Monday, March 29, 2010

NOVEL-NOVEL MALAYSIA-INDONESIA

Pengurus Kanan Penerbitan, Encik Poh Swee Hiang dari Penerbitan Pelangi telah memberikan saya sepuluh novel untuk dibaca sebelum dilancarkan pada dua hari kemudannya iaitu pada 24 Mac 2010. Saya sempat membaca beberapa buah antaranya ialah dua novel oleh Geidurrahman El-Mishry iaitu Bait-bait Cinta dan Langit Mekah Berkabut Merah.

Saya memilihnya kerana alasan yang amat jelas: bahawa saya dengan mudah dapat menghubungkan dirinya dengannya. Kedua-dua novel ini berlatarbelakangkan Timur Tengah, dan saya pernah tinggal di beberapa negara Timur Tengah untuk mengajar di universiti atau membuat penyelidikan. Tentang dua karya tersebut, satu adalah mengenai kepedihan, kepiluan dan cabaran hidup seorang pembantu rumah yang pergi ke perantauan untuk mendapatkan rezeki; manakala satu lagi adalah tentang liku-liku kehidupan dan idealisme perjuangan seorang mahasiswa Universiti Al-Azhar.

Lapan daripada sepuluh novel yang dilancarkan merupakan adaptasi karya Indonesia dan dua ialah karya tempatan. Penerbitan Pelangi telah menubuhkan Pelangi Novel Sdn. Bhd. untuk menangani karya-karya kreatif dan mengambil peluang daripada pasaran cereka yang semakin luas. Pelangi Novel diketuai oleh Tuan Haji Senan bin Ibrahim, mantan Pengaran Pelajaran Johor yang saya kenali semasa beliau menjadi pengarah BBT. Yang istimewa tentang penerokaan Pelangi ke genre novel ialah penubuhan cawangan di negara tetangga itu bukan sahaja untuk membawa novel mereka ke Malaysia tetapi juga novel Malaysia ke pasaran Indonesia. Kita berharap langkah ini akan berjaya dalam usaha ke arah mewujudkan lalu-lintas perbukuan yang lebih stabil antara kedua-dua negara.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

DUNIA PERNOVELAN YANG BERUBAH

Dunia pernovelan sekarang telah semakin berubah berubah. Kita biasa mendengar Kindle keluaran Amazon dan iPad keluaran Apple yang memberi wadah baru kepada dunia perbukuan. Dengan teknologi informasi yang canggih, orang telah melangkah ke genre-genre ajaib yang tidak pernah terfikir misalnya “cellphone novel”. Mulai tiga tahun lepas, di Jepun, di antara 10 best-selling novels, sebanyak LIMA daripadanya adalah berasal daripada cellphone novel atau novel telefon bimbit.

Sebuah novel berjudul “If You” telah terjual sebanyak 400,000 naskah iaitu menjadi novel kelima paling laris selepas diundi sebagai cellphone novel paling popular. Walaupun banyak perdebatan dan perselisihan pendapat tentang kebaikan dan manfaat cellphone novel, namun ia kini terus berkembang menjadi genre yang mulai popular di kalangan pembaca remaja termasuk di dunia perbukuan bahasa Inggeris.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Essentials of Research Methods

Essentials of Research Methods: A guide to social science research. (2005). Janet M. Ruane. Malden MA: Blackwell. 239 pp., Price $ 29.95 (paperback). ISBN 0-6312-3049-1.

There are many books on research methodology. My preference include this book which gives an excellent introduction to those unfamiliar with research in social sciences including media and communication studies.

First chapter explains the need for systematic research that discovers both new knowledge and avoids faulty logic. Second chapter, "Ethics: It's the Right Thing to Do," emphasizes the importance of researchers' conduct: researchers working with human participants must do no harm, must obtain informed consent and must respect participants' privacy.

The next five chapters deal with the topics of measurement and research design.. The chapters on measurement cover concepts of validity and reliability, and the chapters on design cover causal analysis, research strategies and sampling. The chapter on sampling covers the techniques used to conduct research-and assessment. Two chapters are devoted to statistics: descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. As the title suggests, the book describes the essentials of research methods.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Anak Hamas: Kisah yang Memukau tentang Keganasan, Pengkhianatan, Tipu Daya Politik dan Pilihan Luar Duga


Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices
Anak Hamas: Kisah yang Memukau tentang Keganasan, Pengkhianatan, Tipu Daya Politik dan Pilihan Luar Duga.


Sebuah buku yang memberi pukulan hebat kepada perjuangan Hamas dan Palestin telah diterbitkan minggu ini di Amerika Syarikat oleh Penerbit SaltRiver. Penulis buku itu ialah Mosab Hassan Yousef (bersama dengan Ron Brakin), yang mengaku murtad pada tahun 2005 lalu menukar kepada nama Joseph. Mosab ialah anak sulung kepada Sheikh Hassan Yousef, ahli pengasas Hamas yang dikatakan sebagai pemimpin paling poular dalam gerakan itu.

