Hikayat Moden: Bahagian III (Pak Belalang & Itik)

Baca Bahagian I & Bahagian II di sini.
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Salah satu masalah besar dalam negeri adalah masalah banjir yang terjadi setiap tahun pada musim tengkujuh. Setiap tahun, banjir mengorbankan harta dan jiwa rakyat jelata. Mereka berharap pemimpin baru mereka Pak Belalang boleh menyelesaikan masalah ini seperti Pak Belalang biasa buat dengan masalah kehilangan kereta mereka.
 
Pak Belalang mengumpulkan semua rakyat jelata di dewan perhimpunan negeri. Dia belanja mereka semua minum kopi buntut kuali Belalang yang sangat kaw kaw dan terlajak laris itu.

Tanpa pengetahuan rakyat jelata, Belalang telah mencampurkan dalam kopi tersebut sejenis candu berjenama "Karl Marx" buatan dari Jerman. Ini untuk menyenangkan lagi Pak Belalang memberi keyakinan kepada rakyat.

Pak Belalang mengajak semua rakyat jelata mengubah paradigma pemikiran mereka dan jangan terlalu manja dengan sedikit hujan yang turun setiap tahun. Sebenarnya negeri mereka tiada masalah banjir yang besar. Air yang naik setiap tahun pada musim tengkujuh sebenarnya sedikit sahaja dan tidaklah sebegitu teruk. Tidak perlu untuk membelanjakan berjuta ringgit untuk membina sistem penebatan banjir.

Untuk membuktikan perkara ini secara saintifik, dia menunjukkan gambar-gambar yang diambil semasa banjir untuk beberapa tahun yang lepas. Semua gambar-gambar tersebut menunjukkan banjir yang berlaku di negeri mereka hanyalah setakat paras dada itik sahaja. Dia juga membawa masuk beberapa ekor itik ke dalam dewan dan menunjukkan bahawa paras dada itik adalah sangat rendah.



Itik yang diimport dari Tasik Iseo, Italy.

Pak Belalang memberi tazkirah bahawa negeri mereka sangat diberkati Tuhan. Negeri lain banjir teruk setiap tahun pada musim tengkujuh, tetapi negeri mereka hanya banjir setakat paras dada itik sahaja. Keberkatan ini adalah kerana rakyat jelata negeri ini telah memilih pemimpin yang alim lagi warak setiap tahun untuk memimpin negeri. Mereka perlu mendengar nasihat pemimpin pilihan Tuhan ini jika ingin negeri mereka terus diberkati.

Maka semua rakyat jelata berasa malu kerana merasakan mereka telah membesarkan masalah yang sebenarnya bukan masalah pun. Mereka bersyukur kepada Tuhan kerana telah dikurniakan dengan seorang pemimpin yang bijaksana dan alim lagi warak. Sifat alim dan warak Pak Belalang yang teramat menjaga amanah duit rakyat agar tidak dibelanjakan pada perkara-perkara yang tidak perlu, mengagumkan semua orang.

Dia telah menggunakan kebijaksanaannya untuk memastikan amanah ini dijaga. Sebaliknya dia hanya menggunakan RM26 juta ringgit sahaja untuk membela itik-itik yang digunakan sebagai bukti yang negeri mereka tidak ada masalah banjir. Mereka percaya akan sifat amanah Pak Belalang sehingga tiada seorang pun merasa perlu bertanya apa yang Pak Belalang akan buat dengan semua itik-itik yang dibela itu. Mereka juga tidak bertanya kenapa itik-itik tersebut dibela di kandang yang dibina seperti kondo, siap dengan "air-cond" lagi.

Sifat bijaksana, alim, warak dan beramanah ini beserta dengan kebolehan Pak Belalang untuk berkomunikasi dengan jin baik telah mengangkat nama Pak Belalang ke tahap yang lebih disanjungi.

Sejak dari itu Pak Belalang telah dikenali dengan gelaran Lebai Pak Belalang.


Bersambung di Hikayat Moden: Bahagian IV bulan hadapan...

