Sir Michael Lyons: BBC Trust is a ’strength not a weakness’
Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, hits back at critics. Photograph: David Levene
Sir Michael Lyons has hit back against calls for the BBC Trust to be scrapped, a pledge the Conservative Party has made if it comes to power, arguing that the result could be the creation of a “glorified complaints office”.
Lyons, the BBC Trust chairman, speaking to the Manchester Statistical Society today, also said he saw it as the trust’s mission to stamp out an “imperial compulsion” that has resided in the corporation since it enjoyed monopoly UK broadcasting status in the days of the first director general, John Reith, in the 1920s.
He added that the aim of the strategic review unveiled last week, which proposes shutting digital radio stations 6 Music and the Asian Network and reducing the BBC’s web output by half, was to create a “more compact” corporation. But this did not mean the BBC would be “put in a straitjacket and never again allowed to do anything new”.
“But, that said, a more compact BBC will undoubtedly mean making some tough choices,” he said. “The BBC needs to concentrate on its important and widely valued public role rather than seeking to become an international communications company.”
Lyons added that many of the achievements of the often-criticised BBC Trust, the corporation’s regulatory and governance body, have been overlooked and that working closely with the director general, Mark Thompson, and the executive board has proved to be beneficial, not detrimental, as some have argued.
“Being part of the BBC keeps us close to the coalface [and] I believe strongly that having the trust as part of the BBC is a strength not a weakness,” he said. “When we see things going wrong we can act quickly and decisively to put this right. The public would be short changed if the trust were replaced by a glorified complaints office.”
Lyons added that the BBC Trust is not conflicted in a role that critics characterise as being both cheerleader and regulator for the corporation. “What the trust is not is the BBC’s regulator. That’s the job of Ofcom,” he said.
“Our job is to steer that tricky course between independence and accountability,” Lyons added, referring to the BBC Trust as akin to a supervisory board.
Last month Jeremy Hunt, the shadow culture secretary, reiterated that a Conservative government would look to scrap the BBC Trust in favour of a new “licence fee payers’ trust”. He has also argued that director general Mark Thompson might be better served by a non-executive chairman.
However, Lyons today defended the trust, insisting it was capable of reining in the BBC’s expansionist tendencies.
“There is a view of the BBC that there is within its DNA a kind of imperial compulsion,” he said, explaining why the BBC needs “clear boundaries” to emerge from the current strategic review.
“According to this view, the BBC is driven by an insatiable desire to expand, to colonise, to establish its forces in every far-flung corner of broadcasting and publishing. That is not something the trust, as the representative of the public, will allow to happen.”
Lyons added that the public impact of an expansionist BBC was a reduction of choice in the market that ultimately was detrimental for consumers. “You, the public, would be the losers,” he said. “The trust is clear that the BBC must be a good corporate neighbour to others in the media marketplace.”
He admitted that the BBC can seem to be a “pretty big and insensitive presence in the marketplace”. But he warned that when some rivals claim to be threatened, such as BSkyB, with its “colossal scale, ambition and financial muscle”, “it can be hard to take such charges entirely seriously”.
“We have no issue at all with the BBC competing ferociously where it matters, on quality, but the trust has no wish to see the BBC reassume its monopoly position,” he said.
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Indian MPs approve women’s bill
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Opponents tore up copies of the bill on Monday
The upper house of India’s parliament has approved a bill to reserve a third of all seats in the national parliament and state legislatures for women.
The bill was passed with 186 members of the 245-seat house voting in favour. Only one member voted against. Several smaller parties boycotted the vote.
The bill was introduced on Monday amid uproar from opponents, resulting in the suspension of seven MPs on Tuesday.
First proposed in 1996, the bill now has support from India’s main parties.
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This is one affirmative action which large parts of India does support. India does have some measures to support its women, but in a largely patriarchal society they have borne the brunt of neglect and discrimination. Acts such as female foeticide leading to skewed sex ratios in some of the most prosperous states are abominable. Things are changing, but the way India sometimes treats its women is a national shame. Also, with just 10% of its parliamentary seats held by women, India needs to play catch-up. Its neighbours fare much better – Bangladesh reserves 15% of its parliamentary seats for women, Pakistan 30% and Afghanistan, after its new constitution, more than 27%. |
At present women make up just 10% of the lower house (Lok Sabha) of parliament, and significantly fewer in state assemblies.
