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Tag: Malaysia

  • The Untouchables In Malaysia

    The Untouchables In Malaysia

    OUTSPOKEN: The recent public spat between the Crown Prince of Johor, Tunku Ismail Ibni Sultan Ibrahim, popularly known as TMJ (Tengku Mahkota Johore) and Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Aziz showed that under Umno Baru, two rules apply.

    One for the ordinary people and another for Umno Baru ministers. The irony is that it took a prince to force ministers to acknowledge that they lord it over the rakyat.

    Najib Razak should have ordered his minister to stop escalating tensions between royalty and ministers. Regardless of who is right or wrong, it is most unbecoming of ministers to act in an uncultured manner.

    Nazri behaved like a fish wife, trading insults over the garden fence, while others say he acted like a gangster. Najib’s silence reflects on his poor leadership skills, and heightens the enmity and fragile co-existence between the common man, ministers and the royal household.

    TMJ did not mince his words, when he rebuked Nazri, on social media and said, “You are a minister, not a God from the heavens who lords over everybody. Do not think that the people of this country exist to provide you with position and wealth. The position exists for you to serve the people.”

    The prince wanted to remind politicians of their roles and responsibilities and said, “… If you cannot deal with that, it just shows your arrogance to the people.”

    “I envision a future that every person has a right to voice their opinions. However, that is not the case in Malaysia today, where ministers think they are untouchable,” he added.

    TMJ is right. Ministers are Malaysia’s “untouchables”. Ministers can do no wrong. They are not subject to the laws which govern the rakyat. Ministers and their cronies, escape all punishment. Any court judgement appears to work in their favour, with only minimal fines.

    The following are possibly Malaysia’s most notorious untouchables:

    Dr Mahathir Mohamad may crow about Najib’s corruption and his link with Altantuya, but Mahathir’s laundry list of crimes against the nation, is as long, if not longer, than Najib’s. The monopoly of Malaysia’s major industries from padi to power supply, transport to telecommunication are self-evident. When things go wrong, as in the PKFZ scandal, no one is found guilty.

    Mahathir denied ordering the detention of people in Operation Lalang and distanced himself from Project IC. He shifted the blame for the emasculation of the judiciary to TMJ’s grandfather. Malaysians who consider Mahathir a hero, for taking up the rakyat’s cause, fail to realise that Mahathir has a hidden agenda.

    Across the South China Sea, Sarawak Governor Taib Mahmud is East Malaysia’s most prominent untouchable. Despite various disclosures by Bruno Manser Fonds and Sarawak Report, the MACC can find nothing concrete against Taib. The syariah courts find it difficult to prosecute his son, Bekir, for his infidelity and refusal to pay alimony to his wife. Being untouchable is perhaps, hereditary.

    Najib’s role in the Perak coup d’état of 2009, was an act of treason but Najib is an untouchable and no court can, or will, find him guilty. It helps when the PM and his deputy, close one eye to wrongdoings in government. All that matters is that Umno Baru triumphs.

    Despite the contradictory statements issued over 1MDB, Najib is still in charge of Putrajaya. The various departments, which conduct the investigations, the Attorney General and the IGP all report to him. That figures!

    Untouchables are not limited to men. Former Minister for Family, Women and Community Development, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil and her family were involved in the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) scandal, but the investigation into this fraud, has more or less fizzled out.

    Despite Shahrizat’s family’s alleged abuse of the funds, allocated for the NFC, and the evidence collected by opposition politicians, there has been no prosecution of the key players in the NFC corruption. Scapegoats are plentiful.

    The ulamas create divisions in society. They work hand-in-glove with Umno Baru and use religion to control the behaviour of Malaysians. They support one another’s hidden agenda. The ulamas are another strong group of untouchables in Malaysia.

    Extremist NGOs like Isma and Perkasa are also untouchable. They are outsourced by Umno Baru to cause tension and create distractions, when bad news hits the country. They make false claims about Malays being proselytised and make false accusations of Malays being “influenced” to convert, by the crosses on top of churches.

    Other untouchables are institutions like the Election Commission. Despite allegations of cheating in elections, the EC is not subject to scrutiny and has long-term plans to make Umno Baru win in future elections.

