Tower of Babel |
It seems, according to the Old Testament, Chapter 11:1-9, that once we were one race with one language. Maybe then our ancestors spoke Esperanto, wakakaka.
Hey, maybe the same Allah word was shared by all, though if my recollection of the god word in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is correct, the various divine appellations used in it were fairly extensive except it didn't have Allah.
But shit happened once our ancestors settled in the land of Shinar, which different biblical encyclopaedia and dictionaries tell us was in various places but somewhere around modern day Iraq, between or near the rivers Tigris and Euphrates.
Being hard-working, innovative and ambitious people they made bricks and started building a city and a tower which would have its top in the sky, perhaps to reach the heavens. The tower was the infamous Tower of Babel.
Today the UAE hoped to repeat their mistake wakakaka by building the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
Burj Khalifa |
Anyway, back to antiquity, the Hebrew god was alarmed on seeing the frightening potential of our ancestor, one people with one same language - well, with such cohesive strength there was nothing they sought could and would be out of their reach.
I wonder whether there's a lesson in this for us, no, not about a worried god but about our ancestors' incredible potential from their cohesiveness? WTF, no one cares anyway so let's move on.
I sense it was the same fear that god had when he realized Adam and Eve would know too much after eating the fruit (probably a durian) from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
temperature then was a lovely 21 deg C |
Hardly surprising then that he expelled them from the garden of Eden, presumably to prevent them, especially Eve, from eating too much knowledge. After all, it's common knowledge (excuse the pun) that no man likes a sweetie who's too smart; indeed it's a hard to swallow fact (excuse the 'Adam's apple' pun) that women could be smarter than men.
expelled from Hotel Eden for eating durians? |
... which incidentally proves that god was a man, and his priests, monks, rabbis, brahmins, muftis etc were all misogynists.
Now, we mustn't blame god because if he had allowed mankind to know too much then f*, he wouldn't be able to hold on to his supreme position as god. If we recall the Bible, he in fact confessed to us he was a jealous god.
It was only recently that he relented, allowing many "holy men" in Malaysia, wakakaka, to know so much they could/can claim so when they issue amazing moral codes.
Back to the Tower of Babel - so god was worried about the amazing race of men who could even think of building a tower all the way up to the heavens. So to prevent that, he abracadabra-ed and scattered them around the world whilst making them speak in different tongues (languages).
As an example of what then happened, this ensured that if kaytee had called for a rivet in the building of the Tower, someone would pass him a bottle of budu or wondered WTF he was saying about a Delilah salon in KB, wakakaka.
Tower of Babel |
If you don't believe kaytee, just look up Genesis in the Old Testament, Chapter 11:1-9 (King James version), which states:
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Tower of Babel guess who inspired the Judean authors of the Tanakh who were slaves in Babylon |
Thus the Tower of Babel was abandoned before its top reaches god's kitchen, and some of those confused men without bilingual dictionaries or Babelfish software eventually went to and settled down in India, South East Asia and China.
by those Shinar-ians who settled down in China, wakakaka |
Oh, you may ask what happened to the Tower then, uncompleted or almost completed as might have been?
Well, the ancient Hebrews were clever people, bloody f* murderous but nonetheless clever. In their Midrash, which is a sort of an interpretative bible to explain away any awkward or embarrassing passages in the Tanakh (Bible), ...
... for example, like how god could ever forgive let alone love an adulterous murderous and most evil King David who broke virtually every one of god's commandments, ...
... thus providing mucho latitude to their rabbis to make creative interpretations a la the biblical Samuel, it said that the top of the tower was burnt, the bottom was swallowed, and the middle was left standing to erode over time.
Wah, the middle was left standing to erode over time! Gravity-defying feats which would have driven Isaac Newton mad or to give up eating apples, and make NASA and the equivalents in Russia, China, Europe, India and Japan drool.
And from god's babel-ization of those men who built the tower, the colonial Brits learned how to 'divide and conquer' which they successfully applied in more than half the world for hundreds of years.
