Navigating through treacherous waters
There’s something incredibly primal about facing something treacherous but doing it anyway. – Martin Henderson, New Zealand actor I once watched an old film clip of a group of indigenous peoples navigating treacherous rapids deep in Borneo’s interior. It was amazing how they attacked the route they have chosen through the rapids, and how they […]
You Are Your Worst Enemy: The Lesson of Nauru
THE attempt to understand human nature or the nature of the human being, has been a central focus of thinkers and philosophers for centuries, and the subject continues to provoke lively philosophical debates, continuing into modern times. The rather timely trigger that prompted me to reflect upon this very deep and fundamental subject of human […]
Jungle boy turns the tables on rivals
TAKE A STEP BACK Since it’s the Hari Kebangsaan month, I’d like to make the point that showing our patriotic duty can take many forms. The idea of “flying the flag” is not just hoisting the Jalur Gemilang on a pole or waving a small flag now and then in some form of set […]
Reimagining the social contract
Every year, the International Day of Indigenous Peoples is celebrated on August 9, which is a Monday this year. That sounds serious and enlightening. Who are the so called ‘Indigenous Peoples’ of the world? In terms of population, there are apparently over 476 million indigenous peoples living in 90 countries across the world, but in […]
Are we living on the edge?
Last night, a cousin who lives in Alberta, Canada sent me a picture she had taken. It was no ordinary picture. She had captured the moon behind the tree branches with the poor air quality from the recent wildfires burning in nearby British Columbia as the backdrop. The poor air quality makes the picture of […]
Trail blazers fired on spirit of solidarity
I have not met anyone yet who does not like the hit song ‘You Raise Me Up’ — a song originally composed by the Norwegian-Irish duo Secret Garden, the music being written by Secret Garden’s Rolf Lovland and the lyrics by Brendan Graham. The song is one of my favourites, not just because of the […]
Globalisation of business
TAKE A STEP BACK In this second of a two-part series, the writer reminisces about his Petronas journey following his graduation in 1982. Sometime back, when I was helming MLNG, there was the Petronas initiative, the brainchild of Tan Sri Mohd Hassan Marican, to try and capture the stories of the beginning of […]
From scholar to employee
In this first of a two-part series, the writer gives a peek into his Petronas journey following his graduation in 1982. Part two will appear next week. I was one of six law students from Sarawak in our batch of the law class of 1978/79-1981/82 at the University of Malaya. Upon graduation, I was immediately […]
My sape journey and its lessons
MY journey of learning how to play the sape, the ubiquitous traditional stringed lute of Borneo, is a metaphor in the search for one’s roots. Like the leaves of the trees, which will never go far but will eventually fall to the ground at the base of the tree where the roots are, you […]
Of names and a mother’s lesson on humility
By Datuk Mohammad Medan Abdullah MY mother’s maiden name was ‘Ubung Ayab’; ‘Ubung’, Bulan, Dayang, Lipang and Supang are common traditional names for girls of the Kelabit tribe. Soon after her first child and, according to a unique feature of the culture and tradition of the Kelabits, my mother had a name change. Her name […]
