THE CHAOS THEORY

Just like religion, the problem with atheism is not the [non] religion but the people. For me atheists people who hold dear the principles of harmony, do good to other and apply the Golden Rule, are acting like a good Christians and good Muslims. It’s the right kind of atheism.

But just like in any religion, there are those who are badmouthing even insulting other religions, and force people to see everything from their point of view / scripture / principles / version of religion.

This also applies to atheism. So the argument is not about religion vs non religion, but it’s about persuading people to subscribe to their point of view. To me, this is the definition of extremists. And there’s such thing as atheist extremists.

“Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics” by Jonathan Wilson

This is the fascinating long history of the Great Game, from the tactical perspectives and the philosophies that come with them.

The book began right from where it all started: the meeting organised by H.C. Malden of Godalming, Surrey, in his Cambridge rooms in 1848, which summons university representatives of Harrow, Eaton, Shrewsbury, Winchester, Rugby, and 2 non-public schoolboys, to create the first unified Laws of the Game, the “Cambridge Rules.” The rules then spread around the world in the next few decades via British men of various occupations, blended in with the local culture and create distinctively local style of play, until it became a truly global phenomenon in the 20th century.

The title of the book brilliantly captures this phenomenon, through the evolution of its formation from the pyramid-like shape 2-3-5 in the early days, to 3-2-5, 4-2-4, 4-4-2 to the inverted pyramid shape 4-5-1 and even 4-6-0 that several teams use today, complete with all the advantages-disadvantages, blank spots, and all the major incidents that colour the many transformations.

Within this long tactical evolution the author, Jonathan Wilson, demonstrates a very thorough research down to the smallest incidents on any match played, such as a big match in 1890 or 1953 when there weren’t even a television coverage. And he can describe the socio-cultural influences of every team thoughout history. For instance, the style of play of a football team is apparently largely influenced by the contemporary political system and economic condition, like in Italy and Spain in 1930s and Argentina in 1960s when they were under military dictatorship they played a tough, muscular, and pragmatic football.

The book also delightfully gives small trivial facts every now and then, such as the first man to be caught offside after the 1866 law change was Charles W. Alcock. Or how the father of modern football, Viktor Maslov, was the first to use 4-4-2 formation. Or that time Louis Van Gaal dropped his troussers in Bayern Munich’s dressing room, to literally show that he “has the balls” to drop star names.

As football evolves, so do the chapters in the book. And we’ll move forward from the likes of the day rugby separated itself from football to the most exciting part for me, the tactics that differentiates modern football from the old: pressing.

And this is where it really gets down to business. The book gives the technical explanations of a lot of matches and team set-up, a lot of which gives a whole new angle on the matches we thought we knew when we watch them. Such as how Greece can (deservedly) won Euro 2004, by controling matches without even controling the ball. Why Sergio Busquet was the most vital player in Guardiola’s Barcelona. And why Arrigo Sacchi had to instruct Carlo Anchelotti to train an hour early with the youth team to make sure his playmaker understands his specific tactics.

Jonathan Wilson declared right in the beginning that he loves Bielsa-esque style of play, with high speed passings and high pressure. And it shows. The discussion of modern football evolve mainly on the style of Bielsa, Sacchi and Cruyff and their descendants like Guardiola and Van Gaal, and not so much on the style applied, for example, by Alex Ferguson, Marcello Lippi, or Jose Mourinho, although their styles (and many more modern managers’ styles) are still analysed albeit not as thorough.

Just like when watching these fast-paced footballing style, reading the analysis of the tactics, in almost scientific approach, is just downright exhilarating. It gives a bright shining light on how the modern game is really constructed, and makes Marcelo Bielsa in particular – and his protégés – looks nothing short of a genius. A very enjoyable reading!

“Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet’s Legacy” by Jonathan A.C. Brown

For Muslims Al Quran is infallable. And Hadiths, despite composed by men, are a close second. But in reality the people who read them are still subject to (mis)interpretation, are prone to errors and human emotions like greed and envy, or can have their own hidden agendas using religious doctrines. This book is about that human fallability.

The book shows the complex intellectual and spiritual debates on the interpretation of Al Quran, and how complicated and political the writings of the Hadiths are. It shows that Islam is where it is today not only through the conquerings and assimilations, but also as a result of many theological frictions occurring for the past 1400 years.

The central message of this book is very straight to the point: we need to read Al Quran wholly, from cover to cover (or Khatam). Reading only some verses of Al Quran or just bits and pieces would take the verses out of context, and thus their individual messages could be highly misleading – the major problem the world has always had since the 600s, especially today.