Sonia Gandhi, Congress party president, has said she attaches the “highest importance” to the proposals and passing them would be a “gift to the women of India”.
This bill needed the support of two-thirds of voters present in the upper house (Rajya Sabha) for it to be passed.
The proposals will be tabled in the lower house at a later date. An overwhelming majority there support the move, correspondents say.
The bill has the support of the governing Congress-led UPA alliance, the BJP-led NDA alliance and left-wing parties.
‘Historic’
Party leaders hailed the passing of the bill.
“The bill is a historic and giant step towards empowering women and a celebration of their rights,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in the Rajya Sabha.
“Women are facing discrimination at home, there is domestic violence, unequal access to health and education. This has to end,” he said.
Communist leader Brinda Karat said it would change the “culture of the country because women today are still caught in a culture prison”.
“In the name of tradition, stereotypes are imposed and we have to fight these every day,” she said.
The Congress party’s Jayanthi Natarajan said “women have been waiting for 62 years for this moment”.
The bill’s passage through the upper house has been marked by scenes of chaos since it was tabled on Monday.
Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitley, speaking in parliament on Tuesday, said the uproar was “one of the most shameful moments in India’s parliamentary democracy”.
Earlier, seven MPs had been forcibly removed from the upper house by security guards, after they refused to leave having been suspended for disorderly behaviour.
The MPs had shouted slogans, snatched papers from Vice President Hamid Ansari’s table, torn them and thrown them at him.
The MPs are all members of three parties opposing the women’s bill: the Samajwadi Party (SP), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Loktantric Janata Party (LJP).
While India’s main parties back the legislation, smaller socialist parties argue it will reduce representation of minorities and socially disadvantaged groups.
They want set quotas for women from Muslim and low-caste communities.
There are currently 59 women in the 545-member Lok Sabha. Under the proposals their numbers would rise to 181.
The composition of the 245-seat upper house, which at present has 21 women, will not be affected as its members are indirectly elected by state assemblies.
India already reserves a third of local governing council seats in towns and villages for women, a move that has significantly increased their role in decision-making.
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Bullock has plans for Oscar, Razzie – Toronto Sun
LOS ANGELES Hollywood darling Sandra Bullock plans to show off her Oscar and her Razzie together in the same display at home.
The best-actress Oscar she won Sunday for The Blind Side will just get a more prominent position than the Razzie she won Saturday for the awful All About Steve.
You take the good with the not so good, Bullock said with a chuckle late Sunday, still giddy after her Academy Awards triumph. But I had the best time at the Razzies (Saturday) night. It is what it is and, you know, it probably means more that both of them happened at the same time, because its the great equalizer. Nothing ever lets me get too full of myself. It quickly chops me off at the knees, and I like it that way because it just keeps things stable. And theyll sit side-by-side in a nice little shelf somewhere, the Razzie maybe on a different shelf, lower.
MAKE EM LAUGH: Even with an Oscar, Sandra Bullock wants to keep making comedies like her popular Miss Congeniality movies.
I want to do everything, she announced after her Oscar win for The Blind Side. Just because I won an Oscar, I dont want to ever stop doing something that makes people laugh. I love making people laugh. I dont know what Im going to do next. I sort of wanted this to sort of all die down, but Im going make mistakes, and Im going to make everyone roll their eyes, and Im going to maybe do something that works. But I just want to keep working in every genre that Im allowed to, until Im asked to not do it anymore.
MAKE EM CRY: Sandra Bullocks beau, tattooed tough guy Jesse James, did not cry when she won the Oscar. At least, thats what Bullock is saying now.
Did he cry? Bullock asked rhetorically late Sunday, teasing backstage media after the Oscar ceremony ended. He doesnt cry! He doesnt cry! No!
Laughing, she pointed out her husband of five years, sitting among the reporters. Hes right there. Dont piss him off. He had something in his eye. Its very dusty from the dance music.
Bullock also would not reveal what James whispered in her ear when her name was called for the Oscar. You expect me to tell you that? I know, bless your heart for trying. I mean you got to ask. Id never divulge what Jesse says unless he divulges it first. Its between me and The Man!
TENDER ON GENDER: Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman to win as best director in the 82 years of the Academy Awards, is still trying to downplay her historic win. Just as she had downplayed the gender issue during the Oscar campaign for The Hurt Locker, despite being only the fourth woman ever to be nominated in that male-dominated category.
