The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| Posted: 28 Nov 2011 03:57 PM PST NOV 29 — I think by now we all know that Datuk Hasan Ali is a religious zealot who would say and do anything in the name of Islam to the point of defaming the religion and those who worship it as paranoid idiots. For me, that realisation came a long time ago when he decided raiding a 7-Eleven for beer here in Shah Alam as a 'crusade' against sin. But somehow, he still manages to astound me as to what he thinks Christians are doing to make Muslims become apostates. In his latest paranoid endeavour to make Muslims dumber than usual, Datuk Hasan Ali states that solar-powered audio bibles are now the latest trend in helping Muslims commit apostasy. This, of course, is in tune with the rest of his accusations; fliers in malls and priests in hospitals offering solace to the dying and sick. I thank Allah at least the people from Himpun are making enough sense to look at Hasan Ali with a cocked eyebrow and state that he's way off balance on this one. Personally I cannot understand why a Muslim who wants to commit apostasy would bother buying an audio gadget reciting the Bible when they can just download it from Piratebay or perhaps a more legal source for practically nothing. There are podcasts, websites offering PDF files, and even mobile phone downloads that will in fact provide the same effect. If anything, I would have expected the solar-powered audio bible to be a gadget highlighted in Mobile World Magazine under their Cool Gadgets section. Even then, I'm guessing someone's going to write in promoting a solar-powered audio Quran for their next issue. Truth be told, I have to pose this question to the Muslims. Are we so without faith and trust in our own ummah that an audio bible can somehow cause us to turn away from Allah Almighty? In fact, is it truly a threat to even listen to an audio copy of the Bible in an effort to learn? Only through knowledge can Islamic faith take root. Is this not the main focus of why Muhammad pbuH was sent to the Jahiliyah? Knowledge and the pursuit of it has always been the trademark of Muslims. If it wasn't we wouldn't have invented cool words like 'azimuth' to prove it. Somewhere down the line of history the Islamic community has not progressed, but instead regressed to the point we are at now, where the faith of the dying, the alcoholic, the gambler, the sick and the needy and now perhaps even the audiophile Bible gadget collector/listener can suddenly be labelled as an apostate not due to his faith in Allah, but by paranoid schizophrenics who have no better agenda to hawk. And the worst part of all these shenanigans is that instead of dealing with the issues at hand, people like Hasan Ali and Himpun would rather go about spewing nonsensical drivel than do something more powerful with their time. How about lobbying for religious institutions in every state to ensure that hospitals have an imam on duty to counsel the sick and the dying? How about speaking to malls to disallow the distribution of any fliers of ANY RELIGION in a mall, since it is a form of disturbance that makes people uncomfortable? How about lobbying for adult courses in religious studies for those who apparently didn't get enough of it after 12 years in both primary and secondary schools? You already have people going around parks at night to so-call 'cegah maksiat' and even nailing warnings to every gazebo in Taman Tasik Shah Alam. Why not use the same resources to educate the ummah and even raise the welfare of the ummah instead of spending more cash on a new building? The truth is that while there are those who want to do more to ensure that the Muslims remain in the religion, there is more to it than wanting to gather a million Muslims in a stadium, which was a dumb idea, or even protesting an Elton John concert, another subsequent dumb idea after a string of dumb ideas. The only way to undo apostasy is to ensure that the ummah is well cared for, and the only people I see doing such a duty to the point of revulsion for having to say it is TV3's "Bersamamu". If one were to look at apostates, if you can find one, their main loss of faith is not that in God; but a loss of faith in men, particularly our own religious men who speak much but do not do enough for the welfare of the ummah. The loss of faith in the concept of an ummah, a society that cares for every single person living in a 44-house radius, is the major reason Muslims turn on their own. It's not the solar-powered Bible; it's not the fliers given out at the mall; and it's not even the money that Christians can offer them, per se. It is the two core ingredients that have been missing from the Muslim community in today's world: compassion and care for their fellow brothers and sisters of the religion. