Woman

peace to all readers. The topic that I am about to discuss for today is woman. I have selected this topic because there is a special beauty that lie within every woman which I think I must share with others. As for myself, I am deeply in love with what I am going to share soon.

Woman in different cultures and societies are valued differently. Some have gone to the extreme of valuing a woman to the extent of creating a female idol to be worshipped, while others have degraded woman to the extent of practicing female infantide(killing of female newborn babies). We know that in many places around the world woman are being degraded, unfortunately woman have battle with the injustice that they are facing for quite some time. With regards to how much a woman is to be valued, I have selected the best way in which woman must be treated and valued. I have chosen to view woman in the light of Islam.

After Prophet Muhammad take on the role of prophethood, he started conveying God's message to the early muslims. One of the first thing that the prophet abolished was the burying of female newborn babies also known as female infanticide. Before Ababia was under the rule of Islam, there were mix communities of jewish, christians and the majority pagan arabs. The pre-Islamic period was also known as time of ignorance where people know the true God of Abraham but refuse to recognise Him as the Al-mighty. During those days, woman were treated very badly. Far worst than what we see today. They were made to run naked in public places, they were enslaved by others and many more.

To an arab family a girl child is considered to be a disgrace, this is because upon marriage, the girl will no longer hold the name of her father instead she would use her husband's name.Also its because woman are degraded in the society, family would face the risk of being shamed by other families. However when Islam preveils this problem was solved. In Islam the woman would keep her sir name even after marriage. For example when I get married to a woman in future, her name of birth will remain as it was. I am wondering besides Islam, which other religion, culture or traditions is similar to Islam where the surname of the woman does not change.

During the last sermon of the prophet, he told the people that the man have their rights over their wife and the wife have her rights over her husband. On top of that the man of the house are made to be responsible for the well-being of their wife. The man are to clothe them(wife), feed them and protect them. The prophet have brought the woman into a whole new level, where they are to receive proper treatment from the husband and society. The prophet also upgrade the status of a wife to be the partners and commited helpers of the husband.

In the Quran the book of authority in Islam there is a chapter call "Sura Nisa"(chapter women) which happens to be the fourth chapter in sequence and third longest chapter after "Al-Baqarah"(the cow) and "Al-Imran"(the family of Imran). The chapter on women deals extensively on women rights and obligations. I would like to use some of its contents to briefly show the true position of woman in Islam.(by the way quran is the only scripture that deals with woman's right in a community)

In the case of marriage, the woman is on the receiving end as for those man who wants to take her as a wife are obligated to produce a dowry. In Islam, the woman is totally free to choose if she wants to work or stay at home and deals with the home affairs. The men of the house on the other hand are suppose to feed and clothe their wifes, in other words the man of the house dont have a choice but to work and feed the family. Even at home the woman can choose not to do any home chores, she can choose not to do laundry, clean the house or anything like that. According to the example of the prophet, he does the home chores on his on, he wash his own clothes, do shopping and at the same time he have to work and earn money to feed his family. As a prophet of God he is doing it on his own, hence for a muslimin(muslim man) like me, I should not be complaining of the hardship because the prophet himself did it willingly.

In a case of divorce, the man is still responsible for the finance of his child if he has one. The mother of the child does not need to finance the child at all. If a wife happens to be working, she can keep her earnings to herself and does not need to share it with anyone. After some discussion on woman rights in muslim community, I would say that women have a higher probability of benefiting financially and psychologically. However the media have always been trying to portray a negative image of Islam by show violent images of woman being prosecuted. The video which is shown are minority groups who still practice oppression towards woman and they are practicing it according to their culture and not in the name of Islam.

In Islam if the wife misbehave, we are taught to advise her for the bad conduct. If she is persistent with bad behavior we are taught to sleep in separate beds(dont have any sexual intercourse with wife). If she still causes problem we can hit her very gently. Hitting is permissible but with the condition of not causing her to bleed, swell, fracture or damage to the skin. The verse continues by stating that if situation might worsen if you were to hit her, than dont hit her at all.

I might not be the best person to describe to you how woman are treated or if they are being oppressed by family, society, or the religion itself, however I am certainly sure that you would not get the accurate answer if you were to get answers from a non-muslim or people who dont know Islam. To be fair you have to ask a muslimah(muslim woman) on these issues to know the actual story.

