Close encounters with the remarkable Buckminster Fuller

[Adapted from a letter to Thomas Schöllhammer, dated 28 February 1986. Mr Schöllhammer, then a student of ‘American Culture’ at Munich University, was writing a dissertation on Buckminster Fuller and had requested a full account of my personal contact with ‘Grandpa’ Bucky.]

I’m not sure how I first heard of R. Buckminster Fuller.

But the first time I saw him was in Kuala Lumpur in 1973 when he gave a talk at the University of Malaya. He was extolling the virtues of non-specialization, which was to me an interesting change from the conventional Jack-of-all-trades doctrine that you can achieve nothing unless you concentrate on a very tiny area.

I was impressed by his awareness of 4-dimensional processes – the only way apparent contradictions can be reconciled and appreciated. It was the first time I had heard the word SYNERGY. He also expressed his belief in “syntropy” – the opposite of entropy. Whereas most scientists speak of “negative entropy” Bucky used the more pro-active term, syntropy: the antidote to pessimism (“things fall apart,” “the heat death of the universe,” “Murphy’s Law,” and so on).

SYNTROPY he defined as Scenario Universe’s counter-tendency towards greater coherence and integrity: the centripetal (returning to Source) counterforce to centrifugal “expanding Universe” theories. Bucky was a visionary who could sense transcendental Meaning and Higher Order beyond the apparent disorder and randomness of physical phenomena. I had no chance to talk with him, as he was hurried off to some official tea party immediately after the lecture.

Fuller poses with his Dymaxion car, circa 1933

In 1975 Bucky was invited to an international conference on “Malaysia in the Year 2000” organized by the Syed Kechik Foundation. Herman Kahn of the Hudson Institute (a research team entrusted with developing futurist ‘scenarios’ for the Pentagon, among other rightwing interests in the U.S.) was also there; and so was Prof. Robert Jungk, the famous German sociologist-historian. I managed to get myself invited to the conference and that’s how I finally got to meet Bucky.

U.S. Pavilion at Expo 1967 designed by Buckminster Fuller

He was very approachable, very warm and saintly, radiating a very loving aura – in sharp contrast to Herman Kahn who was hugely aloof and sneering, radiating little warmth. In the two men you could see the polarities of intellectual vision. Kahn was convinced that the planet was in deep trouble and that Malthusian economics dictated Darwinian survival strategies (e.g., he advocated and defended America’s policy of exporting pollution to Third World countries). Fuller, on the other hand, was convinced that Universe is sentient, that Cosmic Intelligence always prevails, and that cooperation, not competition, was the key to real progress. Mentally I called Herman “Fat Hope” and Bucky “Slim Chance.”

Within hours I had decided Bucky would make the ideal grandfather. So when I found him sitting one row behind me at one of the talks, I scribbled my request on a sheaf of conference notes and handed it to him: “Do I have your permission to adopt you as my grandfather?”

Bucky scrawled an unhesitating response: “Indeed you do! It gives me great joy and an increase of responsibility.”

This simple act proved to me that Bucky represented the noblest spirit of humanity, the archetypal Community Elder who has grown beyond tribal concerns and was in effect one of the True Sages of Planet Earth. Such beings are not universally recognized under the military-industrial power structure – but I’m sure that as the Aquarian Age proceeds, they will come into their own.

The general atmosphere at the 1975 conference was pretty much a triumph of Optimism over Pessimism, of human over technocratic values.

Herman Kahn (pictured left) was loudly and repeatedly booed during his address in which he defended the hard-line “realist” approach to problem-solving (that whole pragmatic worldview founded on Original Sin, the contrariness and imperfectibility of Human Nature, and the overall untrustworthiness of the Cosmos; the scientific-materialist paradigm wherein “God” is essentially an abstraction to which political expediency demands payment of lip service, but in private nobody really gives a hoot about “moral authority” or any sense of ethics governing human existence; the Bottom Line being, of course, Economics).

In contrast, Bucky’s talk was very warmly received. Though a fair portion of the audience seemed to have difficulty following his non-linear, multidimensional way of thinking and speaking, Bucky was able to transmit a clear and direct feeling of genuine goodwill and high intelligence. He didn’t refer to notes and could have gone on for hours if there hadn’t been a time limit. I can recall only fragments of what he said, but those few fragments remain vividly imprinted in my mind:


Bucky speculated on the ascendancy of Muscle Power during a particular phase of our prehistory when kings and chiefs were chosen from the warrior caste and Power was equated with the weight of a man’s weapon. Cerebral individuals were given subordinate rôles as consultants, magicians, healers, and comedians. (“Put this little guy on the payroll, he tells funny jokes.”) These thoughts were neither new nor radical to me as I had covered the same contemplative ground in the course of my personal musings – but it was the first public utterance of these ideas I had encountered, and it served to reaffirm the validity of my own views on social hierarchies and power elites.

