Ode to my eldest son

By how much have I wronged you?
1. by not being by your side at all times when you need me
2. by driving you away from me, and making you distrust and abhor me, and therefore making close personal relationaship  difficult
3. by taking sides against you, and then showing that I do not stand up for equity and justice
4. by not scolding others or not putting the same yardstick against your other siblings.

to all the above, I am deeply sorry and I hope that you can forgive me.Despite all that, I still love you very deeply and I always try to be the best dad that you can have.

Speech from Dr Danial to JIM Timur Laur from 2000

A short speech delivered by Dr Danial from the year 2000, but timeless and relevant in its message. Within that space of time, Dr Danial is now a public figure and widely respected, as he should be and me? I need to look at myself in the mirror.

 

Assalamualaikum.

 

Saya bersyukur kerana JIM Timur Laut telah melaksanakan janjinya untuk memberikan fokus kepada tarbiyah, pendidikan, IPT dan dakwah kepada yang belum Islam. Di bidang dakwah kepada yang belum Islam saya amat menekankan tentang konsep sinergi dengan IPCI dan ABIM-Outreach. Usahasama dengan sahabat-sahabat kita ini, saya yakin, akan menghasilkan sesuatu yang lebih baik demi masa depan ummah dan dakwah.

 

TUGAS MULIA UNTUK INSAN MULIA

 

Dakwah dalam konteks mengajak kepada makruf dan nahi mungkar adalah suatu tugas yang amat mulia. Tugas yang mulia hanya akan dipikul oleh mereka yang mulia. Justeru itu ianya diamanahkan kepada semua insan-insan pilihan yang bergelar Rasul. Kita adalah waris kepada Rasul-Rasul dan jika kita merupakan insan-insan yang mulia, kita juga akan melaksanakan tugas mulia yang bernama dakwah islamiah ini. Kita tidak akan menjadikan kerjaya kita, ‘overtime’ kita, rumah besar, kereta besar, pangkat besar dan gaji besar kita sebagai alasan untuk meninggalkan dakwah. Saya yakin kita masih ingat tentang dialog yang berlaku di antara Zainab binti Jahsy dengan Rasulullah, di mana Zainab r.a. telah bertanya kepada Nabi: “Adakah kita akan dihancurkan sedangkan masih ada orang-orang yang solih bersama-sama kita?” Nabi menjawab: “Ya, bila kemungkaran berleluasa!” Hadis ini telah diriwayatkan oleh Imam Muslim. Jelas sekali, bila kita meninggalkan dakwah, Allah dan bantuanNya akan meninggalkan kita.

 

ILMU ADALAH ASAS

 

Dalam hidup dan perjuangan, ilmu adalah penting untuk dikuasai kerana tanpanya kita akan terbabas. Kesungguhan untuk mencari ilmu melambangkan juga keseriusan kita untuk mengabdikan diri kepada Allah secara yang berkualiti. Nabi Adam sebelum dilantik sebagai Khalifah di muka bumi, telah dibekalkan Allah dengan ilmu-ilmu yang mantap seperti yang disebutkan di dalam surah Al-Baqarah pada ayat 31. Ada sesetengah kita yang begitu mengkagumi tulisan-tulisan Steven R. Covey, Peter Drucker, Napoleon Hill, Anthony Robins, Denis Waitley, B. Eugene Griessman dan lain-lainnya. Tidak ada salahnya untuk kita membaca karya-karya mereka dan memanfaatkan isi-isinya, namun kita perlu ingat bahawa karya yang paling utama untuk kita fahami dan dalami ialah Al-Quran, As-Sunnah dan buku-buku teras yang memperincikan tentang Quran dan Sunnah. Saya berharap kita tidak merasakan bahawa kita benar-benar sudah memahami dan mendalami Quran, Sunnah dan karya-karya agung ulama-ulama silam sehingga kita tidak memerlukannya lagi pada hari ini, kerana sikap yang seperti itu akan membinasakan kta sendiri. Jangan kita lupa bahawa kita adalah golongan ‘Fundamentalist yet Contemporary’ dan untuk menjadi ‘fundamentalists’ kita perlu memahami secara mendalam Al-Quran dan As-Sunnah dan selepas itu barulah kita manfaatkan bahan-bahan dan teknologi yang berbentuk kontemporari.