From the Battle of Talas to the Internet.

The Battle of Talas & its significance (how technology shaped world history or how historical journey of paper & the printing press parallel the rise & decline of the Islamic empires).

In a previous post, I talked about Ibnu Khaldun's cycle of history and the rise & fall of civilisations.
History of the rise & fall of any civilisation are, of course, almost always, a complex story, but if we were to oversimplify the story of the rise & fall of the Islamic empires, it would parallel the history of the technology of paper making and the printing press.

Paper is invented by the Chinese but they kept it a secret. Other people had to use leather, papyrus and other less advanced writing instrument. Leather, papyrus and other materials are bulky, expensive, difficult to manufacture and do not last long. Paper is opposite to all of these.

It all changed with the Battle of Talas in 751 AD. The battle took place near Taraz and Talas on the border of present-day Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan on the banks of the River Talas which runs near the border of both countries.

The battle was between the forces of the Abbasid Caliphate and the Chinese Tang Dynasty and it was the first and last battle between the Islamic empires and the Chinese imperial dynasty.
Even though some estimate numbered the forces on both sides around 100,000, it was just considered a "skirmish", in the larger scheme of world history.

In the short term, the battle itself was considered not significance. It barely made it into the textbook of world history. In fact, even today, if you buy any books on world history, this battle do not get any mention.

But in medium and long term, the Battle of Talas, was very significant, in terms of ideology and geo-politic of the region, and technological. (I am not going to write about the ideological and geo-political impact. You can read it in detail here, including what led to the fighting. It is a long read, for those who are interested.)

Technological wise, the Battle of Talas transferred the knowledge of paper making into the Islamic empires. How exactly is up for debate. One popular account was that the knowledge was gained from the prisoners of war who knew the secret while another account was that the conquered area had paper mills that the caliphate took advantage of. However it was, paper making made it into the empire and soon paper mills proliferated throughout the empire from Baghdad to Cairo and even to Spanish Andalusia. Paper making was no longer a secret.

Why is this important?
It denotes an open-mindedness and willingness to adopt new technology and new way of doing things that can feed into and enhance the growth of civilisation. This open-mindedness and adaptability permeated throughout the empire at this point in time for all things that can improve life and society and not just paper making technology. In short, the Islamic empire at this point in time was a vibrant centre for scientific discovery, technological innovation & philosophical discourse. The adoption of paper making technology is the testament of this.

As I mentioned before, paper is light, cheaper, easier to manufacture and last longer. This enabled the proliferation of knowledge faster and in more abundance compared to leather and papyrus. This fuelled further innovation, scientific discovery, technological breakthroughs and increased the literacy rates, which in turn feeds into the cycle of new knowledge creation.

The question is, which comes first; the open-mindedness which readily accept a world changing technology from your enemies; or the technology that fuels proliferation of knowledge which leads to the open-mindedness. In the end, it does not matter as one feeds of the other in a continuous cycle. The more knowledge you have, the more innovative you become which leads to new knowledge and the cycle continues.

Hence, the so called Islamic Golden Age emerged, a vibrant society that generated scientific, mathematics, history, philosophy and scholarly knowledge. Books were wide spread and literacy rate increased.

The Islamic civilisation prospered and progressed as predicted by Ibnu Khaldun, and in this case the progress was fuelled by paper.
But as predicted by Ibnu Khaldun, the seed of a civilizational decline is also planted within the civilisation itself. What this is exactly is up for debate.

For the case of the Islamic empire in general, and for the Abbasid Caliphate in specific, the decline culminated in the fall of Baghdad in 1258 by the Mongols.
Later, Andalusia and Sicily were also reconquered by the West but the greater tragedy was the stagnation of civilizational mindset. A stagnation that led to the death of civilisation.

The fall of Baghdad itself did not end the Islamic empire (it was alive in one form of caliphate or another) but it was the beginning of the end, albeit "the end" was stretched from 1258 to 1924 AD. It was a very slow death (as all death of giant does, I suppose).

This slow death manifested itself physically when the printing press came on the scene.

