Terlalu banyak pengalaman hidup yang dikongsi Datuk Ramli Sarip semasa penggambaran temubualnya semalam.
Bila menyentuh tentang sangkaan buruk terhadap rockers, beliau berkongsi, “Tidak semua yang suka rock tu jahat. Dan tidak semua yang di masjid itu baik. Yang penting hati.”
Benar. Secara zahir mungkin nampak kasar tetapi di dalam hati ikhlas serta lembut tidak tersasar.
Source: Sujimy Mohamad
Visited Heng Swee Keat in the TTSH Neuro ICU at NNI this evening. Delighted to find him recovering well, and making steady progress. He was fully lucid, communicative, and cheerful.
The doctors are happy too. But they have advised Swee Keat not to receive visitors yet, so that he can get as much rest as possible.
I told him we had made arrangements to look after his residents in Tampines while he recuperates. He gave me two thumbs up. 🙂
Swee Keat wants to thank everyone for their support. He especially sends his greetings and best wishes to his Tampines residents and volunteers, who have been asking after him. – LHL
Source: Lee Hsien Loong
Promosi untuk kuih dan baju raya mula “membanjiri pasaran” di sana sini. Kek yang unik dan cantik seperti Batikrolls, merupakan antara juadah yang boleh dikatakan ‘terlajak laris’ musim ini.
Di tengah-tengah ekonomi tidak menentu, sejauh manakah para peniaga mengharungi persaingan sengit bagi menawan hati pembeli?
Yang pasti, ‘Demam Raya’ pun bermula dengan para peniaga giat mempromosikan produk-produk mereka secara online.
Tidak kira peniaga tempatan mahupun luar negara masing-masing membawa kepelbagaian dan pilihan- sekali gus membuat para pembeli pasti rambang mata!
Ramadan bakal menjelang sekitar seminggu lagi. Namun syarikat-syarikat dan pereka fesyen setempat sudahpun menjual dan mereka busana khas Hari Raya.
FASHIONVALET BAWA BAJU RAYA KE SINGAPURA
Syarikat fesyen terkenal dari Malaysia, FashionValet, juga tidak terkecuali dengan membawa busana khas Hari Raya dari Malaysia ke Singapura.
Syarikat FashionValet yang berasal dari seberang tambak, menghimpunkan pelbagai jenama dari pereka ternama Malaysia. Baru-baru ini ia melancarkan busana khas Hari Raya.
Jika selalunya pelanggan Singapura hanya dapat membelinya secara online, kini FashionValet membuka sebuah cawangan di kawasan Orchard Road di 313 Somerset.
“Memang saya tahu ekonomi sekarang bahagian runcit agak lembab tetapi FashionValet amat bertuah sebab kami mempunyai banyak pilihan dan pelanggan-pelanggan kami amat setia.
“Kami mempunyai tukikan yang khusus iaitu mereka yang di pertengahan hingga atasan. Saya rasa mereka tidak begitu terjejas dengan kelembapan ekonomi ini. Jadi bagi saya, kita mempunyai sasaran pelanggan yang tepat,” kata Pengarah Urusan FashionValet, Vivy Yusof.
PELANGGAN SUARAKAN KELEBIHAN PERSIAPAN AWAL
Menurut Vivy Yusof lagi, syarikatnya mula membuat pemasaran bagi produk-produk Hari Raya seawal tiga bulan.
“Memang lagi senang sebab kalau waktu Ramadan itu waktu kita sibuk dengan ibadah, kita sibuk dengan urusan harian, jadi kalau hendak fikir untuk Hari Raya macam terlalu banyak benda hendak dibuat pada satu masa.
“Tidak kira kedai fizikal mahupun secara online. Bagi sesetengah pembeli persiapan awal Hari Raya juga bermakna mereka dapat mengelakkan pembaziran,” jelas seorang pelanggan bernama Cik Nurul Suhana Sulaiman.
Ia disokong seorang lagi pelanggan, Cik Naime Zainal: “Pada bulan puasa, bazar selalunya penuh sesak dengan orang. Saya hendak tawar-menawar, saya hendak ke sana-sini, terpaksa bersaing dengan pelanggan-pelanggan yang lain.
Maka itu kata beliau, dengan persiapan awal, iaitu membeli lebih awal, beliau tidak akan berasa kelam kabut, selain dapat memastikan apa yang dibelinya berada dalam bajet.
