Sunday, October 15, 2006
A bad case of deja vu
In the 1960s, there was an entertaining American TV series called the Twilight Zone. It was groundbreaking science fiction, with imaginative storylines spanning parallel universes and multi-dimensional worlds complete with twists and surprise endings. There were also stories that deal with events repeating themselves and in this series, often ending with dire and frightening consequences. In Malaysia, we also suffer from such an affliction every year arising from the thinking of groups of religious and racist puritans who exacerbate existing divisions in our society. Last time around, there was the Mufti of Perak who lambasted the celebration of Christmas and Chinese New Year, urging Muslims not to attend open houses to fete these Malaysian festivities. Then we had a member of parliament from Kedah who favoured a racist word to describe Indians and who asked all non-Malays to leave the country if they are not happy with the terms and conditions set by UMNO. Of course we have also had the son-in-law of the Prime Minister use not-so-pleasing rhetoric against the Chinese to beef up his position. Never mind that many of his business associates are Chinese.
And most recently, we’ve had the email fiasco from Takaful Malaysia, forbidding Muslim staff from wishing Hindu colleagues and customers a Happy Deepavali, on grounds that “offending” Muslims are booking a one-way ticket to, well … hell. An apology apparently came from Takaful Malaysia, but the damage has been done, as so eloquently put by the Prime Minister’s son-in-law, when he referred to ASLI’s study on bumiputera equity. The man responsible for these religious “instructions” will not be relieved of his job. Imagine if a non-Muslim priest made a statement urging a boycott of the Hari Raya celebrations. The uproar and the loud threats would be deafening. Ketuanan Melayu after all, means never having to say sorry. The next big non-Muslim celebration after Deepavali is Christmas and I can wager a bet another round of instructions will be making its way into people’s emails about the sins of wishing a Christian colleague, customer or neighbour a Merry Christmas. The repetitive sloganeering comes like clockwork. It’s as if I can almost write the script for the next outburst by religious puritans.
Our politicians are so fond of crying out to the world that we are all one united happy family, while at the same happily exploit the race and religious cards to further short-term goals. It should not come as a surprise then that managers of government-linked companies also see it fit to utter similar proclamations. The Minister for Islamic Affairs was quick off the blocks to distance the government from this man’s statements, adding that he is not qualified to say such things and that the email does not amount to a fatwa. Shouldn’t the Minister get the offender dismissed, so that no more rips are willfully made to the fragile social fabric that is multi-racial, multi-religious Malaysia? Malaysians are getting tired of being trapped in the Twilight Zone. ¶ 9:18 PM
And most recently, we’ve had the email fiasco from Takaful Malaysia, forbidding Muslim staff from wishing Hindu colleagues and customers a Happy Deepavali, on grounds that “offending” Muslims are booking a one-way ticket to, well … hell. An apology apparently came from Takaful Malaysia, but the damage has been done, as so eloquently put by the Prime Minister’s son-in-law, when he referred to ASLI’s study on bumiputera equity. The man responsible for these religious “instructions” will not be relieved of his job. Imagine if a non-Muslim priest made a statement urging a boycott of the Hari Raya celebrations. The uproar and the loud threats would be deafening. Ketuanan Melayu after all, means never having to say sorry. The next big non-Muslim celebration after Deepavali is Christmas and I can wager a bet another round of instructions will be making its way into people’s emails about the sins of wishing a Christian colleague, customer or neighbour a Merry Christmas. The repetitive sloganeering comes like clockwork. It’s as if I can almost write the script for the next outburst by religious puritans.
Our politicians are so fond of crying out to the world that we are all one united happy family, while at the same happily exploit the race and religious cards to further short-term goals. It should not come as a surprise then that managers of government-linked companies also see it fit to utter similar proclamations. The Minister for Islamic Affairs was quick off the blocks to distance the government from this man’s statements, adding that he is not qualified to say such things and that the email does not amount to a fatwa. Shouldn’t the Minister get the offender dismissed, so that no more rips are willfully made to the fragile social fabric that is multi-racial, multi-religious Malaysia? Malaysians are getting tired of being trapped in the Twilight Zone. ¶ 9:18 PM
