I started blogging at BolehTalk in Oct 2004. How time flies - it has been more than a year since I cut my teeth as a blogger.
My first article was on what I believed to be impractical fines related to Malaysia's then new smoking laws. I sent my views on subject to Mr X, owner of BolehTalk, who not only kindly posted it but also invited me to air my other views at his blogsite. It was the beginning of an activity that I haven't regretted taking up.
But I soon startled my colleagues at BolehTalk with my left-of-centre liberal views. Though not quite sporting a Che Guevera or Yasser Arafat T-shirt - mind you, some bloggers have accused me of such sentiments - I expressed how I felt about the Palestinian people.
Regrettably, the Palestinian cause seems to be short-changed for the following reasons:
(1) Many in Malaysia who supported the cause believe it's the Muslim thing to do while many Malaysians who opposed it somehow feel it's the appropriate non-Muslim stand. In this unfortunate black & white but totally irrelevant religiously-partisan approach, the true grievances of the owners of Palestine, & what is Israel in 1967, and the city of Jerusalem, have been completely lost. By assigning unnecessarily a religious banner to the Palestinian cause, those responsible have unjustly masked the true grounds of a simple case of a people robbed of their possession. Among the worst sabotagers of the Palestinian grievances have been the adjoining Arab nations of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, for their own interests.
(2) The disproportionate and selfish powers of originally, the European nations especially Britain, and subsequently/today, the USA in their arrogant disposal of land belonging to a people who had inhabited the land for thousands of years. It was due to the tight-assed upbringing of the superstitious Christian Right British PM, Lloyd George, and his gratitude to Chaim Weizmann for technological assistance during WWI, that persuaded him to promise away a Muslim Palestine, then under a crumbling Islamic Ottoman Empire, to European Jews to re-form a new Hebraic nation, one which had long since evaporated 2,000 years ago into mere Jewish memory. George did so believing in the biblical prophesy that God promised the return of Jesus Christ for the end of the world when the Jews returned from their Diaspora to the Middle-East, . The American Christian Right are today's leading proponents of ensuring and protecting the presence of Jews in the 50-year old state of Israel, so that the Messianic prophesy may come true.
Today, the State of Israel is a fait accompli, a political reality, regardless of the historical injustice to the Palestinian people. It's now wrong to chase some 4 over million Israelis away from their nation after 50 years of statehood. But it's right to support the Palestinian people to demand that the Israelis withdraw to the 1967 position. The two nations should learn how to co-exist, if not in friendship, then at least in peace and mutual economic benefits. The Israelis are equally responsible for enabling that without placing sole onus on the Palestinians. Unfortunately the religiously-blind Americans can't see this, always adopting the Israeli arguments that the Palestinians must be the ones to prove they are worthy of statehood while secretly sabotaging every concession or action that the Palestinian authority made.
Then, I took up a stand against lies, such as those perpetrated by Bush and Blair - yes, I know I know, I am only a mote in the world of international politics but every squeaky voice counts, and I make sure mine squeaks nosily.
Many were keen to see evil Saddam Hussein deposed, but without sparing a thought for the poor Iraqi people that war would visit upon them. To some people, to rid Saddam was the only overriding thought - f**k the Iraqi people. Afterall, they argued, "Can one make an omelette without breaking some eggs?" Of course the blokes who said that weren't the eggs! Just look at Iraq today. Sometimes the cure can be worse than the illness, especially if one barges arrogantly and bulldozes recklessly into an ill-thought solution, made horrendously worse when the action had been based on lies.
It has been an eventful year, where we were greatly shaken by the ferocity of the Boxing Day tsunami. Though handicapped by inexperience and lack of contacts and resources, KTemoc still blogged on the tsunami at BolehTalk to provide some well-visited postings. Our strategy was not so much to match the updates that other better established and reputable blogsites could offer, with dazzling charts and all. We at BolehTalk started to ask pertinent questions that were, very much to our amazement, picked up around the world. Hey, sometimes even Charlie Brown wins ;-)
In my bloggings at BolehTalk I have frequently urged readers to contribute to the International Red Cross & Red Crescent or other well-known charitable organizations such as Oxfam and Medecins Sans Frontieres to help the needy and desperate of the world like those in Darfur and those fallen victims to the tsunami or the earthquake in Kashmir. I have regularly put my money where my mouth is, and I hope those of you who can spare a dime or two, please help those less fortunate than us, without determining who the recipients would be - they are all bleeding red blood!!!
There was also the Malaysian blogsphere saga of 'Anwar' (not the de facto leader) and the 'oil & water' drama, where my colleague at BolehTalk, Mr X, made some personal and admirable efforts and indeed arm-twisting of Malaysiakini to publish his letter in a campaign for 'Anwar'. In the wake of the frightening government crackdown, BolehTalk was invited by another Malaysian blogsite to comment on the future of blogging in Malaysia - we did just that, with our views kindly published - we posted our original mail to said Malaysian blogsite in this BolehTalk post.
In March 2005, in deference to the feelings of my colleagues about what they considered to be my rather wild-eyed left wing pieces ;-) I decided to shift that part of my KTemoc-ish opinions on international affairs to a separate blogsite, here, which I daringly call KTemoc Konsiders - bloody cheeky mate, but that's me, or as some detractors would term as a raving looney leftie - thanks guys ;-)
Petaling Street Project asked for members to join its Mile High Club. I believe I qualify easily if I consider my total postings on both BolehTalk and KTemoc Konsiders.
But more importantly I am still around, either here or over at BolehTalk to inform, ask, share, debate, analyse, predict, speculate, joke about or more ominously for my detractors, plain annoy you guys, hopefully for another year.
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I wakakaka at this post because of the last part of the last sentence, which says, '... or more ominously for my detractors, plain annoy you guys, hopefully for another year', wakakaka.
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