Chapter 3 was spot on in highlighting this point. The author, Jonathan A.C. Brown, shows the infalibility of the work of Shakespeare, the Bibble, even Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey, where each one of them have obvious flaws but were overlooked. So why should we intellectually scrutinise the blank spots of the Quran? The point of this chapter is, if we read the texts separately it will indeed produce oddities and flaws (or blank spots), but if we read them wholly the big picture will make sense in the end, just like the work of Shakespeare and Homer.

Moreover, it seems like everything are being discussed by his book. Everything, including controversial topics like the Hadith about masturbation, the long debate about who is entitled for zakat, and the relevancy of Quranic verses and Hadiths in modern time. It also discusses whether a woman can lead a mass prayer, an extensive discussion and analysis on syariah banking, and those 72 virgins alledgedly “promised” to martyrs.

It also shows the extensive debate between Muslim ulamas and philosophers on reading the Quran and Hadiths in a literal way, including the literal reality of heaven and hell. Most importantly, using many references from various ulamas and scholars, the author also directly answer one controversial verse with another verse that cancels it out, and explains the reasoning and the context for those particular verses to emerge.

For example, the controversial verse “when you meet the unbelievers in battle, smite their necks until you overcome them, then bind them as prisoners, either then setting them free out of munificence or for a ransom, until the war ends….” (47:4) is actually cancelled out by “It is not for a prophet to take prisoners until he has triumphed in the land” (8:67) and “Fight the polytheists altogether as they fight you altogether” (9:36).

Another example is the “wife beating verse” (An-Nisa 4:34) that is often misinterpreted, because the syariah in no way condoned a husband striking his wife, and the Prophet himself never struck a hand on any of his wives. A similar controversy lies in “honour killing”, where the book clearly state that no Muslim scholar of any sect throughout history has sanctioned a man killing his wife or sister or daughter for tarnishing family honour. The author then elaborate the context that honour killing is a product of patriarchal societies in underdeveloped economies, including those not predominantly Muslim countries like Brazil and India.

This is no doubt a truly inspiring book, and it definitely will be my go-to reference book whenever I need to understand any specific matters under Islamic law. The fact that so many briliant scholars debating so many specific aspects of the Quran and Hadiths – as analysed extensively in the book – it humbles me, and show how small I am in the presence of the many experts, and how little I know about my own Holy Book and the sayings of my Prophet. With so much wealth of hard truths and brilliant reasonings this book is a must-read for every Muslims.

“Thinking, fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman

When 9/11 happened, the world suddenly feels like a much dangerous place. When Malaysian Air planes crashed almost nobody wanted to fly with them anymore. When your teenage daughter comes home late from a party you can’t help but imagining all sorts of crimes you read on the news. These are the examples of cognitive bias, a big part of our decision making process. And this book is about how to recognise them and how control them.

The book is written by Daniel Kahneman, the only Nobel Prize Winner on Economics who is actually NOT an economist but a psychologist. Due to his scientist nature the theories he presented in the book have been tested, published, peer-reviewed, and re-tested by many more scientists. And he also uses a lot more theories in the book that are based on experiments made by these peers, to make some excellent points.

The result is an exceptional book, a complex sets of extraordinary findings written in a simple language that makes them easy to digest. Findings that look at decision making process using very specific filters.

First, there is the Halo Effect filter, and the importance of moving first (to establish an anchor or parameter) in a single-issue negotiations. Then there’s a Hindsight Bias, as Kahneman argues “If an event had actually occurred, people exaggerated the probability that they had assigned to it earlier. If the possible event had not come to pass, the participants erroneously recalled that they had always considered it unlikely.”

Furthermore, there’s also Availability Heuristic, which points out that just because the information is readily available in your mind it doesn’t make it right. For example, all the constant gossips about Hollywood celebrity divorces makes you think that celebrity divorces are common compared with ordinary couple. Or after you become a victim of a crime you suddenly feel that the world is not a safe place anymore. Or after watching so many spy movies suddenly every corner of the earth is a conspiracy. Or just because one kid becomes autistic after vaccinated you think that vaccination causes autism.

Moreover, the chapter on Anchoring Effect makes father of spin Edward Bernays looks like an amateur, in which kahneman makes a very vital remarks in this data-driven world: “The world in our heads is not a precise replica of reality; our expectations about the frequency of events are distorted by the prevalence and emotional intensity of the messages to which we are exposed.”

There are also several interesting facts about the small things in our daily lives. Such as his interesting approach to dismantling regret. Or the scientific answers to some of the questions that have been lingering on my mind, like the illusion of time, in which he answers with the Duration Neglect in chapter 35 and 36. Or the power of smiling and frowning, where frowning generally increases the vigilance of what Kahneman called System 2, and reduces both overconfidence and the reliance on intuition.

But the most mind-blowing for me, out of many, is the interesting thing that is happening in our brain when we change our mind. As Kahneman put it, “A general limitation of the human mind is its imperfect ability to reconstruct past states of knowledge, or beliefs that have changed. Once you adopt a new view of the world (or of any part of it), you immediately lose much of your ability to recall what you used to believe before your mind changed.” In other words we can actually change the past, by changing the way we look at it.