Well, first of all, I hope Im the first of many, Bigelow said late Sunday. Of course, Id love to just think of myself as a filmmaker and I long for the day when a modifier can be a moot point. But Im ever grateful if I can inspire some young, intrepid, tenacious male or female filmmaker and have them feel that the impossible is possible, and never give up on your dream.
TAKING THE HIGH ROAD: Ex-spouses Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron have taken the high road showing dignity and restraint throughout the Oscar campaign. Now that it is over, now that The Hurt Locker has toppled the mighty box-office champ Avatar, Bigelow is still maintaining her reserve.
First of all, I think hes an extraordinary filmmaker, Bigelow said about Cameron after the Oscar ceremony Sunday, in which she beat Cameron personally for the best-director prize. I have to say, all the nominees are phenomenal, powerful, talented filmmakers. How humbling it was for me to be in that company, in that conversation.
But Bigelow stopped short of saying anything else to Cameron, at least in public. They were married from 1989-91. Pressed on the issue by one reporter backstage, Bigelow shrugged and said: Well, you left me speechless.
Pressed even further, she gamely offered the big compliment: I think Jim is very inspiring, and I think he inspires filmmakers around the world. And for that I think I can speak for all of them. Were quite grateful.
Cameron left Bigelow to marry Linda Hamilton, whom he left for Suzy Amis, his current (and fifth) wife. Hamilton, showing no restraint, recently called Cameron a talented control freak and a jerk as a husband.
SHOW ME THE MONEY: Armed with its six Oscars, including best picture, The Hurt Locker now needs to find its audience. But the filmmakers are not unhappy about the fate of the film so far.
Its an incredible honour, producer and screenwriter Mark Boal said late Sunday. The Academy Awards are the pinnacle of the filmmaking community and, obviously, they bring more attention to the film. And thats all for the best, and we feel grateful for the journey that weve had, and just to be up here.
And we all are reminded every day of how many filmmakers there are out there that dont get their movies made at all, and dont get them distributed after they are made and go straight to DVD. So its an incredible blessing and honour to be here and, of course, we look forward to more people seeing the film. But its been a fabulous ride already.
With only $19.3 million in worldwide box office to date, The Hurt Locker has the worst theatrical revenues of any best-picture winner of the past four decades. The film is now on DVD and Blu-ray in North America and still looking for the audience it deserves.
HEY, SUGAR!: Even with an Oscar as supporting actress, MoNique will not call herself a bona fide actress.
I am stand-up comedienne who won an Oscar! she said late Sunday, after winning for a sterling acting performance in Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. Oh baby, I did. Me!
The ebullient MoNique, who calls happily calls people sugar and baby, said Precious has had little to do with her acting career. Instead, it has been a life-affirming process.
This role has shaped my life to allow me not to judge and to love unconditionally, she said, in a reference to abuse she suffered in her childhood. Now, if that goes into my career, great. But, if it doesnt and I am just a dynamic person as I strive to be every day Ive won, baby!
During the Oscar campaign, MoNique revealed for the first time publicly that she had been sexually molested as a seven-year-old, allegedly by her own brother when he used candy to lure her into the bathroom in their house.
CRAZY AND HEART-FELT: Jeff Bridges has a habit of excelling in small movies that take time to find their cult following. Crazy Heart, which just earned him his first best-actor Oscar, may be one of them.
Thats the exciting thing to me, because this award brings some attention to that great movie, Bridges said late Sunday about how Oscar might shine the light on Crazy Heart, which failed to make it as a best-picture contender.
The Big Lebowski, his collaboration with the Coen Brothers, is another favourite that took time to be appreciated. While Bridges was not nominated for an Oscar for that film, he is widely acclaimed for his role as The Dude.
Im digging The Dude, Bridges said, joking. You know, I love him. Thats wonderful, you know, the success that hes had. I was a little disappointed when it first came out, it didnt do much (at the box office). But now we have Lebowski fests, and all kinds of things.
Cant wait for the Crazy Heart fests to spring up.
Court erred in dismissing Anwar’s bid for review – Malaysia Kini
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Spare 6 Music for us indie dads
If 6 Music played classical music, the BBC wouldn’t touch it. But pop music can be distinctive too and Phill Jupitus was right to call the proposal to axe it “cultural vandalism”. The BBC’s management should change their minds, and if they don’t the BBC Trust should turn this down.
