About Religious and Racial Conflicts

Many of our social problems today are extended into religious and racial conflicts. In fact, most of the time, religion and racial issues are the cause of these conflicts. The purpose of religion is to guide mankind to develop unity and harmonious life and practice humane qualities.

Today, however, religion is often being used to discriminate against other religions and to develop jealousy, hatred and hostility. Actually today, human beings are not using religion to maintain peace and harmony but to create superiority or inferiority feelings. Such hostile and unhealthy religious competition or domination had even created bloodshed in many part of the world.

Some religious leaders or groups have been guilty of praising their own beliefs as part of their valuable religious customs and traditions, while ridiculing other religious beliefs and traditions as being inferior. Some others use religions for material gain, political power, self-glorification, reign supreme over others, and worldly powers. Religion itself has become a major problem.

Those who use religion and racial issues for worldly material gain and political power also face fear, worry, insecurity, enmity and difficulty of maintaining their power and authority. This clearly shows that the accumulation of worldly power is not the solution to overcome human problems.

Some people concentrate only on wealth power. Wealth can only help to overcome certain minor problems. Worldly happiness, sensual pleasures can be gained through wealth. Money cannot eradicate natural problems. Religious teachers, scholars, thinkers and rationalist pointed out the nature of human weakness and how to overcome them.

However, the ordinary people often regard them as theories and not solutions to their problems.

Muslim NGOs protest in Penang

Some about 20 over muslim NGOs under the patronage of Gabungan Melayu NGO Malaysia today held a peaceful protest in front of Sri Mutiara, the official residence of the Penang Governor to call on the Rulers Council to strip the citizenship of those who questioned the Malay special rights and ketuanan Melayu.

Apart from these NGO protesters, these NGOs also made use of about 400 over under-aged children to join them in this morning's protest. First of all, we would like to question these NGOs, who actually did question the special rights and ketuanan Melayu and when did it happened? Why did these NGOs often allowed themselves to be used by some political parties who is out there to promote and advance their racist political agendas?

For the leaders of these muslim NGOs, we hope in future they will use their judgment and common sense to ensure they are not being used political parties with racist political agendas, particularly Umno. Do not lower yourselves to be used in such ways.

At the same time, in the protest this morning, you are using children as your your shield and for your information, it is wrong to use under-aged as a tool to protest on certain issues related to politics and racial sentiments.

The policemen who were there, why they did not take any action on the protesters who used children to join them in the said demonstration? Is it because such protest were sanctioned by Umno and they choose not to care about it just because the home minister is an Umno supreme council member?

Why these fanatics are still promoting hatred and disunity?

Just look at what these fanatics are doing and putting these hate banners in the streets. What are they trying to prove actually? Why did they hate other people so much and resorted to such action and threats onto the other peace loving communities.

To those hate mongers, we are all here to live peacefully amongst multi-racial, multi religious and multi cultural society. We all truly love peace, harmony, friendship and unity but there are some fanatics who are supported by a BN component party are out there to create more and more hate and nothing but hate onto others and possible to provoke anger of another race.

What can they gain by promoting hatred among our communities actually? This has to be stopped at all cost. But the police force and other authorities are not doing enough to prevent such racist fanatics from continuing all these. Is it because these hate mongers are members of a BN dominant component party?

And also, why MCA, Gerakan, MIC, IPF and PPP are keeping quiet on these? Are they too afraid to voice their discontent on their master component party in the BN or what?

Can we see action against these people who promote terror as soon as possible? We want to have a peaceful and harmonious living. We want Unity.

'Orang asing' remark irks business group ~ Malaysiakini

According to Malaysiakini report today, the Malaysian Indian Business Association (Miba) sees red with a bank officer for using an insensitive term during a seminar in Kuala Lumpur.

Again another racist remark made by a person in the presence of a multi racial business forum attended by professionals and businessmen. The continuous racist showing in public forums and functions would continue as long as Umno continues its "ketuanan" agenda, as Umno had already sanctioned the use of such remarks all these while.