All in all, this is one of the most intelligent books I’ve ever read, that gives us the manual of the inner workings of our thought processes. Reading it can help us understand the wiring in our brain and how we can make the most efficient use of it, for our decision making process. And that, is why he won the Nobel Prize.

“When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lenin Lost His Brain: History’s unknown chapters” by Giles Milton

This is a light reading from history’s lost facts and forgotten stories, from late 19th century until mid 20th century. Perfect for laid back weekend read.

It consist of 50 short true stories with pretty wide range of topics from forced-canibalism, to adventurer who bought his wife at a white-slave auction, the black people who became an attraction at their zoos, the kamikaze pilot who lived to tell his story, notorious jail breaks, bizarre murder trials, to the richest men in the world, and of course to what happened with Lenin’s brain and how Hitler’s erratic behaviour was caused by the 80-plus drugs he consumed daily.

The author, Giles Milton, is a bestseller author of narrative non-fiction books, which immediately shows since the very 1st paragraph. The true stories read like a gripping novel.

I’m already purchasing the sequal of this book as we speak.

The best form of worship is the pursuit of knowledge – Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)

The underlying problem that causes radicalism is not only poverty, but ignorance or lack of religious education.

We need to read the whole thing to fully understands religion, and oftentimes people just rely on a teacher to do the hard work for them. Sometimes they don’t even choose their own teacher, but someone comes along to teach religion for free, something that they might not be able to afford to begin with.

And that’s when the brainwashing begins, when ignorance or lack of religious education (a blank sheet) meets someone who is charming but with a radical agenda.

So I guess one of the main solutions for any country in tackling radicalism is to provide a proper religious education, before any nation is completely overtaken by the radicals.

“Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The surprising science behind why everything you know about success is (mostly) wrong” by Eric Barker

This is the 1st book I’ve ever pre-ordered. I am a regular reader of the blog Barking Up The Wrong Tree, and I once thought would it be cool if Eric Barker can make a book out of these gems? And my God he did, and it did not disappoints one bit.

Like Dale Carnegie, Eric Barker uses so many stories, book references and great quotations to make his points across. There are stories such as how a poor boy in Mexico can become a world class neuro surgeon, how a clinically crazy person can win the enduring Race Across America, or how can an illiterate person in a horrible time and place and without proper education can conquer more land in 25 years than the Romans ever did in 400 years. There are also eye opening stories of how trust is completely lost in a Moldovan culture, how crimes create street gangs (and not the other way around) for protection, and how surprisingly civilised and organised pirates were.

The author then back them up with numerous scientific findings to validate the points he is making, just like the approach of Daniel Kahneman. For example, there are scientific explanations on why some people never quit, why people have depression, and why people commit suicide. Moreover, there are explanations on why high achievers can sometimes have anxiety problem or even depression, why the number ones in high school (the valedictorians) so rarely become the number ones in real life, why beautiful people normally becomes more successful, why nice guys finish first and last (and not in the middle), and why high achievers are rarely active in their social media accounts.

Along the way we’ll learn so many amusing facts, such as how an IQ of 120 does not make much difference than 180, 2 and a half to 4 hours after we wake up is when our brains is at its sharpest, how Hedonic Adaptation explains why after a brief change everything change back to baseline (e.g. on diet and clean behaviour), how viagra started out as a medicine for angina that had a serendipitous “side effect”, that the US once had an (almost official) emperor, Emperor Norton I.

And we’ll also gain some great wisdom like “sometimes an ugly duckling can be a swan if it finds the right pond” or “life is noisy and complex, and we don’t have perfect information about others and their motives. Writing people off can be due to just lack of clarity”, or “things aren’t as scary when we have our hands on the wheels.”

All of these wealth of information are then knitted nicely to become the central theme of the book: to discover the core determinants of success, through considering both sides of the argument with extreme stories and scientific facts.

In each individual chapters the book then provide concluding analysis, such as the importance of quiting something that is not good for you to make room and time for something good for you, the scientific explanation on luck as a function of choice, the disadvantages dreaming will cause on your wellbeing, effort and reality, the best predictor of our child’s emotional well-being is whether they knew their family history, the importance of sleep and self-compassion, and many more.

The author also gives us so many practical tools for us to work out the determinant factors for succcess, on our own unique way, such as Shawn Anchor’s “twenty second rule”, Cal Newport’s “shutdown ritual”, how to skillfully and sincerely use our network, figuring out whether we’re filtered or unfiltered leader, the importance of setting a parameter in a negotiation, and the findings of Robert Epstein research on how to reduce stress, among many others.

