The Eclectic

Humans create images in their minds, often fantasizing dreams that may or may not be achievable. Their world is shaped after their fantasies as their minds perceives e.g. a human dreams that he is good in a game, his experiences support his claim because his mind makes it seem that way.

Singapore, Singapore – Yet again, I got lucky in the cab queue and took a ride in one with a fairly intellectual fellow. This driver was working the night shift so he could fund his daughter and son’s education in the university. This chinese man’s concern was: the age limit for malay marriages which has been raised to 18.

“18 is still very young,” says Mdm Samsiah “You’re out of secondary school and you only have 2 years possible job experience.”

“Yes,” agrees taxi driver ” There is no planning and it will cause a lot of problems”

The progressive malays have always been concerned about how their less progressive counterparts, especially teenagers, have been involving themselves in activities that smear good reputation the rest of the community is trying to build. Mr. Comfort Cab’s sentiments say it all: “I had three malay female passengers once and I said, you people are Muslims, at least try not to [overdo]… “

While a fraction of the community has taken up what is deemed western progressiveness, the rest have taken on portions of the western culture that not only are against Islamic values, but are taken on with such fervor that a significant number of Malay teens contribute to statictics of crime, drug abuse and unplanned or pre-marital pregnancy and abortion; coming from a conservative relegion, this is terribly saddening.

With the marriage bar still at a “tender” age-line, possibly to allow unwanted pregnancies to at least produce children and proper families rather than abortion or the incomplete family structure with a single, possibly not-well-off young mother, the trend may continue as these improperly planned families produce [and definitely produce] children born into a financially insecure background which spells worryingly.

“Study hard, work hard and have a good and stable income before starting a family,” good advice received as I greeted Mr. Taxi goodbye.

We are exploring ways of expansion and actually establishing ourselves but we require good writers and a strong/skilled editor so for the time being, don’t expect much!

Till then,

may you prosper

By Abdul Aziz Rahman. Written 1 September, Received 9 September.

Istanbul, Turkey – My friend, we come from very similar Muslim communities and you probably just experienced the following phenomenon as well judging from your exclamations. You can’t blame people for a sudden, i must say, almost zealous burst in faith. Faith is such a vague concept still debated by man and supposedly criticized by science – man’s intellectual level of reasoning. A suddenly faithful man could have just turned over a new leaf albeit committing sins and repeating the process countless times. However, there is one group you can discriminate from the entire on-and-off gang: the hypocrites.

No, I’m not talking about those who pretend to be faithful. Rather, I refer to those who chose this blessed month to be “good” and start praying and in addition to that start faith-mongering and sin-abhorring. It is easy to discern them from the crowd. Here are their characteristics:

1. They use to laugh along and condone the act of sin but during Ramadan they choose to label petty sins out loud usually sounding something like: “John! You sinned! That is a bloody sin man! You are so screwed” albeit slightly exaggerated to emphasize the tone. It is tolerable if this person is a saint. However he or she isn’t and his or her actions are appallingly done ONLY in this month. They tend to be very sensitive to sin. Their “holy elven ears and halo” flicker with disgust whenever a sin is conducted.

2. They pray. They goddamn pray. Throughout the whole year this is the ONLY month they choose to pray. This is commonly guilty but laziness is a man’s weakness and so you cant’ blame them – if you do, you display the above characteristic.

3. Despite being sin-sensitive, they still commit the same petty sins they are disgusted with. Apparently, sin is a concept alien to them yet ironically familiar. Sin is self-prime in maths speak. They irritate everyone else with their apocalypse and hell cries of assured admission and pain.

Why do I seem so disgusted? Because I am one myself and I am not proud of it. We are all guilty of hypocracy and as I tried to calm down my fellow writer today I told him that we can’t run away from them. Forget debating hypocracy. Forget individualism and independance. Soak the blessed month concept in, take a deep breath and ignore them. Happy month of Ramadan, hide among the crowd for awhile and may we all keep away from hypocracy.

Yes, the music section of the Whichever-Daily Wail has shifted to The Sultan Of Andalusia at http://thesultanofandalusia.wordpress.com

T.S.O.A in short, it will feature music escapades of our new writers into the local music scene. YES! The Whichever-Daily Wail has expanded the number of writers and decided that we just had to get a new page and reserve this one for current issues and etc. It will also feature the development of local bands and such, including mine! =)

So check it out! Link it up! Read and Comment! Do whatever you want.