By GOH VERN JAN
Joy and pride. These emotions filled the atmosphere as people danced, sang, cheered and marched. Accompanying their bright moods were huge rainbow flags which enhanced the festivity of the event. This vibrant celebration is no ordinary occasion. It holds special significance as it celebrates lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) culture and at times serves as demonstrations for legal rights such as same-sex marriage. Welcome to the extraordinary world of the gay pride parade.
The gay pride parade advocates three main concepts: LGBT people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity, diversity is a gift and sexual orientation as well as gender identity are innate and cannot be deliberately changed.
The word pride is used as an antonym for shame which has been used to oppress LGBT people throughout history. In this case, pride is an affirmation of one’s self and the community as a whole. Symbols of LGBT pride include the LGBT rainbow flag and the Greek lambda symbol.
Burst of color: A man flaunts a rainbow flag at Gay Pride New York.
Most gay pride parades take place annually around June to commemorate the Stonewall riots which is a crucial moment in the modern LGBT rights movement. In 1969, gay people in The Stonewall Inn fought back instead of backing down to unconstitutional raids by New York police. Despite its violence, this event gave the underground community its first sense of communal pride.
Major cities around the world today host Gay Pride Celebrations. These cities include New York, Chicago, Houston, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Seattle, and Toronto.
New York City celebrates Gay Pride for a full week each June. Pride celebrations typically centers around five events held over the entire fourth week of June (from June 18 to June 26). These five events include The Rally, PRIDEfest, The March, The Dance on the Pier and Rapture on the River. They occur in the West village, very close to the city’s other gay-popular neighborhoods like Chelsea and the East Village.
The gay pride parades in New York take on a festive or even Mardi Gras-like character. They frequently involve floats, dancers, drag queens and amplified disco beats. These parades also include political and educational contingents such as local politicians and marching groups from LGBT institutions of all kinds. Other typical parade participants include local LGBT-friendly churches like the Metropolitan Community Churches.
Proud to be different: People marching in the Gay Pride Parade in New York City.
Greenery: A participant goes with the theme of nature.
Glamorous march: Participants dressed in blue march with pride.
Dazzling display: A participant shines with a variety of exotic colors.
In New York’s 2009 celebration, a faux Liza Minnelli, who lip-synched “New York, New York”, was spotted in a slinky dress and spiky wig atop the Stonewall Inn float. The LGBT Community Center’s float was sponsored by the Broadway musical “Shrek”. Parade organizers claimed as many as 500,000 participated. That amount of participants was difficult to verify but many thousands marched or lined Fifth Avenue to watch.
Danielle Staub of the Bravo reality show "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" marched in heels that rivaled a drag queen's and claimed that gay people deserve the right to marry. “My two marriages didn't last as long as most of the gay community's partnerships,” she noted.
In November 2010, thousands of people cheered through the streets of Delhi in a lively celebration for the first gay pride parade since gay sex was made legal in India.
Under a huge rainbow flag, to the sound of drums, whistles and horns, 2,000 gay activists and supporters dressed in feather face masks shouted slogans and waved placards as they marched through the capital of this still sexually conservative country.
Joyous occasion: Participants taking part in the gay pride parade in New Delhi.
The parade brought traffic to a stop in the commercial heart of the city, leaving perplexed drivers watching in astonishment as kissing male couples, dancing transsexuals in bright pink skirts and thousands of rainbow flags went past.
Still, opposition of such a parade is inevitable. In 2010, Serbian riot police were summoned to control protesters who hurled Molotov cocktails and stun grenades to try to disrupt a gay pride march in downtown Belgrade. According to officials, more than 140 people were hurt and more than 200 were arrested.
The Catholic Church’s highest official in Jerusalem sternly criticized Israeli authorities for permitting a gay pride march through the streets of the Holy Land. Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal urged homosexuals to “leave Jerusalem to her pilgrims and faithful,” further adding that “this city has suffered enough wounds and humiliation.”
With or without antagonism, gay pride parades are ultimately here to stay. As these celebrations continue year after year, the gay community’s message is clear. “Today is about saying that we are gay and we are proud. We are not going anywhere, we are a part of society, and today we can celebrate being different,” said Amit Agrawal, one of the New Delhi’s parade organizers.