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Posted: 28 Nov 2011 03:45 PM PST NOV 29 — We quite literally took to the streets that Monday night. Having spent the last two nail-biting hours chained to our television sets, cursing whenever the Indonesian players stole the ball, and waiting with bated breath as the ball was passed around, we watched in trepidation as the captain of our national football team fired his penalty kick and granted us sweet victory. Gold was ours. From the balcony of my apartment, I watched as cheers and jubilations filled the streets outside, carried by ecstatic fans on revving motorcycles. Colourful fireworks shortly followed in the merrymaking. Cyberspace was not spared from the fanfare. Hoorays and congratulations streamed down the news feeds of social networking sites. One could not help but to smile; it was certainly a welcome break to see everyone united and sharing the same sense of pride. Equally eye-catching, however, was the inevitable string of calls for the following day to be declared a public holiday. History has seen numerous occasions of a free day off being granted after winning a cup or medal. We saw it last year, when our football team took home the Asean Football Federation Suzuki Cup. We saw it in Kelantan, when the state government allowed a public holiday after the Kelantanese football team defeated the Negeri Sembilan team in the Malaysia Cup final last year. What is the rationale for declaring a public holiday after a sporting victory? It couldn't possibly be in tribute of our football team; there would otherwise be a Harimau Malaya Day celebrated every year. This also doesn't explain the inconsistency of this practice with regards to arguably bigger victories in other sports, such as squash and badminton. Could there, perhaps, be a more practical purpose for having a day off? Back in June, earlier this year, a public holiday on the Sunday of the FA Cup final weekend was declared in Kelantan. The reason provided was to "ensure the safe return" of the state football fans from KL, the day after the match. [It is to be noted that the Kelantanese team ended up losing the final match to Terengganu, anyway.] But this reason fails to hold water when you throw into the mixing pot the fact that not an overwhelming majority of the Kelantanese are fans diehard enough to travel all the way down to KL just to catch the FA Cup finals. For most other people in Kelantan, life goes on, football or not. Declaring a public holiday for that mere reason hardly seems justified. We could, then, perhaps venture our favourite one-size-fits-all answer — that it all amounts to nothing but a political card. Play on public hype; declare a national holiday to ride along with the popular wave of elation. Political brownie points scored. That may well be the reason why we do have public holidays declared whenever one of our national athletes or sports teams takes home a medal or cup. But this does not explain the more alarming phenomenon of the public asking for public holidays. It seems rather preposterous to suggest that we would need a whole day off work to celebrate a win in a regional football competition. Some of the people wanting a public holiday are not even into football. We seem to be clamouring for excuses to not work. Could it just be a case of plain laziness? We appear to have quite a way to go, where work ethics are concerned. This isn't all about wanting a free day off. All around, we hear rampant complaints about our workers being lackadaisical, sluggish and complacent. A friend of mine recently expressed his frustration at the inefficiency of a local university's administration. He complained of the lackadaisical and unresponsive attitude of the front-line administrative staff, and how the only way he could ever get things done would be to carbon copy his e-mails to a higher authority in the university who happened to be his personal friend. Another friend of mine noted the stark differences in work ethics in the workers of countries abroad, namely Indonesia and China. Competition is stiff; not everyone who wants a job gets it. Those who do, work hard and do their job well, for fear of getting replaced. He thus wonders if the reason for this disparity lies in the fact that jobs are far harder to come by in those countries than in our homeland. According to him, everyone there works diligently and is thankful they even have a job. The employees you hire are respectful and don't give you attitude each time you try to correct them. Businesses and establishments run smoothly and efficiently, because they would otherwise be run into the ground by the vicious competition around. Maybe we have it a little too easy here. In any event, our prime minister has already confirmed that there will be no public holiday for this occasion. So there will be no bonus off-day for us. We will all still have to get up early and brave the morning traffic to get to the office, but it is nonetheless worth spending a bit of time reflecting on whether our work ethic is anything to celebrate about. * Yizhen has just completed her undergraduate law degree at the University of Oxford. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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