 

KELUNTURAN

 

Kelunturan akan menyerang kita bila dunia menguasai hati kita. Ketika itu perbuatan yang haram menjadi mudah untuk kita lakukan, ibadah akan dilakukan secara tergesa-gesa dan kita amat membenci teguran dan nasihat yang berdasarkan agama. Saya hendak mengingatkan kita tentang pergaulan di antara lelaki dan wanita, agar kita tidak terlampau kendur tentangnya. Saya tidak bermaksud untuk kita sentiasa memasang tirai di dalam majlis-majlis yang kita adakan, tetapi saya mahu batas-batas syariat tentangnya dipatuhi. Begitu juga dengan batas-batas aurat di dalam pemakaian wanita-wanita JIM. Kelunturan dalam beramal boleh tertonjol di dalam bentuk pemakaian. Hendaknya janganlah kita lupa bahawa kita adalah pendakwah dan sepatutnya kita menjadi contoh yang baik bagi orang lain. Seorang pendakwah yang baik ialah dia yang memulakan dakwah dengan dirinya terlebih dahulu. Terima kasih.

 

Dr. Danial Zainal Abidin,

YDP JIM Pulau Pinang.

 

 

 

Calibrating My Personal Charter

PERSONAL CHARTER



April 5, 2011

Realising that secular objectives, no matter how interim, is both misplaced and destructive, that I shall strive insyaAllah and with Allah’s guidance, to fulfill my fullest potential, and also to bear responsibility of realising the potential of those under my care, which includes my wife and children, and be the most positive influence I can be to others that I come into contact with, to benefit the purpose that Allah has given to His creation.


September 18, 2009; 28 Ramadhan 1430H

For the next 5 years, my financial planning mission shall be:

• Benefactor to others
• Work only for a worthy cause
• Secure dependents

1 Jan 2007


I will ensure my life and my family will live a life of integrity according to values approved by Islam and social order

I will be determined in ensuring we reach that goal while at the same time ensuring my parents are safeguarded;
including my wife and children; and our relations



I will have determination that I build up through persistence and tenacity;

I will pursue those goals with bravery and courage, and not be stopped by fear


I will pray that Allah protects my objective and makes it easy

I will also have understanding and tolerance for other people's viewpoints, perspectives, problems, concerns, and make it my own

I will use my rational thought coupled with hope and prayer to its fullest ability and find the opportunities that life brings for the betterment of this life

Migration is a realistic option

Malaysia is going down the failed nation route

1. This country is eroding.
2. Utusan is a joke of a newspaper who thinks their agenda of helping malays by continuing unquestioning loyalty to UMNO will perpetuate the malays survival, even at the expense of dumbing down the malays. Their overzealousness to prove Anwar as the protagonist of all evil in the world is made with the assumption that the malays are emotional and unthinking, and by goign through the moral high ground they can guarantee Anwar's destruction. I'm no big fan of Anwar post-2008 after all the miscalculated political missteps, but when Wan Azizah says it isn't Anwar, that's good enough for me. I trust Wan Azizah understands the concept of loyalty, as it is taught in Islam, is predicated upon truth and goodness, not upon deception and political calculation. So Utusan - may your editors find peace in themselves, and may the once-proud newspaper forever die a slow, painful death through making themselves an irrelevant space filler in dirty drains. The expected reaction to this is that this is a treacherous thought to allow a powerful symbol of Malay power, but in truth, Utusan has been a traitor to the malay agenda by ensuring the continued ignorance, prejudiced, unprincipled and emotional views to be propagated to unthinking malays.
3. Seeing Tun's blog on how to develop a university town today is another revolting idea. Tun is brilliant, but a supernormal Einsteinic, Alexander the Great he is not. His brilliance should have been focused on institutional building for continued malay development, not for short-cut, original but ultimately untested ideas. Instead, he cultivated a sycophantic following forever asking his ideas on development and regarding it as unquestionable truth. Malays will only progress once they start taking responsibility for themselves, and not waiting for a supreme feudalistic ruler to bring them to success. The sooner Tun really retires, the better for the malays. Najib should outflank him, and outflank him now.

