weekend in KL part 1 – the seminar

so last saturday i was at KL for the ‘gaudium et spes’ (which, btw, means ‘joys and hopes’ in latin) seminar. i was not quite surprised to learn that the first speaker was chandra muzaffar, founder of aliran and member of just world, because the national office of human development (the organiser) had invited him before as a speaker, and i had also heard him spoke. what i was surprised was that what chandra muzaffar spoke on had no relation to our ‘gaudium et spes‘ talk at all.

well, according to the programme, his keynote address was on ‘global challenges in the 21st century – implications for malaysia’. guess what he talked about? that’s right… none other than on america. it was entittled ‘the empire: what is and what it means for all of us’ the empire, of course is the US of A. right, he criticisied america as a ‘superpower’ especially its military power. i think many already knew that he, like mgg pillai, is very critical of america. er… what is he, wits0… left or right or whatever.

his talk entittled was 1/2 an hour and another 1/2 hour was allocated for Q&A. during the Q&A, one lady came up and mentioned something about his talk being anti-america, and you know what he respond with? he said he is not anti-america but he is ‘anti power charged’ whatever that means. he also gave the example that if he criticised the malaysian gomen, it doesn’t mean he hate the country or the gomen, but all the more it shows he is being patriotic, because he cares for the country, that’s why he criticise it in a constructive manner. hmm… was he drawing a parallel to why he criticised america?

when i went to the just world website earlier, i was surprised to find the topic he talked on was already on paper dated 20 november. if you like to read that document, go here and see how he talked about US hegemony and all that.

well, chandra was there for only an hour, and later on, a priest continued telling us about the other constitutions in vatican II. afternoon session was more interesting on ‘the cries of the new poor’ when we had 4 panelists of different background. one was the chairman of the community home for AIDS/HIV patients in batu arang, a lady who talk on estate workers especially women, a doctor in general hospital from the AIDS/HIV ward and a vietnamese from some vietnamese refuge group. interesting discussions arose especially on the treatment of AIDS/HIV patients..