Buckminster Fuller's trademark geodesic dome

Bucky came up with another important analogy: that of the honey bee colony which serves a greater design (the propagation of plant species) without actually being aware of its nature-ordained function. To the bee, the whole purpose of existence is simply the gathering of nectar and the defence of its own hive until the next generation is ready to take over the endless cycle.

Dymaxion House (prototype revealed in 1929; redesigned in 1945)

The metaphor was very mind-opening and allowed me to view even the multinational corporations in a more generous light: like the honey bees, most of them haven’t attained the 4-dimensional awareness of their higher function within the planet’s ecology. But, as Bucky pointed out, these Great Pirates (his name for the fortune-hunting, empire-building colonizers who have shaped the course of recent centuries) produced global navigation maps and introduced the concept of a continent- and culture-bridging spherical world through purely selfish, greedy motives. Bucky’s graphic thought processes approach a workable solution for all conflicting tendencies in human and animal behavior. For me, Bucky had successfully performed the alchemical marriage of Heaven and Hell, extending his mentations beyond simplistic “good” and “evil” to an enlightened state of dynamic equilibrium, of reintegration and reciprocity.

Bucky with his wife Anne Hewlitt and their daughter Allegra, circa 1927

Yes, Bucky was indeed a 20th-century Buddha with access to the harmonic overtones of Higher Consciousness. No wonder some "experts" are of the opinion that Fuller went “kind of nuts in his later life.” Bucky’s concepts had transformed into metaconcepts: to comprehend Whole Systems you need to exercise your mind in ever increasing spheres of interest. No way any die-hard academic specialist could ever publicly endorse Bucky’s work. It’s so much easier to protect our own petty interests by playing down or not noticing other people’s greatness.

Allegra Fuller Snyder, Bucky and Anne's only surviving child, visits the Eden Project 
in September 2009

Another very important thing Bucky pointed out was that no true scientist will ever describe anything as a “mistake.” In experimental procedure, all results lead to deeper understanding, whether “positive,” “negative,” or “ambivalent.” I view Bucky as a philosopher-guru using mathematical and technological terminology to express his mystical insights. In this respect he was often misunderstood and dismissed (and, to a certain extent, still is) by mainstream scholars. He was fond of describing himself as a “maverick” – the ox that refuses to run with the herd. In problem-solving it’s often the maverick idea that proves most valuable.

Buckminsterfullerene aka Buckyball - the C60 carbon molecule discovered in 1985

Most important to me was the fact that Bucky Fuller had devoted his life to developing a syntax and a geometrically achievable model of Utopia: a vision I have explored in mystical terms, but which I've found difficult to articulate “objectively.”

Bucky’s work with the miraculous behavior of Whole Systems, Synergetics, Syntropy, Reciprocity, Regenerative Intertransformations, Integrity, and Omnidimensionality put everything mystics had always spoken of in poetic code into clear, technical focus – the same way G.I. Gurdjieff and John C. Lilly made epistemology accessible to empirical investigation. However, don’t take my word for it – read Bucky’s Utopia or Oblivion (Pelican Books, 1968)!

The conference on “Malaysia in the Year 2000” lasted only five days – but I had the chance to have more contact with Bucky between sessions and at meals. The remarkable thing is that there was never much casual talk at these encounters: it was more like a reunion of intimate friends. He would perform childlike exercises on paper napkins, demonstrating how EVOLution derives from EVE and how EVOL is really LOVE spelt backwards.

I wrote a long letter elaborating my ideas on transport systems (from solar buggies to antimatter propulsion to mantra-powered lightships) and handed it to Bucky on the second day of the conference. When we met the next day he gave me a radiant smile and a warm handshake, saying: “It was the best letter I’ve ever received, I was absolutely delighted!”