Return to the origins

1. Bahasa has this nice proverb saying "kembali ke pangkal jalan" to signify life's typical journey of returning to fundamentals whenever we veer away from where we intend to go.
2. I've always had this feeling of chasing after money, no matter how interim, that objective becomes a domineering overwhelming instinct that eats up all our efforts, time and resources. No matter how noble the intent can be, ie looking after my family's interests and financial demands, it then becomes the mechanism where the original direction will be lost. There will be no balance, no proportion, and looking for proportion no matter how clearly it resides outside of the workplace now, it would be imbalanced when we lose the sense that Allah is the overriding, primary aim of life.
3. It has taken Sarah's leaving to ignite that need, now becoming a temporary single parent would naturally increase that reliance on Allah which I had quite conveniently left it by the wayside. It is time to return.
4. Just to add to the sense of unrealness, RTC has now initiated a video screening of proof that Anwar cannot control his Thamby. Talk of the inadequacy of someone raising libel on others. I cant visualise any other person with this kind of background displaying such a disregard of personal embarassment and shame, inability to find remorse and accountability, and no feeling of political responsibility to chase a personal vendetta. Society needs clean, clear-thinking, above this dirty politics that UMNO has become so synonymous with. I do feel a personal calling in this regard, and the call of money seems to be the only obstacle holding me back.
5. Elsewhere, Fukushima will result in a much increased cost of nuclear generation, and it remains to be seen if coupled with variability of oil price whether this could really push the envelope for RE generation, no matter how un prepared it is to become mainstream currently and the demands of subsidies to get it up. Certainly a business opportunity.
6. Wifey is overseas for the next 2 weeks - I'm bearing the brunt of the work at office and home in that period. I'll have to decide if this is worthwhile as a full-fledged career. Nevertheless, the demands of a PIBG Secretary, a business matching organiser, a scientific advisory technopreneur and a trainer could certainly be a productive alternative. 

What's right with Malaysia

Previous entry(ies) here referred:
http://flinflan.blogspot.com/2010/09/to-address-whats-right-with-malaysia-we.html

So, where to Malaysia?
Essentially looking forward, the debate can simplistically be said to be status quo, ie Malay political dominance (rather than hegemony) vs goign to the far extreme of harsh Islamic Taliban-style state or the other harsh-extreme of laissez-faire secular-liberal valueless 'Western model', the type that Islamists of the 60s fight hard against.

To be fair, the two extremes dont appear likely. Islamists have veered to the centre now, as evidenced with Ikhwan's positioning in the Egyptian crisis and Rashid Ghannouchi's in Tunisia. What could have been seen as the right opportunity to stake a claim for Islamic statism, was forgone for a centralist position. Islamists political stance has matured. Abu Iman even goes so far as to say impossible for this to take place (although this may have been a misreported quote) and incited the ire of his party members.

Liberal and secular leaders know there's no way they can get support of the Malays, because of the imagery of Chinese chavs or purely against Islamic principle. Status quo appears to be more likely in the long-run, and that is without factoring in PKR's desperate and confusing positioning ever since Anwar becomes so embroiled in his sodomy trial that his deputies just cant help shooting themselves everywhere. UMNO needs to reform itself, but without full support from their non-malay partners who cant save themselves either, look like they too will have problems. Malay society will continue to be split for some time.

On the other hand, as the stand-off continues on the political ideologies of the 2 biggest malay parties, and I would think an integration is a viable outcome if the threat of backstabbing can be mitigated ie certain personalities were to change,then debate will occur on administrative policies.

So here I list certain debates I'd like to occur and see some strong willed opinion-shapers emerge to lead this to the best possible solutions:
1. Administration of Justice, restoration of impartiality
- removal of scent of partiality
- removal of threat of abuse, fear and insecurity
- justice and fairness in policy application to all cultures, religions and social classes
- inculclating meritocracy and removal of cronyism, including open tender systems and such
- stengthening institutional independence

2. strengthening economic growth
- creating a vibrant wide-based economic base, that adds value to commodity resources we are currently very strong in
- fulfilling social welfare needs, esp urban living. ie transportation - get this MRT project right the first time - where's the bloody masterplan. Then improving infrastructure connectivity throughout Peninsular, (what about East Coast) and East Malaysia. develop fairly.
- emphasise old, weak, infirm, handicapped etc. Why is Bersamamu so dependent on society? where is government role in supporting this?
- emphasise innovation
- reduce frivolous govt spending

3. Social reformation
- masyarakat madani - for the malay-muslim society. Esp for UMNO
- incorruptible
- respectful
- harmonious
- allow social mobility - support, but only for the deserving
- low crime rates - stop this silly buang anak, zina, kicking of cats / dogs

4. Education
- respect for all cultures
- language development for everyone
- academic emphasis but competitive sports and extracurricular portion

Looking at the above criteria, I can give my KPIs to the following Ministries and the PM now.
1. Justice - PM - 2/10
2. Economy - PM/MOF, EPU, other large ministries- 2/10
3. Social reformation - PM 1/10 (Permata program is barking up the wrong tree)
4. Education - 1/10

I'm sorry if I'm too harsh in my assessment, but there is an appeal process possible. It's called political will for policy change.

