Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor

If u ask who is the person that I respect and adore to, without the least hesitation, I will say Dr.Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, the astronaut of Malaysia. He was the first Malaysian to go into space. He was launched to the International Space Station aboard Soyuz TMA-11 with the Expedition 16 crew on October 10 ,2007. Sheikh Muszaphar flew under an agreement with Russia through the Angkasawan program, and returned to Earth on October 21,2007, aboard Soyuz TMA-10 with the Expedition 15 crew members.

Dr sheikh Muszaphar was born in KL and attended high school at Maktab Rendah Sains MARA in Muar. He then earned a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery degree from Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, India. He was also pursuing his masters of Surgery in Orthopaedic Surgery at UKM when he joined the ‘Angkasawan’ programme. In 1998, Dr Sheikh Muzaphar worked at Hospital Seremban, followed by move to Kuala Lumpur General Hospital in 1999, and was on staff at Hospital Selayang from 2000 through 2001.

Dr Sheikh Muszaphar performed experiments on board the International Space Station relating to the characteristics and growth of liver cancer and leukemia cells, the crystallisation of various proteins and microbes in space.The experiments relating to liver cancer, leukemia cells and microbes will benefit general science and medical research while the experiments relating to the crystallisation of proteins, lipases in this case, will directly benefit local industries.

I have an opportunity to meet him during my orientation week in UKM. Dr. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor was came to give us a speech. He expose his experience and some information in the space through the videos. There are many funny incident during his spacelight. For example, he need to “grab” his food when he having meals because the food were wave in the space due to the inexistence of gravitation. He gave us a lot of motivation through his speech and he hope that we can contribute to our country in the future.

Dr Sheikh Muszaphar’s speech had gave me enlightenment that we should make great efforts to pursue our dreams. There is nothing are impossible except you do not want to do it!

Homosexuality in Malaysia

Recently, the problem of homosexuality are spread widely among teenagers in our country. Who would have guessed, 50 years after Merdeka this kind of public showing of affection can happen. Never thought it could be this infectious. One could only wonder what could actually happen when they are behind a closure. Homosexuality is outlawed in Malaysia, but that is not going to stop a gay and lesbian affectively, guide from attempting to spice up the supposedly hot gay and lesbian scene in Malaysia. The guide in question is the Utopia Guide to Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, and is the first of such guides for these countries given their stance against homosexuality. Not surprisingly, the editor of Utopia Guides hopes that it will foster greater acceptance of homosexuality in these countries.

But the more interesting thing is that the guide claims that Malaysian has the hottest gay scene going ( based on surveys conducted from Singapore), even though Islam is the primary religion in Malaysia, and Islam is not supportive of homosexual relationships. In fact, gay sex is punishable by jail in Malaysia. Gay bars in Malaysia such as Liquick, just behind Central Market, are well-known.This scene has shows us that the morality in the society was destructively.

From the look of it, they are still in school and aged aroung 18-20 years olds. Anyhow, this is the reality of life in Malaysia. It seems identity lost problems have been quite common. Who should we blame?

There are many factors cause this problems. The main factor is the problem of the teenagers themselves. Homosexuality is a kind of rebel act during their adolescene. The teenagers will try to find their identity during their adolescence. Therefore, they will try variety of life style. Some of the teenagers will try homosexuality because they lack of the guidance of the parents and they had not enough observation of religious believes.

Secondly, broken family also caused this problem. There are some teenagers grow up under a negative environment. The father hits the mother, the parents addicted of drugs or gambling, a stepmother abused the children…These problems will cast a spot in the life of the children. In the other hand, parents who always busy with their careers will neglected their responsibility upon their children. The parents don’t know the friends that their children associate with. They also don’t what their children do and where they go. Without guidance of the parents, the children associate with a few people. They involved in homosexuality under the effect and induce of their friends.

There are blame that the effect of mass media also contribute to this problems. There were some films or video which agree and agitate the freedom of sex favour and sex behavior, especially from foreign country, had encouraged the homosexuality. These films has also brought in negative culture such as hedonism. The teenagers who were immaturely will try to imitate the manner of the characters in the films so that they can be seem they practice more “up-dated” or “modern” lifestyle. The gays or lesbians also use internet and blogs to find their “groups”.

The problems of homosexuality will destroy the good culture of our country. The were variety of social problems occurred due to this problems. For example, fighting among the gays or lesbians to “grabs” their couples. This scene will destroy the fulture of the teenagers, even the future of the country because teenagers will be the leaders of the country in coming future. Therefore, there should be some effective steps to curb this problems. Now, Majlis Fatwa Kebangsaan had been forbidden “pengkid” or lesbian among Muslims. The person who was convicted will be charged in Syariah Court. However, the seem no steps had been taken to curb this problems among the “non-Muslims”. This was cricticly because the problems of homosexuality in our country cannot be curb effectively if just under the effort of an authority. The government should take more action s to resolve this problems.