While I’m by no means a fan of the bill, the title (and article) bugs me alot because it makes implicit assumptions about the reader’s understanding of “Commonwealth” and “uproar” and “Commonwealth uproar”.

Who is the Commonwealth we are referring to here? Only the UK, Canada, Australia and NZ (a.k.a. the “liberal West”)? Or the rest of the Commonwealth which the article correctly identifies as consisting of societies traditionally considered as homophobic? Uproar for or against the bill? Because clearly the uproar comes from concerns over the bill, and concerns from generally more ‘liberal’ Commonwealth nations.

Therefore, it is portraying as if the rest of the Commonwealth care that Uganda is proposing the anti-gay bill. And they don’t and won’t care as they can’t care because in many of these countries, there are similar laws in these same countries, and to care would be hypocritical.

But, of course, you don’t find The Globe and Mail reporting about these laws. Because these laws are a shameful vestige of an era in British (and the “liberal West’s”) history where homophobia was something once professed. Infact, the article fails to recognise the role colonialism played in the spread of homophobia through the penal code and legal system which were informed by such values, and through missionary activity, the very same colonial relationship which forms the basis of the Commonwealth today.

And I’m nowhere close to being anti-Commonwealth. No, seriously.

A Frozen Second
Wilson Ho

Two months and counting, I have yet to process and truly comprehend the Greatest Experience of my Life. I found it difficult to express and share the MRH experience in words which would be true to its essence and do it justice. What I witnessed were no longer figments of my imagination, but fragments of my memory.

My first week home was disorienting. ‘Disorienting’ is the one word which can best describe what it felt like for me. I was lost and at such a lost for words, I felt handicapped being unable to share all that I have witnessed. It did not help when people wanted to know what I learnt.

As I sit here, recollecting my thoughts without any help from the pictures I took while on the trip, I cannot help but pause and realize how much of my memory was photographic. Without my pictures then, I was rendered incapable of explaining the experience to others, and through it, to be able to relive the experience for reflection. I also realize how there were some moments which impacted me more than others, and I reckon them to be different from person to person.

I would forever recall the initial moments, like a baby’s first step of exploration, and hopefully, with luck on my side, discovery, not just of truth per se, but of one’s self. I was desperately struggling to not possess expectations and yet I was filled with uncertainty and eagerly anticipating the unknown. Infact, the night before Auschwitz, I wrote “I anticipate. I apprehend. I contemplate. I do not expect.” I would remember sitting behind our two Holocaust survivors as they were introduced at the Orientation and thinking about how happy and glad I was they were here with us, still present among us. They survived along with their life story. How my thoughts then shifted to those who did not. No longer is the loss ours, but one of Humanity’s.

One moment which I remember most vividly was at Auschwitz-Birkenau during our ceremony. The morning earlier had not been easy; it had been a rough day. We were standing, hand-in-hand, singing along, and all the while my eyes were fixated on Judy. I noticed her standing alone in the background apart from where the chorus was. She was gazing away into the ruins at a distance. The blank stare belies her physical presence; I knew from the look in her eyes she was back in the past, which perhaps may be a haunting in no manner I would ever be able to fathom.

Dissonance was a big theme of our experience. For me, it was clearest at Płaszów, and I quote my journal post:

Today I was sitting on the green, green grass of Płaszów.
The weather was beautiful and nothing like how it was during our two days in Berlin.
It was difficult to imagine there was, behind such a beautiful place, a very real dark past.

While I was seated on the ground, I fiddled and played with the blades of grass pricking around my legs to while away time.

Running the blade between one’s fingers from base to tip, the grass was silky smooth.
Yet, to do otherwise, the tiny hairs were sharp and prickly.

Need I say any more than that?

To think about the future is easy,
but to take a look back into the past is difficult.

Throughout my time on MRH, another theme which resonated the most for me was those of guilt and goodbyes ─ two things which mean very much to me. Before the experience, I have long said guilt and regret are the worst emotions personally for they would beget me much grief, and if I had to pick one, it would be guilt ─ not because one is worse than the other, but because with guilt comes regret. The vice versa, on the other hand, is not necessarily and in a sense, regrettably, always true. Watching an episode of Oprah ─ yes, I watch Oprah ─ post-MRH on the cathartic meeting between Amon Göth’s daughter, Monika Hertwig, and Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, reminded me of how important closure was and brought the message home to me.