BATIKROLLS – ANTARA KEK LARIS MUSIM INI
Selain sambutan untuk baju raya, kuih-muih raya juga laris dijual sehinggakan ada tempahan yang sudahpun penuh.
Batikrolls, misalnya, menerima 500 tempahan bagi kek gulungnya yang unik.
Pemiliknya, Cik Siti Nurashikin Shaikh Ismail berkata: “Buat pertama kali, saya letakkan di Facebook, dalam dua, tiga jam sudah mendapat pesanan-pesanan. Sambutannya memang lebih daripada jangkaan kami dan kami masih menerima permintaan walaupun tempahan sudah ditutup untuk Hari Raya.”
Untuk kekal berdaya saing dari peniaga-peniaga musiman yang lain, Cik Nurashikin mengambil langkah untuk menginovasikan idea kek gulung dengan menggabungkan lukisan Batik – sesuatu yang mungkin belum pernah dilihat di pasaran!
SEMANGAT NIAGA TANPA KEDAI
Walaupun sudah berniaga bersama ibunya selama lebih 20 tahun, Nurashikin belum mempunyai rancangan untuk membuka sebuah kedai.
“Secara online, risikonya rendah, sangat rendah dan saya boleh cuba beberapa produk kalau ia tidak mendapat sambutan. Saya boleh tukar dengan senang berbanding mempunyai kedai sendiri,” tambah beliau lagi.
Apa yang pasti, ketidaktentuan ekonomi sama sekali tidak melenturkan semangat para peniaga ini.
Bahkan bagi FashionValet dan Batikrolls persaingan sengit dari peniaga-peniaga lain sekali gus menyemarakkan lagi penjualan musim Ramadan.
Source: Berita MediaCorp
“Early this year we hosted some students from Malaysia. They said they heard often that the azan cannot be heard in Singapore,” said Mohamed Imran Mohamed Taib, a senior executive of the republic’s Harmony Centre, referring to the Muslim call to prayer which usually blares from a mosque’s loudspeaker five times a day.
“When they asked for recommendations on where to stay, we suggested Arab Street. So every day they could hear the azan from the Sultan Mosque. They were quite surprised since they thought azan could not be heard here,” he added, explaining that there is no such thing as a ban on the azan, even in such a secular country.
“Furthermore, now the azan can even be heard on radio,” added Zainul Abidin Ibrahim, a director at the centre, laughing.
That was one of the Malaysian Muslim misconceptions against their brethren across the Causeway, as told to a group of Malaysian journalists by Harmony Centre, an interfaith initiative by the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis).
One of us asked, is it true that in Singapore a Muslim can eat openly in public during Ramadan without fear of being arrested by religious authorities?
That one is true, and the Harmony Centre leaders were not too fussed by the fact.
“What we do, always we do it through education… At the end of the day, if the community as a whole can uphold the religion by itself, then some few individuals they will find it uneasy lah to lepak at kedai kopi.
“That’s the type of pressure [that we use instead]. As times go by, there is even an increase of religiosity,” claimed Muhammad Fazalee Jaafar, the centre’s head.
Imran shrugged off these misconceptions, explaining that they are opportunities for the centre to explain how Singaporean Muslims live within the multicultural context, especially in housing estates with dense populations.
Elsewhere during our visit to the city-state, hosted by its Ministry of Communications and Information, we found the same dedication towards inclusiveness, co-existence, and pluralism.
Among such initiatives was the Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG), which has offered counselling services to terror detainees for at least 13 years now.
The group started out its work with members of Jemaah Islamiah in Singapore, the South-east Asian Islamist terror group bent on establishing an Islamic state in the region. The group was responsible for the 2002 Bali bombing.
Now, RRG has even started working to rehabilitate self-radicalised lone wolves. Its message remains clear: violence is not acceptable at all in Islam.
“Is it an obligation for the rest of the Muslim world to join [in foreign fights]?” asked Ahmad Saiful Rijal Hassan, an ustaz, or religious teacher who works with the group when told that some Muslims used the Palestinian conflict and the Syria war as excuses to invoke the need for jihad, or holy struggle for self-defence.
“Jihad is not an individual obligation, it is a communal obligation,” he added.
What is more astounding about RRG and the work they do is the group is made up of volunteers — religious scholars and teachers — who decided to do something about Singaporean Muslims’ foray into extremism and jihadism.
