Thou shall not judge…

It seems to me that the human nature is one that is obsessed with dichotomies. We live in a world of dichotomies and we create dichotomies. We like to see the opposites just so as to justify our presence/existence. Among the most talked about dichotomies are as follows: Good VS Evil, Heaven VS Hell, Us VS Them (the Enemy), Men VS Women, Asians VS Westerners, Communism VS Democracy and also not forgetting, the Government VS the people. I presume that the list goes on limitless.

But oddly it is also a part of human nature that the human creatures are anything but simple. So while dichotomies seem to superficially and simply organize people into 2 distinct categories, they instead bring about more complications and confusions. In reality however, most human beings do not fall solidly into just 1 category of the dichotomy. There is never clearly a ‘black’ or a ‘white’. What is blindingly obvious however is the ‘greyness’ that exists.

I believe that I am also guilty of this obsession. And as the harshest critique of my own self, I often have to remind myself of the phrase that “thou shall not judge…”. Not surprisingly however, as if following the order of nature, I often see myself stumbling again repeatedly nevertheless into that dirty track of conceptualizing and compartmentalizing people. You know then that they do not just call it ‘human hubris’ for no reason.

Let’s take a very recent example which I encountered. Let’s talk about the people who belong to the ecclesiastical religious organizations – the monks, nuns, priests, ustaz etc. As members vey closely associated to the religious sphere, one would expect the mentioned groups of people to represent ‘worldly detachment’ as they serve only to God/s. Yes indeed, only to God/s and not to any political organizations or private enterprises which could taint their state of ‘holyness’. So when many of us are confronted with the image of a monk in full robe walking around with an iphone or an MP3 player in hand or perhaps even holding on to a can of Coca Cola and driving a Mercedes Benz car, who could deny that many would feel bewildered and amused as they began judging the monk as being ‘sinful’ and ‘worldly’. Many too would also add on judging the monk as ‘corrupt’ and not really doing much for the community.

In contrast to the description of the monk above, history lovers are also aware that monks are anything but passive beings. Some monks in history were found to be very involved in the community affairs – perhaps too passionately involved that they could be seen participating in the act of self-immolation as they burnt themselves in the middle of the road during the Vietnam War as a symbol of protest against the USA. Many have indeed viewed these burning monks as exemplars and modern-day heroes – oh, never mind the fact that these monks were very much involved in worldly affairs and passionately involved in the politics of the country. They are heroes, their sacrifices were ‘holy’ and as such they remained untainted - no question asked.

Burning Monk 1





Burning Monk 2

Again to cite another interesting example, a good friend told me that Oprah Winfrey once interviewed a group of Catholic nuns for the Oprah Winfrey show. When a call was made to a particular nun about the interview, the nun seemed confused, asking “What is Oprah Winfrey?” – indeed an indication of how detached from the worldly affairs this nun was, tying in nicely to what we initially expected of those in the religious order to be. Is this really what we want from the people belonging in the religious organizations? Do we really want them to be detached and oblivious of society and the world, keeping their focus only on serving the God/s? Or should these people play a role in politics or even in the economic affairs of the country or even in the technological innovation in the country or even perhaps be a spokesperson of the ruling government as seen in this article http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/11/26/open-letter-to-ustaz-fatris-bakaram/ ? How much and what kind of involvement of them do we want? How could we be so quick to judge others when a lot of times we are confused about our own expectations of others and that even if we say that we are clear about our expectations of others we fall into the trap of not making ourselves heard of our expectations to the concerned others?


“Thou shall not judge” – I say that’s a pretty mouthful obligation for the human me to carry out…

Thinking with the Brain VS Thinking with the Heart

I always tell people that real education for me occurred only when I was in my second year in the University. Now that was the place where I intensified my study in the History Department - where I was, by God’s will, “found” and properly guided by my American Professor, the bald-head man who specializes in the history of religions in China and Japan.

I know what’s on your mind… what a late-bloomer right?

Actually no. At the very least I thought that I was indeed lucky to have found the real value of education. I know many out there who have not, despite the impressive grades and awards they have acquired. I remember that despite performing very well for my Cambridge examination, resulting in me being awarded a scholarship upon entering the University, a part of me felt that the kind of education that I have had prior to that was superficial and inconsequential. It was education never a doubt but it was one gained as a result of a lot of thinking solely with the use of the brain. But the result is an automaton-like human being – unfeeling, lacking in identity and character, concerned only on the end-effect, mundane, uninspiring and sadly, worthless.

Under the supervision of my professor, writing an essay is not about the need to score an A-grade. I became more in tune with my inner self, more reflective and more involved in the subject content. My writings took a change as I saw the need to be somewhat like the “voice” of the oppressed, of the subaltern, the people at the ground. History changed – from that of stories and perspectives of the well-known and the people of power (and usually men) to stories and perspectives of the ordinary folks, the powerless and often than not, women. Writing for women is undeniably an emotional subject for me, especially based on my own experience having to fight for my own education despite the family convention imposed on me that the place of a woman is that at home and in the kitchen. And I remembered vividly that essays after essays, words just spewed out uncontrollably on the paper – but not so much the result of brain processes but mainly because I was feeling too much and I committed all emotions to the subject content. It was then that I realized that in thinking with the heart, I began developing an opinion, my own voice and most importantly, a passion that I would commit myself into. All these consequently led me to a research in a village community in Malacca as published online at my professor’s website http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/histdd/notes/malaysia.html . The paper has also been mentioned in a book recently published in 2009 by Paul Katz (a passionate academia whom I respected although I’ve never seen him before) entitled “Divine Justice: Religion and the Development of Chinese Legal Culture”.

I enjoyed and relished the true meaning of education. It was free flow and has meanings. However as an educator, I can’t help but contrast what I’ve experienced to what I see much today. Look around you and you’ll see students studying too much. They mumbled eccentrically to themselves at the train station, on the bus, even while crossing the road trying so hard to memorize the information in their textbooks hoping that all these will help in answering the questions for the exams. I swear if they could all burn their books/ notes into ashes and stir them into a glass of water and drink them all up (just like how one would to a Chinese paper amulet) just so as to help retain information, I am pretty sure all these students would do exactly that without thinking twice. Stupid and eccentric as it would sound, I would even think that the parents and the schools would probably help them in doing something as eccentric as I had mentioned earlier. Education turned meaningless. Students merely studied…oops memorized would be a better word… to get the perfect grade so as to get into a supposedly perfect school, which would consequently result in them getting a supposedly perfect job which pays them a perfectly hefty sum. It becomes a selfish endeavor, stripped off any positive principles. So today, if you end up at a workplace and suddenly you are confronted with office politics, I would say that’s not surprising given the kind of superficial education that most have been exposed to. The end result of today’s rigid education – I say breeding another generation of political animals who scheme and well, thinking only with the brains, completely detached of the Heart.