My Professional Profiling

Synopsis


The topic that I have selected for this project would have a greater approach on awareness and informing rather than informing to my audiences on a well established company/industry or on hospitality events here in Singapore. I have specially selected topics on awareness as it reminds those who forgets and teaches those who are unaware on problems that Singapore is facing or even the threat that is about to come. My main objective for this project is to promote an ever changing society through commitment and struggles for a better future for all because as a son of this nation, I truly believe that Singapore can be strong yet beautiful nation. Strong and beautiful not in terms of power and wealth but in the hearts of the people more importantly. Changing every Singaporean into a responsible and thoughtful people would have a greater long term effect on the country rather than just making use of the authority to achieve the same goal. To illustrate, if you want a bag of rice from someone, the responsible and thoughtful way of getting it is by striking a deal by doing him a favour or trading, or the use of power where you show him who is stronger, than fool him to think that you will be his protector hence deserve the bag of rice. Most certainly and generally someone would say that the first way is wiser and healthier; however as human, when facing the real situation, our nature of greed, self-centred and possessions take control of ourselves and end up making the mistake which is the second way. Hence to solve this problem, the only way is to consistently remind each other regardless of our status, race or religion, to practice responsibility and righteous deeds and learn from our past mistakes to try to eliminate it as far as possible. As we have seen, Singapore is able to achieve great heights in a short period of time, overcome tough challenges along the way too. With the hard work of people before me, I see that it is my responsibility now to step up in the upcoming generation to continue work of the people before me. And I hope this piece of message can be useful for all.


The Signs


Observing the signs can be very useful tools because it helps to indicate to us our position, from it we can than determine the changes that needs to be done.


On top of that, the signs along with logical reasoning would also help strengthen the case that I am bringing forth.


In the signs section, I would like to discuss signs or symptoms that has come about to show the position that Singapore is in by comparing her with other developing nations. I would like to show the similarities that Singapore share with other leading nations and why many leading nations are facing the problem of declining Total fertility rate.
From the source was gathered from various websites which has in majority agreeing that the total fertility rate of the world is currently declining. Surprisingly within the south East Asia region, Singapore has the lowest fertility rate.


As we go to the west Europe region, developed countries they are also facing the same problem of declining birth rate. France 1.8, England 1.6, Greece 1.3, Germany 1.3, Italy 1.2 and Spain 1.1. As we have known those are also developing countries like Singapore(1.1). The question is why developed countries facing this problem.


Now if we were to shift back to East Asia many of the developing countries are also encountering this problem. Japan 1.2, South Korea 1.22 and Hong Kong 1.04 the developed nation in East Asia are all facing the problem too.
The pattern that we get here is why many developed countries encountering the problem. Experts have point out their views that although a developed country is recognised as countries that have a high level of development according to the Human Development Index where it comprises of three elements. They are Life expectancy, Literacy/Education and Standard of Living. Unfortunately under these criteria, the Human Development Index does not include the fertility rate of the country to indicate the strength ability of the country. Furthermore the fertility rate can also provide a systematic prediction of the potential manpower of the country.


The main question is although these developed countries are considered to be leading countries as compared to the developing countries and third world countries, in percentage wise the developing countries are suffering the greatest, a large proportion of developed countries is facing the problem and as time goes by the number is also growing. Hence one should seriously consider the logic behind this strange happening. Another important point to note is what is going to happen next.
In the study of fertility rate, a student who major the topic can confirm with us the seriousness of declining birth rate. Examples are extinction of culture, lack of manpower, slow development rate, affect the safety of citizens and increase the threat of being over ruled and many more. Stating this awareness might not alarm the people because the public would not be convinced that these statements are true unless more and more people are taking it into consideration as well.


Factors Affecting The Problem


The subject for my project is on declining birth rates specifically in Singapore. I chose to study on this topic because it might be the interest of the government to consider for the nation to prosper. Looking at labour force issue externally one can directly question why is Singapore highly dependent on foreign workers instead of local workers. However to clearly understand if Singapore really needs to highlight this issue as a concern to all, the case needs to be serious to a large extend.
There are various factors that can directly or indirectly contribute to the declining birth rate in Singapore which would then lead to other problems. This piece of work is dealing with a chain of problem one related to another hence the approach might not be specifically targeted at one field but the inter-related field which is needed to be reconsidered.