Joy and pride. These emotions filled the atmosphere as people danced, sang, cheered and marched. Accompanying their bright moods were huge rainbow flags which enhanced the festivity of the event. This vibrant celebration is no ordinary occasion. It holds special significance as it celebrates lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) culture and at times serves as demonstrations for legal rights such as same-sex marriage. Welcome to the extraordinary world of the gay pride parade.
The gay pride parade advocates three main concepts: LGBT people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity, diversity is a gift and sexual orientation as well as gender identity are innate and cannot be deliberately changed.
The word pride is used as an antonym for shame which has been used to oppress LGBT people throughout history. In this case, pride is an affirmation of one’s self and the community as a whole. Symbols of LGBT pride include the LGBT rainbow flag and the Greek lambda symbol.
Burst of color: A man flaunts a rainbow flag at Gay Pride New York.
Most gay pride parades take place annually around June to commemorate the Stonewall riots which is a crucial moment in the modern LGBT rights movement. In 1969, gay people in The Stonewall Inn fought back instead of backing down to unconstitutional raids by New York police. Despite its violence, this event gave the underground community its first sense of communal pride.
Major cities around the world today host Gay Pride Celebrations. These cities include New York, Chicago, Houston, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Seattle, and Toronto.
New York City celebrates Gay Pride for a full week each June. Pride celebrations typically centers around five events held over the entire fourth week of June (from June 18 to June 26). These five events include The Rally, PRIDEfest, The March, The Dance on the Pier and Rapture on the River. They occur in the West village, very close to the city’s other gay-popular neighborhoods like Chelsea and the East Village.
The gay pride parades in New York take on a festive or even Mardi Gras-like character. They frequently involve floats, dancers, drag queens and amplified disco beats. These parades also include political and educational contingents such as local politicians and marching groups from LGBT institutions of all kinds. Other typical parade participants include local LGBT-friendly churches like the Metropolitan Community Churches.
Proud to be different: People marching in the Gay Pride Parade in New York City.
Greenery: A participant goes with the theme of nature.
Glamorous march: Participants dressed in blue march with pride.
Dazzling display: A participant shines with a variety of exotic colors.
In New York’s 2009 celebration, a faux Liza Minnelli, who lip-synched “New York, New York”, was spotted in a slinky dress and spiky wig atop the Stonewall Inn float. The LGBT Community Center’s float was sponsored by the Broadway musical “Shrek”. Parade organizers claimed as many as 500,000 participated. That amount of participants was difficult to verify but many thousands marched or lined Fifth Avenue to watch.
Danielle Staub of the Bravo reality show "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" marched in heels that rivaled a drag queen's and claimed that gay people deserve the right to marry. “My two marriages didn't last as long as most of the gay community's partnerships,” she noted.
In November 2010, thousands of people cheered through the streets of Delhi in a lively celebration for the first gay pride parade since gay sex was made legal in India.
Under a huge rainbow flag, to the sound of drums, whistles and horns, 2,000 gay activists and supporters dressed in feather face masks shouted slogans and waved placards as they marched through the capital of this still sexually conservative country.
Joyous occasion: Participants taking part in the gay pride parade in New Delhi.
The parade brought traffic to a stop in the commercial heart of the city, leaving perplexed drivers watching in astonishment as kissing male couples, dancing transsexuals in bright pink skirts and thousands of rainbow flags went past.
Still, opposition of such a parade is inevitable. In 2010, Serbian riot police were summoned to control protesters who hurled Molotov cocktails and stun grenades to try to disrupt a gay pride march in downtown Belgrade. According to officials, more than 140 people were hurt and more than 200 were arrested.
The Catholic Church’s highest official in Jerusalem sternly criticized Israeli authorities for permitting a gay pride march through the streets of the Holy Land. Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal urged homosexuals to “leave Jerusalem to her pilgrims and faithful,” further adding that “this city has suffered enough wounds and humiliation.”
With or without antagonism, gay pride parades are ultimately here to stay. As these celebrations continue year after year, the gay community’s message is clear. “Today is about saying that we are gay and we are proud. We are not going anywhere, we are a part of society, and today we can celebrate being different,” said Amit Agrawal, one of the New Delhi’s parade organizers.
