Growing unease over race debate

Nov 21, 2008

MEMO FROM KUALA LUMPUR
Malays feeling uneasy as minority races become more strident

By Carolyn Hong

NOT too many years ago, Malaysians would look over their shoulders before daring to whisper criticism of the country's 'social contract', or Malay rights.

But today, these are openly debated, with the minority communities no longer holding back, and the boundaries of discussion being pushed further and further.

The status quo has been upended, and there is a strong sense of uncertainty as the three major communities grope for a new equilibrium.

A Malay writer on Malay/Muslim issues told The Straits Times that many Malays are uneasy as they try to come to terms with the reality that non-Malays are no longer suppressing their thoughts and feelings.

'It is not just anger they feel, it is fear now that our status quo is being challenged,' she said.

But observers note that while the Malay sentiment is strong, they are hampered by the absence of a strong intellectual Malay voice to articulate their position. Many Malay intellectuals have, in fact, lent their voices to the more liberal view, leaving the debate with unequal firepower.

The sense of Malay frustration was captured by Foreign Minister Rais Yatim when he pointed out last week that while Umno had punished a grassroots leader for calling the Chinese squatters, those who humiliated the Malays were standing tall and laughing.

Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar said in a recent interview with Utusan Malaysia that when others spoke up, people described it as the voice of the people - but when the Malays spoke, it was seen as excessive.

'All actions taken by the Malays are regarded as excessive, hurtful and racist, while the actions of others, even though communal in tone, are not,' he said.

It's not clear if they are speaking for the majority of the Malays, but a recent independent survey does show unhappiness among Malays to some extent.

According to Merdeka Centre's survey in September, 36 per cent of Malay respondents said that Penang Umno leader Ahmad Ismail's controversial comment that the Chinese were squatters was 'appropriate'.

Fifty-eight per cent said it was not.

Take the non-Malay view: 97 per cent of Indians and 90 per cent of Chinese said it was inappropriate.

The results are an indication of ambivalence among Malays over a racial issue that non-Malays regard as obviously wrong.

It is not difficult to trace the start of this racial debate, which was partly born out of a sense of insecurity after Malay political power seemed to have weakened after the March 8 general election, in which the opposition won big on a multiracial platform.

But it actually had an earlier start: When Umno unrolled a stronger push for pro-Malay economic policies. This provoked a backlash from the minorities, and as a result, retaliation by the majority community.

The country's 'social contract' - a gentlemen's agreement among the founding fathers to guarantee a special position for the Malays - has also been dragged in.

It is no secret that many Malays feel aggrieved that non-Malays appear to be making more and more demands, and seem to be breaking their end of the bargain that had long kept the country on an even keel.

They feel under siege, and are more aggrieved that their responses are seen as racist diatribes.

Further, many Malay intellectuals in the public eye and writers have taken the side of what has been described as 'new Malaysia'.

They include prominent constitutional expert Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, lawyer Haris Ibrahim and academics such as Dr Farish Noor, who is based in Singapore, and Associate Professor Azmi Shahrom from the University of Malaya's Law Faculty.

Former premier Mahathir Mohamad regards them as being in the minority.

In a recent entry in his popular blog, he said the views of the young Malays may 'sound refreshing', but maintained that they were in the minority.

'The majority of the Malay professionals and young Malays have hardened their stand on the position of their race since the disaster of 2008,' he wrote.

Observers have noted that Tun Dr Mahathir is probably one of the more sober voices on this side of the fence.

Former News Straits Times editor A. Kadir Jasin wrote in his blog that the problem is that Malays seem to be unable to articulate proper arguments to defend their position and rights.

Both have warned that the an increasingly strident debate is taking Malaysia down a divisive path.

'I emboldened myself to give a warning of the possibility (I repeat possibility) of the 'fringe Malays' who may be violent if they feel that the rights of the Malays are threatened and disputed on racial grounds,' Datuk Kadir wrote on Tuesday.

Dr Mahathir also said that racist sentiments were rising, and could affect the country's stability through political wrangling that would in turn damage its economy.