Verily we have known that Singapore is a labour intensive country where manpower is needed to maintain the rate of development of the country. A part of my research is to discover “the threats that Singapore might face when being too dependent on foreign workers?”, “why does Singapore need more and more foreign worker?”, “why hasn’t the benefit of incentives implied showing any improvement to the fertility rate?”.


Point number one, “the threats that Singapore might face when being too dependent on foreign workers?”. Dealing with the first point, the straight forward question can be answered that when Singapore is being too dependent on foreign worker, firstly it would meant that without the foreign workers Singapore will not be able to maintain the manpower needed to run the country. Hence without realizing we can no longer generate local manpower to run our country, and if a conflict were to break out between Singapore and a related country which provide us with their labourers, than the crisis of shortage of labour will occur. Hence we have to seriously look into this matter for the future of Singapore.


Point number two, “why Singapore is needing more and more foreign worker?”. The reason is because Singapore is struggling to increase its fertility rate to a position where she can maintain her culture. Currently the fertility rate of Singapore is at 1.1 for every female in Singapore considering that they lived to the end of their childbearing life. With the figures of 1.1 Singapore is ranked at 220, 1 being the highest fertility rate.


A documentary on fertility rate shows that in a research done, in order for a culture to maintain itself for more than 25 years, the minimum required fertility rate must be at least 2.11 per family and anything less the culture will decline. According to history, no culture has ever reversed once it reaches a fertility rate of 1.9 and if a culture reaches a fertility rate of 1.3 it would be impossible to reverse, it is because it will take 80 to 100 years to correct itself and during this time frame, the culture would have already suffered great lost and would be at the edge of extinction.


The very reason why the fertility rate here in Singapore is consistently declining for the past several decades is because we have already fall below 1.3 which is a state where the rate is irreversible and the rate will continue to drop until it ends. Knowing the situation that we are in and considering our probable future, it is definitely time to turn the table around and change the whole system. Sadly I know that in a short period of time major crisis that is unexpected will happen because the research has clearly shown our position. What will happen next no one knows but research is telling us that Singapore will experience setbacks we have never seen before as the setback is the down fall of the nation. Regardless of how advance and developed we can be, with a high standard of life, equipped with science and technology, once our platform crumbles everything else will fall too. A very simple example would be in the existence of man where he can be knowledgeable and wealthy, however the more basic requirement as a human would be food, water, air and shelter. With these elements the man can have energy and move, he can than work and learn to gain wealth and knowledge. We can say that the man is in a sane and stable condition, however to display Singapore using this example, we can say that the man has already achieved wealth and knowledge previously however because he was smoking too much, he suffered stroke where his body can never recover and he will be in that state for the rest of his life at the same time his body will also deteriorate. Being at that state, the best thing to do is to create awareness to others on the dangers of smoking meanwhile he is still alive because there is nothing that he could do to reverse the process so he can help to remind others instead.


*Things to note: two of the three points are on labour force which is indirectly related fertility rate. I emphasize on labour force as it will
help show how serious the problem is and how closely they are related.


Point number three, “why hasn’t the benefit of incentives implied showing any improvement to the fertility rate?”. Certainly in today context, it is normal for a Singaporean to think that having more than two child is going would have to spent a high cost for the child’s expenses in school and daily requirement until adulthood, hence parents would give a deep thought regarding family planning. There are more than ten reasons why Singaporeans to not choose this benefit, however I would only provide 3 reasons along some explanation. First reason economy situation, second reason increasing ideology of career mindedness, third reason shared culture.


Currently the economy of the world has been unstable. Firstly it would affect the World Bank, next the world, because the World Bank is controlling the majority of the world finance affair. Hence, this problem is not only affecting us Singaporeans internally but the outside world as well. When the world economy is unstable, it would cause the family planning of a couple to change as well. This is because the world that we are living today is dealing a lot with money. Especially here in Singapore, we use money daily, so money is a great importance to for us in our daily life. Now that it is known to us the importance of money and how much we need it, it is understood that the stability of economy can greatly affect decision making for family planning. It would now be clearer to us why couples are having problems to have more children. Since the world economy is generated by the World Bank, Singapore has totally no control of the gains and drops of the economy, this simple logic that is stated here is unavoidable because we are a part of the system. If the World Bank falls, the system will also fall, and if the system falls, the economy in Singapore would be chaotic.


