Mutual love and marry, so what?

Forty-year-old Riduan Masmud who allegedly had sex with a 13-year-old girl,

 KOTA KINABALU: He allegedly had sex with a 13-year-old girl and saw no wrong in it.

Riduan Masmud, the 40-year-old who shocked the nation after being charged with raping the minor and later declared that he had married her in the midst of the case, has opened up for the first time on why he decided to take the girl as his second wife.

The restaurant manager defended his action, saying it was a case of suka sama suka (mutual consent), adding that it was acceptable under Syariah law.

It could not be ascertained whether the girl met Riduan while she was at school or whether she had been working for him. She is from a very poor family.

As his rape case came up for mention at a Sessions Court yesterday, Riduan told reporters that he had known the girl for about six months and felt he had the right (to marry an underage girl).

“There are many cases of men marrying underage girls. I do not see why my case should be any different,“ said the father of four children, aged between two and 17. He declined to say if any of them is a girl.

Riduan was speaking to reporters outside the courtroom after Sessions Court Judge Ummu Khatom Abd Samad set July 1 to 4 to hear the case.

Judge Ummu Khatom gave the Attorney-General's Chambers until June 6 to make a decision on whether to proceed with the case.

Riduan was charged on Feb 28 with raping the girl inside a car parked by the roadside in Inanam near here at 10am on Feb 18.

On May 7, DPP Ahmad Nazmeen Zulkifli told the court he had no objection for the case to be withdrawn after the girl withdrew the rape report against the man April 18.

It is understood that it was the girl's aunt who lodged the police report after she found out about the “affair”.

The courtroom was packed yesterday with concerned groups turning up in full force. Many women interest groups and NGOs turned up for the hearing yesterday, including Befrienders Kota Kinabalu president Datuk Seri Siti Rubiah Abdul Samad, the wife of Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman.

All eyes were on the girl who appeared briefly in court. She has a childlike face, wore some make up, and tied up her long hair in a pony tail. Thin and looking under-developed, she was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans.

Riduan said he would let his child-wife finish her studies first and “maybe later take up a cosmetic course with my first wife”, adding that she was a make-up artist.

His wife also told the press that she had accepted the teenager to be her husband's second wife and promised to guide her through her studies.

However, Riduan stopped talking and moved away from the media when he was signalled by a lawyer not to talk.

The girl's father, who was also at the court, said he accepted his daughter's marriage to Riduan as they liked each other.

“It is best for her that they get married. What else can I do?” he added.

As the case came up for mention yesterday, DPP Chaw Siang Kong told the court that he needed time to review the case as it involved public interest.

Lawyers Datuk Mariati Robert and Mary Lee held watching briefs for Sabah Law Association and the Sabah Women Action Resource Group respectively.

Counsel Loretto J. Padua informed the court that the Syariah marriage certificates had been presented to the investigating officer and confirmed that the two were now married.

The court ordered that the man's RM8,000 bail be extended till June 6.

By STEPHANIE LEE and MUGUNTAN VANAR
newsdesk@thestar.com.my

Ad strategy wins sweethearts

 

Proposa l placement: Xteven and Rachel looking through The Star.

IPOH: A 29-year-old company manager proposed to his sweetheart by declaring his love through a newspaper advertisement.

Xteven Teoh Hoe Seong (sic), from Gunung Rapat here, said he got the idea after finding out that one could place an advertisement in the Celebrations page in The Star.

Teoh, who works in Shah Alam, Selangor, said he believed the advertisement was more romantic than going down on bended knee to propose to the love of his life, Rachel Choo Lai Ying.

Teoh and Choo, 27, who have been courting for nine years, will marry on Sept 15. They first met when they were cadets with St John Ambulance in their respective schools.

“About three years ago, we broke up for about six months due to some misunderstanding, but deep down we knew we were made for each other and got back together.

“At that time she was studying in Australia, and during the mooncake festival I sent her four pieces, ” he said here yesterday.

On Feb 10, the Sunday Star published Teoh's advertisement with the couple's photograph and his proposal to Choo: “Will you marry me? Let me take care of you for the rest of our life.”

Teoh also made a short video-clip on his Facebook page declaring his love for her.

The clip starts with Teoh coming up with the words “Most of the Chinese newspaper companies are shut, and the only newspaper I can find in 7-11 is The Star, so go to page 47 and Rachel Choo you will find this” (referring to the ad).

Choo, a sales executive working in Puchong, Selangor, said she was shocked to see the advertisement in The Star.