    Ordinary ministers, like Nazri, are untouchable. Nazri was not charged with sedition for rebuking TMJ and only had his knuckles rapped for “making mischief”. Opposition MP Nizar Jamaluddin, was charged with sedition, for tweeting that the money spent on the Sultan of Johore’s WWW1 car registration plate, could have been put to better use, to help the poor.

    Engineer Chan Hong Keong was jailed for one year and fined RM50,000 for sedition, for insulting the late Sultan Azlan Shah in appointing Zambry Abdul Kadir as Perak mentri besar, in the Perak coup d’état.

    Despite the 4R rule using ‘race, religion, rural people and royalty’ to control the rakyat, Malaysia appears to be unravelling at the seams, and lurches from one toe-curling embarrassment to another. This is perhaps, the curse of the Dalits.

    Mariam Mokhtar is “a Malaysian who dares to speak the truth”.

     

    Source: www.theantdaily.com

  • Woman Told To Cover-Up Before Allowed To Enter Hospital Premises

    Woman Told To Cover-Up Before Allowed To Enter Hospital Premises

    PETALING JAYA: A third “sarong” incident has been making waves on the internet.

    This time, a woman had to don a towel around her waist in order to enter a public hospital.

    The woman was reportedly stopped by security at Sungai Buloh hospital visitor’s gate on June 16 for wearing shorts.

    The woman’s father then borrowed a patient’s towel from one of the hospital wards and brought it back outside for the woman to wrap around herself.

    The woman was allowed into the compound only after covering her knees with the borrowed towel. It is believed that when questioned, the guards answered that the ruling was an instruction from the Health Ministry.

    Hospital Dress Code

    Among the images circulated was one of the woman wearing a yellow towel standing in front of a sign which listed the hospital dress code. Among the prohibited items of clothing are sleeveless tank tops, short shorts or short skirts. Long pants are allowed. The dress codes for both men and women are also available on the hospital’s website.

    On Monday, two women, a journalist and Selangor resident, were forced to wear sarongs to enter the Selangor State Secretariat building.

    In another incident on June 8, a woman was denied entry into the Gombak Road Transport Department (JPJ) office for wearing a skirt above her knee and was asked to wear a sarong for service.

     

    Source: www.thestar.com.my

  • Malaysian Muslim Man: Non-Muslims Should Not Have To Adjust To Accomodate Muslims’ Fast

    Malaysian Muslim Man: Non-Muslims Should Not Have To Adjust To Accomodate Muslims’ Fast

    This is exactly the spot where my daughter’s tutor sits when he comes to tutor her.

    He is a pious Christian. His free times are spent on missionary works. And when he is at my house, he has to sit under those frames.

    Did he complain that I was trying to convert him? Or that those Arabic names for Allah and Muhammad would lead him astray from his faith? Or that they would “rosakkan aQidah saya?”

    Did he ever request that his sitting be changed? Or that those frames be moved away or at least be covered by a batik sarong?

    Did he ask me to “respect” his faith? Or not to “insult” him or his faith?

    Well, he never did. Not even a word about those.

    That raises a question. Why is it that many Muslims in Mesia nowadays demand to be “respected” just because they are fasting? Why the need to close school canteens during Ramadhan? Why must non-Malay pupils be asked to drink behind closed doors and even in the toilet? Just because our kids are learning how to fast? Well, aren’t the non-Malay kids as well?

    I don’t care whether the minum-air-kencing statement was a joke. That misses the point.

    The point is why must non-Malay adjust their life to facilitate us, Muslims Melayoos, to fast?

    If that was necessary, why don’t we ask our non-Malay brothers and sisters not to study too hard so that we the Melayoos could at least get respectable marks during exams compared to them? Ask them to “respect” our inability to get good exams results? (I am not saying ALL of us are unable lah…so please don’t get emo with me here).

    Or ask them not to work too hard so that they don’t make too much more money than us.

    I call it self-pity.

    Which is, a pity, really.

     

    Source: Azhar Harun

  • Quran Doesn’t Specify Women’s Hair As Aurat, Muslim NGOs Insists As Concervative Islam Digs In

    Quran Doesn’t Specify Women’s Hair As Aurat, Muslim NGOs Insists As Concervative Islam Digs In

    KUALA LUMPUR, June 22 – The Quran does not specifically mention hair as part of a woman’s “aurat”, Sisters in Islam (SIS) has said amid rising religious conservatism in Malaysia.