'This slide must be stopped. No one should disregard the obligation to uphold the social contract,' he said.

This may be scare-mongering, but what seems likely is that Umno or Barisan Nasional could paint itself into a position that will make it increasingly hard for it to regain support.

About 65 per cent of Malaysians now live in urban centres, and the Election Commission estimated recently that another two million new and young voters could be added to the rolls by the next election.

Young urbanites are natural opposition supporters.

The racial rhetoric is not going to end as the door to debate is not easy to slam shut once it is opened, but its path could be better directed.

carolynh@sph.com.sg

[Comment: The reality is that any policy to guarantee the privileges of a race will be seen as racist, and it will take an intellectual contortionist to argue that it is not. The bumiputra policy should have been pitched as a temporary policy meant to equalise opportunities and allow one (or more) races to catch up. Instead, it entrenched the privileges of one race and instead of promoting practices for this race to catch up, allowed it to wallow in self-indulgence, while being spoon-fed benefits. This divergence of political position led to Singapore's ejection from the Malayan Federation, and Malay Malaysia has gone its way, while Singapore has pursued the path of meritocracy.

However, the issue of race and race-based privileges for the "sons of the earth" will continue to fester. Malaysia will have to face and resolve that issue somewhere along the road and it could be explosive, or if guided with intelligence, strong leadership, and clear rational minds, it could be contained. However, I have never attributed intelligence, or rationality to Malaysian leaders. Their leadership is even more nepotic, and leads me to wonder if they are there by virtue of ability or connections. The answer is less than assuring.]

The mind is more than just grey matter

Nov 20, 2008

By Andy Ho

SO LET us say you are contemplating pulling the plug on a loved one diagnosed with brain death. Such a patient appears to be unaware of his surroundings. It is assumed he cannot be aware of himself as himself. That is, he has lost his personhood. Doctors tell his next-of-kin: 'Mr Tan is no longer here. This is just his body, a shell. Mr Tan is gone.'

Clinical tests would establish that diagnosis robustly. But the diagnosis of brain death is quite different from the traditional notion of biological death that supervenes some time after the heart stops.

Brain death was a diagnosis first suggested in 1968 by a Harvard Ad Hoc Committee set up with the explicit aim of freeing up beds in intensive care units. Too many people in deep comas were occupying the beds for too long. According to the new idea, such patients were brain dead.

But even if brain death leads inevitably to biological death, the patient remains warm. He bleeds, urinates and defaecates. Live babies have been born to brain dead mothers.

The other organs and even small portions of the brain continue to remain alive, albeit with the aid of ventilators and nursing. So is it just a living corpse?

Unsurprisngly, the new idea caused much confusion. Hence, a Presidential Commission was established to nail down public policy on death. Eventually, the United States Congress passed the Uniform Determination of Death Act, which put the force of law behind the new idea.

However, the Commission said explicitly that it was not 'making a determination of... the death of cells, tissues and organs' but 'the social meaning of death' and 'the status of the human being' in brain death. The person is no longer here; his body has outlived his person.

This assumes that in brain death, one's subjectivity is gone for good. All that remains is a live cadaver. Yet brain death would mean the loss of personhood only if the mind and thus the person and the self are unequivically located in the brain only. This, however, needs to be proven.

Most of us understand intuitively that a person is someone with subjectivity. But most of us are unaware that no one knows how such consciousness arises from the brain and/or whatever other body parts may be involved in self-awareness. This is a problem which exercises philosophers and physicists, but not physicians, unfortunately.

Albert Einstein felt there were two theories. Brain death and the clinical tests that 'prove' it would comprise what he called 'constructive theory', something that just describes a phenomenon without really explaining it.

Quantum mechanics, however, was what Einstein called a 'principled theory', one that begins with principles that explain phenomena. Today, quantum physicists are trying to explain how one's consciousness of oneself can arise out of the same brute matter that makes trees trees and us us.

In Newtonian mechanics, matter was construed as being made up of progressively smaller pellets - molecules, atoms and then subatomic particles. In quantum mechanics, however, matter consists not of tiny pellets but probability waves. It is not just that the structure of matter is representable only in abstract mathematical terms. In fact, physical reality itself is ineffably abstract and mysterious.