With the decline of the Islamic empire, Andalusia and Sicily fell to the West. With the fall, the West gained the paper making technology via paper mills that existed in Andalusia and Sicily.

As was the case with the Islamic empire, paper fuelled the advancement of the West. It fuelled the Renaissance and later the Reformation and the scientific discovery and technological innovation and knowledge of all kinds. All of this was made faster than ever before with the invention of the printing press in 1439 by Johannes Gutenberg.

But, 250 years after the invention of the printing press, it was still banned across the Ottoman empire, even under the penalty of death. It was considered blasphemous, even sacrilegious, to own and to print books using the printing press. This is the level of civilizational mindset decline that affected the Muslim society at that time; that an invention that can spread knowledge far & wide quickly and more efficiently, was rejected. Hence, literacy rate, knowledge acquisition and innovation were stifled across almost half of Asia from Baghdad to Istanbul to Cairo for more than 250 years. The West moved forward at the speed of printing while Muslims lagged behind at the snail speed of handwritten books.

Contrast this with the West willingness to acquire knowledge. To illustrate this point, the first printed Quran was printed in the West in Venice and not by the caliphate. The West thirst for knowledge knows no bound that they even printed non-Christian books.

Printing press only came to the Islamic world in the 19th century, and even then, it was brought by Napoleon Bonaparte. When he conquered Alexandria, Egypt in 1798 he brought with him a printing press. To cut the story short, the Egyptian rebelled and pushed him out and when he retreated back to France in 1801, he left the press behind. It was used by the new Egyptian government who also declared themselves free not just from Napoleon but also from the Ottoman.

But by then, it was too late. A 300 years lag in terms of civilisation building. You would need a miracle to catch up.
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And incredibly, a "miracle" did come, about 200 years later.
It is called the Internet.

Even then, in the early years, many Islamic countries while reluctantly did adopt the technology, busied themselves with discussions on how to censor rather than how to harness its power.

And it is powerful. Its power is a hundred fold if not a thousand fold the power of paper and the printing press. The emergence of the Internet will do to the world what paper and the printing press did to the world before, but at greater speed with greater impact.

The question is, how do we react? How do we adapt?
Will we repeat the same mistake of the past?

Or rather, seeing as the Internet has been around for more than 25 years;

How did we react?
How did we adapt?
Did we repeat the same mistakes?

In order not to repeat the mistakes of the past, we have to learn from history.
In a previous post, I recommended  a book to read, titled "Destiny Disrupted". This is a good book to start if you want to understand the rise and fall of the Islamic Empires.
Hopefully, we as a civilisation, as a people, will learn our lessons.

The Moon (A poem).

Yes, the full moon is beautiful,
but remember that it has a dark side;
and its shining light is not its own,
but a mere reflection.

While the sun is hot and can burn you,
it lights up your days,
always,
without fail.

...and the stars twinkle in the background,
forgetting that they are also like the sun,
great balls of fire that can light up the universe.

...and the planets swim along around the sun,
like dead fish that swim along with the stream.

...and then there are dead stars; the black holes;
but they don't know that they are "dead";
they suck the energy and destroy everything around them,
and spew deadly radiation that destroy life near and far away.

So...which one are you?

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Inspired by the full moon.
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So, which one are you?
The universe has a lot to teach us, if we only look deep enough, hard enough.
From the biggest bodies like the stars and planets to the smallest and unseen particles like graviton (is that real or sci-fi?) and dark matter to the fact that quantum physics says our reality might just be an illusion.
(What a scary thought! There goes freewill and independent thinking.)

Well, no matter, I will still sleep soundly, since the Big Freeze or the Big Crunch (depending on which theory you accept) is still billions or trillions of years away.

Good night.
 
 

Full moon at Batu Layar Beach.

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Footnote:

Tonight's and next month's full moon is a super full moon.
What is a "super full moon"?
According to this website, a Full Moon that occurs when the Moon is near its closest approach to Earth, it is called a Super Full Moon.
The moon should look very big, bigger than usual.
Perfect for lunar photography.