Two weeks after MRH, I still felt like a lost soul picking up the pieces and moving on. It was surreal. Slowly readjusting and easing myself back into reality, it was then, when like an epiphany, it struck me. I would not go so far as to say it paralysed me with fear, but it struck me and brought me back to a time a couple of hours upon arrival in Berlin. It was more than a snapshot captured of that moment; it was a memory transcending all senses. Solemnly we stood in silence under cloudy skies on the grounds of the Wannsee Villa, when Morgie, our informative guide, lectured us on the Final Solution, and stressed the incomprehensible fact that those present and responsible were all educated intellectuals. Unbeknownst to me then was what it would come to mean for myself.

There has been much strife recently over my home country’s stance on religion and racial politics, so much so it was even featured in an article titled ‘A nation at odds over Islam’ on the July 27^th 2007 edition of the Toronto Star. Connecting the dots, the stark fact laid before my very eyes. One of the more prominent members of parliament caught up in the controversy was educated at the London School of Economics, while another graduated from the University of Oxford. Yet, they were proponents of Ketuanan Melayu. Or Malay supremacy.

I am not trying to make a political statement; I am merely expressing disappointment. I also do not expect the situation to disintegrate to a state similar to the Indonesian racial riots in May 1998. Well, not on my watch at least. I am thankful there are other enlightened ones who seek and strive for humanity.

Through the MRH, I am not only, first and foremost, inspired, but enriched by the lessons taught, the knowledge learnt, and especially the people who made everything all the more worthwhile. Through the therapeutic singing and the tears, I was changed. I was transformed. I did not hold back from sharing in the pain. I expressed. I emoted. It may not appear much to others, but to me, it is of personal significance; I was being very open about what I was feeling then. To a group of random strangers no less!

Growing up in Malaysia and Singapore, the experience also proved invaluable to me in allowing me to better understand the Jewish faith and cultural life, which I have always found to be intriguing.

Being from a region which was faced with its own crises during World War II, such as the Sook Ching Massacre in Singapore, there are not many people who know much about the Holocaust. Then of course, there are those who deny the Holocaust. To deny the Holocaust would be to deny the existence of those who lost their lives. It would be to deny them the basic human right of dignity.

I feel it is my obligation to educate the ignorant and enlighten the indifferent. I wish my words shall resonate with the core of their being, that of humanity which resides in all of us, to eradicate further perpetration and perpetuation of crimes against humanity with time to come.

In my MRH application essay on my idea of utopia, I expressed my dismay with the worldly state of affairs, and how if change was expected to be achieved, we would require a conscious realization of our own voice and vision of utopia. “Because when we lack the vision, we kill the Will” – the collective will to make it reality.

The task at hand and whatever else which lie before us as MRH witnesses would reveal itself to be a formidable challenge. However, we, as a collective, as a family, could be the spark unto the flames of change and the light of hope. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” With this, I am compelled to implore us all to act today.

Describe your idea of Utopia.

When I first read the topic, two books came to mind – Thomas More’s Utopia, and strangely (even ironically) Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. It left me pondering, nay, questioning how and if there could be any two books more dissimilar than these.

I remember Orwell stated if only the ‘proles’ knew the power which lay within them that there would be hope, but it would require a conscious realisation of their own voice. He stated so very clearly that it was about the Will. It was all about the collective Will.

I resonated with his idea. My utopia would be different from our World and its dismaying current state of affairs. Everybody’s, I believe, should. Because when we lack the vision, we kill the Will.

In today’s society, people lament about materialism in our consumer-driven capitalistic society, yet many fail to realise it’s a value imbued in many, if not most, of us since we were impressionable children. All the hard work would be paid off by a reward at the end, we were taught. Yet, we fail to consider at what price (or to be specific, cost) does it come? Is it something we are willing to forego? Or instead, is it a fair trade?

The consequential competitive nature is an enabler of conflict and violence. Senseless wars are fought over everything and anything, including power, access to and control of resources, as well as racial cleansing on the basis of eugenics. As a Health Studies student, I view apathy and inaction towards the plight of those less fortunate than ourselves as a form of genocide, such that we are essentially leaving them to die like castoffs … they are being allowed to wither away before our very eyes.