How do the roll-of-the-dice probabilistic processes at the quantum level add up to become the definitive physical substrate that gives rise to our consciousness? No one knows. Some have suggested the idea of subsidiary form.

This is something that exists and acts as a unity but can do so only dependently. Thus the brain exists and acts as a unity, but can do so only within a human body. The higher entity, the body, is said to sublate the subsidiary one, the brain.

All entities are made up of subsidiary entities but the former cannot be explained by just summing up the latter. A sentient being like a chimpanzee, or a rational human, cannot be accounted for completely by just summing up their parts. While a neuron is just one big cell, the 50billion inside our skulls add up to a brain. And the brain must join up with other organs and, together, all must be sublated by the body to give rise to life, consciousness, feelings, emotions and self-awareness.

If the brain needs the whole body, in what sense is it the sole seat of the mind? To the Chinese, the 'xin' and to the Japanese, the 'kokoro' located somewhere in the centre of the chest is the seat of the emotions. To Malays, it is the liver.

Who knows? But if no one really knows how consciousness and self-awareness arise from our whole bodies, we cannot be sure that brain death is death of the self and the loss of personhood. For this reason, I believe we should think twice before pulling that plug.

andyho@sph.com.sg

[Comment: I admire Dr Ho's articles for the intelligent arguments and precise attention to empirical and scientific evidence. However in this article, it appears to me that all he offers are some vague doubts. True, we use "mind" and "brain" to mean different things, but there are no evidence other than cultural references (Chinese, Japanese & Malay) to suggest "heart" and "soul" exists or are seated in any other organs, whereas brain damage have changed personalities. I respect Dr Ho for his intelligence and the opinions that emerges from the percolation of data within his mind, but on this matter, I fear his opinion is coloured more by his personal conviction than by the scientific evidence.]

Humanised pig organs: An unsavoury deal

Nov 15, 2008
DAEDALUS: TECHNOLOGICAL TRIUMPHS & CHALLENGES

By Andy Ho
HUMANISED pig organs will be ready for tests in humans within two or three years, British and American scientists announced this week.

Baboon and pig organs have been tried in humans before, with uniformly poor results. But new organs will come from pigs genetically modified to trick the human immune system into thinking they are human ones and not reject them.

Once people get over the yuck factor, the scientists expect widespread adoption of these organs, or xenografts, within a decade. That would help alleviate organ shortages the world over.

However, all is not so simple. Any patient who undergoes a medical procedure can choose not to be followed up if he is foolhardy. By contrast, even if a xenograft fails and is removed, the recipient will have to be followed up for as long as he lives. In fact, his intimates will have to be monitored for life as well.

The reason for this is that animal organs may carry unidentified animal viruses or just the genes of these viruses. These can infect the human recipient of the animal organ. The fear is that such individuals may then spread the animal viruses, if any, into the general population.

There has been some experience with xenografts in this respect. Two patients who received baboon livers, one in 1992 and another in 1993, were reported in 1998 to be carrying the simian foamy virus and baboon endogenous virus, respectively, in tissues far outside the liver.

Similarly, in 1999, a study was reported in Science of 60 patients in nine countries whose blood had been passed through pig organs or tissues for minutes to hours. Followed up for up to 12 years, pig genes could still be found in 30 of them while whole pig cells persisted in 23 patients for over eight years.

The genes, called porcine endogenous retroviral (PERV) genes, can switch on a specific human gene that causes cells to multiply in an unregulated fashion. This can lead to disorderliness in the renewal and replacement of normal cells, including immune cells. In this way, PERVs can tune down human immune defences, thus leading to a state of immunodeficiency.

Furthermore, should PERVs be integrated into a recipient's sperms or eggs, they can be transmitted to his or her offspring. Also, through the exchange of body fluids, PERVs may also be transmitted to intimates and subsequently into the general population.

