A Malaysian model has been spared the wrath of rod – but only until the end of the month – before she has to face a public flogging for violating strict Muslim laws.

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 32, admitted drinking alcohol at a hotel bar two years ago, fined $1,400 and sentenced to six strokes with a rattan cane.

The punishment should have been executed yesterday but Malaysian Islamic authorities delayed the sentence until the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy period of fasting which ends at the end of this month.

Ms. Shukarno accepts her fate and chose to have her caning carried out in public, but observers feel the sentence is too harsh. They have called on the Malaysian government to reconsider their action.

Is drinking beer in a public hotel a “crime” that deserves such a strong punishment? Where’s the leniency you would normally expect from so-called people of God?

Even if you’re not Jamaican, it’s hard to ignore the fact that Jamaica is riding the crest of the pride wave right now.

Bouyed by current successes at the 12th IAAF World Athletic Championships in Berlin, Germany, Jamaicans are feeling proud and elevated. This is resulting in much back-slapping, high-fiving and fist-touching ceremonies exploding in front rooms, work places, social network websites and chat spaces as well as on national TV, all around the globe!

Jamaica’s position at the top of the medals table is proof that the athletes of this blessed, little Caribbean nation of around 150 miles (240 kilometres) by 50 miles (80 kilometres) or 7,500 square miles (19,200 square kilometres), is punching well above its weight!

Three Theories

There are at least three theories to explain why Jamaicans are currently doing so well in athletics:-

First, because some of the other usually major league players are no longer taking performance enhancing substances. Major players include the Americans, Europeans, British, Russians and Cuban athletes. It’s a personal view of course.

Second, maybe the natural training, belief, drives and determination that is always at the heart of things Jamaican, is now paying off big time for Jamaican-based athletes.

Third, perhaps the Jamaicans are taking newer, cutting-edge, performing-enhancing substances which so far have remained undetectable.

Final Detabes

We can go far debating any of the three theories above but our final choice will always come down to our own point of view of whether we like Jamaicans, have no opinion either way on the issue, have a vested interest in another region/territory dominating athletics or have been swayed by a media choice.

Personally, I believe theory two is true: that Jamaicans are winning because they are simply that naturally good. This option may be helped if the first theory is also true but we have no way of knowing this for sure.

What we do know is that Jamaican athletes are being tested extensively after each event and it would be really difficult to evade the IAFF’s stringent testing procedures. All this may prove really hard for critics and sceptics to accept but Jamaica and Jamaicans are literally running things!

Big respect!

This is where I will fling down my comments and views on certain issues.

This is where my fights and battles will live.

Almost from the first hour of his death on May 10, 1981, people have been calling for reggae superstar Bob Marley to be made a national hero in Jamaica.

The government at the time resisted the call. Successive governments over the 28 years that has elapsed since have also resisted the call.

The reason why depends on who you to talk to. To some in political circles Marley does not represent the kind of “wholesome” image (colonial) Jamaica want to promote.

The idea of a “dutty head, ganja-smoking, Rastaman” as one of the island’s national heroes, is an anathema to the very belief system of those who still hanker after the days when the British ruled Jamaica under colonial rule.

Jamaica Poor

Others question what has Marley done for Jamaica and, most importantly, for the poor of Jamaica. Some even knit-pick about his apparent immorality and adultery whereby he fathered numerous children with several different women, some while he was still married to wife Rita.

But, these counter-arguments pale into insignificance when considering Marley’s impact on the world, as a Jamaican.
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By no stretch of the imagination would I call myself a designer! But, I’ve been around lots of good designers to understand what good design is and how it can affect the way how spectators and consumers appreciate it.

Maybe I’m just being a bit too modest in saying this because in the past people have actually paid me to design stuff for them. I’m credited with designing record covers, posters, postcards, booklets, T-shirts, websites – including this one¹ – and other creative stuff. Yet, still, I don’t class myself as a designer!