Tell me a lie in a beautiful way. (History lessons from a rock metal band).

"Tell me a lie in a beautiful way,
I believe in answers,
Just not today"
-Avenged Sevenfold, The Stage-

There is a saying that "history is written by the victors".
This relates mostly to histories of wars.

But to paraphrase for other circumstances, history is written by whoever writes history. Honest history writers just write the facts; that is, facts of events as they unfold.

But events do not happen in a vacuum.
There are causes and effects, preceding events that affects the next events, and consequences of those events. People react to these events coloured by their beliefs, values, prejudices, and biases.

Students of history can only extrapolate or guess the intention and motivation of these actors in history based on available evidences.
If they do not like what they find or the inevitable conclusions, they can decide to "rewrite" history, because, sometimes, history writers are also coloured by their beliefs, values, prejudices, and biases (and political expediency).

In one of my previous post, I wrote how one of the reasons the Malay elites at that time assassinated JWW Birch was because he was attempting to abolish slavery in Perak. But somehow, this fact was never mentioned in the history textbook when I was in school. (I do not know about now.)
It was presented as a fight against colonialism.

It may well have been, but it was motivated by the preservation of an adat that gives them free labours.

Now, as I always maintain, the tapestry of history is complex. We can conclude certain things from historical evidences but we are not there and we can never really say for sure that we know everything in details, its nuances and its complexities. But we should not hide what we do know.

Because then, we are lying to ourselves.

In the case of JWW Birch assassination, why does it matter?
After all, we do not practise slavery anymore in Malaysia, do we?
Everyone knows that slavery is wrong...doesn't everyone?

And yet, we still have religious preachers giving ceramah justifying why slavery was OK in the past because of "historical circumstances" but never outrightly saying slavery is not OK in the now, or ever.
They say we do not practise slavery anymore because of "whatever reasons", but they never say slavery is wrong, period.
Did you notice the sleight linguistic trick there?

So, I repeat Avenged Sevenfold...

"Tell me a lie in a beautiful way,
I believe in answers,
Just not today"

We now live in a world where a rock metal band is more truthful than religious preachers. For me, I do not mind. I like to listen to good songs, no matter the genre. And my philosophy is, the truth stands on its own, no matter who speaks it. But for those of you who consider listening to rock metal songs or any songs as haram or sinful, you should be concerned.

Because now, how do you know the truth?
 
 
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FULL LYRICS:
So I arrived, naked and cold
A welcomed change from the abeyance of a ghost town catacomb
No need for counsel I appreciate the time I’m not alone
(Why don’t you get my lawyer on the phone)
 
There were days these child eyes
Would overlook the ugliness and fantasize
I found my heart for the first time and I awakened in me
I left myself to navigate… and oh I felt control
(It appears these sheep have quite an appetite)

Who is the crowd that peers through the cage,
As we perform here upon the stage?

As the boy became a man
In came a calm sophistication I can hardly understand
So lost in ego, didn’t notice when the time had slipped away
(Yeah, Everyone’s got a sob story)

Jesus Christ, was born to die
Leave it to man to levitate his own to idolize
We’re simply sociopaths with no communication baby
I see your angle but we differ from our points of view
(So, what’s your cross to bear)

Who is the crowd that peers through the cage,
As we perform here upon the stage?
Tell me a lie in a beautiful way
I believe in answers
Just not today

Hope my wheels don’t abandon me now,
seein’ that I’m out here alone
I’m runnin’ out of fight
And the wind speaks a comforting voice,
guiding me to her arms
Mother, I’m alright
It took the birth of sin to snake-rattle the mind
Before a blow to the head by the gavel of time to wake up
Won’t you wake up?
When did the walking apes decide that nuclear war
Was now the only solution for them keeping the score?
Just wake up
Can’t you wake up?

(You do know this is just a simulation, don’t you?)
Who is the crowd that peers through the cage,
As we perform here upon the stage?
Tell me a lie in a beautiful way
I believe in answers
Just not today.