Moreover, the immune processes that cause our bodies to reject animal organs are the same ones that kill viruses. This means that the genetic modifications to pig organs that trick the human immune system into believing they are human ones also render PERVs resistant to destruction by the same processes. So PERVs can linger for a long time.

Apart from PERVs, other agents that have been identified in pig xenografts include the porcine cytomegalo virus, porcine lymphotrophic herpes virus, porcine circovirus type 2, encephalo-myocarditis virus and hepatitis E virus.

The possibility of mutated animal viruses spreading in human populations is to be greatly feared. Bird flu and Sars aside, the Ebola virus mutated and crossed over from animals (primates) into humans and caused devastating epidemics in Africa.

It may take decades for animal viruses that have jumped into humans to manifest themselves. For example, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) came from wild primates in Africa carrying the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). It mutated and crossed over into humans, and lay low for a long time before surprising the world with an Aids epidemic.

Between 1955 and 1963, many individuals were administered poorly made polio vaccines that were contaminated with SV40. The virus has been found in some human cancers although it is not known if SV40 actually caused them.

All in all, the fear is that humanised animal organs may introduce novel or mutated animal infectious agents into human populations. According to the United States Institute of Medicine, 'although the degree of risk cannot be quantified, it is unequivocally greater than zero'.

Thus, the International Xenotransplantation Association urges that only those who are 'capable of fully understanding the potential impact of their behaviour on the rest of society, and who seem genuinely motivated to minimise these risks' be allowed to receive humanised animal organs in any trial. After all, such patients and their families will need to be monitored for life.

Indeed, sex partners of xenograft recipients will have to agree to undergo lifelong surveillance. The invasion of privacy this would entail would be unprecedented in scale and scope.

It is a very basic legal principle that no one may sign away his fundamental liberties, including the freedom of association. But a xenograft recipient will, in effect, be compelled to associate with a group of researchers for life. The authorities could, of course, argue that public health concerns trump individual liberties in this instance.

But such a contract could be thrown out if ever challenged in a court of law. This difficulty could bring down the whole edifice of xeno-transplantation.

All in all, despite our perennial organ shortage, Singapore would be better off if it imposed a permanent moratorium on this whole unsavoury deal.

andyho@sph.com.sg

[Okay, apart from the chuckle factor of discovering how PERVs are transmitted, Dr Ho paints a scary picture and makes a compelling argument for a permanent moratorium on xeno-transplants. This is way more dangerous than GM foods.]

'Paying' the middle class to spend

Nov 15, 2008
STIMULATING THE ECONOMY

By Leslie Fong

AN ECONOMY in recession badly needs a boost from increased public and personal spending, but cautious consumers here are likely to need more than just persuasion to open their wallets.

Government can help. On top of all the other measures it has in mind to help companies and the needy cope with the sharp downturn, it may wish to consider putting cash in the pockets of ordinary Singaporeans as well, or something equivalent to that.

It can do so through tax rebates or through one-off special payments - as it has done before with growth dividends - without compromising its long-standing aversion to straight welfare handouts.

Such payments will, arguably, produce immediate results. A computer store may benefit from official help to send staff for training or learn new skills when business slows down but its first priority must be to keep its head above water. That is possible only if, among other things, people who need, and can afford, to replace their old laptops do not hold back their purchases.

Economists have long advocated stimulating consumption to fight recessions, however counter-intuitive that may seem to prudent Singaporeans whose instinct in difficult times is to save rather than continue spending as per normal.

This was how John Maynard Keynes, one of the most influential economists and thinkers of the 20th century, argued the case in a radio talk on Jan 14, 1931, amid the Great Depression:

'There are today many...who believe that the most useful thing which they and their neighbours can do to mend the situation is to save more than usual...

'Now in certain circumstances, all this would be right but in present circumstances, it is quite wrong. Suppose we were to stop spending our incomes altogether and were to save the lot. Why, everyone would be out of work! And before long we would have no incomes to spend...'

Keynes also called for greater government spending, saying expenditure on infrastructure and other municipal improvement projects - pump-priming the economy as it has come to be called - was better than just handing out welfare payments. 'Is it better that men should stand idle and miserable drawing the dole?' he asked rhetorically.