“I was a bit suspicious when a few friends persuaded me to look out for an advertisement. After flipping page after page, I saw the ad. I was so touched by the proposal that I immediately said Yes',” said Choo who is from First Garden, near here.

By MANJIT KAUR manjit@thestar.com.my

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Fluttering around for company

Social relationships may glitter like diamonds, but not all will last forever. And we need to accept that relationships that promise high benefits will also carry high costs.

IN our brief lives, we always look out for good company. Like butterflies, we constantly flutter in the air, gazing at flowers, and sometimes landing on a petal which gives us a good feeling like we’ve never had before.

Although rarely do we linger for long, deep inside we all secretly hope to find that perfect petal to rest upon forever till the end of our brief lives.

Sometimes, people want much more than a social contract.

They yearn for a closer social relationship, with greater social commitments.

They are willing to invest all their efforts and emotions on a single relationship.

It can revolve around family, friendship, work or even a political, religious or social organisation. Wel- come to the Social Company.

Finding the right petal is very much like starting the right business company. A company is formed by business people of similar business interests.

They become shareholders and partners, and they have rights and responsibilities against each other. Whilst a contract is used for a one-off transaction, a company is used to get down to serious business for the long haul.

When a company is riding the high tide of success, its members have every reason to grow in confidence of greater things to come.

Why fear for the future? When the party is rocking, everybody’s singing and dancing, and nobody cares too much about who’s cleaning up the pool and picking up the broken shards later on.

But sometimes it’s good to turn on the lights, and check that everything’s alright. When the party’s over, and it will be over, there’s a heavy hangover waiting the morning after.

Likewise, when a company collapses, and no company is too big to fail, its shareholders, creditors and employees are bound to suffer heavy losses. Think of Enron, Lehman Brothers and Kodak.

That’s the difference between a mere social contract, and a social company. In a breach of contract, only the parties involved will be busy squabbling with each other.

However, in a breakdown of a company, there’s collateral damage to various third parties.

Thus, as much as it’s important and cool to live the moment, it’s also important (though less cool) to occasionally stop to think, have a sobering reality check, and account for what’s been said and done.

Under the law, it is mandatory for a company to perform annual audits on their financial affairs.

Likewise, people should constantly review their deep social relationships, to make sure that their company doesn’t turn from good to bad.

A simple example of a social company is marriage. It’s about two people exchanging vows to stick together through good times and bad times.

Sadly, nowadays, many people fail to follow through such vows. Divorces may be hard on the innocent spouse, but it’s definitely devastating to the innocent children.

They are robbed from enjoying a normal childhood filled with love and affection, and sometimes, deprived from sufficient maintenance and educational support.

So before entering into a marriage, think hard about the serious commitments that come with it, and the catastrophic consequences that follow if the marriage falls apart.

Think about your future children. Think about your relatives who will be forced to take sides, and spilt into irreconcilable clans.

Problems may also arise during the courtship stage, prior to marriage. Many of us are guilty of being consumed by love, or at least what we perceive as love.

After all, two’s a company, three’s a crowd. It’s easy to manage a company of two, whilst letting the rest of our family and friends fall by the wayside.

We ignore their calls and advice. We tell them to mind their own business and get the hell out of our lives.
But the easy thing to do is not always the best. Someday, you will long for their company.

Being married to our career can also be taxing on our social lives.

We burn all our days and nights for the sake of levelling up our corporate status.

We console ourselves that it’s only momentarily, until comes harvest time when we can reap the fruits of our labour.

But there is truly no end to the cycle. By the time we eventually find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, chances are we are too old, too weak and too late to share our riches with our loved ones.

These are mere examples of the larger problem, which is putting one’s entire mind, heart and soul into a single social company.

The key is to be aware that every deep social relationship takes a toll on our other relationships.

Social relationships may glitter like diamonds, but not all will last forever.

And we need to accept that relationships that promise high benefits will also carry high costs.

Hence, we need to think deeply before we leap into any social company. If we cannot bear the high cost, then don’t.

But if we do, we need to be bold enough to back out from a social company once the cost spirals beyond what we can bear.

In our brief lives, someday our wings will turn brittle and our favourite flowers will wilt away.

Until that day comes, we should cherish the freedom of the skies.

Sometimes, we may flutter too closely to a pretty petal in a thicket of thorns, and get our wings clipped.

But even then, we should never fear to flutter away. For there will always be a bed of flowers below to catch our fall.