I admit I’ve got a vested interest. I love 6 Music from Guy Garvey to Adam and Joe (come back soon ). I love its playlist. I’m a BBC fan, both as a consumer and a policymaker. But the arguments for this decision just don’t stack up. Let’s take them in turn.
Whenever anyone proposes privatising Radio 1, the BBC rushes to say that popular music radio stations can be distinctive. That argument just about works for Radio 1 but it’s true in spades for 6 Music. If 6 Music goes, then how can they justify the much more popular Radios 1 and 2?
The BBC also argues that it needs to help commercial radio by closing the station (but Absolute radio and XFM play a completely different playlist there really isn’t a market in this niche); that if 6 Music keeps growing it will become too successful and the BBC can’t have three big national radio networks (so just keep it niche and distinctive, then); and that it’s got a high cost per listener (but that’s just what happens when the BBC does what it should do adistinctive, high-quality service).
Finally, the BBC says it has to show that the era of expansion is over. But closing 6 Music is hardly going to stop Sky and ITV from complaining.
I’m sceptical of the BBC’s anti-expansion argument anyway. The BBC’s policy shouldn’t be dictated by the space it needs to leave its rivals, but by what licence fee payers want.
I’ve had conversations with BBC executives over the last few days. Once you’ve gone through all these arguments, they finally lament: “Well, what should we cut then?” There have been lots of proposals, from corporate salaries to BBC3. But the answer is staring at us in the schedule.
The BBC wants to cut something that isn’t distinctive, that the market would provide anyway and that costs more than 6 Music. It has said the aim is to make fewer reality and property shows and quizzes. Let me gently point you to today’s BBC2 afternoon schedule:
¢ Diagnosis Murder: competition between rival caterers vying for a big contract turns nasty.
¢ Flog It! Paul Martin and experts Anita Manning and Michael Baggott head to Weston-super-Mare.
¢ Pointless. Quiz in which contestants try to score as few points as possible.
Pointless really is the name of the programme but it’s also an apt description of this schedule. There is no point in the BBC having two afternoon schedules in daytime. I’m sure there are good people making these programmes, but they could easily be on other commercial channels or on BBC1. Rather than axing a brilliant, distinctive service, the BBC should close down BBC2 daytime. BBC2 costs more than £500m a year, 6 Music £9m so there should be some extra money to fund the Asian Network too. That way it can much better achieve the goal of the strategy review and avoid offending all the indie dads like me who prefer waking up to Shaun Keaveny to the Today programme.
James Purnell MP is a former culture secretary and currently the MP forStalybridge and Hyde
Please sign the petitions at http://love6music.co.uk/
Internet access ‘a human right’
Almost four in five people around the world believe that access to the internet is a fundamental right, a poll for the BBC World Service suggests.
The survey – of more than 27,000 adults across 26 countries – found strong support for net access on both sides of the digital divide.
Countries such as Finland and Estonia have already ruled that access is a human right for their citizens.
International bodies such as the UN are also pushing for universal net access.
“The right to communicate cannot be ignored,” Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), told BBC News.
“The internet is the most powerful potential source of enlightenment ever created.”
He said that governments must “regard the internet as basic infrastructure – just like roads, waste and water”.
“We have entered the knowledge society and everyone must have access to participate.”
The survey also revealed divisions on the question of government oversight of some aspects of the net.
Web users questioned in South Korea and Nigeria felt strongly that governments should never be involved in regulation of the internet. However, a majority of those in China and the many European countries disagreed.
In the UK, for example, 55% believed that there was a case for some government regulation of the internet.
Rural retreat
The finding comes as the UK government tries to push through its controversial Digital Economy Bill.
As well as promising to deliver universal broadband in the UK by 2012, the bill could also see a so-called “three strikes rule” become law.
This rule would give regulators new powers to disconnect or slow down the net connections of persistent illegal file-sharers. Other countries, such as France, are also considering similar laws.
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A season of reports from 8-19 March 2010 exploring the extraordinary power of the internet, including: |
Recently, the EU adopted an internet freedom provision, stating that any measures taken by member states that may affect citizen’s access to or use of the internet “must respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens”.
In particular, it states that EU citizens are entitled to a “fair and impartial procedure” before any measures can be taken to limit their net access.
The EU is also committed to providing universal access to broadband. However, like many areas around the world the region is grappling with how to deliver high-speed net access to rural areas where the market is reluctant to go.
