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MUIS Should Publicly Criticise Offensive Charlie Hebdo Cartoons And The Need For Responsible Freedom Of Speech

MUIS and our Mufti should make a public statement on the Paris shootings.

They could distance themselves from whomever were responsible for the ‘acts of terrorism.’

At the same time, it is a golden opportunity to handle the issue of disparaging our Beloved Rasulullah SAW by distancing themselves from the offensive and despicable cartoons.

And it would be exactly in line with the government stand. Freedom of speech is not absolute. It does NOT extend to freedom to offend any religion.

A press statement as well as an FB posting on the official MUIS site would be very much appreciated.

The ball is in MUIS’ court. We hope they would sieze this golden opportunity and strike while the hammer is hot.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Singapore-Muslims-for-an-Independent-MUIS/

January 13, 2015
#Je Suis Ahmed: A Message For Everyone

After the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, the phrase “Je Suis Charlie” — “I am Charlie” — became the unofficial slogan of solidarity with the shooting victims. #JeSuisCharlie trended on Twitter, and people held up signs featuring the phrase at rallies all over the world.

Je Suis Charlie’s message is an important one in the wake of this horrifying crime. But now a new hashtag campaign, #JeSuisAhmed, has arisen to augment it. Its message of tolerance deserves — perhaps needs — to be heard as well.

#JeSuisAhmed

#JeSuisAhmed honors Ahmed Merabet, the French police officer who was murdered outside the Charlie Hebdo offices by the same gunmen who went on to murder the magazine’s staffers. Merabet, in addition to being a police officer, is believed to have been part of France’s large Muslim community.

I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so. #JesuisAhmed

— Dyab Abou Jahjah (@Aboujahjah) January 8, 2015
Twitter users have rallied to the hashtag to argue that Merabet, like the murdered journalists, should be honored as a defender of free speech — particularly because he died trying to protect a publication that had mocked and derided his own religion:

“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” Voltaire #JeSuisAhmed

— Adalia Conti (@AJ_Conti) January 8, 2015
#JeSuisAhmed does not dispute the sentiment of Je Suis Charlie. Rather, it adds to it, by calling attention to the importance of tolerance as well as solidarity. That is important in its own right, but it’s also an elegant response to those who might respond to the attack with broad hostility towards Islam, or suspicion of Muslims as a group.

Many people have pointed out that the actions of a few Muslims aren’t representative of the entire religion. But those reminders can feel like an abstraction in the context of an emotional debate over a terrorist attack. #JeSuisAhmed sends that message far more powerfully, by pointing out that the same logic could be used to conclude that all Muslims are heroic police officers.

The hashtag was also a reminder that the victims of Islamist terrorists are primarily Muslim:

Il faut pas l’oublié, les musulmans sont la 1ere victime du terrorisme #JeSuisAhmed

— Lincoln Osiris (@Bill9011) January 7, 2015
Other users tweeted #JeSuisAhmed to point out the injustice of focusing on the attackers’ Muslim faith, while failing to mention Merabet’s.:

In case you are confused… #JeSuisAhmed pic.twitter.com/ckpchvqHey

— HibHop (@misshibhop) January 9, 2015
Ahmed Merabet protected people. He was the true face of modern Islam. His murderers were not. #JeSuisAhmed

— Imran Ahmed (@Imi_Ahmed) January 7, 2015
Je Suis Dalia

In a Facebook post entitled “Je Suis Dalia,” Dalia Mogahed, the Director of Research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, further extended the message of #JeSuisAhmed, using it to highlight the prejudice inherent in the demand that Muslims like her denounce or reject the Charlie Hebdo murders.

Post by Dalia Mogahed.
Mogahed’s post layers a new, individualistic message of tolerance onto the communal “Je Suis” rallying cry: a reminder that Muslims are individuals, and that the actions of murderous extremists should not be attributed to others who happen to share her faith.