I think it draws back to our fixation on the physical. Materialism and superficiality are examples by which it manifests itself, and they lend themselves to the discrimination, and injustices and inequalities many are faced with on a daily basis.

To bring about an end to the perpetration and perpetuation of crimes against humanity, we need to look past the surface. Let me rephrase. We need to get past beyond the surface, and value what others have to offer. Afterall, the imparting and sharing of knowledge and acquired wisdom serve as a life lesson.

Orwell, again in his book, mentioned how his character, Winston, felt and was convinced there was a time when things were better than in the society he was living, or rather, existing in. Because, if not, how else would Winston’s body, his being, know enough to reject the reality as it was perceived? The question then is the cliché: “what is good without bad?” We survived the bad despite our losses. Now it is time to pursue goodness in our lives.

My utopia is one where dystopia lingers in our memory because without relativity, we would never negate taking things for granted to truly cherish all we are given and possess, including our Will for change for the betterment of all.

And I was
another witness
insignificant
to the cosmic display

Not knowing
where such
deep emotions
came forward spring

A sadness
a sense of loss
and the fragments of me
shall be picked up
and together pieced

The colour of your skin
the golden tan of your skin
the fake superficiality of your skin
one which you worked hard to achieve
by means
of your wealth
of your power
of your privilege
to be a shade darker
when people
have been discriminated
have been oppressed
have been enslaved
have died
have suffered
have cried
these
beads of tears
beads of sweat
beads of blood
disenfranchised
disoriented
disrooted
from the land of one’s ancestors
all for being not one shade fairer

You, you sit there
stirring in your skin
while fully conscious
of the judgements
your people make about
the colour of my skin

which with such pride I carry
along with my people’s every story.

We trysted that summer
under the canopies
together, we
were the gods pawn
toys to their ev’ry tease

Then when the ripe time came
and the gods of us bore
our fragile hearts
ruthlessly broke
and us apart they tore

But the world as we know it is not simplistic, it is not binary, it is not black and white.
I dare you to embrace the grey, to embrace the middle ground, both unreasonably maligned.

But that was back then. Now if you ask me, dare I say, I am!

How can I not be? How can you not be? We all are. We are artists, artists of life. We who have mastered the craft, the craft that is the art of living.
For it is not easy, to make it seem easy, to make it seem gracious. We struggle, we fall, we put ourselves in harm’s way in the name of love.
Yet, through it all, we survive, we are survivors navigating these dark uncertain times.

Now I await the day when we can proclaim we are artists. Poor, desperate and struggling.

so there he was, cautiously (yet ever so nonchalantly), typing with his two index fingers key by key, but not before without having given the post much thought.

he felt a good starting point was to introduce himself. then again, he imagined, you, the reader, would likely have found the ‘about’ page already and muttered under your breath to yourself, “t.m.i. (aka too much information)”

given his advanced ability at reading between the lines and connecting the dots, he came up with a formula:
introduction > identity > existence

it was perfect! einstein nietzsche would be proud, especially taking into consideration his (unhealthy) obsession with existentalism and he has been experiencing some form of an existentialist crisis since the summer of 2008.

so there he was, fresh out of university, ready to take on the world. but while his friends were busy moving on with their lives, he, our poor boy, was lost. questioning his existence was no stranger to him by then, but what was new was that he was forced to consider his life’s direction (and purpose, of course) in a new perspective. where does he go from here? what’s next?

with a pocketful of naïvete, he decided to learn, explore and discover. he decided he ought to step outside the proverbial box. it’s been a relatively good year, he figured. he was going to pick up from where he left off prior to the 5-years-of-university-which-was-a-creativity-blackhole. he wanted to read again. he wanted to write again. he wanted to draw again. and dammit! i shall. o rite. third person. he shall!

to exemplify, he attended workshops at the queer/alternative life/stage theatre (company) he works at. he was even so daring as to go up on stage and do a poetry reading at a youth open mic night. today, he dropped off his application to participate in a theatre/performance art group from april to june, culminating in a cabaret show featuring young queer artists. yes, he’s queer, but he isn’t here.

his head is often up among clouds, mind filled with dreams and daydreams. how he wished he was anywhere but here at every moment. like right now.