Such a racist and irresponsible action by the bank officer would tarnish the image of our nation in the eyes of the business and professional community as a whole and action should be taken against the said bank officer who mentioned the racist words in front of a business forum.

Apart from that, the said bank officer should also apologise publicly and retract his statement. The root cause of this nature, as a result of Umno's doing.

Indonesian parliament passes anti racial discrimination law

Reports from the Jakarta Post mentioned that the Indonesian parliament had recently unaimously voted to pass a law that will describe ethnic and racial discrimination as a serious crime in that nation.

The passing of this law ensures that racial discrimination is now a crime considered same as other crimes like corruption, terrorism, drug abuses and breach of trust of which could warrants imprisonment as a minimum sentence.

An interesting fact to note that is Indonesia now joined ranks with other nations in the "International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination" enacted in the year 1999 by the United Nations General Assembly.

It is a disappointment to say that Malaysia is not even in the list of nations that has endorsed the convention. Pretty sad isn't it so ?

So long as Umno and its window dressing Barisan Nasional coalition is still around, racial discrimination in this nation will continue.

BN heading for a break up

It seems like the Barisan Nasional coalition might be heading for a split following the fact that more and more component parties like MCA, Gerakan, MIC and PPP are beginning to criticize their senior partner Umno for being over conservative and resisting changes from within in order to present itself as a true multi-racial coalition.

Instead, ever since after the 8 March general election, Umno is still harping on his old concept of upholding racial supremacy “ketuanan Melayu” over other ethnicities, thus immediately fending off any attempts or efforts by several quarters from within the coalition to initiate changes and rebranding to make BN come out with a non-racial approach in its policies.

A call by MCA for Umno to do away with the “ketuanan” was immediately responded by the Umno youth chief Hishamuddin Hussein as questioning their rights. Gerakan later joined in by supporting MCA’s call to an end of the supremacist policies in Umno, while PPP started to call for the ISA to be reviewed and amended, and would leave BN if changes are not carried out. MCA too, later supported PPP’s move by also calling the ISA to be repealed.

Well, as long as the current Umno leadership insist of maintaining its trends and resist any drastic changes, the current policies in the BN and the government would remain as it had 50 years ago, which could spell the end of MCA, Gerakan, MIC and PPP. These BN component parties kept on believing that for any real change to happen, it must be driven by Umno. Then, do they actually have enough guts to leave BN anyway?

SAPP had left BN and might be considering to join Pakatan Rakyat to rid the Umno’s dominancy in Sabah, while a large number of Dayak political and community leaders in Sarawak had also made their move by joining PKR en bloc thus, resulting the current state BN to be on alert of the recent mass defection.

Meanwhile, MCA’s opinion seems to be splitting as its party president Datuk Ong Tee Keat had formally distanced himself and his faction from party deputy president Datuk Seri Chua Soi Lek who had earlier mentioned that they do not accept “ketuanan Melayu” but only the Malay leadership instead which had eventually shows that the two camps in the MCA is also heading for a clear split.

Umno, with its well known brand in money politics is also brandishing its internal politickings openly with infightings and factional tussle for party positions, with dissatisfying leaders making press releases and bringing their tussles to the civil courts to address their frustrations. Looks like the Umno delegates may also end up electing various factions into the top leadership echelon on March 2009 next year like their counterpart MCA which may see a continuous split from within.

MIC with Samy Vellu promising a rebranding exercise from within does not seem wanting to change in actual fact by saying that he intends to run for another term for the party presidency. When some dissatisfaction arose, he called in another conservative to challenge him in order to demonstrate his “willingness” to be challenge and to reflect the “democracy” in his party. Other MIC youngsters were either too obedient or sub-servant to fight a battle with the Samy Vellu faction to effect a real change.
Gerakan with Dr Koh Tsu Koon had helm, was still hoping to convince their master Umno to lead the change from within the coalition of which saw no hope at all in actual fact. However, Dr Koh had not given up his effort and still pursuing his Umno friends to come out with a more multi-racial friendly concept in order to win back the people’s trust. First of all, the big question mark is will Umno listen to Gerakan?