He asked if I was interested in reading a new poem he’d drafted, something called Complexion 1975. He had only the original copy, so I was required to read it all at one sitting in his hotel room while he very kindly ordered me a glass of milk (perhaps I still looked like a baby to him). Since then I’ve read the published version of Complexion, but it didn’t read like the same document I saw in Bucky’s room. My memory informs me that the original draft was more science-fictionish – written from an extraterrestrial viewpoint. I had the feeling that Bucky was eager to communicate some earthshaking secret – but he apparently changed his mind and all he said to me before we left the room was: “Don’t worry about anything. It’s 99.9 per cent metaphysical!”

I did feel a pervasive sense of “unreality” – as though the view outside his hotel room was a holographic projection. I looked at him for further clarification and he kept smiling beatifically and insisting that the physical reality around us was such a minute section of the electromagnetic spectrum as to be actually quite insignificant.

Around this time, a half-mile or so away, the Japanese Red Army (a leftwing terrorist group) was getting ready to take over the AIA building on Ampang Road and hold 50 people hostage for several days. Mercifully, it all ended without bloodshed soon after the conference. A mere background detail to this account.

I wrote Bucky a few times after that. He would reply personally or get his secretary to send me his latest itinerary. Which is how I got wind of his brief visit to Kuala Lumpur in 1976. I met him at the airport with a gift of his favourite oolong tea and he suggested that I accompany his small entourage to the Hotel Equatorial for dinner.

Our conversation was mainly about John Lilly (right) - the multidisciplinary scientist best known for pioneering dolphin intelligence research and the sensory-deprivation tank. Bucky mentioned that he once saved Lilly’s life; he felt that Lilly was far too reckless, doing dangerous things to himself; but he agreed that the man was truly brilliant, if somewhat erratic. Then Bucky handed me some advice that has served me well over the decades:

“Just do what you feel you must do. Do it the best you can and trust that you’ll be looked after. Believe me, it’s true. I’m an old man, and I’m not in the habit of giving irresponsible advice.”

Six months later I quit my job in an advertising agency and have been gainfully unemployed since.

On October 12th 1979, I saw R. Buckminster Fuller for the last time. I’d written to his secretary earlier, saying I’d be passing through Philadelphia and asking if I could visit. The response was swift and warm. I found Bucky in his Market Street office, older and feebler but still as sensitive as ever.

Bucky's 1946 Dymaxion Map showing the relationship of land and ocean areas

The moment he laid eyes on me he said: “I hope you don’t succumb to disappointment. These things take time. Right now we can only try to cushion the impact.” I believe he was referring to my hopes (and his) that Utopian values would spread universally and rapidly, rendering the apocalyptic option unnecessary. This revealed Bucky’s more human dimensions, I felt. He seemed to be expressing his own sense of frustration that the world wasn’t listening to him; that his ideas were still being dismissed as “over-idealistic” or even “crank.” But he was visibly pleased that two groups of students had produced comprehensive reports on energy and food (Energy – Earth and Everyone, edited by Medard Gabel, published by Doubleday; and Ho-Ping: FOOD, also edited by Medard Gabel on behalf of the World Game Group, and published by Doubleday).

Bucky chuckled over the fact that the UN had finally endorsed his work by adopting these encyclopedic studies as standard references. “As to be expected, they don’t seem to be leaping into action,” he lamented. “The merchants are still calling the shots.” He wanted me to have these books – but the advance copies weren’t in yet.

Bucky autographing books for me in his Market Street office in Philadelphia. 
This photo, which I printed myself, has survived three decades of floods, termite invasions,
and several changes of address.

So he wrote the titles for me on the back of an envelope and decided he couldn’t let me leave without a small stack of autographed books. While he was putting his shaky signature on the books, I took a couple of photographs of him – one of which keeps reappearing at the oddest of times from within the pages of my favorite collection of Bucky poems: And It Came To Pass – Not To Stay.

[Bucky was recalled from Spaceship Earth on 1 July 1983, about a week after helping his wife make the transition. Herman Kahn, oddly enough, died about a week later. Let's hope being free of all that mass has given him a Fuller perspective on everything.]

SELECTED BUCKYQUOTES

ETHICS by R. Buckminster Fuller

THE FULLER PERSPECTIVE

Towards a new epoch of Humane Economics

Text & Images from Malaysiakini

Anwar named Selangor economic adviser

Terence Netto
Nov 13, 2009
5:41pm


Anwar Ibrahim will get a chance to implement emerging new theories of economic development now that he's been appointed economic adviser to the Selangor state government.

The appointment was announced today by Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim in a bid to enlist a wider array of experience from within Pakatan Rakyat to boost its standing as pacesetter among Malaysian sates where economic development is concerned.