By MANMEET KAUR
LOOK into your trash bin. What have you got in there? Have you have been recycling religiously, sending all your paper, plastics, metals and glass to the recycling centre? If you haven’t why not go a bit further with your green efforts and start recycling?
Old Story, Growing Problem
According to the Global Environment Centre Foundation (GEC), solid waste is one of the three major environmental problems in Malaysia.
Currently, over 23 000 tonnes of waste is produced each day in Malaysia. However, this amount is expected to rise to 30 000 tonnes by the year 2020.
For decades, this by-product of urbanisation had been tipped into 289 dumpsites around the country.
Unfortunately, time is running out for local governments. Waste management experts forecast that over 80% of dumpsites in the country will be filled to the brim in less than two years.
The sight at a Malaysian landfill.
Management Strategy
For the Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing Corporation (PPSPPA), the agency has initiated several measures to overcome the shortage of garbage dumpsites and existence of illegal dumps in the country.
Chief Executive Officer of PPSPPA Datuk Zaini Md Nor said that measures taken include the implementation of solid waste management strategy based on ‘waste hierarchy’ to reduce the volume of garbage sent to disposal sites, as practised in many developed nations.
The directive lays down a five-step waste management option with waste prevention as the preferred option, followed by reusing, recycling, recovery and safe disposal, as a last resort.
Towards a Green and Clean Malaysia
A nationwide recycling campaign was launched in 2000 to raise public awareness on the importance of reducing the amount of waste generated, reusing waste where possible and recycling what cannot be reused.
Through its recycling or Kitar Semula programme, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government has placed more than 1000 recycling bins and established 65 centres all over the country. The bins can be found in public places like schools, petrol stations and shopping malls.
But the question here is how many people actually go through this little inconvenience when it is so much easier to chuck the recyclable materials into the garbage bin or let the cashier bag the purchases?
According to Ravindran Raman Kutty, senior corporate communications manager at Alam Flora, about 30% of the solid waste generated by households can be recycled, but only 5% is being recycled.
Carrot or Stick?
As such, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government is actually planning to introduce legislation to make recycling mandatory.
“Right now there is no mechanism for segregating at source, so everything goes into the landfills,” said Dr Nadzri Yahaya, director general of the National Solid Waste Management Department under the Housing and Local Government Ministry.
“But once the regulation is enforced, it will be much easier for people to start recycling and for us to determine what goes into the landfills and what is sent for recycling.
The Solid Waste Management Bill, which requires the public to recycle solid waste, is undergoing some final changes at the Attorney-General’s Chambers before it is tabled in the Dewan Rakyat.
“In some parts of the US and Europe, if you don't recycle your recyclable waste, your garbage will not be collected. Elsewhere, households have to pay per bag of waste generated. Such tariffs force them to reconsider how much they are throwing out," said Jamal Othman, an associate professor at the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
“Thus, in the long term, people learn to minimise waste. They begin to buy products with recyclable materials, and manufacturers will have to change the way they make the products as well.”
The recycling bins placed under the Kitar Semula programme.
Importance of Education
Meanwhile, waste management specialist Dr Theng Lee Chong, who has dedicated his life to studying ‘garbage’, believes the best solution to waste management lies in educating the public on the importance of recycling.
“Waste can be generated anywhere at any time. At least 50% of waste in a household is leftover food and kitchen waste while the rest is plastic and paper,” he explained.
“Our garbage is our own responsibility and the only way we can ever achieve a higher level of awareness is through education.”
LOOK into your trash bin. What have you got in there? Have you have been recycling religiously, sending all your paper, plastics, metals and glass to the recycling centre? If you haven’t why not go a bit further with your green efforts and start recycling?
Old Story, Growing Problem
According to the Global Environment Centre Foundation (GEC), solid waste is one of the three major environmental problems in Malaysia.
Currently, over 23 000 tonnes of waste is produced each day in Malaysia. However, this amount is expected to rise to 30 000 tonnes by the year 2020.
For decades, this by-product of urbanisation had been tipped into 289 dumpsites around the country.