PPP under M.Kayveas is seem to be still uncertain of its future undertakings, but only moved short by calling for the ISA to be repealed and not abolished. The PPP leadership had so far refrained from making a more drastic call for changes which may affect its relation with Umno for fear of being further sidelined. PPP’s threat to pull out of BN was merely a copycat tone in support of its bigger partners like MCA, MIC and Gerakan. If these parties did not make their moves, will PPP ever make its own move then?

The other BN component parties like, SUPP, PRS, PDS, PBS, PBRS, UPKO and LDP are regionally tied up with their states in Sarawak and Sabah without any real interest in national politics as a whole. The Sarawak BN parties were apparently being sub-due by the much stronger PBB for decades while the Sabah parties were force to toe by the Sabah Umno’s line after having the rotation of the state’s chief minister position abolished.

Well, the BN don’t really have clear direction after all.

Why the multi lingual road sign fuss?

We wish to tell the Penang Chief Minister and DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng, go ahead with your greatest plans to have multi lingual road signs in Penang to promote tourism activities and to enhance the Malaysian image of our state. Have no fear on that!!!

We all know Umno is making so much fuss over this by politicizing the matter in a racist and uncivilized manner. We also know that an Umno delegation from Tanjung division led by its deputy chief Raja Munir Shah had stormed into the MPPP and Deputy Chief Minister’s Office to hand over their protest memorandum on the proposed multi lingual road signs.

So what? These Umno stooges are bulls! They did that for the sake of doing it. They continuously accused the state government of planning to completely do away with road signs in Bahasa Malaysia. Well, who said that? Guan Eng did not say he wanted to delete the Bahasa Malaysia languages from the present road signs in Penang. He only mentioned that he wanted to put additional languages on the existing road signs to enhance and to reflect its multi racial community and identity. This is Malaysian Malaysia!

When DBKL and MBJB put up multi lingual road signs in Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru, why didn’t Umno make the fuss earlier? For your information, certain road signs in Kuala Lumpur are added with Arabic words, besides the alphabets.

So, we want to ask DBKL and Umno now, why put up Arabic words? We all know that Arabs today are closely associated with terrorism and by putting up Arabic words could also symbolize our nation’s support and advancement for terrorism. Do you want us to put that this way, dear Umno?

But instead, we did not say anything on these Arabic words at all, as we believe in peace loving and harmonious society and living together with each other in a very humanistic way, in a Malaysian Malaysia way of life.

So Umno, by continuing behaving like this, we believe one day you will bring our nation back to stone- age and de-civilization. You Umno guys are making a very dangerous move. You are dividing our people and splitting the nation apart with your racist, violence and hate messages across.

These Umno stooges are now behaving more like the apes. We want to remind you, do not turn our nation into a “planet of the apes”!

Race and Islam

By : Farish Noor, Aliran Member

A row was sparked off by the nomination of a Chinese woman – Low Siew Moi – as the head of a state institution linked to the economic management and development of the state of Selangor, the PKNS. Despite the fact that Low was selected on merit, some quarters chose to publicly disagree with her appointment on the grounds that the Malay-Muslims of the state would object to the appointment. But objection on what grounds, asks Aliran member Farish Noor.

It is odd, to say the least, that after more than 14 centuries there remain some people who claim to be Muslims but who still have not internalised the universal values of Islam. Odder still that there remain those who on the one hand can embrace Islam’s universal claim of brotherhood (and sisterhood), but still cannot get around to understanding the simple idea that Islam and racism do not mix.

