THE CICAK.com

My love, today, a year ago

By JASON LIM
I would ask for still more, if I had the sky with all its stars,
and the world with its endless riches; but I would be content with
the smallest corner of this earth if only she were mine.
Lover’s Gifts V : I Would Ask For Still More, Rabindranath Tagore
After three years away,
lingering long goodbyes […]

PART I: Merdeka on my mind

By KEITH LEONG
As a young boy, I was always excited about Merdeka. There was something about the yards and yards of flags, the pageantry and black-and-white images of Tunku Abdul Rahman that got me extra hyper.
I would get up early, jump around the house, scream “MERDEKAâ€? three times and sing the Sudirman song. This […]

Fear and loathing in Malaysia

By WONG WAI SENG
I fear going home.
I fear my fellow Malaysians who do not see me as a fellow Malaysian because of the colour of my skin.
I fear the collective paranoia besieging all sides, as a standoff has been created by differing viewpoints on religion and religious freedom.
I fear I am no longer […]

Israel’s Catch-22

By ANDREW LOH
Author’s warning: This article neither attempts to justify nor condemn the Israeli-Lebanon conflict, but is an extremely biased, personal perspective of the situation. Given the highly volatile sentiments surrounding it, this article will be “sensitive” for most.
Hezbollah is not made up of idiots. Its members are highly intelligent, calculating strategists. Its newest […]

State-sponsored companies in sad state

By JAY MENON

Petronas has set a new annual profit record, somewhere in the region of 12 Billion Dollars. Being Malaysia’s only Fortune 500 company, the 22% growth that the company is posting should set an example to the rest of the so called state supported organizations that are two steps short of tatters as we speak. What are our major state supported companies doing now? The ones that come to mind, apart from Petronas are, Proton, MAS, Tenaga Nasional and TM etc.

Silencing the arts in Malaysia

By ARIVIND ABRAHAM
Malaysia rots at its core.
This is not the overblown statement of some anti-government radical, but an honest observation on the state of the nation. While all may look good on the surface, there is an insidious hand at play that poisons our nation from within.
The recent outrage the government has perpetrated […]

Of pregnant teens and protection

By NUR AMALIA MOHD. ZUKI

During the 1930s, 18 year old girls were not ashamed of their bulging bellies and their status as young mothers. Marriage was a common path to take after a girl finishes secondary school, assuming that they even went to school back then.

But these days, teen pregnancies have become such a taboo in our Malaysian culture. The status of being a young mother before the age of 25 is regarded as restrictive and irresponsible. These days, it seems that advancing one’s career is more important than having babies.

This term ’Teen Pregnancy’ seems to have evolved from one meaning to another. Literally teen pregnancy specifically refers to the status of young women aged thirteen to nineteen who are pregnant. However, nowadays, the same word also means that a young woman of that age has had pre-marital intercourse resulting in pregnancy.

In tribute to the second definition, somehow teen pregnancy has become more and more of an odd-norm in our culture. As if our Malaysian youths have undergone ‘Westernization’, it has become more of a trend these days to engage in casual sex without considering the aftermath. One of them is getting pregnant.