Calm yourself, He says to me

If you play, you play for keeps

Take the gun, and count to three

I’m sweating now, moving slow

No time to think, my turn to go

And You can see my heart beating

You can see it through my chest

Said I’m terrified, but I’m not leaving

I know that I must pass this test

So just pull the trigger

Say a prayer to yourself, He says

Close your eyes, sometimes it helps

And then I get a scary thought

That He’s here means He’s never lost

As my life flashes before my eyes I’m wondering will I ever see another sunrise?

So many won’t get the chance to say goodbye

But it’s too late to think of the value of my life

And You can see my heart beating

- R -

I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE BITCH AND WHINE ABOUT HOW MUCH THEY DON’T HAVE to people who only seem to have it all.

You’re not living in the streets yet. And when you do, more likely than not, you only have yourself to blame due to bad decisions and poor management of your life. Complain, complain, complain. The government this, government that. Expecting handouts.

Think you can run this country better? Step right up, baby.
Think you can find something better elsewhere? Feel free to get out of my country.

Here’s a peeve:
It used to be that a Filipino gets mistaken for a Malay. These days, the Malay gets mistaken for a Filipino.

Ahh… the Malays.
What can I say. I am equally at fault.

Foreign workers.
And those… Uhh…
“Expatriates”.
Foreigners still. Workers nonetheless.
Why do they choose to work in Singapore, even as they dissociate themselves from the locals.
Bah! Uncultured people. Eat stinky food.
Gov loves them though.

And here’s the thing:
Foreigners are only here for as long as there is money to be made. At the first signs of trouble, flee they will. It is also true that they are only useful for as long as they can make money for us.

The government.
Dare I take a step in that direction?
Perhaps I am in denial.
I don’t want to hate being in my own country.
I would rather swallow bile than to admit there is trouble in paradise.

Singapore the vibrant city.
We try to be.
With Foreigners. More foreigners.
My fault for not reproducing.
My fault for not being the self-serving supertalent required to keep Singapore afloat as the Number-One-Whatevers.
Buck up.
Or get flushed out.
Enjoy the ride…
Down the pipes…
Weeeeeee!!
To the bottom… with the scum.
Stagnant.
And rot.
My fault.

That said…

What really is “mine” anyway?
To own something.
To love someone.
A sense of belonging.
Ownership.
Patriotism.
Loyalty.
To whom? And for what?

It is all temporary.
Everything.
Everyone.
Nothing lasts forever.

Why bother.
Leave it be.
Leave it.

Detach.

Detach.

Detach.

It must be then, attention that I seek. That someone, somewhere would chance upon this blog and read my thoughts. Like I have brilliant things to say.

Maybe I shouldn’t read too much into every action and intention. Though I know I must…

But what the heck. I miss blogging. Months from now, I know I will hide myself again. Ashamed of what has been translated onto these pages, from the top of my head and the foul depths of my deep dark soul.

It is a very very long journey home.

*********
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. – Romans 7:15

Ever since she came into light in my part of the world, I have paid little attention, if at all, to her and what she has to say. Hirsi Ali, to me, is just another ex-Muslim now out to slam Islam and I don’t believe it makes her and those like her, an expert in my religion. To be fair, I don’t even believe any Muslim is an expert in Islam, nor spokesperson and police, for other Muslims. I could well be one of those people, thinking I’m all high and mighty.

I picked this book a few months back. It is well written, Hirsi Ali is a good storyteller. It took me an extra couple of weeks just get on with the last few chapters of this book, starting with one titled “Leaving God”. So poignant, I couldn’t bring myself to read further. When I finally got through it, it wasn’t nearly half as bad as I thought it would be. Apparently, I had gotten myself anxious for nothing. This entry took weeks more of procrastination. Check-and-balancing the whats and whys; and how I could present my comments. Honestly, I am not doing anybody any favours, but for myself. Moreover, her tone is rather meek, so I was not quite all heated up to start punching the keyboard.

This book brings you through Hirsi Ali’s childhood to her days as a Dutch politician and ends with her eventual move to the United States. Her abandonment of God is no different from the usual – it began with questioning Islam and witnessing discrepancies, double-standards and injustices first and foremost of the Muslims around her. Somewhere along the way, she lost her faith in God.

Don’t take that as the sum of the entire book. It is a biography so you will find the inevitable ups and downs of life. I don’t mean to oversimplify her life story, nor do I wish to take her to my breasts  – not that she cares for me to do so! Life is tough so get over it. I can be certain she understands that better than I do.

Apostasy is a big deal in Islam. Personally, I think religion is exclusively a personal choice. The Qur’an says there is no compulsion to religion. In my humble opinion, that is all there is to it. We can choose to hold on to a spiritual faith, whichever we are most comfortable with, or we can choose not to. I believe, the only thing we cannot deny is God, the higher being that is nothing like our wretched selves. Again, am I oversimplifying things? Must I get myself lost in some interpretation or another? I don’t think so, because we don’t know. We can make assumptions, but we cannot know for sure.

God is One. That to me, is Islam. The fact that I choose to follow the teachings of Muhammad (peace be upon him) is secondary.

Toward the end of the book, Hirsi Ali states:

The message of this book, if it must have a message, is that we in the West would be wrong to prolong the pain of that transition unnecessarily, by elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred toward women to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life.

…

I also don’t want my reasoning to be dismissed as the bizarre ranting of someone who has been somehow damaged by her experiences and who is lashing out. People often imply that I am angry because I was excised, or because my father married me off. They never fail to add that such things are rare in the modern Muslim world. The fact is that the hundreds of millions of women around the world live in forced marriages, and six thousand small girls are excised everyday. My excision in no way damaged my mental capacities; and I would like to be judged on the validity of my arguments, not as a victim.

My central motivating concern is that women in Islam are oppressed. That oppression of women causes Muslim women and Muslim men, too, to lag behind the West. It creates a culture that generates more backwardness with every generation. It would be better for everyone – for Muslims, above all – if this situation could change.

[page 348-349]

No one can argue with that fact. Maybe Hirsi Ali blames Islam for this. I blame the Muslims.

Women have little or no value, regardless of colour, creed and geography. We are for satisfying men’s animalistic lusts, or to be impregnated as a testimony that men’s reproductive organs are functioning at its full capacity. As if being taken by force is not bad enough, some of us have come to voluntarily feed men’s constant need for a hard-on (and it seems that their erections are not necessarily limited to the precursor of sexual activities). In the West, that is called liberalisation of women. So no, I don’t believe the treatment of women in the West is anymore superior than that of the Muslim world or anywhere else. Here, I say Muslim world as opposed to Islamic world, because I don’t believe that Islam the religion teaches the subjugation and oppression of women. People on the other hand, or in this instance the Muslims, are clever to take things further and then label it as original.

Surely we are not too blind or too stupid to see that a great portion of the atrocities and misfortunes in this world, since the beginning of time, is masterminded and perpetrated by the male specie. You may say that I am cynical. As a matter of fact, I too wonder if I am so. That I dwell on the negatives. That I am a man-hater. That I stretch the truth. There are a few good men out there who do great things too. But good things don’t need fixing whereas fcuked up things are beyond fixing. Gotta throw ‘em out and start over. Okay, I’m rambling. Shut up.

Just when I manage to push aside that ugly thought, I am slapped by another instance.

Watch this 60 Minutes clip.

I don’t know…

I would sooner lose faith in humanity than to denounce my Creator.

Buy a copy