Malaysians do not celebrate sallah. Our sallah sounds like 'sala', a malay word, which means sin or offence. At the time we celebrate our sallah, Malaysians seek for forgiveness from the Creator and their fellow beings over their 'sala'. So here, happy sallah means happy sinning.
So what do Malaysians celebrate after thirty (yes, 30) days of fasting? It's called Hari Raya. We've just celebrated Hari Raya. Eidul Adha will be Haj Raya
It's customary for the Malaysians to express their Eid greetings together with asking for forgiveness. Very early in the morning of the Eid day, the mother will go to the father – the head of the family – to say her Eid greetings and ask for forgiveness. "Salamat Hari Raya, maaf zahir dan batin". This means "happy Eid, forgive me all the offences I committed against you, the obvious ones and the not so obvious ones."
There are different variations of saying this greeting but they all mean the same thing. Congratulations. Forgive me.
After the mother has greeted the father, the children will say their greetings to the father and then the mother. Younger children will ask for forgiveness from their older siblings. This format of greeting is repeated with neighbours, at the masjid, on greeting cards and on invitations. Congratulations. Forgive me.
Explaining the rational behind this form of greeting, my supervisor said, "When you sin against Allah, he'll forgive you. But when you offend another human being, they have to forgive you; otherwise, you may die with the burden."
I told her that in Nigeria, we only ask for forgiveness from family members and friends when we're traveling. And that it (asking for forgiveness) has become a very serious routine now that our roads are bad and airplanes are lobbed from the sky with consistent regularity.
But this festive season is not the right time to rehash sad tales from Nigeria, let me instead narrate how I celebrated my Eid.
On the eve of Eid, Omid, my Iranian friend, came to ask if would go to Putrajaya with him. He explained that the Iranian Embassy together with Iranian Students Association had arranged for a bus to take Iranians and their friends to the National Mosque in Putrajaya for Eid prayers.
I told Omid, "I've just received an sms that our chairman wants Nigerians to come to his house after Eid prayers at UPM masjid. But thank you all the same."
But then I sat down and mulled it over. Which is richer, praying and eating with Nigerians or traveling to Putrajaya to pray with people from different parts of the world?
After all I knew what would have happened at the chairman's house. Between shovels of food, we'd discussed all Nigerian maladies and everybody would become all worked up and frustrated and dejected. This was sallah man! I was supposed to be happy not dejected.
The problems and the actors have not changed so the chain of argument is always the same. Shekarau insulted the people by buying those cars. The federal government doesn't know what it is doing. The people need food. Sam Nda Isaiah's definition of the militants is more appropriate. Our educational institutions are in a mess. Garbadeen's unprofessorial professors are our problems. The masses are crazy. The politicians are thieves! Consensus: attitudinal revolution. The division is always between those who want the revolution now those who want it to be gradual. And my own contribution in the debate is to remind everyone what Victor Hugo said in Les Miserables. "Revolution has no time to wait for anybody!"
Since I could predict what would have happened at the Nigerian party, I went to Omid and promised that I would be on the bus to Putrajaya on Wednesday. I wasn't the only sunni on board. Ryad from Palestine and Umar from Iraq also joined our shia friends.
At the Putrajaya masjid, we saw beautiful people in beautiful cloths from different parts of the world. There were women, children, students, expatriates and tourists who came to watch us pray.
The magnificence of the masjid is breathtaking. Ornamental trees dot the landscape, the fountains gush forth in elaborate designs. The floors sparkle as if they were mirrors. The Putra masjid boasts of a 116-metre, five tiered minaret - the tallest minaret in the region. I don't how many people came for Eid prayers but the masjid accommodates 15,000 people. Unlike Nigerian Eid prayer grounds, there was no dust and vehicles were parked so that they didn't obstruct the smooth flow of traffic. I know Mal. Adamu Adamu will like this.
After prayers, I met some Nigerian students from other universities. Their stunning attires distinguished them from other Africans. I greeted and took pictures with some of them like Ahmad and Adamu of Infrastructure University and Umar Azores of Limkogwing University. As I was walking back to our bus; I was nearly knocked down by a big black car. When I looked at the occupants, I realized they were the same Nigerians whom I had just greeted. The children wanted to kill their own uncle!
From the masjid we went to the Sultan's palace in Shah Alam the state capital of Selangor. The trip was a delightful one and the flagship of my Raya activities. At the palace, every race and demography was represented. There were the Chinese, the Indians, Christians, Hindus, children, adults, politicians, and students.
Everybody was eating. We couldn't do otherwise. There was meat of every kind; chicken, beef, mutton and preparation of every kind; barbecued, grilled, fried, tsire, danbu and others that I couldn't name in any language. As people kept emptying the plates, the palace helps kept filling the tables with more bowls.