Analysts say that is a problem many countries will increasingly have to deal with as citizens demand access to the net.
The BBC survey found that 87% of internet users felt internet access should be the “fundamental right of all people”.
More than 70% of non-users felt that they should have access to the net.
Overall, almost 79% of those questioned said they either strongly agreed or somewhat agreed with the description of the internet as a fundamental right – whether they currently had access or not.
Free speech
Countries such as Mexico, Brazil and Turkey most strongly support the idea of net access as a right, the survey found.
More than 90% of those surveyed in Turkey, for example, stated that internet access is a fundamental right – more than those in any other European Country.
South Korea – the most wired country on Earth – had the greatest majority of people (96%) who believed that net access was a fundamental right. Nearly all of the country’s citizens already enjoy high-speed net access.
The survey also revealed that the internet is rapidly becoming a vital part of many people’s lives in a diverse range of nations.
In Japan, Mexico and Russia around three-quarters of respondents said they could not cope without it.
Most of those questioned also said that they believed the web had a positive impact, with nearly four in five saying it had brought them greater freedom.
However, many web users also expressed concerns. The dangers of fraud, the ease of access to violent and explicit content and worries over privacy were the most concerning aspects for those questioned.
A majority of users in Japan, South Korea and Germany felt that they could not express their opinions safely online, although in Nigeria, India and Ghana there was much more confidence about speaking out.
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Viva La Brazilia @ Laundry Bar – Klue
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After recently undergoing a glam-chic makeover, Laundry Bar presents Brazilian diva Betina Ignacio for the first time ever in Malaysia. The Bossa Nova queen and her band Bé, famous for their pop and world music genres, combines Bossa Nova, Samba, Funk, Reggae, and Jazz giving the audience the complete Brazilian dance atmosphere. True to the Brazilian passion for music and dance, Betina and her band will make you dance the night away while indulging in Brazilian inspired canape’s and cocktails such as Canape’s De Camaroes, Repolho Recheado, the Brazilian Caipirinha cocktail and many more.
Sentenced without chance to defend, says Zulkifli – Malay Mail
KUALA LUMPUR: Kulim-Bandar Baharu Member of Parliament Zulkifli Noordin who was expelled from Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) said he was punished without being given a chance to defend himself.
Zulkifli, 48, said he was informed of his sacking from journalist friends and said it was the beginning of a dark era in the history in the reformation struggle that began on Sept 2, 1998, and included the fall and destruction of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR).
“I was punished without being the chance to defend myself according to the principles of human rights and the values of justice as championed by the PKR eadership all this while. The speed of the action to sack me proves the falsity of their slogan,” Zulkifli said.
“I only wanted to be brought before a panel made up of Muslims as the issue involved the word ‘Allah’ as a matter of ‘aqidah’, ’syariat’ and Islam, but instead they had a panel whose majority were not Islam to insult and disgrace me and Muslims,” he said in a statement on his blog last night.
According to him, although he was given the opportunity to appeal, he will not so as to continue to hold fast to principle and not sell out his honour to the “little Pharaohs” in the party.
Zulkifli added that he will consider his options and choices before deciding on his next steps.
He also said now it had become a trend in PKR to launch personal attacks and conduct “character assassination”.
PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution said the party’s decision was unanimous including asking Zulkifli to vacate his parliamentary seat.
He has been given 14 days to appeal.
Zulkifli, a lawyer, was hauled up by the party’s disciplinary committee to explain himself over the police report he made against Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad of PAS, a PKR ally, regarding the use of the term “Allah”.
The simple life – Malaysia Star
Many Sarawakians who live in Kuala Lumpur miss the peace and quiet of their hometowns.
starmag-feedback@thestar.com.my
IN BaKelalan, an area encompassing nine villages near the Sarawak-Kalimantan border, the occasional motorbike makes its bumpy way through the paddy fields and village houses. Why own a car when there are no tarred roadsits sometimes more practical to walk.
In this part of the interior highlands, about 305m above sea level, electricity is generated using micro-hydro power from the nearest waterfalls and water is piped from streams in the jungle. Rice farming remains the main source of income for most households. The locals sleep early and wake up before the sun rises to go to church. Morning service starts at 5am.
Sandra Tagal, 34, owner of tour company Borneo Jungle Safari, hails from this place. She belongs to the ethnic group Lun Bawang and still calls BaKelalan home despite having lived in KL for the past 10 years.
