Jesus & Nabi Muhammad wept
I blame our leaders for cowardly refusing to address issues that are contentious. There are areas of conflict and sensitivity but our leaders seem to treat these as hallucinatory, in the hope they will disappear. They are wrong.
Evil thoughts or conflicting ideas should not be allowed to foment in weak-minded and impressionable individuals, for it can only breed monsters in the future.
I strongly believe that the teaching of religion should be overhauled. Even in the early stages of school.
Muslims, and anyone else, who preach violence and who express intolerant views should be made to realise that public order laws which demarcate between free speech and an intentional call for violence will be used against them. Thus, these laws must be executed without fear or favour. Sadly, this has already been abused in Malaysia.
We won’t have a truly cohesive society if we fail to know how our neighbours live. What right have we to demand respect when we refuse to give it, too?
When these Muslim miscreants objected to non-Muslims using the word “Allah”, they in one fell swoop caused “Allah” to become a dirty word, associated with dissent and violence, instead of all the good things associated with it.
Our government offers too little, too late. Rather than being open-minded and initiating intelligent public discussion, the government denies there is a problem and instead panders to these troublemakers.
The only way to move forward as a nation is to engage with all the religious leaders, including the offensive repugnant ones, through argument and debate. We need the courage to force them to defend their loathsome views in public.
But why are these people so worried? They are the ones wanting to impose totalitarianism on the whole country. The Catholics are not trying to force their faith onto them or their children. The Catholics, like moderate Muslims such as myself, are only trying to make sense of our current societal madness. It is a world gone crazy.
Areas of conflict are dotted around the world, caused by the combination of economic, racial, ethnic, religious and other factors. It would be a tragedy if we allowed our country to join this list of hot spots, where religion forms the basis of civil unrest.
I want a Malaysia free from threats of Islamist extremist views, to see my children and their cousins grow up in a country where they are not judged by others by how they dress — hijab for the girls or white robes for the men, and without threatening other Malaysians of different faith.
I want them to live in a Malaysia that is proud of its unique Malaysian identity.
MI
11/01/2010
I blame our leaders for cowardly refusing to address issues that are contentious. There are areas of conflict and sensitivity but our leaders seem to treat these as hallucinatory, in the hope they will disappear. They are wrong.
Evil thoughts or conflicting ideas should not be allowed to foment in weak-minded and impressionable individuals, for it can only breed monsters in the future.
I strongly believe that the teaching of religion should be overhauled. Even in the early stages of school.
Muslims, and anyone else, who preach violence and who express intolerant views should be made to realise that public order laws which demarcate between free speech and an intentional call for violence will be used against them. Thus, these laws must be executed without fear or favour. Sadly, this has already been abused in Malaysia.
We won’t have a truly cohesive society if we fail to know how our neighbours live. What right have we to demand respect when we refuse to give it, too?
When these Muslim miscreants objected to non-Muslims using the word “Allah”, they in one fell swoop caused “Allah” to become a dirty word, associated with dissent and violence, instead of all the good things associated with it.
Our government offers too little, too late. Rather than being open-minded and initiating intelligent public discussion, the government denies there is a problem and instead panders to these troublemakers.
The only way to move forward as a nation is to engage with all the religious leaders, including the offensive repugnant ones, through argument and debate. We need the courage to force them to defend their loathsome views in public.
But why are these people so worried? They are the ones wanting to impose totalitarianism on the whole country. The Catholics are not trying to force their faith onto them or their children. The Catholics, like moderate Muslims such as myself, are only trying to make sense of our current societal madness. It is a world gone crazy.
Areas of conflict are dotted around the world, caused by the combination of economic, racial, ethnic, religious and other factors. It would be a tragedy if we allowed our country to join this list of hot spots, where religion forms the basis of civil unrest.
I want a Malaysia free from threats of Islamist extremist views, to see my children and their cousins grow up in a country where they are not judged by others by how they dress — hijab for the girls or white robes for the men, and without threatening other Malaysians of different faith.
I want them to live in a Malaysia that is proud of its unique Malaysian identity.
MI
11/01/2010
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