Pada sesayap kiri buku setebal 288 halaman itu dinyatakan antara lain (terjemahan saya):
“Sebelum berusia 21 tahun Mosab Hassan Yousef menyaksikan sesuatu yang tidak sepatutnya disaksikan olehs sesiapa: penderitaan kemiskinan, salah guna kuasa, penyiksaan dan kematian. Beliau juga menyaksikan urusan rahsia oleh pemimpin tertinggi Timur Tengah. Dia dipercayai sepenuhnya oleh Hamas dan turut serta dalam Intifada tetapi kemudian ditangkap dan masukkan ke dalam penjara Israel yang paling digeruni. Pilihan bahaya yang dibuatnya menjadikan dia pengkhianat di mata orang yang disayanginya – dan memberinya lowongan kepada rahsia-rahsia luar biasa. Dalam buku ini, dia mendedahkan peristiwa dan proses yang sehingga kini hanya diketahui oleh beberapa orang individu…”


Selama satu dekad, Mosab mengintip Hamas bagi pihak Shin Bet iaitu agensi keselamatan dalam negeri Israel. Nama kod yang digunakan ialah "Green Prince," dan kerja-kerja perisikan yang dibuat dikatakan telah menyelamatkan banyak nyawa hasil pendedahan tentang plot pembunuhan oleh kumpulan berani mati Hamas. Baginya, dia mahu menyelamatkan nyawa, bukan untuk menghapuskannya. Tentang perkara ini, dia menulis:

"I watched the mindless killing through the eyes of Jesus," he writes, "who agonized for those who were lost. The more I read the Bible, the more clearly I saw this single truth: Loving and forgiving one's enemies is the only way to stop the bloodshed."


Buku Mosab telah mendapat puji-pujian tinggi daripada ramai pembaca bukan sahaja dari segi keberaniannya tetapi juga dari segi gaya penulisannya. Seorang pembaca menulis dalam ruangan ulasan di Amazon.com:

This book is very captivating and intriguing. The style makes you feel as if you are talking to Mosab rather than reading the book. .. It is very insightful into the deep issue of the Middle East and what it will take to overcome those issues. It is ... about respect for other people.


Penulis lain mengulas:
The story itself is also amazing. As a Christian, it was inspiring to see how one sentence from the Bible was able to transform Mosab's heart and change the course of his life. As a result, many lives were saved. It is also a work of peace, helping us see that there are no cut and dry answers to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. All have done wrong, with Jesus all are capable of peace.
It is remarkable when Mosab Hassan Yousef says, "There are two facts that Muslims don't understand ... about more than 95 percent of Muslims don't understand their own religion. It came with a much stronger language than the language that they speak so they don't understand it ... they rely only on religious people to get their knowledge about this religion.

Seorang lagi menulis: “Yousef you're a modern day prophet...whether on the side of light/thruth or that of darkness/propagandas..time will tell.”

Ketika diwawancara oleh Haaretz.com, Mosab Hasan berkata:
Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis. That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels, only a cease-fire, and no one knows that better than I. The Hamas leadership is responsible for the killing of Palestinians, not Israelis," he said. "Palestinians! They do not hesitate to massacre people in a mosque or to throw people from the 15th or 17th floor of a building, as they did during the coup in Gaza. The Israelis would never do such things. I tell you with certainty that the Israelis care about the Palestinians far more than the Hamas or Fatah leadership does.


I wish I were in Gaza now," Yousef said by phone from California, "I would put on an army uniform and join Israel's special forces in order to liberate Gilad Shalit. If I were there, I could help. We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must not be done." “I wish I were in Gaza now” he told the newspaper from California, where he finally ended up hiding, adding: “I would put on an army uniform and join Israel’s special forces in order to liberate Gilad Shalit. If I were there I would help. We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must not be done.

Dalam Wall Street Journal, keluaran 5 Mac 2010, Hasan ketika ditemu bual disebut sebagai berkata:
I absolutely know that in anybody's eyes I was a traitor," says Mosab Hassan Yousef. "To my family, to my nation, to my God. I crossed all the red lines in my society. I didn't leave one that I didn't cross.

Akhbar-akhbar di Timur Tengah sepanjang minggu penerbitan buku tersebut tidak banyak memberi ulasan. Seorang kolumnis untuk The Jordan Times, keluaran Jumaat 5 Mac mengulas:
It is usually difficult for people who sink so deep in the vice of treason to justify their treachery by simply pretending to be defending principles. Treason is an absolute depravity that under no circumstances can be converted into a virtue.
Despite all the Israeli fanfare and the propaganda to create from a single ordinary spy affair a big drama of a magnificent desertion from Hamas “evil” to Israeli “righteousness”, the facts remain unchanged. Such ludicrous attempts are often counterproductive, in the sense that they further expose Israeli moral bankruptcy and failure in engaging in a meaningful discourse, opting, instead, to such ragged fabrications and bare tactics.
For a state known to use any means available to its agencies, no matter how brutal, including barring sick people in desperate need of medical treatment, to recruit spies, gaining another traitor is not a big achievement worthy of such noise. Neither, apart from the understandable family pain, should it be a great deal for Hamas to suffer the loss of another defector. That happens in the best circumstances.

CNN melalui rancangan yang dikelolakan oleh Amanpour membuat liputan khas tentang reaksi terhadap buku tersebut. Beliau mewawancara Osama Hamdan, pegawai tertinggi Hamas yang member reaksi berikut:
The Israelis issued this book as a kind of propaganda. When you say that he was working for his enemies, it means that he lies for his own people, and we expect that there are big lies in this book," told CNN's Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview from Damascus, Syria.

Dalam rancangan yang sama, Fawaz Gerges, professor dalam bidang politik Timur tengah berkata bahawa Hamas merupakan organisasi yang amat menjaga kerahsiaan dan sangat sukar bagi anak muda seperti Yousef untuk menerobos atau menyusupi bahagian ketenteraan.