There was also what Malaysians call cube rice. It is one of the symbols of Eid celebrations. It's close to our tuwo but is prepared in palm leaves. Some are sugared some are not. I dropped a few cubes in my mouth. The taste was superb. So I dropped a few more. After that, I concentrated on the meat. I wanted to taste everything. I'm sorry Dr. Bala Muhammad, I couldn't help myself. My friends didn't help me either. "Go there; there is fruit salad on that table. That chicken is good", they encouraged me. But I saw a bowl containing something that looked like lalle; I didn't touch that one.
It was when Hadiza Wachiko called from Minna and reminded me that I was eating too much that I came back to my senses. By now my vision was clear enough to see where the Sultan was standing. So I wiped my hands and went to shake the hands of one of the most powerful men in Malaysia.
Monday, 23 March 2009
Thursday, 12 March 2009
Sad news from Malaysia I
This morning (of 28 February 2009) we checked out of Nikko Hotel after the 3-day International Conference of Youth on Terrorism. While waiting for our bus in the lobby, I decided to read the morning newspaper. I soon got weary of reading it; because the typical newspaper here is so thick you could club someone to death with it. But before I could put the paper aside, I noticed a report that heated my blood.
Other participants noticed the change in me and asked for an explanation. I showed them the second half of page 20 of New Straits Times. My friends saw the picture of firemen struggling with their machines to extricate one accident victim from a car that looked like a chewed gum. Under the picture was the caption, “Two Nigerian students killed in crash.”
Because my friends are not Nigerians, they didn’t show much interest. But I was angry because the dying of young Nigerians from avoidable reckless situations has become a trend here. Besides reckless driving, our younger ones engage in immoral activities including drug abuse which sometimes leads to their death.
This latest incident is just a new addition to the sad statistics. About month ago a Nigerian died from drug overdose. Two weeks before him, two die from similar circumstances. All of them were young undergraduate students studying at private universities and colleges.
This piece should have been written eight months ago. When I came to Malaysia, my friends who were here before me, asked me to use my column to warn Nigerian parents of the dangers of sending their children for undergraduate studies here. I was hesitant to sound such a warning not because I had any reason to doubt my friends but because I believed then as I do now that Nigerian universities are far from the enlightenment centres they used to be.
Additionally, we’ve only a few places for the hundreds of thousands of students that qualify yearly for higher education. Thus I didn’t only support parents sending their children abroad for good education, I also advocated it. But my views changed at a meeting we had four weeks ago.
At the gathering I discovered how naïve I was and was not only converted to my friends’ cause but I also resolved to write something about it immediately. Per chance a few lives could be saved. But four weeks after the gathering, nothing was written because I was too shocked to write.
The meeting was an orientation program for postgraduate students from Nigeria who started their studies at UPM in December. Dr Abdul Karim the President of Nigerians in Diaspora and also a senior lecturer at UPM was invited to advise the students on how to manage their studies, relationship with supervisors and how to conduct themselves in Malaysian society.
During the question and answer session, the discussion changed to the reckless behaviour of Nigerian undergraduate students. We were all speechless as Dr Abdul Karim gave us detailed but grim account of what’s happening among our students.
“Two days ago” Dr Abdul Karim began, “I was invited to the hospital concerning the death of a Nigerian student. It was a suspected case of drug abuse. The deceased went to his friend’s room to complain of stomach pain. But his friend did nothing. He started vomiting blood. The friend did nothing. It was when the boy was clearly dead that the friend starting running to fetch other friends to take the body to the hospital. The hospital rejected the body when the friends couldn’t show a police report. They eventually got police report, deposited the body at the hospital and disappeared.”
It appeared the friend was hiding something. Probably he was avoiding the discovery of drugs in his room for after he ran away from the hospital; it took several phone calls from all concerned including the embassy before he appeared again. When asked how the deceased died he said his friend “took something.”
The problem has become what psychologists call ‘a social epidemic’ among the cultural group called Nigerian undergraduate students studying at private colleges in Malaysia.
You’ll learn more about these unfortunate incidents and what parents need to do in the second part of this piece. But in the meantime, if you need the phone number of Dr Abdul Karim who’s the President of all Nigerians in Malaysia, send me an email and I’ll forward your request to him.
Other participants noticed the change in me and asked for an explanation. I showed them the second half of page 20 of New Straits Times. My friends saw the picture of firemen struggling with their machines to extricate one accident victim from a car that looked like a chewed gum. Under the picture was the caption, “Two Nigerian students killed in crash.”
