Surprise! Surprise! The Nobel Peace Prize!

On October 10, 2009 at 6 pm, I was listening to the news in the Tamil language radio station of Malaysia – Minnal FM – when the news reader said that President Barack Obama has been awarded the prestigious Nobel prize for peace. “What the….!” I exclaimed inwardly. It was so sudden! Surely, there should have been some announcements a few days earlier, in the medias, of the people being considered for the award, and discussions and the justifications. Had I missed those? I was disappointed in myself for being so ignorant. A day later, I let out a huge sigh of relief in knowing that I was not alone in being shocked out of my skin! Letters and blogs in the medias were full of expression of surprise.

Let’s face it. Obama had come into the world just as a ‘promise of peace’. He still remains so. The world is not in peace, now. Far from it. Iraq, Iran, Middle east, Pakistan, the Koreas, and Sudan, just to mention a few of the several nations in turmoil, are still in the same situation as when Obama became the President of the United States. All he had noticeably achieved so far was his move to close down the Guantanamo Bay Terrorist Camp and the procedures to pull all his soldiers from Iraq.

Come to think of it. As we are the witness, there is really no enduring peace here on earth. So, the past Nobel Peace Award winners were awarded the prize only for their two cents’ worth of contribution towards world peace. Therefore, Obama also seems to have obtained the peace award for his two cents’ worth of efforts!

Anyway, I think this is a good time to have a look at the past Nobel Peace Prize laureates. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded from the year 1901. Let us have a look only at the winners of the past 20 years.

Source: www.nobelpeaceprize.org

2008	Martti Ahtisaari - Finland
2007	Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. - USA
2006	Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank - Bangladesh
2005	International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Mohamed ElBaradei - Egypt
2004	Wangari Maathai - Kenya
2003	Shirin Ebadi - Iran
2002	Jimmy Carter - USA
2001	The United Nations ( U.N.) and Kofi Annan - Ghana
2000	Kim Dae Jung – South Korea
1999	Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) - France
1998	John Hume and David Trimble – both Northern Ireland
1997	International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and Jody Williams - USA
1996	Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and José Ramos-Horta – East Timor
1995	Joseph Rotblat and Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs - England
1994	Yasser Arafat - Palestine, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin – both Israel
1993	Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk – both South Africa
1992	Rigoberta Menchú Tum - Guatemala
1991	Aung San Suu Kyi - Myanmar
1990	Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev – Soviet Union
1989	The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso - Tibet

I hope you have beared up reading my two cents' worth of opinion on the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. No, don't send me the two cents! Ha! Ha! Ha!

No security for the Security Guard

Mention ‘security guard’ in Malaysia, and one would get an imagination of an old man in a black pants and light-brown shirt or blue shirt, opening and closing factory gates, or one who is just sitting, idling by on a chair. And one would also imagine that the security guard is low educated and not capable of doing other jobs. And that is the perfect security guard’s picture one gets in Malaysia. Additionally, one could even picture him sleeping on the job!

Well, ladies and gentleman, I beg to differ. And I speak from experience, having been in the security line for a good 6 years. And good years they were. Me, being a security officer, I enjoyed being in the company of the guards. They were a decent and jovial lot, offering to share their foods and their tasks with you. Their tasks with you? Well, yes. They will gladly offer their job to you for a while, so that they can leave the premises they are guarding, and go for a spin in the nearest town! What do we expect when they are required to work for twelve hours daily, and often more, when their replacements fail to turn up, and the security officer was unable to find a relief guard? Those are the times when they are, unfortunately, found dozing off.

Mind you, the security guard’s job is not just attending to the gates. He has to follow a set of instructions given by the factory concerned, and by his security company, itself. Different factories give out different type of instructions to the guards, but, basically, this is what is required of the guards.

1. He has to write down the particulars of visitors before he lets them in.

2. Lorries arriving to the factory are taken down of the particulars, such as that of the driver, the company he belongs to and the intention, be it be sending or picking up goods.

Some factories require the guard to inform the clerks on duty before he lets in the visitors or lorries, failing which he will get a good scolding. Poor guard! He may have lapsed in his duties due to the coincidental arrival of visitors and lorries at the same time. While he was attending to a lorry, a visitor could have slipped in! No! The factory will not accept the excuse. They will straight away phone the security company, and he will be transferred to another place, the next day!

Well, you didn’t picture this security guard, did you?

One palm oil processing company requires the guard to climb on top of the tanker, through a built-in ladder on the ground, and cut off the seals from the partitioned tank lids. He, then, climbs down the tanker and gives the cut seals to a person at the counter, where the tanker stands. On a busy day, more than 20 tankers arrive at the factory! The poor guard will be tired but he will carry on with the job.

You didn’t picture this security guard, did you?

In another factory, dealing in Industrial gases, the guard has to go up the lorries to count the number of empty gas cylinders coming in and the number of filled cylinders going out. He is answerable to any shortcomings! He goes on doing this security risks to earn a living.

You didn’t picture this security guard, did you?

As mentioned earlier, different factories have different requirements from the guards, but did they stop to ponder that they are, in fact, exploiting the poor guards. And the guards are surrendering themselves for a pittance of 600 to 700 ringgit Malaysia, for 12 hours work, daily! In Taiping, anyway. What about in other small towns?

The Malaysian government has been made aware of the low wages that the guards are taking home, through the normal and alternative media. But nothing has changed. It can build tallest tower in the world, can build state of the art bridges, can enter F1 races, can send men to explore the space, but, ironically, can’t arrange for the guards to be given a decent salary!