Last weekend was a long weekend for us with Mon and Tues being holidays in lieu of the Eid Fitri holidays which is the major holiday in Malaysia. In the past, religious holidays were fun filled and brings some perspective in your life of what family, love and neighbourly is about.
We have open houses where we will visit friends, visit families and you just see multi racial people just hanging out. Today we have cow-head protest over the relocation of a Hindu temple to their area. The temple is probably well visited about 3-4 times a year...ONLY. The church is well visited twice a week and on Easter and Christmas. Buddhist and Taoist have 2-3 celebrations every year. But the Muslims whose mosque has loud prayers 5-times a day, will send a cow head to protest another religion's place of prayer being relocated by the Muslim Government to their area. How sensitive and peace loving they are.
The Muslim community leader mentioned that he will hold an open house and invite the Indian community for the EId Fitri celebrations and hope it will show that it is only a small group of renegades who feel that way. In a way, I do applaud his actions but I must say that as a leader, he should ensure that every faction of the community is able to understand and be sensitive to the needs of other religions.
If you follow and read the Islam religion, the prophet Muhammad does talk about religious tolerance and leadership to the other religions and races. I am not against Islam but I am against those who forward their own selfish, myopic and medieval intentions in the name of any religion. These hypocrites who condemn other countries when they are insensitive to Islam and doing the same of that they are condemning.
We condemn Afghanistan, India, Myannmar for they way they treat their citizens and women and here we are advocating the caning of a woman who drank alcohol. A woman who is a PR of another country. I am not against them enforcing the Syariah law but don't you think caning a woman for drinking alcohol is super "Conan the Barbarian"? Who are we to condemn others? So what is the punishment for murder, rape and raping of your own daughter? Jail sentence.
I am also encouraged that we are allowing Beyonce to perform in Malaysia though we had to compromise on her costume. On Saturday, PAS Youth vice-chief Sabki Yusof said they would send a protest note to the Government over the concert, although he said there were no plans to disrupt the concert.
“We are not against entertainment as long as it is within the framework of our culture and our religion.
“We are against Western sexy performances. We don’t think our people need that,” he said.
What I want to know if this simpleton knows what the framework of our culture is. I am sure he has his own views of his religion but I am sure he is not speaking for the whole country. I am so sure he is not speaking for the whole of his race either. So before we criticize such demented logic, let's see what is the framework of the Malaysian culture. If he is talking of the Malay culture and since I am not a Malay, I will not question him on that but I sure as hell got a lot to say if he is talking about the Malaysian culture.
But that is democracy. We advocate free speech so we must allow those to protest in what they don't believe in. What I would like is for free speech to be really heard. The majority wants the concert with it's so called inappropriate dressing. We don't live in caves where we don't watch TV. We do see these performers in the skimpiest and we do have the internet for goodness sake. So let's get real. We are not simpletons.
This country has serious and real issues but Sabki Yusuf is concerned about what clothes someone is wearing on stage where there is no direct influence to the audience. Someone who is an international celebrity that could bring millions through sponsorship and tourist businesses to this country who has to feed people like Sabki Yusuf because they are too inept or lazy to get a job and depend on government handouts.
We have serious and real problems and I do suggest to the likes of these protesters to get real and start looking at solutions to these real problems. If you can't do it, then please stay in the government handout lines and make way for those who can do something.
But to all those forward thinking, evolved Muslims, I wish you with all my heart a "Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri" and God bless you and keep you always.
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