Putik Lada By Raphael Kok
> The writer is a young lawyer. Putik Lada, or pepper buds in Malay, captures the spirit and intention of this column – a platform for young lawyers to articulate their views and aspirations about the law, justice and a civil society. For more information about the young lawyers, visit www.malaysianbar.org.my

The modern day slacker

It is this type which frustrates the hardworking Malays, who have worked so hard to bust the myth of the lazy Malay, the subsidy-mentality-bumi, and gives them a bad name.

YOU would have known at least two of this type: the young Malay boy in his late 20s to mid-30s who has the potential, but for no reason at all, seems intent on ruining his life, by simply being lackadaisical and complacent. He is the slacker.

It is this type which frustrates the hardworking Malays, who have worked so hard to bust the myth of the lazy Malay, the subsidy-mentality-bumi, and gives them a bad name.

The latter, who come from various economic backgrounds, burn the midnight oil at their corporate jobs. Some take on another as a side income or work at two jobs.

Their partners or spouses are equally as hardworking, but when drawn into conversation about the idle Malay boy, both will throw their hands up in the air.

Talk to non-Malay professionals and they say nonchalantly, “That’s what you get when you hire these Malays.”

A successful bumi businessman told me once that he hires only young non-Malays, because he had been duped too many times by the boys he wanted to help.

These boys, who seem to be mushrooming by the day, are articulate, and do keep abreast of current events. Interestingly, these boys mainly come from working class backgrounds.

They’re not unintelligent. Have a chat with them – they can be so perceptive that you wonder why they are not in politics or a think-tank. And yet, they are in debt, and seem to relish in their financial piccadiloes; when they are offered opportunities, they take and screw them up halfway.

The reasons are unbelievable: I broke up with my girlfriend. I don’t have money. I don’t have the ilham. My friend owes me money. I owe myself money.

However, despite their apparent flaws, they complain about how the world owes them a living. The government should give me a grant. The government owes me a living because I’m Malay and poor.

People don’t like me because I’m not connected. Girls don’t want to date me because I’m poor and directionless.

Granted, some do try. But they look for short cuts.

Some of them become the “shadows” of the bodyguards, the lesser datuks and proxies to the middleman to the PA to the right-hand man of the “Man Himself”, in vain hopes for a small cut.

If they are lucky, they take back RM5,000. They create small enterprises and mark up costs that defy business logic, that in the end they have to close shop.

The opportunities are already there. Yes, our education system is not perfect, but many have come out from it better and richer.

I also do not deny that working or doing business is not easy either. Yet there are many Malaysian success stories.

Blame the NEP if you want, but the truth is, many have also thrived sans it. Some packed up their bags and moved abroad without a degree or connections. The Internet is at your disposal – for all this talk about not having money, a good number of these boys have a working computer. Mac, no less. So work from home.

Work with clients from everywhere! A friend once hired a Nigerian student in Nigeria to create his website. That young boy from the sticks of Nigeria delivered a really swoosh website within a month.

When asked why they are so dismissive of politics and youth activities, they can tell you, “It’s a waste of time. We’re not America. There’s a tradition of activism there, not here. Besides, we’re the grassroots. The government should take care of us and provide us with incentives.”

How can any government do so, and why should it? This is not about opportunities but attitude!
There is already a social and economic imbalance which will worsen.

Many marriages break down, and some of the increasing reasons I hear from my syariah lawyer friends are that these boys are complacent and do not contribute to the marriage financially.

They do not pick up the slack at home by being the housekeeper, and expect the wives to fund two families. Theirs and his.

Some resent their wives’ successes and create problems. Some of them bring their debts into the family equation.

Economically, if more and more of these youths opt to be slackers, the country’s GDP will go down greatly and crumble into a declining and worsening economy.

The divide between the haves and have-nots will widen. The gender imbalance is already there: More young (Malay) women are in tertiary institutions and working very hard.

Quite a number have told me they fear marriage because they do not want to be beholden to a spouse who cannot contribute to a marriage.

At this juncture, this begs another question.

Why are a good number of young and working class Malays complacent? Sometimes, I feel that the foreign workers deserve citizenship because they work and somehow manage to save for their families back home.

They live in the most deplorable living conditions, and some worse than the shacks I have seen in my kampung.

The question should no longer be about whether Malay youths are politically apathetic. The question should be how to make these boys work and be motivated.

It is a study I greatly welcome and would like to do.