It did not need government coaxing to galvanise itself. Instead, it has now grown into a valuable adviser to the government when it comes to the topic.
In an interview with our group, Minister of culture, community and youth Grace Fu assured us that the island’s youths identify themselves as Singaporean first, especially in the light of rising Islamism in the region that calls for Islam and its holy book to be the base of governance.
“Within the Muslim community, they’ve gone to some extent educating the followers to the true meaning of Islam, and what we call the Singaporean Muslim identity,” said Fu.
So, what is this Singaporean Muslim identity? I asked Imran, who earlier in the tour similarly emphasised the need for Muslims in the region to identify with the context of the multicultural countries that they live in, instead of aping wholesale the strain of Islam from its birthplace in the Middle East.
Imran pointed towards the pamphlet of “Building a Singapore Muslim community of excellence”, published by Muis in 2006 and available on its website.
In the pamphlet were 10 desired attributes of the Singaporean Muslim — a guide on how Muslims can be religiously profound but still socially progressive in the context of Singapore.
Among them?
Holds strongly to Islamic principles while adapting itself to changing context.
Appreciates other civilisations and is self-confident to interact and learn from other communities.
Progressive, practises Islam beyond forms or rituals and rides the modernisation wave.
Well adjusted as contributing members of a multi-religious society and secular state.
Inclusive and practises pluralism, without contradicting Islam.
To have an Islamic authority actually recognising secularism and pluralism instead of demonising them as filthy words might seem astonishing, especially when you compare it to the Malaysian context. But it should not be.
It is undeniable that this brand of progressive Islam might just turn out to be a showcase by the Singaporean government to impress us Malaysian journalists. Perhaps the reality on the ground is much different. My experience with the Muslim community there is much too shallow to jump to concrete conclusions.
But in a way it might not matter at all. What is more important is the fact that this strain of inclusive and progressive Islam is the one recognised, endorsed and actively promoted by its government.
In Singapore, the mainstream Islam is one that is humble enough to stand on the same platform as nine other religions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Taoism, Christianity, Sikhism, Jainism, Bahá’í, and Zoroastrianism — in the 67-year-old Inter-Religious Organisation of Singapore, instead of lording over the others.
It is not the Islam which uses its political superiority and standing to marginalise and oppress not only adherents of other faiths, but also its own.
It is not the Islam that ends up being a mere tool for the powerful to stay in power, and the powerless to gain more power.
Source: The MalayMail Online
Building bridges across communities through inter-faith dialogues is one of Pope Francis’ main priorities, said Singapore President Tony Tan Keng Yam.
The President said this is an area where Singapore can “share its experience with the Vatican”, during a briefing with reporters on Sunday (May 29) after he concluded a week-long state visit to Italy and the Holy See.
Dr Tan had received a pontifical audience with Pope Francis earlier this week, the first ever for a Singaporean President. He also met Secretary of State of the Holy See Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who visited Singapore in 2015.
“For Singapore, racial and religious harmony is fundamental not only to our progress but to our very existence,” he said. “And from the start there was a great deal of emphasis on building bridges across communities. It’s been going on for so many years in Singapore that sometimes we take it for granted. But if you look at the world around us, this is quite an exception to the rule.”
Dr Tan added that while Singapore was “not insulated” from radical influences, her approach to handling the issue is “possibly a little bit different from other countries”.
“We look at it not as a security problem but in a holistic way, which involves ideological issues, social issues, family issues,” he said. “And our religious rehabilitation group is playing a great deal – it includes Muslim clerics who talk to those who have been affected by these radical teachings on the Internet.”
POPE INVITED TO VISIT SINGAPORE
Dr Tan said Pope Francis was “very keen” to learn more and “to see how we integrated the different communities together”, while he updated the Pope on the major role played by the Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore in the National Steering Committee on Racial and Religious Harmony, working with other communities to build religious and racial harmony.
During the meeting, the President highlighted to the Pope the valuable contributions the Catholic Church has made to Singapore’s development, including in the areas of education, healthcare and social welfare. He also invited Pope Francis to visit Singapore, something he said the Pope was pleased to accept.
Looking ahead, Dr Tan said he sees growth in the relationship between Singapore and the Vatican, with the Catholic Church playing a very important role “not only within the Catholic community but also among wider society in Singapore”.
“That’s very fundamental for us, and that’s something we can share with the rest of the world,” Dr Tan said.
Source: ChannelNewsAsia