Khalid's administration was recently beset by internal dissension, with a couple of executive councillors opening feuding over matters ranging from the trivial to the important.

Anwar's presence in the state's inner councils would lend it prestige and have a diminishing effect on internal politicking.

Humane economic theories

In recent international forums, Anwar, the former Minister of Finance (1991-1998), has espoused a theory of humane economics which Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen have leaned towards as expressing a more holistic description of economic progress.

Until the current global financial crisis caused by subprime mortgages, rises in gross domestic product (GDP) were taken as sufficient indicators of economic progress, figures that Stiglitz and Sen now claim are only narrowly reflective of what analysts say ought to go into computing the Felcific Calculus: the levels of economic ease and social amenity that in combination reflect holistic human development.

While finance minister in the 1990s, Anwar presided over a period of strong economic growth, marked by surplus budgets, adequate spending on affordable housing, easy credit for small businesses, and stability in oil prices and toll rates.

Before becoming finance minister, Anwar held the portfolios of education, agriculture, youth, culture and sports, all of which sharpened his perceptual and analytical faculties for the winnowing of insight from experience.

Anwar's tenure as finance minister was marked by favourable international notices. The prestigious magazine Asia Money named him Finance Minister of the Year in 1996 and Newsweek International lauded him as Asian of the Year in 1998.

Anwar' stints as government minister gained him a wide array of international contacts first built up when he was leader of the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia, a base upon which he leveraged his national prominence to regional and world levels.

Climb up from a fall from grace

But it was not all prominence and glitter. With his sacking from government in 1998 and jailing for possibly trumped-up charges of corruption and sodomy, Anwar was accused of squirreling away RM3 billion in master accounts abroad.

The accusation deepened the depth of moral turpitude that his detractors claimed the once high-flying politician had fallen into.

So it was sweet vindication earlier this week when a former chief of the anti-corruption agency told a defamation trial in Kuala Lumpur that his agency's investigation of the charge in 1999 cleared Anwar of malfeasance.

It was rare vindication for a man against whom a slew of accusations was hurled the moment he fell from grace.

The strong anti-corruption stance of the former minister while in government had earned him the resentment of corporate and political conspirators seeking to amass wealth at the expense of good governance.

No doubt Anwar would be out to justify his reputation for financial accountability and transparency as economic adviser to the Selangor government that had marked his tenure as minister.

Cyberterrorist explosion rocks Putrajaya!

PI Bala surfaces to drop Bombshell 3

MISSING private investigator P. Balasubramaniam has broken his 15-month silence, claiming that Prime Minister Najib Razak’s younger brother, Nazim, met and threatened him into withdrawing his first statutory declaration.

Bala alleged that carpet businessman Deepak Jaikishan, an aide of the Prime Minister’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, instructed him to meet Nazim on the day he made public his statutory declaration.

He said the first statutory declaration in which he claimed that Najjib had a relationship with murdered Mongolian model Altantuya Shariibuu, a lover of the Prime Minister’s associate Abdul Razak Baginda, was true.

But he withdrew it and signed a second declaration after he was taken to see Nazim at the Curve in Damansara on July 3 2008 when he was told by the Prime Minister’s architect brother to “follow instructions if he loves his family.”

According to Bala, the specific instruction to him was to withdraw the July 3rd statutory declaration and leave Malaysia immediately.

Hours after that meeting, Bala signed a second statutory declaration which was prepared for him and later issued to the media.

He and his family were then taken by road to Singapore before being flown to Thailand and and Nepal and eventually to India, where he has been hiding since.

Bala gave the startling account of the alleged threats made by Nazim in a tell-all interview done overseas which concluded with him saying: “As a family man, I want to have a normal life. I want to put a stop to all this. ”

FreeMalaysiaToday was provided with excerpts of the interview done in the presence of three lawyers including Bala’s.

In the hour long interview, Bala gave an account of money allegedly promised by Deepak, whose orders Nazim told him to follow.

He claimed Deepak offered him a RM4 to RM5 million deal to sign the second statutory declaration retracting his allegation against Najib, and to remain overseas until Najib was installed as Prime Minister.

In the course of their conversations, Bala said Deepak related to him how he came to know Rosmah and even offered to arrange a breakfast meeting with the Prime Minister’s wife.

“(Deepak said) I can come back to Malaysia after Najib become the PM. (Also) he will make arrangements to have breakfast with Rosmah (for her to ) thank me ,” for retracting the first SD, Bala added.