The post hit a nerve, garnering more than 1500 likes and 600 shares within a day. In an email, Mogahed noted that others were sharing the same words under their own names.

Its popularity is understandable, because Mogahed’s post is, at its most basic level, a rejection of bigotry and prejudice. As Max Fisher wrote yesterday, blaming an entire group for the actions of a few individuals is “the very definition of bigotry.” Worse, that same logic perpetuates extremist violence itself, both from Islamist extremists and from others. “It is also, by the way, the very same logic that leads French non-Muslims, outraged by the Charlie Hebdo murders, to attack French mosques in hateful and misguided retaliation.”

Mogahed’s post serves as a polite but meaningful request that such bigotry end — and an implicit reminder that it can leave innocent people in danger.

Update: A number of outlets, including The Telegraph and The Guardian, have reported that Merabet was Muslim. The Telegraph reports that Merabet’s family plans to bury him in a Muslim cemetery, and that a friend of Mr. Merabet referred to him as a Muslim. However, other outlets, including the New York Times, say that his religion is unconfirmed. Social media users citing his name have widely presumed that he was Muslim.

Source: www.vox.com

January 10, 2015
I AM NOT CHARLIE HEBDO

Je suis Charlie?

Well, not quite. I really am not Charlie Hebdo.

Nothing – no cartoon, no book, no song – justifies the kind of shooting rampage that happened in Paris. As Hassen Chalghoumi, the imam of Drancy mosque in Paris says, “These are criminals, barbarians. They have sold their souls to hell.”

And he is not talking about the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo. He is talking about those who mowed them down and fled.

But the spontaneous outpouring of the #JeSuisCharlie hashtags also elides over the really thorny issue of free speech. While we want free speech to be absolute, in the real world, it is not. And even as we stand with Charlie Hebdo we cannot pretend not to understand that.

Today, as a tribute to Charlie Hebdo, outlets in India like Mint and NDTV have published a sort of collector’s edition of some of their cartoons. It’s a respectful gesture but it’s also somewhat misleading.

Assuming most readers in India are not regular consumers of Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons, it gives them a more sanitized, PG-rated impression of their fare. As Jacob Canfield writes in the Hooded Utilitarian, “its cartoons often represent a certain virulently racist brand of French xenophobia. While they generously claim to ‘attack everyone equally’, the cartoons they publish are intentionally ‘anti-Islam’ and frequently sexist and homophobic.”

And that’s putting it mildly.

In reality, some of Charlie Hebdo’s most offensive cartoons would not be published in most parts of the world. Few media outlets would print a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad crouched on all fours with his genitals bared or show the Father, Son and Holy Ghost sodomizing each other. For that matter, most will balk at a cartoon like the one Onion put out showing a Lord Ganesha, Jesus, Moses, and Buddha all naked with erect phalluses having an orgy in the clouds? Now, that’s being equal opportunity offenders but that remains way outside the pale for most of the world. Anyway, in a freedom of expression absolute, it should not matter if you are an equal opportunity offender or a one-sided offender.

Let’s make no mistake – these cartoons are offensive to most people. And they are meant to be that way. They exist almost as a way to test freedom of expression to its limits rather than to make a satirical point. “This is the hardest part, the murder of the satirists in question does not prove that their satire was good,” writes Canfield. “Their satire was bad, and remains bad. Their satire was racist and remains racist.”

But that does not mean they deserved it. Not at all. The true mettle of freedom of expression is always tested against what we consider offensive or hateful or repugnant. That’s where the protection of freedom of expression actually means something. It’s easy to stand up for freedom of expression when we agree with the view point being depicted or do not care about it one way or the other. It gets far trickier when we are called upon to defend the right of someone to say what offends us deeply – whether it’s about our religion, our mothers, or our national leaders. The right to offend always butts up against the right to be offended.