Because my friends are not Nigerians, they didn’t show much interest. But I was angry because the dying of young Nigerians from avoidable reckless situations has become a trend here. Besides reckless driving, our younger ones engage in immoral activities including drug abuse which sometimes leads to their death.
This latest incident is just a new addition to the sad statistics. About month ago a Nigerian died from drug overdose. Two weeks before him, two die from similar circumstances. All of them were young undergraduate students studying at private universities and colleges.
This piece should have been written eight months ago. When I came to Malaysia, my friends who were here before me, asked me to use my column to warn Nigerian parents of the dangers of sending their children for undergraduate studies here. I was hesitant to sound such a warning not because I had any reason to doubt my friends but because I believed then as I do now that Nigerian universities are far from the enlightenment centres they used to be.
Additionally, we’ve only a few places for the hundreds of thousands of students that qualify yearly for higher education. Thus I didn’t only support parents sending their children abroad for good education, I also advocated it. But my views changed at a meeting we had four weeks ago.
At the gathering I discovered how naïve I was and was not only converted to my friends’ cause but I also resolved to write something about it immediately. Per chance a few lives could be saved. But four weeks after the gathering, nothing was written because I was too shocked to write.
The meeting was an orientation program for postgraduate students from Nigeria who started their studies at UPM in December. Dr Abdul Karim the President of Nigerians in Diaspora and also a senior lecturer at UPM was invited to advise the students on how to manage their studies, relationship with supervisors and how to conduct themselves in Malaysian society.
During the question and answer session, the discussion changed to the reckless behaviour of Nigerian undergraduate students. We were all speechless as Dr Abdul Karim gave us detailed but grim account of what’s happening among our students.
“Two days ago” Dr Abdul Karim began, “I was invited to the hospital concerning the death of a Nigerian student. It was a suspected case of drug abuse. The deceased went to his friend’s room to complain of stomach pain. But his friend did nothing. He started vomiting blood. The friend did nothing. It was when the boy was clearly dead that the friend starting running to fetch other friends to take the body to the hospital. The hospital rejected the body when the friends couldn’t show a police report. They eventually got police report, deposited the body at the hospital and disappeared.”
It appeared the friend was hiding something. Probably he was avoiding the discovery of drugs in his room for after he ran away from the hospital; it took several phone calls from all concerned including the embassy before he appeared again. When asked how the deceased died he said his friend “took something.”
The problem has become what psychologists call ‘a social epidemic’ among the cultural group called Nigerian undergraduate students studying at private colleges in Malaysia.
You’ll learn more about these unfortunate incidents and what parents need to do in the second part of this piece. But in the meantime, if you need the phone number of Dr Abdul Karim who’s the President of all Nigerians in Malaysia, send me an email and I’ll forward your request to him.
Adult geniuses and 10,000 hours rule
We’ve an exclusive club of poets on the internet. Poets were hand-picked from different poetry forums to become members of ‘the pub’. Members are mostly from US, Europe, Asia, and Africa in that order. Actually we’ve only two Asians and one African-African. Although ‘the pub’ was created by an American poet we call Ming, one of the founding members is Victor Claude.
Victor is sixty years plus and a Nam Vet (American soldier who fought in the Vietnam war). Besides the wisdom that comes naturally with old age, Victor has other gifts such as the ability to tactically end hot debates on the pub; like debates between theists and the majority of the atheists, war, Gaza, and so forth.
But by far the most extraordinary of Victor’s gift is his ability to write poetry. His poems are clear, meaningful and easy to read. From cinquains to acrostics, Victor is a master of them all. And members are grateful to him for his contributions to the forum. Currently, he’s the poet of the month for his excellent limerick, “Seven Fish in a Bog.”
I’m telling you Victor’s story in an attempt to answer readers’ questions that trailed the piece I wrote on how geniuses are developed. Most of them argued that since my focus in that article were children, is there a way adults, starting from now, can attain genius status? Below is one of such letters:
“Dear Prof. I couldn't help writing to you about the above titled (Genius is 100% preparation) article in Weekly Trust of Saturday Feb 28 2009. I was impressed with the analysis. But my main question is: how does one start being a genius when one is already an adult?
“I am an adult, married with three children and struggling to balance a job (in a Bank), married life, and still pursue a PhD. Could you kindly come to my rescue with some points on how to be a genius or half genius? All I want is, to be good in my job, study area, learn and master two or even three languages (including my mother tongue), be proficient in computer usage, apart from the banking rudiments, be able to write good research papers or articles and be generally intelligent or knowledgeable.
Kindly come to my rescue.”
To answer the question of how an adult can get extraordinarily good (what we call genius) at what he does, let’s study what Victor Claude says about himself:
“I began to write poetry 35 years ago as a means to remain sane. It is still therapeutic, but it has become much more than that. I have always been fascinated with words and their ability to communicate meaning. I write daily, even if what is produced is not what I would call excellent. Excellence only comes through practice in any endeavour, writing included. I am still practicing--Still practicing.”