However, no breakfast meeting took place with Rosmah, and Bala said he never received the RM5 million sweetener promised to him.

Although Najib’s smooth ascension to power took place as scheduled in April this year, Bala saw little to suggest that he would be allowed to return to Malaysia to lead a normal life with his family.

Bala said Deepak gave him about RM750,000 in total to cover expenses for him and his family during their stay overseas. The money was mostly banked into his account with cheques issued by Carpet Raya Sdn Bhd, of which Deepak is a director.

Another revealation by Bala was his meeting with a Malaysian Police Special Branch team which tracked him to Bangkok in July last year.

Bala said the officer in charge of the Special Branch team, ASP Muniandy, asked him which of the two statutory declarations was true.

“I told him the first SD was the true SD. Then he just shook my hand and said, ‘You are really brave,’” Bala quoted Muniandy as saying.

He said the police team then proceeded to record a statement from him for nearly seven hours on the contents of the first statutory declaration and events leadings to the release of the document.

Given the circumstances of fear and continued harassment against him and his family, Bala indicated he wanted to start his life afresh overseas with his family rather than returning to Malaysia as long as Najib and his people were in power.

Efforts to contact Nazim and Deepak were unsuccessful.

[This story originally appeared in Free Malaysia Today as well as Malaysia Today but has reportedly "disappeared" just like Bala! However, nothing is ever "lost" in cyberspace and the post can still be found here and here.]

FLASHBACK TO 18 JULY 2008...



The Bar Council today expressed concern over the number of lawyers being called in for questioning in relation to missing private investigator P. Balasubramaniam.

Malaysia's 7th prime minister (updated)

[This was originally posted 12 November 2009. Much has changed since then and I have added fresh commentary in green. However, one thing hasn't changed: I remain convinced that Anwar Ibrahim deserves our wholehearted support and that he is still Malaysia's best hope at this point. I believe that Anwar is the only leader that can drive the final nail into the coffin of Mahathirism - the cynical, twisted, materialistic ideology that got the nation bogged down in the deep shit of devious divisiveness.]


Like millions of other Malaysians I was looking forward gleefully to witnessing a Pakatan Rakyat government installed in Putrajaya after 16 September 2008 - with Anwar Ibrahim as our sixth prime minister.

Sixth... or seventh... it doesn't matter. I remain convinced that Anwar has the necessary experience to steer the nation clear of some treacherous reefs looming ahead.

Some of my friends say they would rather see Zaid Ibrahim (right) as PM. I'm a great admirer of Zaid Ibrahim and have no problem seeing him become prime minister one of these days.

[Well, this no longer holds true. Zaid Ibrahim has disqualified himself from consideration as a trustworthy leader. He has revealed himself as egotistical, petty-minded and vindictive.]

For that matter, Nizar Jamaluddin has also been described as prime minister material - but before he stands a chance of being appointed to the nation's highest office, his political party will have to shed some of the theological deadwood it is currently burdened with.

[It was reported yesterday that Hadi Awang bumped into Najib on the Sarawak campaign trail and hugged him warmly. That not only gives me the creeps, but I worry about PAS leaders like Hadi Awang, Nashrudin Mat Isa and Hasan Ali who seem unable to resist Umno's horny pheromones.]

In any case, so long as Anwar Ibrahim is in good health and willing to take on the responsibility, I would still prefer that the PM's job go to him. Not only does he have 16 years' experience under his belt as part of the Umno/BN regime under Mahathir, but he has also been initiated into the shadow side of power. Anwar has an intimate understanding of how precarious and illusory worldly power and status can be, having been at the receiving end of Mahathir's gross abuse of power back in 1998.

I'm convinced that anyone who has survived such a nightmarish ordeal would have learned to cherish the true meaning of freedom and justice.

Nurul Izzah Anwar, a member of parliament at 28

Apart from Anwar's phenomenal charisma as an orator and political reformer, he is supported by the magnificent Wan Azizah whose compassion, dignity and strength stand her in excellent stead as a prime minister's wife the entire nation can wholeheartedly love and respect. Not only that, their beautiful daughter Nurul Izzah has proven her mettle as an articulate, intelligent and plucky leader and has all the qualities necessary to someday become Malaysia's first female PM. (Not that I'm in favor of political dynasties - but being born into a political family does provide a strong foundation for handling the stresses and strains of leadership.)