In India, the latter routinely trumps the former. We prescribe to the thumb rule – when in doubt, ban. A publication putting out something like the cartoons Charlie Hebdo was infamous for would be picketed and shut down in double quick time. Our laws protecting “communal harmony” have far more teeth than our laws protecting freedom of expression. That’s why an NDTV or a Mint has to be careful about what images it selects from the Charlie Hebdo cartoons even as it wants to show solidarity.

As much as we might want to say “Charlie Hebdo tum aagey badho, hum tumharey saath hain” we cannot pretend that freedom of expression in India is the same as freedom of expression in France is the same as freedom of expression in the United States.

In an ideal world, the response to a cartoon that offends should be another cartoon. The response to a book that offends should be to not read it. The response to a film that offends could be a #BoycottPK social media campaign.

But the reality is there is no absolute right to free speech.

And yes, we forget that even France, which has become the embattled bastion of freedom of expression today, wears its own limits on its sleeve. Its staunch defense of freedom of expression did not prevent it from passing a ban on the niqab even though it was deliberately veiled as a ban on “clothing intended to conceal the face.” “Bans like these undermine the rights of women who choose to wear the veil and do little to protect anyone compelled to do so, just as laws in other countries forcing women to dress in a particular way undermine their rights,” says Izza Leghtas atHuman Rights Watch. Between April 2011 and February 2014, French law enforcement fined 594 women for wearing the niqab.

A Reuters report points out that many of the cartoonists in Charlie Hebdo got their start in another satirical magazine called Hara Kiri which proclaimed its aim to be “inane and nasty.” That magazine was banned in 1970 after printing a mock death notice for General Charles de Gaulle. Its reincarnation after the ban was as Charlie Hebdo.

Everyone will read the lesson they want into the tragedy in Paris. Some will see it as proof that Muslim immigrants can never be truly French because they do not get what former President Nicholas Sarkozy called an “old French tradition, satire.” Some will see it as evidence of France’s xenophobic attitude towards immigrants coming home to roost. Salman Rushdie sees the attack as “the deadly mutation in the heart of Islam” and how “religious totalitarianism combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedom.” Of course, that “threat” is not news in many parts of the world. People being killed in Iraq and Syria by Isis or in Afghanistan by the Taliban have known that for a long long time. It just hits us harder when it hits us in Paris. Or Sydney. Or London.

And very ordinary Muslim immigrants minding their own business will probably bear the brunt of the backlash as Arabs and Sikhs in the US did post-9/11 for as Charbonnier, the editor of Charlie Hebdo once told Le Monde while defending his right to offend that “when activists need a pretext to justify their violence they will find it.”

But that argument offers us no answers to the knotty question of freedom of expression, an idea to which we all think we subscribe. Those JeSuisCharlie profile pictures on Facebook, perfect little squares all of them, create an image of geometric uniformity as if we subscribe to that right in equal measure. But if anything this tragedy forces us to admit that when it comes to what constitutes freedom of expression, most of us are not even close to being on the same page.

I think of myself as a staunch supporter of freedom of expression but I realize the disquieting truth that I could never publish some of the cartoons Charlie Hebdo did. It would go against every fiber of my being. But I will defend their right to exist and condemn what happened to them with every fiber of my being as well. But I just cannot say #IAmCharlieHebdo.

Source: www.alternet.org

January 10, 2015
12 Annoying Habits Filipinos Need To Abolish

Let’s admit it; at some point in our lives, we have been guilty of one or two (or more) of the Pinoy bad habits listed below. Although these negative traits do not diminish the fact that Filipinos are a very awesome people, it’s just sad that they have continued to pull us down personally and as a nation.

Therefore, for the good of ourselves and our country, it is imperative that we should discard the following Pinoy bad habits and attitudes:

1. Crab Mentality.

Simply put, this refers to the behavior of preventing someone from achieving something due to jealousy or envy. Instead of praising or rendering assistance, someone with crab mentality would think “if I can’t have it, then you can’t as well” and will purposely try to bring his/her victim down. And just like the crabs who could have escaped from the bucket if they only stopped pulling each other down, nothing ever gets accomplished.

