditional politician is fast reducing to just another fan-boy’s fantasy! Come on La … Thalaiva!!!
https://caravanmagazine.in/politics/rss-attempt-takeover-arya-samaj-english
Continue reading “Rajinikanth Glows Saffron”
The most striking revelation of the recent House of Commons Justice Committee hearings, for me, was not that the Prime Minister’s Office might have applied pressure on the Attorney General in a prosecutorial matter, not even that the top civil servant might have gone beyond the call of duty in effecting the Prime Minister’s will; no both of these scenarios fall, in my estimation, into the grey zone of governance – the realpolitik that belies the purported exemplitude of Euro-American democracy. No, what amazed me the most was the statement by the sitting Privy Council Clerk (the most senior civil servant in the Canadian government) Michael Wernick that, in the run-up to the crisis, he took a phone call and Chairman of the Board at SNC-Lavalin, Kevin Lynch. According to Marie-Danielle Smith’s report on his testimony Mr Wernick said the following, “Mr. Lynch as the chair of the board expressed his frustration that he did not understand why a DPA (Deferred Prosecution Agreement) was not being considered and he knew that the board in its trustee relationships for the shareholders in the company was going to have to take some tough decisions in October and November.”
Again, it is not the fact that the purportedly impartial Clerk of the Privy Council took the frustrated call from the Chairman of the SNC-Lavalin Board per se that raised my concern, but the familiarity suggested by the tone and content of what seems to have been said, as well as the fact that the said Chairman, Kevin Lynch, was a former Clerk of the very same Privy Council! What kind of impartiality can we expect from our top civil servants while they serve in government if such powerful corporate positions are theirs for the taking in the wake of their governmental roles? More precisely, the burning question arising from the Lavalin affair is this, ‘What kind of impartiality can we expect from civil servants when their ilk, their peers, these former servants now communicate and advocate on behalf of the most powerful sector of the national polity?’
It seems to me that the parliamentary opposition’s accusations of partiality towards the Liberals directed at Mr. Warnick might be misplaced. Political partisanship does not seem, to me, to the kind of impartiality that is in question. Instead, what we might have been afforded, thanks the clerks own unflinching, unembarrassed, incontrite testimony, is a rare vista on the workings of what might be called the Canadian ‘administrative-industrial complex’ – the imbrication of money (corporations) and power (the civil service) in Canadian governance. There has been a more delicate suggestion that the Clerk’s testimony risks the perception of party bias. To the contrary, I believe that while while, Mr. Wernick may have shown excessive fealty to Justin Trudeau, there is no clear indication that this loyalty has been towards the leader of the Liberals and not to the Prime Minister of Canada. There is however, indication of a more fundamental complicity in the relationship between corporate Canada and, what I shall call the political machinery of Canada. This will only manifest as political bias if we ever elect a party to government that is not, in one way or another, beholden to these corporate interests.
Previous posts on the SNC-Lavalin Affair –
A Key to the SNC-Lavalin Affair
Its the neo-liberal Economy Stupid
The Rashomon Effect
Image collaged From: https://warriorpublications.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/indian-act-chiefs-and-idle-no-more-snakes-in-the-grassroots/
Mass is Kollywood jargon for massive or hit or popular or something like that! Whatever it actually means, the one thing that is clear is that Indian cinema is all about a sense of scale! This is also the mechanism or mechanics of democracy … the majority of the people … mass!!! Tamil Nadu has been governed by Mass since the days of Annadurai … MGR, Karunanidhi, Jayalalitha ……
Image: http://www.rediff.com/movies/special/thalaiva-you-proved-you-are-the-best/20180608.htm
Kuninju nendra Kabali endru ninechengala? While I see myself as a Malaysian first and an Indian second in the cultural aspect of my Identity, in the political sense I insist that I am an Indian first. There is not as yet a possibility of a post communal political identity for Malaysians! Even the opposition has to be organized on the basis that to beat the race card of Barisan you have to play the race card yourself. Yes communalism seems to be a necessary pragmatism, an underlying reality even! … anyway this reality leaves me no choice but to look at the present situation as an Indian. While, it is technically not correct for me as a Jaffna Tamil to say, within the categorization of our national apartheid, that I am an Indian. I have claimed this identity in spirit and untill my Indian brothers and sisters insist I stop, I will continue to do so …
So with polling day around the corner and a Malay, nay Malaysian Tsunami is an imminent possibility. The vote looks like being really close. Many good Malaysians are crying out for change at any cost and by any compromise … I too feel that, at the very least, it will establish, in practice, the democratic principle of ‘the limited term of office’, something that Malaysians have enjoyed only in theory since Merdeka. Whatever happens in the voting, it looks like it is indeed going to be close and, perhaps, the Indian vote is going to be important. The highly respected activist and former leader of Bersih, Dato Sreenevasan, recently wrote in Malaysiakini, “In my view, not one Malaysian Indian or Orang Asli* vote should go to the BN”.
Although the sentiment rings true and the logic is sound this idea has a familiar aroma to it … Indians being herded again… being told how to think and what to do one way or the other! … it smells like cow dung (this is not an insult to Indians, certainly not to Hindus anyway) … While the Indian vote owes Barisan sweet Fuck All … does the opposition look like they will treat us any different? Just look at how they made unholy exaggerations and unfulfillable promises on the Stateless Indians issue. Please lah! Annai, Thambi, Acca, Thangachi, realize that your vote is your most important right. It is a right to exercise as you will … and even not to exercise it at all … what if neither side is looking worthy … should they not be shown that the Indian vote, just like the vote of the other communities, has to be earned?
Decades of Barisan promises … yet nothing achieved, Hindraf ‘s absurd promise of fighting for compensation from the British and now the opposition claims and promises on the all-important stateless Indians issue – If we are to be pragmatic in our voting as Malaysians to achieve the best result for the nation … then Malaysian Indians might likewise consider being pragmatic in their voting as a community … At least Barisan has an electoral inducement blueprint of some kind … and a budget is promised (yes, promises have been broken before!) …. while it stinks (unlike cow dung … which does not smell bad!), for what its worth, it seems to be real. In this light … I prefer what commentator Gokula Kumar Appalanaido said (6/May/2018 at 3:41:12am) in response to the Malaysiakini article …. “We will vote according to our conscience”! Kabali Da!
* I am not forgetting the Orang Asli … but that is another sad Malaysian story of injustice that needs to be addressed on its own terms.
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