In Singapore's case, spending on infrastructure and on education will certainly benefit the country in the long run. It would certainly be a good idea to consider re-starting some if not all of the $4.7 billion worth of public projects that have been put on hold since last year.

But it is also important to remember that not all the money earmarked for big projects will go to local companies that need business desperately to keep their staff in employment.

For example, Bombardier, a Berlin- based company, has just been awarded a $570.7 million contract to provide 73 electric trains for the Downtown Line, while Westinghouse Brake and Signal Holdings has been given the $287.5 million contract for the signalling system and platform screen doors. This expenditure would generate some local employment and business but there is bound to be leakage.

Thus in the interim, a more direct shot in the arm for consumers, whether through tax rebates or some other means, is called for - urgently.

The impact on the economy of stimulating local demand will not be insignificant. Official data show that from 1995, personal consumption as a proportion of the domestic economy (GDP minus net exports) ranged between 46 and 63 per cent. It contributed 0.7 per cent of the 3.5 per cent growth in domestic demand for the second quarter of this year, according to the Economic Survey of Singapore published by the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

To put it another way, if every one of the estimated 288,000 people who have a personal monthly income of $5,000 or more - those who, arguably, can afford to spend on life's little pleasures, as Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong put it - were to cut back by $100 each month, local businesses will lose $345.6 million a year.

Stimulating personal spending will benefit two sectors directly: wholesale and retail trade as well as hotels and restaurants. Together they accounted for $43 billion or 18 per cent of Singapore's GDP of $243 billion last year, and employed 407,000 residents.

Tax rebates or one-off special government payments, best staggered over the next 18 months, need not be given to every Singaporean as the really needy are already receiving very substantial help from the Government. Those who earn more than $15,000 a month probably do not need them either.

If such payments were restricted to a target group of middle-class taxpayers whose annual incomes fall within a certain range, they will cost the Government a lot less than the $1.06 billion that the growth dividends for some 2.4 million people cost this year.

To ensure that incentives are not stashed away or spent overseas, they can be in the form of vouchers usable only in Singapore to buy goods and services from registered businesses, which can then redeem them for cash at approved banks.

The writer, a former editor of The Straits Times, is Senior Executive Vice-President (Marketing) of Singapore Press Holdings.

[Most persuasive argument to buy an iPod Touch or iPhone.]

Aids patient 'cured' with stem cells from HIV-resistant donor

Nov 15, 2008

BERLIN: Doctors in Berlin are reporting that they cured a man of Aids by giving him transplanted blood stem cells from a person naturally resistant to the virus.

But while the case has novel medical implications, experts say it will be of little immediate use in treating acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

The cure was announced on Wednesday by Dr Gero Hutter and Dr Eckhard Thiel, blood-cancer specialists at Charite Hospital in Berlin. The case was described last week in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

Dr Hutter said one of the 80 potential donors who matched his patient closely enough for leukaemia treatment also happened to have the mutation.

That mutation, discovered in a few gay men in the 1990s and known as Delta 32, must be inherited from both parents.

Delta 32 reduces the number of docking points, called CCR5, on the surface of white blood cells targeted by the virus, thus lowering the risk of cell penetration by the pathogen.

The patient, a 42-year-old American resident in Germany, also has leukaemia, which justified the high risk of a stem-cell transplant.

He was given a bone-marrow transplant - but from a donor who had inherited the CCR5 mutation from both parents.

Bone marrow is where immune-system cells are generated, so transplanting mutant bone-marrow cells would mean white blood cells thus produced lack the surface receptors that allow HIV - the human immunodeficiency virus that causes Aids - to invade the immune system.

This would render the patient immune to HIV into perpetuity, at least in theory, the WSJ reported.

Even if it is prevented from replicating by drugs, HIV can lie dormant in lymph and nerve cells for years. But without the necessary receptors, any virus coming out of dormancy has no way of infecting them. Doctors say the case gives hope for therapies that artificially induce the Delta 32 mutation.