I suppose the reason why I don’t class myself as a designer is because I cannot draw that well so the basis of my design is usually based around photography. I’m much better if an illustrator produce the artwork and apply my technical, creative flair to it.

The thing which has settled the most in my mind is the definition of design I got when I studied photography at Kitson College in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England all those years ago. Simply put my lecturer outlined that design was “problem solving.”

That actually sums up my approach to design: all I do when I design anything is try to solve a problem!

It may not be very creative but it sure gets the job done.

1. This is the sketch I made before designing this website. It all began as an idea on a piece of napkin and became real when I sat down to execute the design idea! [↩]

I have had a love affair with radio going back for as long as I can remember! In Caribbean communities like the one I grew up in Jamaica, radio has a more significant meaning than in other more developed areas of the world.

Whereas in the affluent areas radio is an addition to the main news service carriers very often it is the main purveyor of news, particularly in rural and/or remote areas.

Thus gathering around a radio set can and did create its own sense of community, sometimes with instant fame being bestowed on the owner of the radio set!

Whether it was the sound of cricket (where people like John Arlott and Richie Benaud were particular favourites) or the BBC World Service where the cold, clipped sound of the presenters gave the news a rather grave, sombre tone, radio is an important device.

Thus, it was inevitable I would become involved with broadcasting at some point but it was never something that I gave serious thought to until after I entered the world of journalism and the media.

I’ll tell you how I got into radio a little later!

Of course writing is my favourite skill and passion! It now comes very natural to me and I can only assume it is a blessing from God to have been given such a talent because I have never done any kind of training in order to do it properly or even professionally!

I have won award for my efforts to date. That came circa 1990 when I won the Jamaica Federation of Musician Best Entertainment Journalist Award.¹

I started off writing poetry in my youth as a way to express my creativity but before I knew it I was also writing short stories, even screenplays!

It was a tradition in most West Indian families for the younger ones to write letters on behalf of the older folks to send back home to the Caribbean, so I was able to hone my writing skill doing this also.

But it was only when I began as a reporter for The Gleaner in Kingston, Jamaica that I really became a journalist in earnest. Since then I have written and researched many thousands of articles and I can honestly say the enthusiasm has never left me.

And I hope it never does!

1. There I am giving an acceptance speech at the ceremony in New Kingston, Jamaica! [↩]

Whenever I think of myself as a talent somehow the sentiment expressed by original Jamaican rapper Big Youth in “Every Nigger is a Star” comes to mind. Discarding the “nigger” part of the sentiment, I’ve always felt I could act, sing, perform or entertain if only I put my mind to it but I always had other things to keep me focussed.

At school when I wasn’t beating books and trying to be the best I can in the classroom, I excelled at table tennis and cricket.

Occasionally I would act in films, both independent and mainstream, but I really couldn’t say I was an actor. I was more a chancer because I only acted when the chance came. Thus I found myself acting as an American GI in John Schlesinger

The first thing I ever published, if truth be told, was a book of poems I wrote in my idle hours as a teenage schooler! But somehow that didn’t survive so I got nothing to show from those many creative hours.

What is irrefutable is the fact that I published the UK’s first Black internet site in October 1994 although I credited it from February 1995, on or around February 6, Bob Marley’s birthday.

[UPDATE: March 14, 2009 at 09:02] Actually, We didn’t call ourselves ‘Black’: that was the mainstream media’s title for us. We actually marketed ourselves as a ’street culture magazine’. But they went with what they thought best. The publicity certainly helped!
[END UPDATE]

I didn’t realise at the time that I was the first to do this since I was working in the dark about my directions and was powered by cheer love and determination.

Since then I have published several other websites. These include:-

• Yush, Britain’s first street culture site.
• BlackMag, a leading black news portal.
• Gwaan, a search engine.
• Michael Conally, this personal website!

There are many more sites to come. Watch this space!