All in all, this book is the most complete analysis for its subject, using unorthodox approach and very amusing wide range of information that makes it very fun to read. What Freakonomics did for economics, Why Do Men Have Nipples? did for medicine, and Moonwalking With Einstein did with memory, Barking Up the Wrong Tree does it brilliantly with exploring the keys for success in the real world. I couldn’t recommend it more.

“Lost Islamic History: Reclaiming Muslim civilization from the past” by Firas Alkhateeb

This is the clearest book I’ve ever read so far on the history of Islam. It is focused, it has a clear timeline, and it is very concise, with no distracting facts that are irrelevant with the narrative. It is detailed enough, but without being complicated.

As a result, we can easily follow the development of Islam since its birth in the 600s until now 1400 years later, spanning territory from Muslim Spain to the Middle East and Africa to India and South East Asia, complete with all the ideological debates, the spiritual struggles, and all the many political frictions and conquerings.

Indeed, it is a perfect book to understand the complete picture, before proceeding to other books with more in-depth topics such as the life of the Prophet Muhammad, Muslim Heroes, the Muslim Empires, Islam and Science, the interpretations of Al Quran, the validity of Hadiths, the theological debates between the Fiqh, Islamic fundamentalism and its terrorists, and so much more.

By the time I finish reading this book I have this great sense of clarity of what Islam is about, and why the many different beliefs, sects, organisations or customs – from the liberals to the moderates to the conservatives – behave the way they do, something that no other book on Islam have managed to summarise so far.

“On Tyranny: Twenty lessons from the twentieth century” by Timothy Snyder

Every once in a while there’s a thin book appears before us that has an incredible wealth of information delivered in a concised manner, such as The Art of War, Book of Five Rings, The Richest Man in Babylon, even Who Moved My Cheese and One Minute Manager. This is one of those books.

This is a very straight forward book, written by a profesor of history from Yale who has written numerous books on the subject. It is as if Tim Snyder compiles the very essence of his books into 1 big summary.

The content of the book is exactly what the cover says it is: 20 chapters that consist of 20 lessons from the 20th century, which covers World War 1, World War 2 and the Cold War, with great emphasis placed on what Hitler and Stalin did.

These lessons then being compared with the current affairs of the 21st century, and show that they all have a striking resemblance. For example, what Hitler did with the Reichstag, Putin also did with Chechnya, and I might add George W Bush did with 9/11 and Erdogan did with the attempted coup on 2016. Whether they’re the mastermind behind it or not is besides the point, what’s important is what they did after as a reaction.

Indeed, the theories in the book can give us a much bigger understanding on the world we live in now, and all of that enlightments I can read it in less than half a day, on a busy day. Highly recommended!

George Bernard Shaw once said the reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. All progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Mandela was an unreasonable man when he challenged the status quo’s Apartheid system, and he was sentenced to 27 years in jail for it. Gandhi and Sukarno both refused to accept the normal situation of their day, both respectively tried to get rid of a colonial ruler, and as a backlash both were sent to prison numerous times.

Ahok is also an unreasonable man, who tries to make many positive changes in a bleak and very corrupted environment.

The fact that he had 70% approval ratings just months ago from the work he has done, but sentenced to 2 years in prison for blasphemy today, is a true testament on how strong (and effective) the corrupted power behind the black campaigns is.

Regardless of all the possible theories or political strategies behind this move, the simple fact remains: what little faith I had in the Indonesian justice system before, it’s all gone now.

Further readings:

The Guardian view on blasphemy in Indonesia: exploiting religion for political purposes [The Guardian / Editorial]

Watchdog warns of ‘frightening’ future for Indonesia after Ahok case [Asian Correspondence]

Harus diakui, hakim bekerja dibawah tekanan gelombang massa [Kompas / Fabian Januarius Kuwado]

Ahok’s satisfied non-voters: an anatomy [New Mandala / Marcus Mietzner and Burhanuddin Muhtadi]

Anti-Ahok protests: why were Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah sidelined? [The University of Melbourne / Ahmad Syarif Syechbubakr]

A sad reality: radical Islamic groups are the new kingmakers of Indonesian politics [The New York Times / Eka Kurniawan]

Cerita Ibnu Muljam, sangat pas utk menggambarkan para oknum yg dibayar utk menangin pilkada DKI [NU Kita]

Anies Sandi menggunakan Mesjid untuk kalahkan Ahok Djarot? [BBC Indonesia]

The Fall of Ahok and Indonesia’s Future [The Diplomat / Nithin Coca]

The rise of intolerance: Indonesia has been mercifully resistant to extremism—until now [The Economist]

It’s not who won the election, but HOW they won it [Time / Yenni Kwok]

Trump’s Indonesian allies in bed with ISIS-backed militia seeking to oust elected president [The Intercept / Allan Nairn]