I think I’ll write on the TBH case in the next post.
For now, so many things to point out on this upcoming Friday protest.
The issue itself started out as an almost philosophical one, not unlike the Bak Kut Teh controversy – in which a few underlying issues are the same (will hope to collect thoughts on all that soon).
Now, it has become all politics. I don’t mean being a bit of a broken record, and restate for the 1000th time – this is what you get when you have race based politics.
The likes of Najib, Muhyiddin and Hishamuddin have all made political calculations that appear to conclude: supporting this mayhem is one the few ways we can shore up our Umno-Malay identity.
Their need to do this is simply because they are caught up in a racial polemic that they cannot – for all their (ironically numerous) 1Malaysia’s – escape as an institution.
Notwithstanding the fact that I cannot take anything top Umno leaders say about God or religion seriously, we need not even look far to compare whether or not there are serious religious issues at stake to warrant the kind of protest that is being planned.
If the nation’s largest Islamic party is very admirably willing to engage in dialogue instead of going cow head style, I think we reasonably conclude where true Muslim attitudes about this issue lie.
Given Umno’s history, we cannot even put past our 1Malaysia friends the possibility that they are returning to their super kolot, despicable propaganda of: you see, we need BN, or there will always be these kind of racial-religious conflict, ala May 13. Needless to say, they then themselves engineer this kind of discontent to make themselves ‘relevant.’
If that is what they are banking on, then truly, that party is not long for this world.
And what of hypocrisy? As Lulu astutely pointed out – what happened to “Ini bukan budaya kita?”
Another of my favourites come from Najib:
“We cannot stop them if they want to congregate in mosques,” said Najib, when asked if the government was practising double standards in handling demonstrations.
Really? That’s funny. Remember Perak?
Weren’t you firing tear gas into the mosque compound then? Just to cover up the shame surrounding how you bought a government in the silver state?
Me and my friends also got gassed Masjid Jamek during the last ISA demonstration.
Don’t try to bluff the rakyatla, we are not stupid. We know you want to make some trouble just to seem like jaguh Melayu.
No one is falling for it. You want to be jaguh Melayu or Islam? Then why don’t you start defending justice the way every good Muslim does.
You can start by letting Dr. Pornthip come back and testify without fear of intimidation. Wouldn’t hurt to find the real culprits behind the jet thefts. And Kugan’s murder. And Altantuya’s.
I think there are real issues at stake here, and that usage of the term Allah may not be as straightforward as some of us like. There is a necessity for understanding of context by both sides.
That said, given the tone and context of this Friday’s planned protest (which is a far cry from the genuine dialogue needed to solve the problem, my guess is that you’ll only get rabid Umno extremists at this protest, full of hate and looking to plunge the nation into trouble.
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