2. Ningas-Kugon.

One reason why we sometimes exert half-hearted effort in our undertakings is due to this attitude. Translated to “burning cogon grass” in English, this idiom is meant to illustrate how Filipinos initially exhibit great enthusiasm at the beginning of a project. Our eagerness however, fades away just as quickly as the fire is extinguished, leaving our work either half-baked or unfinished.

Also Read: 11 Filipino Slang Words With Surprising Origins

3. Mañana Habit.

It is ironic that the Spanish would accuse Filipinos of being lazy when they themselves taught us the mañana habit in the first place. Known as “tomorrow” in English, the habit encourages procrastination, an “ability” we Filipinos have since turned into an art form. Even the most urgent of projects and tasks can be relegated for some other time; we are only forced to work on them when the deadline is near. It’s a miracle we get things done in this country.

4. Filipino Time.

Related to the mañana habit, Filipino time refers to the Filipinos’ own unique brand of time, which is known to be minutes or hours behind the standard time. In other words, we tend not to observe punctuality at all. This behavior usually drives time-observant foreigners crazy. While we Filipinos with our easy-going ways have somewhat become used to Filipino time, it still is a bad habit that needs to be dropped.

5. Being Onion-Skinned (Balat Sibuyas).

We Filipinos are famous for being onion-skinned or easily slighted at perceived insults. While it’s perfectly normal for us to taunt and criticize others, we can’t handle the same when it’s being hurled back at us. Incidents showcasing our extra-sensitivity to insults usually involve a foreigner making either a bonafide racist remark or a humorous jab at us Filipinos. True to form, our reactions would range from righteous indignation to excessive grandstanding. While it is alright to feel incensed, throwing a fit in front of the world would inevitably do us no good at all.

6. General Disregard For Rules.

Why is it so hard for Filipinos to obey the rules? This social phenomenon is not exclusive to hardened criminals either—a look at everyday life in the country shows Filipinos from the entire social strata nonchalantly breaking the rules, whether it is something as benign as jaywalking or as dangerous as beating the red light.

Also Read: 27 Things You’ll Only See in the Philippines

An interesting theory goes that the Filipinos’ penchant for law-breaking goes beyond mere lack of discipline or failure to implement the rules. It is something that is ingrained in our very culture. Being oppressed under the yoke of colonization for such a long time made our ancestors defiant of the rules they believed to be discriminatory. Although such “self-righteous disobedience” may have been alright during their time, the behavior would continue to manifest itself among the later Filipinos, resulting in an utter lack of respect for the rules.

7. Colonial Mentality.

Probably one of the biggest flaws we have as a nation is our colonial mentality, defined as a preference for all things foreign over our own, a negative trait we acquired from our days under the Spanish and the Americans. As a result, we Filipinos have been indoctrinated with the misconception that our culture is inferior to that of our past colonizers.

Glaring examples of colonial mentality include patronizing foreign instead of local brands, favoring foreign values over our own, and even desiring to look more “Western” (think whitening products). If we can’t even have pride in our own country, then unfortunately we will always be stuck with this self-defeating mentality.

8. Balikbayan Box Mentality.

While there is nothing wrong with giving gifts to one’s family and friends (we Filipinos do highly value them after all), it becomes a different matter when said family and friends either misconstrue or abuse the OFW’s generosity.

In local parlance, this has become known as the “Balikbayan box mentality.” People ingrained with this mentality either become exploitative or jealous of the success of the OFW, not knowing that he/she is working hard away from his loved ones in a foreign country. Some also believe that the practice undoubtedly contributes to the Filipinos’ colonial mentality.

9. Bahala Na Attitude.

Roughly translated as “come what may”, this is the Filipinos’ own version of fatalism, the belief of leaving everything to the hands of fate.