More than a year after Anwar's abortive 916 plan to take over the reins of government, the political situation is totally bogged down in sinister intrigue while outrageous shenanigans continue to be perpetrated with impunity by the Umno/BN regime under Mr Pink Lips (right) - the crime minister appointed by 190 Umno division chiefs - and endorsed by the Malay rulers and the Bumoid Kakistocracy aka the Corporate Umnoputra.

A few of my moneyed friends have expressed their reservations about having Anwar Ibrahim as PM. Some parrot Mahathir and Daim Zainuddin's heavy hints about Anwar's cozy ties with key agents of the New World Order cabal and their Zionist banker connections. They're wary of the fact that Anwar is respected by well-known Neocons like Paul Wolfovitz and has access to a global network of influential names in academia and the mass media. Unlike Najib, Anwar Ibrahim doesn't have to pay millions to some Jewish PR agency to have the international media paint a rosy image of him as a leader.

Umno apologists just don't get it. These so-called Zionist plutocrats - men like George Soros (left), the Rothschilds, and the Rockefellers - admire intelligence and statesmanship and, of course, they are constantly trying to recruit new blood into their ranks. If they have indeed been courting Anwar, it simply means they believe Anwar is well worth luring into their inner circles - just as they at one time invited the likes of Lee Kuan Yew and Mahathir Mohamad to participate in closed-doors Bilderberg conferences. In the geopolitical arena one has to acknowledge that power has been jealously guarded for countless centuries by a secretive elite via interlocking fraternities like the Freemasons, Knights of Malta, and the Rotarians. The heads of these fraternities are members of even more exclusive and secretive mystical orders with names like the Priory of Sion, Opus Dei, the Bavarian Illuminati, and Ordo Templi Orientis.

Their deadly grip on power appears indomitable and absolute. But that's merely an illusion. Truth is, the cracks have become huge enough for new reality options to hatch from within these occult power centers.

David Mayer de Rothschild (born 25 August 1978), adventurer & environmentalist

As always their own descendants - the children and grandchildren of Evelyn Rothschild and David Rockefeller, for example, will break the family mold and mutate in ways unforeseen. Like a tower struck by lightning, the entire edifice of hereditary power and wealth will quickly crumble as the New World Order manifests as something its original planners would never in a million years have imagined possible.

As a brilliant and charming deputy prime minister cum finance minister, Anwar had apparently attracted the attention of these global powerbrokers. Perhaps he had been emboldened by their tacit support to make his power play against the recalcitrant Mahathir in mid-1997 - which triggered a vindictive and violent reaction from both Daim Zainuddin (above, right) and Mahathir who represented the vested interests of the Umnoputra elite that had burgeoned during Mahathir's 22-year premiership.

Those who had grown fat in the mid-1980s and early 1990s from Mahathir's largesse were naturally incensed by what they perceived as Anwar Ibrahim's impatience and impertinence. He had to be forcefully put down as an example to other would-be upstarts within the ranks of Umno. This explains the ferocity and sheer viciousness of their attack against Anwar in 1998. [And why they decided to dust off the sodomy script and whack him again with it in June 2008... and when that plot laughably fizzled out, they fished out that dubious "Datuk T" sex video.]

Reformasi 1998, Indonesia, brought down Suharto

It was nothing less than a political crucifixion. Just as two thousand years ago the entrenched Jewish priesthood and the obese merchants in Palestine were terrified of the master Yeshua's populist message of reform and renewal - the feudal power establishment in Malaysia was severely rattled by the close proximity of the same groundswell of massive rebellion that swept Suharto and his dynasty from power right next door in Indonesia.

Reformasi 1998, Malaysia: Anwar calls for Mahathir's resignation

The Umno old guard isn't quite dead yet. Mahathir still growls as he paces and prowls in growing frustration, watching Umno warlords repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot and dig themselves deeper and deeper into their own graves. Quietly monitoring the political shifts since 8 March 2008 from his invisible vantage point, former finance minister Daim Zainuddin makes hardly a sound - but he has been busy behind the scenes, doing whatever he can and must to thwart Anwar's ambitions to become PM.

As for the Malay rulers, they have been compromised - particularly since the mid-1980s - by their immersion in entrepreneurial pursuits - an unhealthy trend that escalated following Mahathir's usurpation of their traditional authority. Few of them have any head for business, so they are largely dependent on a shadowy cadre of Umnoputra tycoons and the fly-by-night financial adventurers who serve as their advisors and proxies.

