Kuan Yean

Category: Personal

  • Premiere album: J-Lard

    What just happened? 24 hours ago, we had a government that was stable and working, but not doing so flash-hot in the polls… no dramas that can’t be sorted out by a general election. All of a sudden, we have a new Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. I repeat: what just happened?

    I may not have been a big fan of everything that Kevin Rudd did while in office, however I was prepared to give the man time to get his house in order before the next election. In every respect, he was and is of Prime Ministerial calibre, and nothing makes me doubt my expectations. It is especially uncanny how he does things that seem to be textbook Art of War. To sum it up, I think he knew what he was doing.

    But what happened today was not something out of the Art or War; it is better explained by a passage from The Prince:

     A prince far more easily wins the friendship of those who were formerly satisfied with the existing government, and so were hostile to him then, then of those who, because they were dissatisfied, became his friends and favoured his occupation.

    He should have been watching his back. The factions timed this in order to install a new leader, rather than to allow an old leader the ability to reassert his leadership. A political coup de grâce, and one that I think is unfair. The man should have been allowed a fair go at completing his term with his (very busy) political agenda addressed.

    What we have witnessed is the reason creative types (builders, designers, authors etc) avoid showing their clients their products before they are finished. They are quite often a mess while they are being put together, but to be fired (or even given a dressing down) for the fact is simply a demonstration of impatience and rash impulsion.

    I am not suggesting that Julia Gillard will not make a fine Prime Minister; she more than likely will. What I am not comfortable with is the fact that Kevin Rudd was never given the chance to be one too.

  • Time for a party

    This is a very controversial topic in Australia, and everyone seems to have an opinion on it: asylum seekers. I limit the scope of my rant here to people arriving in boats, so called “boat people”. Such folk are variously referred to as “illegal refugees”, “illegal boat people” etc, when they are doing nothing wrong and seeking nothing more than refuge from a way of life that is far removed from that which is familiar to the average Australian.

    For years now (especially since the fall of Saigon), Australia has seen people arrive on its shores in boats, usually rickety, infested with disease and pests and full of people who could not care less, because these conditions are better than being back in their home countries, or in any place that refuses to settle them. Imagine the life of a Muslim Rohingya, thrown out of Burma to live in limbo across the border in Bangladesh, an even poorer country than their place of origin. It is by no fault of their own that you have been made homeless and stateless. Put yourself in the position of such a person – if someone offered you and your family the prospect of a better life, would you not grasp it? What would you have to lose? So by whatever means, you either arrive on our shores or are picked up by navy patrol ships and sent to Christmas Island for “processing”, where you are told you can claim asylum and be granted official refugee status. I imagine you would hope for eventual residency status and citizenship.

    Now here’s the controversial thought – what’s wrong with doing that?

    We have this fear in Australia of immigrants, a real, deep fear that they are never Australian enough and that they will dilute the values that we hold dear as Australians: things like mateship, a love of cricket and the principle of giving someone a fair go. Well I have news for you:

    1. Mateship is not an Australian invention (despite John Howard’s best efforts to make it seem so). It is a human trait and exists in every culture on Earth, springing from a primal need to be tribal. We create tribes around our language and our shared values, which become asserted in times of trouble, hence a deep belief in mateship amongst generations of Australians whose lives were touched by war.
    2. Cricket is devastatingly boring to watch (perhaps not to play) and I don’t think that will ever change, unless it learns a thing or two from Blernsball.
    3. So who is getting a fair go here, exactly?

    My point is that we unfairly fear something that does not exist – people who want to settle in Australia bring with them the ability to make Australia a better, richer and more interesting place. Many of them have known true hardship and value things that we take for granted.

    The government and Opposition right now are locking horns over the wrong issue in the belief that people want border security to keep the riff raff out. Apparrently the Rudd government has lost control of our borders and we are being swamped by people because we have created as “pull factor” that makes people come here illegally. But of course there is a pull factor: it is our way of life. It is our wealth. It is our ability to work five days a week, then spend the other two doing whatever we want. The pull factor is not caused by government policy, it comes out of our desire to make life better for ourselves. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?

    Quite frankly, I would love to see the emergence of a political party in Australia that challenges the blanket closed-door policy of all the major parties. Perhaps we could call it the Richer Australia party and have a mission statement that reads something like this:

    1. All humans are assets.
    2. Settlement in Australia is by the grace of those who have settled before us, and our duty to those who come after is to ensure that their contribution to our society is one that makes life better in any capacity.
    3. Our culture is changing, as all youthful cultures change. The culture of a young nation such as ours should be open to contribution by all Australians, regardless of heritage or creed.

    We need to open our doors and set the focus not on welfare, but on human development. Pauline Hanson and many over the age of about 50 would probably read this and balk, but I really do think that we close our borders, hearts and minds to our own ruin. Take the United States as an example of how it should be: it was the land of dreams for many generations – a land of hope and freedom, and it is what made it a great nation (after slavery and cotton farming). If we want to enrich our way of life, I firmly believe the solution is to throw open our doors and tell people on the way in: “Welcome, friend. Tell me about your life.”

