My sympathies to the people of Australia and
especially to the citizens of Sydney. Many of my friends are
peace-loving Australian citizens and have lived in this, probably the
most beautiful city of great diversity.
I have lived for more than a decade minutes from New York City and was here when 9/11 happened. The city folk came together to heal. I hope and believe that the people of Sydney will do the same, too, having lost two courageous citizens at the hands of fate, who clearly had not understood what the lesson was.
As a longtime columnist of Malaysiakini, a Malaysian online portal, and one who teaches courses in Global Issues, Philosophy, Cultural, and American Studies I have been a keen student of the evolution and transcultural flow of religious- based violence of late, especially in South-East Asia.
I
call this the ‘Sydney Syndrome’ as it relates to the problem of
negative enculturalisation and in fact, anti-nationalism and in this
case anti-Australianism that must be addressed through education.
I call it so; a situation in which a person sought asylum in a liberal-secular nation and after a certain period turned around, creating controlled chaos in the hope that one day the country that gave him/her protection will turn into a society that he/she escaped from.
This is the opposite of the Stockholm Syndrome; in that the latter is a situation in which a person held hostage feels sympathy and has positive feelings towards the captor or even falls in love with him/her, somewhat what like a politically-sadistic Master-Slave narrative being played out.
In the Sydney Syndrome, there is the asylum-seeker’s or immigrant’s love for the host country, but the love is so intense, with freedom to spread hatred and to harm those who do not have interest in the complexity of what the government is doing vis-a-viz the Global War on Terror. Hence the innocent and the bystanders will often be the victims.
Those afflicted by the Sydney Syndrome have nothing to lose or even have no need to live when Death in the name of this or that ideology will promise eternal life of liberation and happiness.
The goal is that of advancing anti-freedom.
Instead of learning the better standards of human rights and social justice upheld in the advanced countries or the ‘Kaffir-nations’ that have a more matured sense of democracy, those afflicted with the Sydney Syndrome will use the freedom to speak, assemble, and petition to demand for the rights to one day set up a society that will deny the freedom of others to speak, to assemble, and to live in a gender-equal and socially-just society in which the rights and privileges of pluralism are respected and almost guaranteed.
The demand for the implementation of the man-made Sharia Law in a secular country of which the constitution is supreme, is an example of the manifestation of this Sydney Syndrome.
I am sharing these verses I wrote some time ago, in condemnation of what happened in Sydney.
The day Osama died
The day Obama put that Osama to sleep I saw a rainbow across the Manhattan sky
But why was it black?
with a darker cloud bursting at the end
of the rainbow?
The end of jihad and the last man could it be?
I do not know
Meditating upon a Manhattan bagel and a latte to begin my day
Watching bodies flow up and down Fifth Avenue
A man in three-piece suit at a news stand holding a daily
a front page photo
of that man Osama
a large caption reads ‘ROT IN HELL’
Meandering were my thoughts as those words danced frantically
Does not the Quran curse those who bring terror
in the name of Thy Lord who created thee and placed thee in an abode called ‘Love’?
Did not the Quran warn against false prophets and those who bring chaos into this world?
Did not the Quran asketh human beings to see and feel what the Path of Righteousness is about?
Did not the last verse of the Quran speak about holding on fast
to the brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity?
Is not the greatest jihad lie in the struggle against
arrogance,
intoxication of power,
selfishness,
gluttony,
the urge to plunder,
murder
... in the name of religion too?
Why must those who believe in the Merciful and The Compassionate be apologists
to those who create terror and make false promises
to those who are trained to terrorise?
That Osama died for his own truth
In a world wherein there is none to hold on to
except that of one's evolving own
truth that matters lies not in how others have read the Scriptures for you
but how you have read them
and how the Scriptures in turn have read you
From Love Man hath come
Unto Love Man shall return
I have lived for more than a decade minutes from New York City and was here when 9/11 happened. The city folk came together to heal. I hope and believe that the people of Sydney will do the same, too, having lost two courageous citizens at the hands of fate, who clearly had not understood what the lesson was.
As a longtime columnist of Malaysiakini, a Malaysian online portal, and one who teaches courses in Global Issues, Philosophy, Cultural, and American Studies I have been a keen student of the evolution and transcultural flow of religious- based violence of late, especially in South-East Asia.
I
call this the ‘Sydney Syndrome’ as it relates to the problem of
negative enculturalisation and in fact, anti-nationalism and in this
case anti-Australianism that must be addressed through education.I call it so; a situation in which a person sought asylum in a liberal-secular nation and after a certain period turned around, creating controlled chaos in the hope that one day the country that gave him/her protection will turn into a society that he/she escaped from.
This is the opposite of the Stockholm Syndrome; in that the latter is a situation in which a person held hostage feels sympathy and has positive feelings towards the captor or even falls in love with him/her, somewhat what like a politically-sadistic Master-Slave narrative being played out.
In the Sydney Syndrome, there is the asylum-seeker’s or immigrant’s love for the host country, but the love is so intense, with freedom to spread hatred and to harm those who do not have interest in the complexity of what the government is doing vis-a-viz the Global War on Terror. Hence the innocent and the bystanders will often be the victims.
Those afflicted by the Sydney Syndrome have nothing to lose or even have no need to live when Death in the name of this or that ideology will promise eternal life of liberation and happiness.
The goal is that of advancing anti-freedom.
Instead of learning the better standards of human rights and social justice upheld in the advanced countries or the ‘Kaffir-nations’ that have a more matured sense of democracy, those afflicted with the Sydney Syndrome will use the freedom to speak, assemble, and petition to demand for the rights to one day set up a society that will deny the freedom of others to speak, to assemble, and to live in a gender-equal and socially-just society in which the rights and privileges of pluralism are respected and almost guaranteed.
The demand for the implementation of the man-made Sharia Law in a secular country of which the constitution is supreme, is an example of the manifestation of this Sydney Syndrome.
I am sharing these verses I wrote some time ago, in condemnation of what happened in Sydney.
The day Osama died
The day Obama put that Osama to sleep I saw a rainbow across the Manhattan sky
But why was it black?
with a darker cloud bursting at the end
of the rainbow?
The end of jihad and the last man could it be?
I do not know
Meditating upon a Manhattan bagel and a latte to begin my day
Watching bodies flow up and down Fifth Avenue
A man in three-piece suit at a news stand holding a daily
a front page photo
of that man Osama
a large caption reads ‘ROT IN HELL’
Meandering were my thoughts as those words danced frantically
Does not the Quran curse those who bring terror
in the name of Thy Lord who created thee and placed thee in an abode called ‘Love’?
Did not the Quran warn against false prophets and those who bring chaos into this world?
Did not the Quran asketh human beings to see and feel what the Path of Righteousness is about?
Did not the last verse of the Quran speak about holding on fast
to the brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity?
Is not the greatest jihad lie in the struggle against
arrogance,
intoxication of power,
selfishness,
gluttony,
the urge to plunder,
murder
... in the name of religion too?
Why must those who believe in the Merciful and The Compassionate be apologists
to those who create terror and make false promises
to those who are trained to terrorise?
That Osama died for his own truth
In a world wherein there is none to hold on to
except that of one's evolving own
truth that matters lies not in how others have read the Scriptures for you
but how you have read them
and how the Scriptures in turn have read you
From Love Man hath come
Unto Love Man shall return
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Reality is that which faces us when we have changed our mind.
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