This is certainly an untenable and unwholesome situation. The royal houses must decide very soon whether to throw their lot in with the collapsing Umnoputra house of cards - or to discreetly extricate themselves from further involvement in the sordid world of business - a realm where their royal stature is susceptible to being irreversibly tarnished and brought into severe disrepute. They cannot carry on dabbling in business, getting entangled in constant conflicts of interest or risking legal action when their enterprises go bust - and yet expect the public to shut up and keep paying their royal allowances.

I was telling some friends recently that the political atmosphere during the Mahathir Era was horribly stifling, especially after 1986 when his power faced serious challenges. But, strangely, things feel even worse today - not necessarily because Najib is crueler and more ruthless than his cynical puppetmaster - but simply because the Internet can now reveal the full extent of Umno/BN's criminal mismanagement, complete with charts and tables and long lists of figures.


Thanks to the emergence in Cyberspace of loose cannon maverick royals like Raja Petra Kamarudin - whose access to "official secrets" and whose ability to expose and destroy the rogue regime we call Umno/BN (along with all who stubbornly cling to their ill-gotten gains and their obscene privileges) should never be underestimated - those of us who genuinely love this country still have many strategic options apart from migrating.


As RPK has so admirably shown by positioning himself out of harm's way and continuing to fire salvo after salvo at the fortress of the Wicked Queen, it's futile trying to scare bloggers into silence. You can haul up and question a few - but at what cost to your expensively tailored international image? And for every Malaysian-based blogger who gets intimidated into silence, a hundred outspoken bloggers based abroad will emerge to carry on the information war.

[RPK launched the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement as a "Third Force" when he realized that Anwar Ibrahim had his own way of doing things that didn't always coincide with RPK's strong opinions. These two men are extremely charismatic but very different in temperament. Anwar is a natural-born fiery orator, diplomat and political strategist; while RPK enjoys the role of flamboyant revolutionary and gunslinging political Paladin, six-shooters blazing from both holsters. RPK has never run for political office and maintains a stance independent of BN and PR. However, what troubles me is that RPK maintains an affable, hand-kissing relationship with Dr Mahathir and recently met with Sanusi Junid, who was sent to the UK as Dr M's emissary to persuade RPK to disconnect from Anwar Ibrahim. RM10 million was dangled as a carrot. RPK says he turned it down, even though he was momentarily tempted.]

One of the perks of amassing a vast fortune is to be admired and applauded wherever you go. However, if your reputation sinks to the level of infamous rogues like Robert Mugabe, Augusto Pinochet, Ferdinand Marcos, Slobodan Milošević, General Than Shwe, Kim Jong-Il, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney... you'd probably be wishing you could have been half as talented as Michael Jackson instead... or twice as dead.

THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL (REVISITED)

The root of all evil isn't MONEY, contrary to popular belief. It's JEALOUSY. How so? Consider the greatest of all possible evils - MONOTHEISM - as expressed in the utterly psychotic statement: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me, for I am a jealous god." You may substitute "goddess" for "god" and the results are equally abysmal.

Just ask yourself this: if you were indeed the One and Only Deity in Existence, would you be constantly looking over your shoulder in anticipation of rivals or threats to your Absolute Status? In Barbara Hand Clow's nebulous tome, The Pleiadian Agenda, I was struck by a powerful quote attributed to the Prophet Isaiah: "Monotheism breeds fanatical anthropocentrism, which eventually destroys Earth." How absolutely and tragically true.


Such a jealous, spiteful, insecure, and vengeful deity can only engender generations of jealous, spiteful, insecure, and vengeful humans. The Old Testament records the first instance of murder in the story of Cain and Abel. The archetypal case of sibling rivalry wherein a deity plays favorites with two brothers over their ritual offerings and arouses a jealousy so intense it leads to fratricide. Fast forward to Abraham and his sister-wife Sara, whose greed and jealousy result in the unjust expulsion of Hagar, the servant who bore Abe his first-born son, Ishmael. Behold, the remote descendants of Ishmael (generically known as Arabs) to this day continue to be cruelly treated by the remote descendants of Sara's freak-birth progeny, Isaac (generically known as Jews)!


My wife of almost 15 years, Anoora, is a real cutie... except when possessed by the demon, Jealousy. This demon she inherited from her mother, whose emotional insecurity was pathological to the degree that it drove two previous husbands to drink, distraction and, eventually, divorce.

Jealousy is in itself a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that the person you proclaim to love - and whose exclusive devotion and sexual attention you demand - invariably begins contemplating the pleasures of strange flesh as soon as nagging suspicion begins to rear its ugly, deformed head.