This attitude, while not inherently detrimental in itself, is still a double-edged sword. On one hand, positive aspects of this behavior include belief in Divine Providence and national social responsibility. On the other hand, the attitude can also promote a sense of helplessness and resignation of one’s fate at the local level, and a countrywide lack of empathy and collective action on the national level. This is also the reason why we tend to have amnesia over past wrongdoings committed by our leaders.

10. Corruption.

One of the biggest social ills our country has continued to face since time immemorial is the issue of corruption. Let’s face it, our “culture of corruption” is embedded deep within our system and reinforced by a complex web of economic and social factors which include personal ambitions and a twisted sense of loyalty to friends and kin. The Philippines is in for a long haul if our officials and we ourselves do not get rid of this very negative habit.

11. Maintaining Double Standards.

This behavior can be observed in just about every sector of Philippine society, with the most common example being the condemnation of an adulterous woman while applauding a polygamous man. On the national scale, we see politicians spouting promises of reform and good governance only to break them in the end. Long story short, some Filipinos are hypocrites to the core.

Related Article: 15 Weird Laws Filipinos Still Have To Live With

12. Excessive Partying.

Now there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a fiesta and party every now and then, it’s just that we Filipinos tend to overdo it. Birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and even somber funerals are celebrated by Filipinos like there is no tomorrow. Sometimes we even make up the slightest of reasons just so we could have an excuse to party. What’s more, a host would sometimes even strain his own finances just to impress his guests.

As for fiestas, it seems that every LGU down to the smallest barangay in the country has a fiesta to celebrate. Like we said, it’s alright to party, but we should really focus on austerity and working hard first.

Your Turn

Got some other bad Pinoy habits you want to point out? Then drop us a line at our official Facebook Page. Don’t forget to like!

Sources: Filipino American Psychology: A Handbook of Theory, Research, and Clinical Practice; Culture Shock! Philippines: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette; The Filipino Moving Onward; Values Education II; Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife, Volume 1; Philippines Country Study Guide; Values in Philippine Culture and Education; A Changeless Land: Continuity and Change in Philippine Politics; Reluctant Bedfellows: Feminism, Activism and Prostitution in the Philippines; International Perspectives on Violence

About the Author: When he isn’t deploring the sad state of Philippine politics, Marc V. likes to skulk around the Internet for new bits of information which he can weave into a somewhat-average list you might still enjoy. You can also check out his ho-hum yet extremely addicting lists over at Listverse.com and read them… over and over again.

Souce: www.filipiknow.net

January 9, 2015
Brunei Officially Bans Public Christmas Celebrations

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Oil-rich Brunei has banned public celebrations of Christmas for fear of Muslims being led astray, its religious affairs ministry said on Thursday, in a country that last year controversially instituted tough Islamic syariah penalties.

The ban, instituted after Christmas last month when local children and adults were seen wearing clothes “that resemble Santa Claus”, raises fresh concerns of religious restrictions after last April’s announcement of the introduction of a penal code that will eventually include penalties such as the severing of limbs and death by stoning.

A spokesman declined to comment directly on the ban, but referred to a Dec 27 statement in which the ministry said the act of publicly marking non-Islamic rituals or festivities “can be seen as propagations of religions other than Islam”.

It noted in particular: “For example, in conjunction with Christmas celebrations, Muslim children, teenagers and adults can be seen wearing hats or clothes that resemble Santa Claus.

“Believers of other religions that live under the rule of an Islamic country – according to Islam – may practise their religion or celebrate their religious festivities among their community, with the condition that the celebrations are not disclosed or displayed publicly to Muslims,” the statement said.

“Muslims should be careful not to follow celebrations such as these that are not in any way related to Islam… and could unknowingly damage the faith of Muslims.”

The statement also said that businesses that publicly displayed Christmas decorations were asked to take them down and had given their “full cooperation”.

The latest move comes after Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah announced in April that he would push ahead with the introduction of a new criminal code which sparked rare domestic criticism of the fabulously wealthy ruler as well as international condemnation.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

January 9, 2015