Naturally Anglophilic UMNO followed the Poms' winning strategy, most successfully for 55 years. Can they do it again? No one except PAS believe UMNO can, and straight away help (not directly of course as that would be too obvious).
Thus from the Tower of Babel, today we have in Malaysia our Indians, Malays, Chinese, Ibans, Dayaks, Muruts, Kadazans, Bajaus, Thais, Eurasians (pan Asians) and many other races.
Malaysian |
Malaysian |
oso Malaysian |
Oh, we didn't want to stop there so we re-created the Tower of Babel with twin towers - yup, we Malaysians are always innovatively Boleh, and mind you, way way ahead of those bloody Gulf Arabs.
Our aim was noble, to reunite the children of our scattered ancestors, to wit, our brethren. Thus we invited Filipinos, Indonesians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Indian (Muslims) to join us in our new land of Shinar, though Chinese have to wait a wee while longer because the Malaysian Immigration, NRD and EC are slowly working their way towards 'C' and 'T' (for Tionghua), wakakaka.
And just in case a jealous god may come around to screw us up again by scattering our reunited mateys to the four corners of the world, or at least to the neighbouring lands of Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, we have provided them with Malaysian identification documents such as IC, passports, citizenship certs and membership in one of our political parties, so they will know how to return to Shinar (Malaysia).
Most of the fundamental evils which have taken root in Malaysia, including the abominable free distribution of Blue ICs to illegal immigrants in Sabah, can be laid at the foot of two individuals - Mahathir and Anwar.
ReplyDeleteWhy I'm far sterner on Anwar is that Mahathir isn't looking to be the next PM, but Anwar is.
Mahathir doesn't pretend to be a champion of reform or democratic freedoms, but Anwar does.
Enough with Wolves in Sheep's Clothing.
My aunt, a Hong Kong passport-holder, has been resident in Malaysia for 20 years. A university graduate and a professional before she married and moved to Malaysia, she has been solid contributor to the community. Speaks and writes fluent Malay, and a mother of 2 Malaysian children, yet she has been denied Malaysian citizenship. Her application seems to be held up forever.
ReplyDeleteTo be frank I think because she is considered a "Cina".
I get angry seeing the illegal Filipinos and Indonesians getting Blue ICs with their clothes still wet from their boat trip coming over.
This GE13 will be my first as a voter. I don't know about other people, but This issue is a big thing for me.
For those who are wondering why some people born here or have been residing here for a long time, but still hold red ICs, this is the passage from Mahathir’s Malay Dilemma that forms the basis for this doctrine :
Delete“ … As small groups of immigrants of different racial origin acquired citizenship, they adopt the characteristics and distinctive language and culture of the larger definitive race of the country concerned. Forgetting their ancestry, these new citizens not only become indistinguishable from the definitive race but they in turn insist on retaining the conditions of citizenship to which they had to submit. The process of retaining and perpetuating the identity of the definitive race which at first was artificially devised becomes, as it were, self-priming and acquires a momentum of its own. It takes advantage of certain human values and traits. The perpetual position of being in the minority and underprivileged creates a desire in the new immigrants to merge with the majority and acquire the privileged position. The immediate loss of original culture, language and racial characteristics is insignificant when compared with the privileges to be gained as citizens. And having gained these privileges and been accepted as equals, natural human jealousy takes over and guards the conditions of their status. … “. ( Chapter 8 : The Malay Problem )
In other words it is not enough to be residing here for a long time and paying your taxes, you have to do a Ridhuan Tee. To Mahathir, those refugees in Sabah display the same characteristics of the definitive people.
Dear Angry,
Delete20 years is nothing lah....I've met many cases of more than 30 years who got nothing but have to make yearly visit to renew their visas just to be with their spouses and children here. Semua kerana 'wrong' skin colour. No point getting angry, get even lah. This GE is a good time to show some even-ness to UMNO.... and Anwar & Gang.
Rowan Atkinson a Khunsa? great joke KT
ReplyDeleteHaha....did not know Mr Bean is a Sabahan. That's a great one, KT.
Delete