What I like best about my hometown is the peace and quiet. I often go homesometimes up to four times a yearto soak up the beauty of the natural surroundings, to unwind and recharge myself. It is my sanctuary from the hectic life in KL, she says.
Tagal, the youngest of seven children, has been running the family tourism business for the last six years. She says that Borneo is fast becoming a popular destination for holiday makers from all over the world.
People are slowly starting to appreciate what we have to offer. When I see them on vacation in my hometown enjoying the things I take for granted, it makes me realise just how blessed I am to be able to call a place like this home.
It would be a sad day indeed if its rustic charm is compromised by rapid development, she says.
When Tagal first set foot in KL, she was overwhelmed by how quickly everything seemed to move here.
Its not the first time I have been away from home (she studied in Newcastle, UK), but it took me about three years to adjust to the fast-paced lifestyle and the heavy traffic. Im used to it now and I like my life in KL, but I will always be a Sarawakian at heart, she says.
Life in a longhouse
LIFE might be simple in the Bario highlands in Sarawak, but people there do not live on trees.
Nicholas Sagau, 30, head of web development and design division at Alt Media, a Media Prima subsidiary focusing on new media, is amused when people from Peninsular Malaysia assume Sarawakians live that way.
I often say in responseyes, and we use lifts to get up to our tree houses, he laughs.
Born in Miri, Sagau was raised in Bario and thereafter moved to Kuching. After completing secondary school, he left for KL to further his studies.
It was a new chapter in the young Kelabit boys life: It was a big culture shock at firstthe local Malay dialect took some getting used to and everyone hangs out at shopping malls and mamak stalls.
In Bario, entertainment is defined differently, especially through the eyes of a child.
Sagau grew up flying kites, cock fighting and playing with guli (marbles) and gasing (spinning tops) with the neighbourhood kids.
We also fashioned sleds out of banana tree trunks and rode them downhill at top speed. It was dangerous, of course, but we were not concerned about it then. We just knew it was really fun, he says.
They didnt have electricity but managed with the generator for special occasions. Monday night was one such event: it was MacGyver night for the kids. (MacGyver is an American action-adventure television series that aired from 1985 to 1992 and featured an intelligent, resourceful secret agent played by Richard Dean Anderson.)
Children from the whole village would gather at my place to watch the show. I was fortunate to live in quite a modern longhousemy grandfather was the penghulu (paramount chief) and we had a cement floor, a corrugated zinc sheet roof and a TV, says Sagau.
Communication was limited to radio calls and people from all over the village would line up to use it.
Bario only got mobile phone network coverage a few months ago and Sagaus grandparents, who still live there, had much difficulty grasping the concept of charging the phone battery.
They were really puzzled at firstthey thought that if you charge the phone you shouldnt need to pay to use it, he relates.
I think Sarawakians are very patriotic to the land and many people dont want to leave. In Bario, people are very communal. Almost everyone knows each other, and I like that.
I love how its so kampungit feels like youre in a place that is cut off from the rest of the world!
Same difference
WHAT culture shock? We are not all that different, says Kelly Koh when asked whether his move to the big city was difficult to adjust to.
Kuching has seen rapid development and has changed quite a bit from my childhood days. Now its just like KLeven our shopping malls are like those you find there, he says of his hometown.
The 33-year-old project manager, who left Kuching in 1995 to pursue a business degree, says he toyed with the idea of returning home after completing his university studies but decided against it in the end.
I thought about returning to Sarawak to work but the opportunities were better here, he says, citing massive traffic jams and pollution as drawbacks to living in KL.
The worst traffic you get in Kuching is probably a 30-minute crawl in front of the cinema when everyone leaves after a movie. In KL, traffic jams happen anywhere and at any time of the day, he says.
One of the first things he noticed when he first moved to KL was that he had to spend longer time on the road.
The heavy traffic on the Federal Highway still remains a mystery till this day! he says.
Relying heavily on public transport as a college student, the first time Koh took a bus in KL was to Lot 10, a shopping mall in Bukit Bintang.
I hopped on the No. 10 bus from Subang to Lot 10. That was a really big adventure for me at that time! he says.
Koh, who has been living in KL almost as long as in Kuching, is now happily married with two young daughters.
He says that its a common misconception that people from Sarawak are very different from those in the countrys capital city.