Experts who study on history have discovered that the World Banking System is a dangerous idea, because its concept is similar to putting all eggs in a basket, hence putting every single one at stake. Instead of this system, the better way could be putting the power house regionally or independently. By doing so the world can still work together and at the same time not risking one to the other. The reason for it being carried out this way is because the World Bank has its own agenda according to the expert.


According to the Straits Times breaking news that was published on the September 28, 2009, there was an article on declining fertility rate. The title was “Fertility Rate Still Falling”. In there was a comprehensive observation of the Singapore’s declining fertility rate which was measured over several years or decades. Also on the same article, there was some additional information on increasing ideology of career mindedness. The article states “The report also found that higher-educated women have fewer children than lower-educated women”. And as we have known from today’s strong implementation on education would meant that more and more Singaporeans are moving towards career oriented majority. Being career oriented is a good choice to achieve greater heights in life. However if we were to link the observation on the article and the rising number of career orientation, it shows that firstly the good news is that Singapore is maintaining its education standard consistently, however the bad news is that according to observations higher educated woman have fewer children as compared to lower educated woman on an average, hence we can still see the same issue persisting in different angle.


Conclusion


At the end of the day after realizing the seriousness of the problem, as Singaporeans, no matter who we are, where we come from, what our status are, regardless of our race, language or religion it is the responsibility of all of us to achieve our common goal.


As the government have known and experienced that the incentives which they have provided has not convinced Singaporeans to have more babies, they have to further investigate what are the other factors that constitute to the problem and from there they can start to troubleshoot the obstacles.


From my experience which I gained from talks, I remembered during a speech from an expert who was discussing on world monitoring system, that today’s development concept is not balanced because the world that we lived today is very demanding towards what the world can provide. For example, the people from the past have learnt that if you were to take the goods which were harvested, then they must give time for the new crops to grow and for the soil to be fertile. In today’s context, the rate at which we are ripping off the goods is far too quick and time left to replenish is too short hence causing the imbalance effect. Observing closely, this could also be the reason that Singapore is facing today. As we observe from our past back in the late 80s the fertility rate of was a good 2.1 which was a stable figure, little that we have known that even during that time Singapore was developing fast, hence as time goes by the figure keeps dropping as people would give a second thought to have more children. The example here is similar as Singapore was ripping the goods and opportunity that she has however at the paste we were moving we neglect on harvesting back what was taken. As of now, most of the goals have been achieve, however when will we see, get or experience the good part of life that we have worked for?

My Professional Profiling (introduction)

Peace, First and foremost I would like to thank God(Allah) the Al-mightly, Alhamdulillah for blessing me with good health and showering me with Your guidance. Finally I have completed my so-called year two project also know as professional profiling or PP in short. After months of working and researching, I feel satisfied with the hard work that I put in. All the long hours of research and study on the topic, stay up all night to produce the drafts, reports and posters. I hope I can do more those activities in the future if I have the time and space, InsyahAllah(God willing).

Supposedly, the main theme of the project should be on research and study on companies or events here in Singapore or the globally. I did not really like the theme as it was too research based, no inference could be made, no option,views or prespective could be drawn out of it. When project becomes to research based, all you will get out of it are information to take note but nothing could be done.

Mostly students chooses to study on establishment or a company or an organisation, other than that they study on F1 events and all those kind of stuff. I was wondering what if I manipulate the project to make it appear as though it is about the industry but the content of it is purely on reality of life. Very similar to all the entries I had post. Most of my friends proceed on with the project drafting after they found the topic that they like to work on. As for me, I was still struggling to manipulate the whole face of the project, it was cheating in a way, but I cheat to make the work tougher compared to the original ones. It was seriously much more tougher, but more meaningful and handsome. haha

I structured the project into an awareness and I made it acceptable to the eyes of the accessors bu incluing Human development Index, Government, Labour Forces, ect, but in actual fact it is about Singaporean's social life. Luckily it was accepted and I moved on to the reports and the posters.