But American researchers called the treatment unthinkable for the millions infected in Africa and impractical even for insured patients in top research hospitals.

'It's very nice, and it's not even surprising,' said Dr Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 'But it's just off the table of practicality.'

'Frankly, I'd rather take the medicine,' said Dr Robert C. Gallo, director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, referring to anti-retroviral drugs.

Moreover, the chances of finding a donor who is a good tissue match for the patient and also has the rare genetic mutation that confers resistance to HIV are extremely small.

Nonetheless, the man has been free of the virus for 20 months even though he is not using anti-retroviral drugs, and the success in his case is evidence that a long-dreamed-of therapy for Aids - injecting stem cells that have been genetically re-engineered with the mutation - might work.

NEW YORK TIMES

Tigers stressed by the incident

Nov 15, 2008

THE two white tigers involved in Thursday's attack on a cleaner are exhibiting symptoms of stress.

Normally relaxed and languid, they are now on constant alert, zoo officials said yesterday.

Their ears are pricked up, and they are breathing heavily.

Only Winnie and Jippie, the two female cats which carried out the attack, are showing these symptoms.

The other white tiger in the enclosure, Omar, a male, showed no interest in the cleaner, Mr Nordin Montong, 32, and stayed well away from him.

Omar is behaving normally.

The two other cats are stressed out because of the commotion that occurred during the attack, said the zoo's assistant director Biswajit Guha.

Onlookers screamed and keepers flung objects at the animals to try to distract them on Thursday.

The cats' heightened senses were thus thrown off-kilter, Mr Guha said, adding that they were probably traumatised because they had not experienced anything like it before.

It was also the first time they had come into close contact with a human being since they arrived in Singapore from Indonesia seven years ago, Mr Guha said, and their sense of smell was probably affected.

Even during feeding and cleaning, keepers stay well clear of the big cats.

When meal times roll around, a keeper lures the cats into a holding area behind the exhibit, places about 5kg of raw meat in the enclosure, then leaves it before letting the cats back in.

Mr Guha said: 'The rule is that no one is allowed to enter an enclosure in the presence of a potentially dangerous animal.

'All staff members know this.'

Over the next few days, zoo officials will try and calm the cats down by sticking to their usual routine.

This includes checks by keepers in the mornings to make sure the tigers' bodily functions are working well, raw meat feeding sessions once daily and 'enrichment classes' three times a week.

These classes involve hurling a fibreglass ball full of raw meat into the enclosure to encourage the tigers to exercise and to stimulate their brain activity.

The white tiger exhibit is currently closed, and the animals have been restricted to the den area.

If all goes well, the cats will be let out again on Monday, and the exhibit will be reopened, said Mr Guha.

He added that the tigers were not overly aggressive, and had merely shown behaviour that comes naturally to big cats.

In fact, he said, the zoo's tigers are conditioned to the presence of human beings and are likely to be less aggressive around them than their cousins in the wild.

He added: 'It is only when they feel threatened, feel their territory is intruded upon, or view an object as potential prey that they attack. Usually, they would keep away.'

[Suicidal people can be so inconsiderate, whether they throw themselves on the train tracks and disrupt thousands of commuters, or try to feed themselves to zoo animals and traumatise the animals.]

Tudung! Lipstick! Tigers! Oh why?

The headlines this week was a story of depression and desperation.

On Tue (Nov 11), "Man wearing tudung, lipstick tries to to rob bank" was a tale of a desperate man doing a desperate (and ridiculous) act.

Friday's (Nov 14) headlines, "Cleaner killed by zoo tigers" (picture above from Straits Times) told the story of a deeply disturbed man who decided to leave this world with a desperate attempt to draw attention to himself and his dire straits.

Possible headlines next week:

"Man in tudong, lipstick robs white tigers"

"Cross-dresser in tudong, puts lipstick on white tigers. Oh wait. That's blood."

"White tigers in tudung kills man for lipstick."

"Man disguised as white tiger robs bank."

"Bank imposes a 'No tudung. No Lipstick. No white tigers.' policy"

"Tiger Woods to play wearing tudung and lipstick"