Lawasia, Yoga and Shahidan

One year of planning and finally the Lawasia Conference is over. I woke up today, exhausted and all I wanted to do was sleep. And sleep I did. The Social events at the Conference went ok, I suppose. There were glitches and errors here and there but the Team was superb in rising to the occasion and solving them all. I feel vindicated that I have chosen an able team to help out the event. They were:-

1. Dipendra

2. Janet Chai

3. Yip Huen Weng

4. Colin Pereira

5. Peter Ling

6. Reggie Wong

7. Sanjeev Kumar

8. Suan Kim

9. Benjamin 

10. Mark Le Brooy

11. Lee Shih

12. Seira

13. Azira

14. Oommen Koshy

Also thanks to the pretty Ching Gaik who helped out Azira at the Gala Dinner.

I thank them all - great job!

Despite my extremely busy schedule at the Conference, I read that Yoga is not acceptable in some Churches and the Islamic Council will issue a fatwa on this. I am really trying to understand the logic on how Yoga can be seen as a deviating belief? Really champion people we have around us.

Shahidan however takes the cake. He had demanded that Zaid Ibrahim to get out of the Malay race.. I wonder how Zaid is gonna do that. I give you an excerpt from the Malaysian Bar Website:-

(see link : 

http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/legal/general_news/get_out_of_malay_grouping_shahidan_tells_zaid.html

"Zaid should repent. Otherwise, he should get out of the 'rumpun Melayu' (Malay grouping)," said the former Perlis Menteri Besar, here today.

Shahidan, who is also Arau Umno division chief, said Zaid "is a Malay and should be behaving like a Malay".

"He should have the Malay spirit and not question 'ketuanan Melayu' openly," Shahidan said when met at the closing of the Perlis Open Cycling Championship 2008 and the Women's Cycling Championship for the President's Cup, here.

He said if Zaid continued to question the Malay supremacy concept, then he should no longer be a Malay because as a Malay he should be defending the Malays and not running them down.

Shahidan, who is also an Umno Supreme Council member, wants Zahid to apologise for his remarks.

Zaid had recently said that the "ketuanan Melayu" concept was a failure and detriment to the Malay race, and that it had caused wastage to resources, energy and time needed to address the real issues in the country.

Either Shahidan has Harry Porter powers to transcend Zaid out of his Race, or Shahidan is just plain daft. But then again, in times of Economic crisis like this, it's nice to have some humour from UMNO, about UMNO.