There’s almost a consensus by members of the pub of Victor’s genius, members look forward to his poems, he writes with so much clarity and simplicity and he posts more poems than any single member. How did Victor get so good? Victor jumps off the page amongst members of the pub (some of who are prodigies, professors, writers of many books on poetry, and teachers of poetry) because he does one thing: he writes poems everyday for 35 years. He practices.
But it doesn’t help you much to learn that you can attain genius by practicing, does it? But what if we reduce the ‘practice’ to science so that you can follow the steps and become genius? Or better still, what if there’s a formula or a minimum level of practice you need to achieve to become a world-class expert in anything?
Here’s the simple minimum prerequisite for becoming a genius: practice what you do for 10,000 hours. Neurologist Daniel Levitin writes:
“Study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needed to know to achieve true mastery.”
If we apply this rule to Victor’s case, you can see he’s attained more than 10,000 hours. Let’s say he dedicates one hour per day to think, write, clean, and revise his poems, that’ll total more than 12,000 hours of poetry writing.
But don’t panic you don’t need 35 years to clock 10,000 hours. If you practice nine hours everyday, it’ll take you only three years; but if you need to achieve the expertise in five years, you need to practice for five and a half hours everyday. Some of my friends doing research in the life sciences told me they’ve embarked upon five-year mission. I wish them good luck.
Victor is sixty years plus and a Nam Vet (American soldier who fought in the Vietnam war). Besides the wisdom that comes naturally with old age, Victor has other gifts such as the ability to tactically end hot debates on the pub; like debates between theists and the majority of the atheists, war, Gaza, and so forth.
But by far the most extraordinary of Victor’s gift is his ability to write poetry. His poems are clear, meaningful and easy to read. From cinquains to acrostics, Victor is a master of them all. And members are grateful to him for his contributions to the forum. Currently, he’s the poet of the month for his excellent limerick, “Seven Fish in a Bog.”
I’m telling you Victor’s story in an attempt to answer readers’ questions that trailed the piece I wrote on how geniuses are developed. Most of them argued that since my focus in that article were children, is there a way adults, starting from now, can attain genius status? Below is one of such letters:
“Dear Prof. I couldn't help writing to you about the above titled (Genius is 100% preparation) article in Weekly Trust of Saturday Feb 28 2009. I was impressed with the analysis. But my main question is: how does one start being a genius when one is already an adult?
“I am an adult, married with three children and struggling to balance a job (in a Bank), married life, and still pursue a PhD. Could you kindly come to my rescue with some points on how to be a genius or half genius? All I want is, to be good in my job, study area, learn and master two or even three languages (including my mother tongue), be proficient in computer usage, apart from the banking rudiments, be able to write good research papers or articles and be generally intelligent or knowledgeable.
Kindly come to my rescue.”
To answer the question of how an adult can get extraordinarily good (what we call genius) at what he does, let’s study what Victor Claude says about himself:
“I began to write poetry 35 years ago as a means to remain sane. It is still therapeutic, but it has become much more than that. I have always been fascinated with words and their ability to communicate meaning. I write daily, even if what is produced is not what I would call excellent. Excellence only comes through practice in any endeavour, writing included. I am still practicing--Still practicing.”
There’s almost a consensus by members of the pub of Victor’s genius, members look forward to his poems, he writes with so much clarity and simplicity and he posts more poems than any single member. How did Victor get so good? Victor jumps off the page amongst members of the pub (some of who are prodigies, professors, writers of many books on poetry, and teachers of poetry) because he does one thing: he writes poems everyday for 35 years. He practices.
But it doesn’t help you much to learn that you can attain genius by practicing, does it? But what if we reduce the ‘practice’ to science so that you can follow the steps and become genius? Or better still, what if there’s a formula or a minimum level of practice you need to achieve to become a world-class expert in anything?
Here’s the simple minimum prerequisite for becoming a genius: practice what you do for 10,000 hours. Neurologist Daniel Levitin writes:
“Study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needed to know to achieve true mastery.”
If we apply this rule to Victor’s case, you can see he’s attained more than 10,000 hours. Let’s say he dedicates one hour per day to think, write, clean, and revise his poems, that’ll total more than 12,000 hours of poetry writing.
But don’t panic you don’t need 35 years to clock 10,000 hours. If you practice nine hours everyday, it’ll take you only three years; but if you need to achieve the expertise in five years, you need to practice for five and a half hours everyday. Some of my friends doing research in the life sciences told me they’ve embarked upon five-year mission. I wish them good luck.
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