My fantasy objective here is to kill as many birds with one stone, but I know that it is almost impossible to even kill three birds with one stone. So I turn the stone into a magic stone. My main objective is some-what similar, I needed to complete the project, so on top selecting a topic it became an awareness, on top of that it was something that is related to my passion, on top of that the message was to guide people to the way of life and lastly, on top of that I am using it as by blog entry. So its killing one, two, three,... four birds with one stone. Well it should be that way, because I took 3 months to plan and structure before I exercute it. Now I can use this topic over and over again when-ever I need it to support my claim.

The actual report is on my next entry, to be continued InsyahAllah(God willing)

Tough Times

peace.. One after another they are coming, haunting me day and night. Assignments, project, journals, statements on and on. I didnt ask for it, I dont even want to do it, given the choice I would work my way to be who I really want to be. What is life like if you have to do something you dont like but dont have the freedom to take other paths. I would call that enslaved(to subject somebody to a dominating influence that takes away his or her freedom) by others. I have been praying to God to take away the difficulties I face, afterall His all-knowing and all-wise; maybe all this happen to me for a reason; a test of faith.

Datelines are piling up, one after another, work and work and work, all day all night, isnt it obvious that my life is like a robot, isnt it obvious that the systems are turning us into robots. Where is the freedom that each and every individual should have? Why are we the subjects of others? For them to use us, control us, correct us, wrong us, take us and throw us. Why do we have the mindset that in-order for us to survive we have to work for them? Where do we get this mindset from? Who are the people who benefit from our hard work? Are they involve in creating the slavery mindset to take control of us?

Are you facing those problems? Can you see or can you sense that this is slavery and we are on the system? Do you think that the culprits have managed to make slavery appear as progression? How did they do it? How does something as bitter as slavery slipped down our throat? How do they make something evil appear as blessing before our eyes? Do you still want to be in their company after knowing all the evil that they do?

Do you think that what you earn is from your hard work? Who is at the bottom of the slavery chain? What are they compared to us? What are we compared to the top of the slavery chain? What are the bottom chain compared to the top chain? Are there equal rights in this slavery chain? Shouldnt we as human live with each other and share our equal rights? Are the top chain ripping off portion of the bottom chain rights?
Is taking away peoples rights call in-justice? Are you supporting them if you remain this way? Are you supporting in-justice then? What is the way out?

When was the last time our fathers had freedom in life? In which era? Who took it away and when? What was life like back then? How can we get those moments of life back? What was their way of life? How does the community system operate in such a way that everyone has equal rights? What system does the community follow? Shouldnt that system be in use now instead of the slavery system? What ever the system is back then, isnt it perfect for all walks of life? What is the perfect system for all of us? A system where everyone can appreciate their own rights. Where one can really expand on one's true potential rather than have to be ordered by a higher class to fulfill their desires before we can persue on ours.

Those are questions that one has to find out to understand what has been going on from generation to generation, to understand how much people has strayed away from the straight path from time to time, to understand the purpose of life, to understand the way of life that all walks of life must comply to, to understand the evil that man do which must be avoided, to understand that such awareness are very important to straighten back the damage caused, to stay together until the end, through all the tough times.

Whats on my mind?

Peace. Facts by definition, something that can be shown to be true, to exist, or to have happened. Key words TRUE, EXIST and HAPPENED; just like a comprehension exercise back in school. Give a deep thought on those keywords. What can you do with it? Afterall they are just simple words which happen to be elements of a fact.

Mark my words, those words actually have the potential to change peoples life. Although they might be considered as something small, we cant deny that words greatly affect us and our lives. Words can influence and brainwash people to either become good or bad. Lets see how it works.

Our mind is a very sophisticated gift. It can capture, process and exercute what you see, hear, feel, taste and smell. No other human, not doctor nor scientist can come close to creating something similar to the natural capabilities of your brain. The nearest that mankind reach in obtaining an artificial brain is the brain of your computers. The CPU/processor to be exact. This computer brain is not even 1/100 of a human brain. For computers to generate data, they must convert all data into binary form. Binary form is a computers language, and binary form only consist of two characters 0 and 1. Thats all, unlike our brains, we can generate anything and everything that our 5 senses can pick up.

