Mandela. Ke Nako.

As the news about Nelson Mandela's death sank in, I was moved to write something about his extraordinary life. Only I don't know exactly what to write. It's almost impossible to write anything that anyone doesn't already know. We've all taken him for granted. If you've read one of the one hundred or more books about him, you're already one up on me. I've not read any.

The day Mandela was released from prison, I was in Japan attending a technical course and visiting Taoist temples in Kyoto. Almost all major Japanese TV stations carried this momentous event (Mandela's release, not my temple tour). It's in high-tempo Japanese, so I couldn't understand a thing. Even Mandela, after 26 years in prison, spoke in Japanese. To make it worse, the telecast was continuously broken by slapstick detergent commercials. But his famous walk of freedom with his wife and supporters would never need any language. I could see that Mandela was just plain, old-fashioned happy to be free after so many years incommunicado. No defiance and no bitterness lurking.

I flew back home the next day. My eldest greeted me, his right hand raised: "Mandela". We hugged and laughed. He did what he'd seen, and repeated a thousand times, on TV. It's easy for his mother to drill him to say Malay-friendly names like Mahathir and Mandela. Next time she should try the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

I think Mandela is one of the most quoted and studied statesmen in modern times. I'd agree that apartheid wasn't exactly modern, but I'd always consider anything after the Second World War as technically modern because that would conveniently include me. Unlike Arsene Wenger, Mandela was never a philosopher. He spoke in clear and regular language. Facebook pages are now flooded with quotes from his famous speeches and writings. For me, the one that stands out was an inspiring foreword he wrote in a book celebrating the life of Diana, his good friend. I don't know which of my two boys had a crush on the late Princess of Wales and bought this book. It's heavier and more expensive than the coffee table, with loads of glitzy and grainy photos of all sizes and shapes. Neither of them would own up. I only read the foreword, all of one page. Mandela wrote simply:

"We can not all be a famous British princess. We can, however, all try to do what we can to insist that every human being is precious and unique."

Well, that's flowing and flawless. I could almost picture the great man at his desk pondering and penning those thoughts.           

 a

Catching Fire

My blog clocked up its 20,000th pageview early last month. With an average of one posting a month, it took me about 14 months to get my second 10,000. I don't have the industry average, but 10,000 of anything in 14 months is very slow. More than 15,000 fake ICs were "issued" in 14 months. Subang Jaya exit funnels out 10,000 cars in one morning.  Only KLIA 2 is slower.

Lots of numbers, and why not? Datuk Zaid Ibrahim racked up 10,000 views in one evening last July when he wrote in defence of the four troubled Malay beauty queen aspirants. According to him, Malaysia is a model democracy and these girls should be free to "maximize their talent". Allowing the word talent a generous metaphorical context, it's hard to argue with the logic because we didn't lift a finger when hundreds of other Malay girls with no talent tried to maximize their talent through Akademi Fantasia.

I knew Zaid. We used to share a swanky 20-bed dormitory forty over years ago. Thing is, he never talked about democracy or beauty queens at the time. So I can only conclude that he wrote the blasphemous piece just to get 10,000 views, which he got, plus 130 comments. Many were up in arms, suggesting that he immediately repent. One comment urged him to perform the Haj because he's rich. If he registered with Tabung Haji today, he should be able to do it in 2048.

My most viewed entry drew a paltry 900, a post on a family trip to Paris and a brush with the gypsies. The relatively high traffic could be due to a picture of a nude castle we visited, one of the 10,400 known castles in France. Unsuspecting online junkies searching for vintage French wines or fake Longchamps or Last Tango in Paris DVD could have been steered into my blog. I don't really know.

A post on Malaysia-Indonesia spats had a surprisingly good outing with 800 views. I know Indonesia has 200, maybe 400, million people, but none of them can speak or read English. They didn't read my blog. So who read the blog? Apparently the Americans. The statistics showed more than 70% of those who viewed this particular posting were from US. Why this abnormal American interest? Even with my strong sense of deduction developed over eight seasons of Monk, I still couldn't unlock this mystery. I finally found the answer recently: White House was hacking into my blog to snoop on both Malaysia and Indonesia. Bugging my blog is a lot cheaper than flying drones.

At this rate, I'd need another 100 years to get 1 million views. Maybe longer. Nowadays nobody read anything. Even if they read, they'd read no more than 10 words at one time. Blogs are losing their edge. Not because Papagomo is in jail, but because tweets and texts are much easier to read. They technically contain no words. David Beckham's recent illiterate tweet to Manchester United fans "Youre team are loosing very bad to Manchester City" was read by two million followers. Art is succumbing to anarchy.

In this state of flux, some bloggers take the easy way out by resigning to writing for themselves or watching Azhar Idrus on YouTube. Like flagging brands, bloggers must reimagine and reinvent to remain competitive. Misleading titles like the above is a good start.