A WRITER'S LIFE By DINA ZAMAN

I 'do’ is not forever

Putik Lada By Chong Kien Mun

I Do (But I Don't) (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

The present Generation Y has been immersed in a culture of instant gratification, escapism, and self-centred inflexibility. Couples nowadays do not hesitate to take the plunge into marriage – or out of it.

A COUPLE of years ago, when I first started practising law, I was approached by a soon-to-be-married young couple, who wanted me to prepare a prenuptial agreement for them.

Despite my explanation that prenuptial agreements arguably have no legal effect in Malaysia, they were adamant.

Obviously, some valuable assets were at stake. A sense of numbness enveloped my heart and soul. (Hey, lawyers are mortal humans with emotions, too!)

I could not recall the previous time I actually felt that way. I was filled with a sense of disappointment, of great sympathy. Not for the young couple, but for the sacred institution of marriage.

A couple of weeks ago, amid the scorching Malaysian sun and the beautiful full moon, Valentine’s Day came and went. The roses have now dried, and died.

One wonders whether the couples are still able to wake up to smell love in the air. Or, has real love and genuine affection also died? Perhaps not an overnight death, but a gradual and painful one? And is that a death that should be mourned or celebrated?

It has been said that the longest distance known to man is not the distance between birth and death. Nor is it the distance between the North and the South.

The longest distance imaginable is actually when that person is standing right in front of you, but somehow cannot muster the courage or the opportunity to say that he loves you, and so you don’t even know it.

To those who have been lucky enough to close that distance, it is usually the result of some persistence.

It may sometimes take months or even years for a man to grab that special girl’s hand, and hold it gently but tightly on their wedding day, with primary promises of being a loving husband, and a good father.

However, statistics have shown that, as the years go by, couples evolve from walking hand in hand on their wedding day to walking down the corridors of exile, hands folded or in their pockets.

Here is a riddle for you: “What starts with ‘I Do’ and also ends with ‘I Do’?” Got it? No? It is marriage, which starts with an “I Do” to marry someone, and an “I Do” to divorce that same someone.

The present generation – Generation Y – has been immersed in a culture of instant gratification, escapism, and self-centred inflexibility.

“My way or the highway” is a common statement. Surfing on concurrent waves of escapism, scepticism and pessimism, couples nowadays do not hesitate to take the plunge into marriage – and out of it.

An “I Do” to try it out, and an “I Do” when it does not work out as imagined. It ends just as it began, with the simple “I Do”, which used to be a sacred phrase but is now used flippantly.

There is a fine line between love and hate, for both are forms of interchangeable extremism. Lovers may turn into haters, and vice versa.

As the divorce decree is pronounced, the sourness of love and hate becomes a poison in the respective memories of the individuals involved, which time will seek to erase.

It is difficult to reverse the chain of events once a married couple make arguments and conflict a habit.

Sometimes, conflict becomes such a habit that the couple do not even know what they are fighting about any more.

It gets to the stage where they cannot remember why they accepted each other to begin with, when they had a love to believe in as the foundation of all things beautiful – or so they believed.

At the very least, they used to have a love that they could work on. They see divorce as the only cure.

Sometimes, taking the easy way out is a form of escapism. Form turns into habit and habit evolves into attitude.

An attitude of love is vouchable, while an attitude of escapism only breeds more problems and issues as one escapes from one black hole to a bigger one as the main issues with oneself remain unresolved, unmitigated, and ultimately aggravated.

The alarming divorce rates we see today will inevitably have a domino effect. A Pandora’s box has been opened.

The increasing numbers of single parents bringing up children of broken marriages will potentially lead to the further erosion of the fabric of love and family.

Statistics show that child abusers or molesters usually have had traumatic childhood histories as victims of the offences that they have gone on to perpetrate.

It is not much of a stretch to imagine that children of broken marriages have a higher risk of growing up to break their own marriages.

Back to the young couple that started me on this contemplation about marriage, I told them flatly: “Sorry to be so direct, but the very fact that the thought of such agreements even crossed your mind indicates disturbing elements of doubt and distrust, both essential ingredients of a lasting union. The marriage, if pursued, may not be a lasting one, and I hope to be proven wrong.”

The door was slammed close then. Fast forward a couple of years, and the door was re-opened, the same couple walked in again, asking for a divorce.

Perhaps George Orwell was right after all when he said: “Happiness can exist only in acceptance” or “Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.”

> The writer is a young lawyer. Putik Lada, or pepper buds in Malay, captures the spirit and intention of this column – a platform for young lawyers to articulate their views and aspirations about the law, justice and a civil society. For more information about the young lawyers, visit www.malaysianbar.org.my.