Evidence of such discrepancies can be found pretty much everywhere these days: It has, sadly, become the normative cultural norm in so many Muslim societies today that those who are fair are better off and given the privileges that they feel is the natural right of all light-skinned people. It is also interesting to note that Muslims tend to rejoice whenever a white American or European converts to Islam, but seem less enthusiastic in their recognition of the fact that thousands of Africans and Asians are converting to Islam every year.Furthermore when it comes to governance and politics, it remains painfully clear that some Muslims still place blood and race above competency and merit till today; and that despite their profession of faith they remain embedded in the stagnant mode of racialised thinking that operates on the basis that some races are better than others.

One such case has popped up recently in multi-culti Malaysia , where a row was sparked off by the nomination of a Chinese woman – Low Siew Moi – as the head of a state institution linked to the economic management and development of the state of Selangor, the PKNS. Despite the fact that Low Siew Moi was selected by the Chief Minister of the state, Tan Sri Khalid, on the basis of merit; some quarters chose to publicly disagree with her appointment on the grounds that the Malay-Muslims of the state would object to the appointment. But objection on what grounds? On the basis that she is a Chinese woman?

Here the already convoluted waters of Malaysia’s racialised politics turns a shade murkier; for among those who objected to the appointment of Low Siew Moi were some members of the Malaysian Islamic party, Pas.Malaysia’s politics has been defined by racial concerns and the communitarian demands of the various religious and ethnic groups of the country since its independence in 1957. Over the past three decades, however, the tone and tenor of the country’s conservative, right-wing ethno-nationalist politics was further coloured by the Islamisation race in the country with the Malaysian government attempting to further inculcate Islamic values into the norms of governance in Malaysia as well.

Ironically however, Malaysia’s Islamisation programme seems to be more concerned with book-banning, fatwas on social behaviour (including the recent revelation that there may be a fatwa on Yoga soon, wait for it), and moral policing instead. Where, the Islamic scholar may ask, were the universal values of Islam in the midst of all this social engineering? Did the leaders of Malaysia not realise, or forget, the simple idea that Islam is an egalitarian faith that is colour-blind; and that the concept of ‘race’ is an alien idea in Islam?

The dilemma that Malaysia is facing now is the same dilemma faced by many other Muslim societies where the defence and promotion of Islam often goes hand-in-hand with the defence and promotion of the communitarian interests of Muslims. In Malaysia ’s case, where Muslims are overwhelmingly Malay, then this also translates as the defence of Malay interests – to the extent of propagating the ethno-nationalist idea of Malay cultural dominance as well. Now what on earth is Islamic about this?

Here is where orthodox Muslim scholarship has to come in and make its timely intervention: For it has to be remembered that the success of Islam and the success of Muslims are two entirely different things, that may also clash and negate each other at times. The victory of Islam, so to speak, has to be understood as the victory of universal values such as egalitarianism and equality before God. The victory of Muslims, on the other hand, may at times be understood as political victories that may or may not conform to the standards of Islamic ethics. The defeat of the Kuwaitis at the hands of Saddam Hussein, for instance, was a case of one Muslim state defeating another: but was this a victory for Islam? Likewise, when Muslims openly and abrasively demand special rights and privileges for themselves at the cost of equality and meritocracy, is this really a victory for Islam?

Those who have criticised and opposed the appointment of Low Siew Moi as the head of PKNS on the grounds that the job should have been given to a Malay-Muslim instead should therefore look closely at themselves and ask: What is it that you are fighting for? Malay-Muslim dominance or a better form of governance that is based on merit and equality? The Islamic scholar will remind you that the latter is Islamic, while the former is not.

In any case, for Muslims to even think in racialised communitarian terms is a misnomer of sorts as such modes of communitarian, sectarian thinking has no real place in Islamic orthodoxy and ethics. To quote Tuan Guru Nik Aziz Nik Mat, spiritual leader of the Malaysian Islamic Party Pas: ‘tell me, what race was Adam?’. ‘Nuff said I think.