    Then we will be the envy of the world.

  • Chips for stressed people

    Chips for the end of a long, stressful week (with a little help from Nigella):

    De-stressing saucepan
    4 or 5 scrubbed potatoes
    60 ml vegetable oil
    Salt
    A freezer bag

    Place a potato in the freezer bag, place on bench. Take a medium saucepan and use its base to pound the crap out of potato in freezer bag. Well when I say pound, I mean two or three (at most) cracking bashes. Remove potato carcass and keep aside. Repeat with remaining potatoes.

    Heat oil in the same saucepan. When it just begins to smoke, place potatoes gradually in oil and allow to cook for 5-6 minutes on medium heat, giving a little stir occassionally.

    Remove to a paper towel-lined plate. Sprinkle with salt to taste, along with parsley if you’re feeling extravagant.

    Serves one (and only ever one).

    Along with the bashing bit, the yumminess helps take away all that anxiety from the week. Goes great with sour cream, too.

  • News Talent

    Media Watch has been documenting the foibles of the ABC’s Ignite production system for a while. I doubt this was Ignite’s fault, more likely human error:

    I don't think the subcaption is correct either - that doesn't look like David Cameron to me.

    It actually happened twice in the same package. Maybe someone should donate a coffee machine to the ABC News production team.

  • Enlightenment

    Charles II of EnglandToday marks the 349th anniversary of the day Charles II of England rode triumphantly into London and claimed the English crown. It was also his 30th birthday; as birthday presents go, that’s quite a good one. It was the end of the English Civil War, and the end of an era remembered for its overzealous Puritanism and wanton persecution of effectively the entire populace. Charles had spent the preceding years either running from persecution in his own country, or living in exile in France. For him to have escaped and survived to the point where he was able to return to his kingdom after 11 years is a testament to his character and to those who helped him.

    Charles is today remembered as a rather merry character, and for being the first of the modern British monarchs. There is a facet of his kingship that underlines his right to be called a modern monarch, that being his attitude towards Catholics in his realm. It’s a bit ironic in a sense, as it is this particular modern hallmark that places him alongside some of the most revered and well-remembered leaders in the history of the ancient world: religious tolerance.

    Charles was a king torn between a Protestant parliament (which itself was bitterly divided between Anglicans and Presbyterians) and a debt owed to his Catholic subjects. It can’t have been pleasant. The legacy of Henry VIII demanded that English monarchs be good Protestants, and that the Catholic cause was to be quashed. Yet Catholic subjects were the reason Charles was alive, having assisted him with his escape to France while the country descended into a frenzy of religious zealotry. Charles never forgot the kindness of the Catholics, and promised to convert to Catholicism, a promise which he fulfilled on his deathbed. But during his lifetime as king, he set the ball rolling for what was eventually (albeit slowly) to lead to the total emancipation of the Catholics.

    That in itself is not the most shining example of religious tolerance. There are better, much older examples:

    In the 3rd century BC, Ashoka the Great of India declared in his edicts that “all religions should reside everywhere, for all of them desire self-control and purity of heart.”

    In 622 BC, the Prophet Muhammad drew up the Constitution of Medina, and included a section specifically addressing the rights of non-Muslims in Medina. These included the right to freedom of religion and the right to decline participation in the religious wars of the Muslims. At the same time, the constitution mandated the responsibility of each citizen, regardless of faith, to defend the city in the event that it came under attack from external invaders.

    Mary is depicted with the infant Jesus in this Persian miniature. Not quite the faces we're used to seeing?
    Jesus (Isa) and Mary (Maryam) are important figures in Islam. Here they are depicted in this Persian miniature. Not quite the faces we're used to seeing, are they?

    After the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem during the Crusades of the 12th century, Saladin allowed the Christians to remain in the city, and invited the Jews to return – though that was how things had always been in the city until the Crusaders came along and massacred everyone nearly a hundred years before.

    These are just three examples of many, nearly all of which are associated with people who are dearly loved in history. Does this, I wonder, provide us with a theme for the future?

    It’s a sad fact that religious wars have alternated with religious harmony in a cyclical fashion for centuries, even millennia. The key to prolonged harmony cannot therefore lie in either war or tolerance. We must go beyond our comfort zones, abandon our prejudices and examine the exact nature of tolerance. I do not believe that tolerance is a word that describes the sociological place to which we should aspire. It is only one step away from intolerance, and only two from persecution. What we should seek is understanding.

    Understanding is about learning what it is to be something that you are not. It is the ability to feel the joys and pains of other humans, even when a fundamental principal grates with you. To choose not to understand is to be radiantly ignorant of the human condition, a trait often masked by a front of supposed godliness. Answering to the divine by separating it from the secular is arrogant and to be done at the risk of widespread and indomitable peril, as many wars in history have proven.

    What Charles II learnt about Catholics is probably something he never would have learnt if not for his great hardship. This rings true for all of us; the things that are worth having above all else are those which are the hardest to obtain. Whatever we go through in order to achieve a new age of enlightenment will probably be unpleasant, but if we swallow our pride, open our minds and begin to understand, it might just be worthwhile.