First of all. I have five (Five! Good grief) stories due soon, and a website to work on, but I have been procrastinating very successfully for the past two days. My time is running out (howled a la Muse) and here I am, blogging. La dee dah.

Anyway I swear this blogpost has a point, unlike some others.

First of all, I’d like to say how impressed I am with Fahmi Reza’s short documentary ‘10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka’ (‘10 Years Before Independence). Read reviews and find out where you can download it (but for free, why of course, we only like free things) here, and take my word for it, it’s worth the watch. I myself only watched it because of Petra’s insistence (and I saw her name in the credits, along with other familiar names like Yeoh Seng Guan and Sonia Randhawa!

Watching the clips on Veoh TV (in 4 short 9 minute snippets), I could not help but shake my head at the similarities between how the British handled the then-opposition, the PUTERA-AMCJA and how the current government is handling the opposition and NGOs as well as activists. It’s chilling. I’ll leave the rest for you to decide, but I liked Reza’s background music choice (the Sex Pistols!) and the images he used to highlight the events of the time, especially for the hartal.

It makes one wonder, will things have to come to that? For the ones unfamiliar with the term, hartal is defined by Wikipedia as strike action. It raises goosebumps imagining a silent current-day KL, though I have my doubts this would happen. But I could be wrong.

***

Sometimes the boyfriend drives me nuts (literally—today he was eating pistachio nuts non-stop throughout our Skype conversation, needless to say I did not get much out of him but nut-cracking sounds and munching) but then he does something so incredibly sweet I forgive him immediately.

To distract me from being narky about his nut-crunching, he stuck out his chest and cheerfully asked me if I had noticed something pinned to his chest—he was sporting a white ribbon on his t-shirt. “Aren’t you proud of me? I support the elimination of violence against women,” he beamed.

Now as a self-proclaimed activist of children and women’s rights, I was a little embarrassed when he had to explain the cause it represented (he’s getting to be quite the activist too—he proudly groomed his ‘mo’ (mustache) for November, Men’s Health Awareness Month) , and after Google-ing and reading up about the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women I am proud of him.

White Ribbon Day is officially on November 25, and according to the WAO website, there are Things That Men Can Do To Help, one of which my man is already doing In the US/Canada it ends on December 6th, according to The White Ribbon Campaign office, but in Malaysia the WAO is extending it to December 10th which happens to be International Human Rights Day. Find out more about here at the WAO site.

I think it is incredibly significant, and I have decided to adopt a mini pet-project. Tomorrow, before going to the shelter (we’re gonna be dancing to the ‘I Like to Move It’ song from Disney’s Madagascar—unfortunately I could only find the techno version, and darn it, I can’t abide by the stuff! All I can hope is that the kids wouldn’t want to dance to it 20 times, but this is most likely a fat hope as they probably will, and we will have to indulge them at the risk of our limbs being tugged off our bodies by kids cajoling, “Akak, one more time la, please-la, one time only..”) I am going to buy a reel of white satin ribbons and I am going to make white ribbons for….well, whoever! I’m going to make my dad wear one to work, and give it to my male friends and relatives.

Hell, I will make sure I personally pin it to my dad’s office shirt every night when he leaves it out for the next morning. He’s grown up himself knowing what violence against children and women can do, I will be horribly mad at him if he shrugs it off. So ladies, get the men in your life to pin on their white ribbons (Make it la! For goodness’ sake.) and save one for yourselves; guys…! *waggles finger in lieu of nagging*

Why? The WAO site had a persuasive argument: “Wearing a white ribbon s your personal pledge never to commit violence against women. It is a personal pledge not to condone acts of violence, not to make excuses for perpetrators of violence, and not to think that any woman “asks for it.”

It is a pledge not to remain silent. It is a pledge to challenge the men around us to end violence.

Wearing a ribbon provokes discussion, debate and soul-searching among the men around us. The ribbon is a catalyst for discussion. It is a catalyst for change.“

Working with children who are in hiding from abusive fathers, whose mothers have also been abused and as a result have to be apart from their children is heart-wrenching. Please don’t be apathetic towards this, if you as readers are bored by my political yibberings, fair enough so—but please don’t turn a deaf ear (blind eye?) to this. This is something really close to my heart, and we women and activists cannot do it without the help of men.

So girls and boys, women and men—All those for change, wear a white ribbon from November 25th! Better yet, wear it as often as possible

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I know it’s rather belated but I finally got around to reading the open letter to our allergic-to-challenges Prime Minister, as written by local author Beth Yahp, as posted on the blog of Elizabeth Wong.

I think it is brilliant, cogently argued and graciously put. Her points are good ones and as a journalist myself, I understand completely where she is coming from. But this is just my opinion. I know it’s a bit wordy (as most of my posts have been lately) but it’s worth the read. Your two sen’s worth is most welcome, especially since those coins aren’t going to be minted any longer, har har.