I can happily swear eternal allegiance, affection, and friendship to anybody who has won my heart... but to insist on exclusivity seems to me the epitome of insanity. Imagine vowing to eat at only one restaurant your entire life. That's an insult to FOOD!

The crux of the problem is that monotheistic religions have programmed their followers into believing there is only ONE way to be married, and only ONE interpretation of wedded bliss - and that's MONOGAMY! {Okay, so Islam and Mormonism allow polygamy - but only on strictly patriarchal terms wherein a well-to-do man can have several wives/concubines but a woman can't have several husbands/toyboys. Pathetically dickheaded, if you ask me.)

My own parents were married for more than 60 years... but Dad probably had that many lovers on the side (and Mum quite a few too, though far more discreetly)... and most folks do indulge in a fair amount of "illicit" (read "unlicenced") sex, only problem being they have to be hypocritical and sneaky about their behavior - instead of being good-humored, honest, and open-hearted about their own testosteronal or pheromonal propensities. Of all the women I've known, perhaps only two or three were virgins before they met me - but I've certainly loved and cherished the others no less, and enjoyed them all the more for their sexual experience and emotional maturity.


I'm convinced that if POLYAMORY was included as another way to explore LOVE and HARMONY, the world would blossom into a spiritually wholesome and truth-valuing place - where deceit, hypocrisy, guilt, and vindictiveness cannot flourish, and destructive jealousy will be seen for what it is: an emotional disease!

As I approach my 60th solar orbit I feel sufficiently seasoned to declare myself a pantheistic pansexual. That's right, folks: everything and everybody is actually quite edible if your perception is pristinely unclouded.

STEVE PAVLINA ON POLYAMORY

"Crimes of avarice and ambition, committed by men of calculation..."

The greatest of all crimes are the wars that are carried on by governments, to plunder, enslave, and destroy mankind.

The next greatest crimes committed in the world are equally prompted by avarice and ambition; and are committed, not on sudden passion, but by men of calculation, who keep their heads cool and clear, and who have no thought whatever of going to prison for them.

They are committed, not so much by men who violate the laws, as by men who, either by themselves or by their instruments, make the laws; by men who have combined to usurp arbitrary power, and to maintain it by force and fraud, and whose purpose in usurping and maintaining it is by unjust and unequal legislation, to secure to themselves such advantages and monopolies as will enable them to control and extort the labor and properties of other men, and thus impoverish them, in order to minister to their own wealth and aggrandizement.

The robberies and wrongs thus committed by these men, in conformity with the laws, - that is, their own laws - are as mountains to molehills, compared with the crimes committed by all other criminals, in violation of the laws.

Lysander Spooner (January 19, 1808 – May 14, 1887) was an American individualist anarchist, entrepreneur, political philosopher, abolitionist, supporter of the labor movement, and legal theorist of the nineteenth century.

[NOTE: The term "spoonerism" was named after another Spooner - Rev. W.A. Spooner - not Lysander!]

GET ANWAR! REDUX AD RIDICULUM!

"The absolute truth is that Mahathir is an absolute liar." ~ Dr Munawar Anees

On 3 October 2000, ABC (Australia) broadcast this powerful documentary about the sordid political circumstances surrounding Anwar Ibrahim's trial in 1999. This footage was digitized, compressed and uploaded on YouTube on 26 December 2007 - just in time for Malaysia's epochal 12th General Election. I first viewed the documentary sometime in 2001 on a VHS copy somebody lent me; and about a year ago I viewed all seven parts on YouTube.


I think this is an extremely well-researched and competently produced documentary that deserves to be permanently archived as a reminder to all Malaysians of the terrible evils of dictatorial misrule, a corrupt judiciary, and a politically compromised police force. Ten years later, it appears that little has changed.... or is that just a delusion on the part of the Barisan Nasional regime?

ANWAR'S TRIAL (Part 1)


ANWAR'S TRIAL (PART 2)


ANWAR'S TRIAL (PART 3)


ANWAR'S TRIAL (PART 4)


ANWAR'S TRIAL (PART 5)


ANWAR'S TRIAL (PART 6)


ANWAR'S TRIAL (PART 7)


FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (ABC Australia)
Malaysia - Trial of Anwar Ibrahim
Broadcast: 03/10/2000
Reporter: Evan Williams


[Compressed for webstreaming and uploaded by YouthMalaysian]