People tell me Sarawak is a really nice place. They tell me that Sarawakians are friendly and approachable. Some people say we are hardworking. Others say we are lazy. Truth is, you find all kinds of people in every state, he says, pointing out that many people you meet in KL are not actually from there.
They might live here, work herebut they hail from other states. Maybe we are not so different after all.
Palestinian Sees Lesson Translating an Israeli’s Work – New York Times
JERUSALEM Six years ago, when violencewas the order of the day here, Elias Khourys 20-year-old son, George, was killed in a Palestinian terrorist attack. The Khourys are Palestinian, so the murder of George who was out for a jog and shot from behind by gunmen in a car produced an apology. Sorry, the killers said, we assumed the jogger was a Jew.
Mr. Khoury was not only disconsolate, he was appalled. A prominent Jerusalem lawyer who often fights Israeli confiscations of land from Palestinians, he considered violence a toxin corroding his nations core.
So in memory of George, a charismatic law student and musician, Mr. Khoury did something that shocked many in his community. He paid for the translation into Arabic of the autobiography of Israels most prominent author and dove, Amos Oz.
The Arabic version of the book, A Tale of Love and Darkness, went on salelate last month in Beirut, Lebanon, where it has received positive commentary notably by Abdo Wazen, cultural editor of the pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat as well as some angry reaction. The book is due to be distributed more widely in the region in the coming weeks.
In explaining his decision, Mr. Khoury said that literature was an important bridge and that he had a specific goal in mind with this book, a point he includes in a preface to the translation.
This book tells the history of the rebirth of the Jewish people, he said as he sat in his law office. We can learn from it how a people like the Jewish people emerged from the tragedy of the Holocaust and were able to reorganize themselves and build their country and become an independent people. If we cant learn from that, we will not be able to do anything for our independence.
Mr. Khoury is hardly a Zionist. His familys land near Nazareth, about 750 acres, was seized by Israel for security purposes, he said, shortly after the creation of the state, bankrupting his family.
His father, Daoud, an educated man who fought the confiscation with every fiber of his being, was barred by the Shin Bet internal security force from holding even menial jobs for some 20 years. He ultimately did get work, as an accountant at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
Shortly thereafter, in 1975, he was killed in a Palestinian terrorist attack in downtown Jerusalem when a bomb placed in a refrigerator killed 13 people. Elias Khoury was only feet away at the time.
Having lost his land to Israel and his father and son to Palestinians, Mr. Khoury is in a rare position to petition both sides to re-examine themselves. A Palestinian nationalist, fluent in Hebrew and English, Mr. Khoury said he believed that the Oz autobiography, with its account of Jewish refugee life here in the 1930s and 40s, could be a vehicle to help Palestinians and other Arabs see the Jews in a different light.
The book is widely considered Mr. Ozs masterpiece and one of the most important books in contemporary Hebrew. While not explicitly about coexistence, as some other of his nonfiction works are, it paints a deeply moving picture of Jewish refugees from Europe trying to find their way.
Mr. Wazen, the Beirut critic, called Mr. Ozs writings beautiful and praised the unique world created in them, saying this enemy was certainly worth reading.
Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian philosopherwho wrote his own powerful autobiography of growing up in Jerusalem in the same era, Once Upon a Country, said in that books opening that it was upon reading Mr. Ozs volume that he was struck by the parallel existences of Jews and Palestinian Arabs of the time.
Werent both sides of the conflict totally immersed in their own tragedies, each one oblivious to, or even antagonistic toward, the narrative of the other? he wrote. Isnt this inability to imagine the lives of the other at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Mr. Khoury believes it is.
If we dont understand each other, there will always be suspicion and gaps that cant be bridged, he said.
Mr. Oz, who has come to know the Khoury family Elias, his wife, Rima, and their two other children through this project, said by telephone that their sponsorship of an Arabic translation of his book made him very emotional.
This is the right book to travel into Arabic because it contains a nonheroic rendering of the birth of Israel and a description of Israel as a Jewish refugee camp, he said. Elias wants to build emotional bridges between our nations, and to do that you need to let each read the narrative of the other. Reading literature is like taking you into the bedroom of the other.
Mr. Oz noted that in the book his father recalled how, as a youth in Europe, the walls were covered in graffiti saying Jews, go to Palestine. Then when he got here some years later, the walls carried the message Jews, get out of Palestine.
Mr. Oz added, I am very eager for Arabs to read this to realize that Israel, just like Palestine, is a refugee camp.