Organic growth of innovation vs Centralisation of institutions, MRT

Innovation

1. Malaysian Government under Najib has a funny way of doing things. When things dont work, they undermine the whole system by duplicating the role. Take EPU. Planning without execution, botched megaprojects etc.. create PEMANDU.. hooray lots of megaprojects and EPPs for all ETP, which will meet the NKEAs being tracked by NKRAs. RMK10 throw in the dustbin. MOSTI not paying attention to the I, fine - create UNIK.
2. Leadership is about getting the right people on the bus, and making sure the wrong people gets off the bus. Especially in situation requiring hard decisions. Constrained resources. People respect you for doing the hard decisions, but you must explain yourself. The waffling, flip-flopping nature of Pak Lah's administration is now replaced by waffling, you-can-get-away-with-anything administration of Najib. At least, there are decisions. Wrong, but decisions nonetheless.
3. Now this creature of UNIK. What does it do first? Come up with an Akta that centralises innovation powers in its hand. The la-la hypothesis is that the Chief UNIK is a know-it-all and a snap of his fingers will cause the whole of Malaysia to tremble in fear and be innovative. Sounds like a Stalinist / Hitlerist maneouvre to me.
4. Why cant ppl in Malaysia be trusted to do the right things through incentivising innovative practices, and then discouraging stupid acts of giving some inflated contracts to unqualified people? Why cant the best global talents be facilitated into the country and lead and mould best practice entities, and hoping there is enough tech absorption by creating the environment for people to accept best practices? Why cant we do away with just giving some pieces of the cake to people we know who can talk their way out of trouble but probably lacks the competence and gumption to make a difference? Where are the innovative entrepreneurs (not the innovative rentiers) that the country has produced so far, and give them a free and facilitating hand to expand? What are incentives to offer to private capital to come in?
5. Instead, UNIK will have powers to 'streamline' existing funds and appoint innovation ambassadors. Fine, there are opportunities to improve, but these are incremental improvements, not game-changers as those outlined in Item 4. If UNIK can only do incremental stuff so that the game-changer explodes, I'm afraid innovation will still occur in Malaysia, but it will be inspite of UNIK not because of it.
6. Innovation will thrive when the environment allows it to. Lifelong education, primary, secondary, tertiary. Entrepreneurial training - engaging Entrepreneurs in Residence to mentor successful ventures. VCs and PEs need the deal pipelines in place, and this can be done by co-locating them into major innovation centers - and sorry, but somehow that means not in KL. Target sectors should be able to access global markets, but sorry, knowing a couple of MNCs may not be sufficient. Someone needs to tap local agencies with global reach, and large MNCs to open up market access. And this is no small matter if we look at some of the areas that we are interested in - large pharmas - US, Europe and India, industrial biotech - US, China, Europe, Brazil, ICT - mainly emerging markets, other sectors as relevant.  
7. If after no 6, what we do is centralisation, I'm afraid someone is hopelessly deluded. Innovation ecosystem and culture - and centralised in one single agency because the multi-agency committee / ministry failed to execute its function before. Perhaps this can be dismissed as just another Malaysian cynic. Maybe so. But if people up there are serious to do good, Rakyat Didahulukan and all that stuff, this is one hell of a strange way to carry out your functions - relying on one smartarse to perform what a ministry has failed to do.

MRT

1. It's shameful that the absurd costings and silly alignment that the EPP for MRT as shown in their open day kind of shows the shallowness of the proposal. The project feels and looks rushed. Accepting an unsolicited proposal from the private sector and after protests appointing the same company as a project manager, and then promising a Swiss Challenge is merely an afterthought. Just one question. Where is the bloody masterplan incorporating the whole transport planning for the Klang Vally and its adjacent satellite towns. If there isnt one, shame on PEMANDU, SPAD and everyone related to this proposal! Federal Highway will still be jammed because Subang Jaya isnt part of this planning. Where are the traffic forecasts? Where is the costing? Where is the inputs from the planning agencies from all the local authorities? Who is driving this - SPAD, PEMANDU, or GAMUDA? Who bloody cares about the increased property prices?
2. Worst thing (or Best of all) about all of this is a Citizen-watchgroup calling themselves TRANSIT has a proper masterplan and proposal to do this. Malu weh.