Unfortunately, time is running out for local governments. Waste management experts forecast that over 80% of dumpsites in the country will be filled to the brim in less than two years.
The sight at a Malaysian landfill.
Management Strategy
For the Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing Corporation (PPSPPA), the agency has initiated several measures to overcome the shortage of garbage dumpsites and existence of illegal dumps in the country.
Chief Executive Officer of PPSPPA Datuk Zaini Md Nor said that measures taken include the implementation of solid waste management strategy based on ‘waste hierarchy’ to reduce the volume of garbage sent to disposal sites, as practised in many developed nations.
The directive lays down a five-step waste management option with waste prevention as the preferred option, followed by reusing, recycling, recovery and safe disposal, as a last resort.
Towards a Green and Clean Malaysia
A nationwide recycling campaign was launched in 2000 to raise public awareness on the importance of reducing the amount of waste generated, reusing waste where possible and recycling what cannot be reused.
Through its recycling or Kitar Semula programme, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government has placed more than 1000 recycling bins and established 65 centres all over the country. The bins can be found in public places like schools, petrol stations and shopping malls.
But the question here is how many people actually go through this little inconvenience when it is so much easier to chuck the recyclable materials into the garbage bin or let the cashier bag the purchases?
According to Ravindran Raman Kutty, senior corporate communications manager at Alam Flora, about 30% of the solid waste generated by households can be recycled, but only 5% is being recycled.
Carrot or Stick?
As such, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government is actually planning to introduce legislation to make recycling mandatory.
“Right now there is no mechanism for segregating at source, so everything goes into the landfills,” said Dr Nadzri Yahaya, director general of the National Solid Waste Management Department under the Housing and Local Government Ministry.
“But once the regulation is enforced, it will be much easier for people to start recycling and for us to determine what goes into the landfills and what is sent for recycling.
The Solid Waste Management Bill, which requires the public to recycle solid waste, is undergoing some final changes at the Attorney-General’s Chambers before it is tabled in the Dewan Rakyat.
“In some parts of the US and Europe, if you don't recycle your recyclable waste, your garbage will not be collected. Elsewhere, households have to pay per bag of waste generated. Such tariffs force them to reconsider how much they are throwing out," said Jamal Othman, an associate professor at the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
“Thus, in the long term, people learn to minimise waste. They begin to buy products with recyclable materials, and manufacturers will have to change the way they make the products as well.”
The recycling bins placed under the Kitar Semula programme.
Importance of Education
Meanwhile, waste management specialist Dr Theng Lee Chong, who has dedicated his life to studying ‘garbage’, believes the best solution to waste management lies in educating the public on the importance of recycling.
“Waste can be generated anywhere at any time. At least 50% of waste in a household is leftover food and kitchen waste while the rest is plastic and paper,” he explained.
“Our garbage is our own responsibility and the only way we can ever achieve a higher level of awareness is through education.”
By CHOY WAI FONG
Tobacco use is a global problem, resulting in a wide range of diseases and death and with great economic costs. By the year 2020, worldwide tobacco-related deaths are estimated to reach 10 million every year, two thirds of which will be in developing countries. Cigarette smoking is the main form of tobacco use in Malaysia. Annually about one-quarter of Malaysian deaths are attributed to smoking-related diseases.
Although tobacco is the leading preventable cause of the death among adults in Malaysia, the general public including tobacco users has little awareness about possible consequences of tobacco use. One way of bringing more awareness is to place more information on tobacco products in the form of pictorial warnings. In June 2009, strong pictorial warnings were mandated by the Malaysian government under the Control of Tobacco Products Regulation.
Health Minister Datuk Liow Tiong Lai showing some of the cigarette packs with warning pictures.
Under Article 11 of the global treaty, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, to which Malaysia has been a party since 2005, the provision for pictorial health warnings on tobacco product packs is one of the many commitments that Malaysia must fulfil. The six images used for the Malaysian Pictorial Health Warnings (PHW) depict lung, throat and mouth cancer, foot gangrene, miscarriage and a premature baby. The pictures are taken from neighbouring countries; the cancer pictures are from Thailand and the remainder from Singapore.