One have to believe that even scientist do not have the full understanding of a human brain, if they do, they would have created one long ago, the fact that they cant create another human brain goes to show that they havent got it yet. What they might have are theories from studies that they have done. One of those is the mind state. Studies have shown that there are two major state of mind, the conscious and sub-conscious state. The conscious mind is quiet straight forward, very simply its when you are conscious or aware what is around you. Meaning you know what you are doing, you are in control of yourself and aware of your surrounding. However the sub-conscious mind operates differently. Once you sleep or get drunk or anything like that, your conscious mind immediately give way and will only activate when you regain consciousness. The amazing thing is your sub-conscious mind operates 24/7. The moment you are born until the day you die, your sub-conscious mind would be operating. In the same way, I can tell you that when you sleep, you will leave your conscious mind temporarily but not your sub-conscious mind and when you die you will leave both your conscious and sub-conscious mind.

Isnt it amazing how your mechanism works. I have to tell you that the sub-conscious mind is where you store all of your memories. Short term and long term memories. It is so powerful that even at times when you are glancing at a particular object without even concentrating at it, your sub-conscious mind actually save the image that your eyes saw. That is the reason why at times you would wonder why you know strange things,things that you shouldnt know. There is nothing starnge, actually the sub-concious mind already store it in the brain without you knowing. Some experts say that you cant control your sub-conscious mind, and also some experts say that before we react, our sub-conscious mind has already started to dig out what ever knowledge your mind has and deliver them to the conscious mind. By the way the sub-conscious mind would be 1.5sec ahead of the conscious mind. So this is by order, firstly sub-conscious mind begin selecting data for 1.5se, secondly conscious mind send signals to the system to exercute it lastly we would react to the signals that was send by the brain.

From the state of mind just elaborated above, you should start to see that those who loves to watch the TV, many values are taken from there, seriously. In most cases this is what happen. When you find a movie character to be awesome in what-ever way, your sub-concsious mind has already started to absorb all those that you consider to be great, take note even your heart plays a part by accepting and rejecting what you see and hear, however after accepting or rejecting, your brains is the one which would analyse further.

As of now I would need you to expand your thinking on the state of mind. Apply it to yourself, see how it has been affecting you since your youth. It could be any experiences or encounters that you had in the past. You really adored and loved it so much that you adopted it. Some may find this very true, others might see it in a different way and there are also those who would not even think that it make sense.

I would try to make it as obvious as possible, but I am not hundred percent sure that it will work. Look at your life, look at the way you dress, look at the way you talk with your friends, look at your habits, ect... And we know that in almost every household there is a form of media(TV, radio, computers, ect...), these are the inputs that we put into our brains from a very young age. Count the number of movies you have watched, should be by the hundreds. Highlight the favorite ones, probably around ten to twenty. There is a very high possibility that you inherit some values from your favorite movies. There are many other possibilities, however I just want the readers to know how we are affected by the media and not to get carried away by it because you should live your own life not mirroring what you see in the TV set, be original.

What is happening to our generation? Youths are losing the ethical values, family values. They prefer to hang out with friends rather than having dinner with the family. Drugs and bad company dont mention, there are tons of it in movies that teens can learn from. Heard of recent cases where of some teens slashing and stabbing others in public, you know what is that call?>> terrorism. It is even happening right here in Singapore, but people would not care much, because the media only wants to potray terrorism with my religion, Islam. So everybody would only know that Islam promotes terrorism, but obviously this is not true because no religion on the face of earth promotes terrorism, so it is very ridiculous to claim that terrorism belongs to any religion.

It is obvious that a long term propaganda is going on in our nation and around the world. The hand-ful of people who are responsible for creating these propaganda has managed to fool the world and corrupts peoples mind by any possible way, government, media, politics, rulings. Almost in all angle and it is hard to avoid. However once you have the willingness to avoid those lies you will start to search then you will start to get answers. That is a part of my objective, to create awareness to prevent others from being misguided. Just stick along folks there are still many issues that I want to share, hang on alright.