Dr Zarihah Mohd Zain, senior principal assistant director at the Ministry of Health’s Disease Control Division, said that the onus is on manufacturers to provide information that is simple, clear and truthful about their products.
“PHW is a tool that is able to increase awareness among the main target group – the smokers. I was told by the ministry that the cost of printing PHWs is borne fully by the tobacco industry, saving the government money and getting anti-tobacco messages effectively and efficiently disseminated.
“Evoking smokers’ emotions through PHWs, be it fear, detest, anger, sad or regret, is very much the desired outcome, and we expect subsequent cognitive processes to occur, whether they are immediate or over a period of time,” she said.
“A 2004 survey in Singapore reported that 71 per cent of affected smokers said that they now knew more about the health effects of smoking, and 28 per cent said that they smoked less.
Fourteen per cent made it a point to avoid smoking in front of children, 12 per cent said that they avoided smoking in front of pregnant women and eight per cent said they smoked less at home,” said Dr Zarihah.
She added that the study noted that 46 per cent of non-smokers said they had advised smokers to quit as a result of seeing the health warnings.
In a survey by the ministry, 21.5% of the adult population or three million adults smoke and among teenagers, some 15% have indicated they have tried smoking and another 8% confessed to being regular smokers.
PHWs have been implemented in Canada, Thailand, Singapore and other countries, and have proven to be effective in tobacco control; having reinforced the clarity of health messages among smokers and non-smokers; changing their attitudes and motivating them to kick start the quit-smoking process.
Tobacco use is a global problem, resulting in a wide range of diseases and death and with great economic costs. By the year 2020, worldwide tobacco-related deaths are estimated to reach 10 million every year, two thirds of which will be in developing countries. Cigarette smoking is the main form of tobacco use in Malaysia. Annually about one-quarter of Malaysian deaths are attributed to smoking-related diseases.
Although tobacco is the leading preventable cause of the death among adults in Malaysia, the general public including tobacco users has little awareness about possible consequences of tobacco use. One way of bringing more awareness is to place more information on tobacco products in the form of pictorial warnings. In June 2009, strong pictorial warnings were mandated by the Malaysian government under the Control of Tobacco Products Regulation.
Health Minister Datuk Liow Tiong Lai showing some of the cigarette packs with warning pictures.
Under Article 11 of the global treaty, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, to which Malaysia has been a party since 2005, the provision for pictorial health warnings on tobacco product packs is one of the many commitments that Malaysia must fulfil. The six images used for the Malaysian Pictorial Health Warnings (PHW) depict lung, throat and mouth cancer, foot gangrene, miscarriage and a premature baby. The pictures are taken from neighbouring countries; the cancer pictures are from Thailand and the remainder from Singapore.
Dr Zarihah Mohd Zain, senior principal assistant director at the Ministry of Health’s Disease Control Division, said that the onus is on manufacturers to provide information that is simple, clear and truthful about their products.
“PHW is a tool that is able to increase awareness among the main target group – the smokers. I was told by the ministry that the cost of printing PHWs is borne fully by the tobacco industry, saving the government money and getting anti-tobacco messages effectively and efficiently disseminated.
“Evoking smokers’ emotions through PHWs, be it fear, detest, anger, sad or regret, is very much the desired outcome, and we expect subsequent cognitive processes to occur, whether they are immediate or over a period of time,” she said.
“A 2004 survey in Singapore reported that 71 per cent of affected smokers said that they now knew more about the health effects of smoking, and 28 per cent said that they smoked less.
Fourteen per cent made it a point to avoid smoking in front of children, 12 per cent said that they avoided smoking in front of pregnant women and eight per cent said they smoked less at home,” said Dr Zarihah.
She added that the study noted that 46 per cent of non-smokers said they had advised smokers to quit as a result of seeing the health warnings.
In a survey by the ministry, 21.5% of the adult population or three million adults smoke and among teenagers, some 15% have indicated they have tried smoking and another 8% confessed to being regular smokers.
PHWs have been implemented in Canada, Thailand, Singapore and other countries, and have proven to be effective in tobacco control; having reinforced the clarity of health messages among smokers and non-smokers; changing their attitudes and motivating them to kick start the quit-smoking process.
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