    The Muslim women’s rights group said the perception that a woman’s “aurat” covers her entire body except for the face and hands came from a hadith narrated by Asma Abu Bakar. A hadith is a collection of sayings attributed to Prophet Muhammad.

    “However, this hadith has been greatly contested by Islamic scholars, such as Thariq Iwadullah and Sheikh Nasiruddin Al-Abani, on the grounds of its authenticity in the chain of message as the ‘rawi’ (transmitter of hadith) was renowned for being dishonest,” SIS told Malay Mail Online in a recent interview.

    “SIS is of the opinion that hair is not part of a woman’s ‘aurat’. In fact, the Quran has never mentioned hair as being specifically a woman’s ‘aurat’.

    “When reading Surah an-Nur (24:31) on covering one’s modesty, it is important to understand the context of when the verse was introduced,” the women’s rights group added.

    SIS said that the verse which states that women should “draw their khimar (head covering) over their bosoms” was made in reference to the culture of 7th century Arabia, in which women traditionally already wore the khimar.

    “The message of this verse is to advocate modesty by calling on women to cover their bosoms with the khimar, as bosoms traditionally did not constitute body parts which was (sic) already visible.

    “If hair was also considered a woman’s private part, the Quran would have clearly specified it in 24:31 when women were instructed to cover their bosoms,” said the group.

    The increasingly conservative stance of Islamic authorities and figures in Malaysia has been reflected in the way Muslim women are told to wear the tudung and are harshly criticised if they do not so, even though most Malay-Muslim women in the 1950s and 1960s, before the 1979 Iranian Revolution, did not cover their heads.

    Tudung brands in Malaysia have boomed since the Iranian Revolution started the popularisation of the tudung in the country, with one company estimating about 80 to 90 per cent of Muslim women aged between 25 and 50 years now wear headscarves.

    Women’s rights activist Norhayati Kaprawi, who had made a documentary titled Aku Siapa (Who Am I?) about why women wear the tudung, told Malay Mail Onlinerecently that she found that some Muslim women in both villages and cities in Malaysia were ostracised for not covering their heads.

    Following the uproar over several Muslims who had recently accused artistic gymnast Farah Ann Abdul Hadi, who did not wear a tudung, of exposing her “aurat” and the “shape of her vagina” in a leotard, some Twitter users have insisted that Muslim women should wear the tudung even when playing sports.

    Twitter user Ar.Zainur tweeted via the handle @ibnzainal95 last Sunday a picture of women athletes wearing headscarves, track bottoms and long-sleeved shirts.

    A tweet by HanyaTweet @TapiUntuk Semua on May 31 that lists body parts like hair, arms, legs, and the chest as “aurat” that must be covered, or “wajib tutup”, has been retweeted over 3,000 times.

    SIS told Malay Mail Online that the interpretation of the “aurat” in Malaysia has become increasingly influenced by Arab culture since the 1980s, noting that most Malay-Muslim women did not wear the tudung during the 1950s and 1960s, including the wife of the Kelantan mufti then and the spouse of Indonesian ulama, Prof Dr Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah, better known as Hamka.

    “This very narrow and conservative interpretation of ‘aurat’ has also been directed mainly to women and as a result, the growing obsession with controlling women’s bodies by making wearing the hijab compulsory,” said SIS.

    Perak Mufti Tan Sri Harussani Zakaria told Malay Mail Online recently that Muslim women must cover their entire bodies except for their face and hands.

    Malaysians have come to Farah Ann’s defence, with a Facebook page even set up to support the 21-year-old athlete, who had won a gold medal in floor exercise during the recent SEA Games.

    Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin also said last week that the authorities should come out with guidelines for “perverts” instead of trying to regulate sportswear.

    Khairy’s remark follows his Cabinet colleague Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom, minister in charge of Islamic affairs, who told Parliament last Monday that the federal government will carry out an in-depth study on Islamic compliance for clothing used for sports and other fields, amid the uproar over Farah Ann’s outfit at the SEA Games in Singapore.

     

    Source: www.themalaymailonline.com

  • Chinese Teacher Helps Adopted Muslim Kids Practice Their Faith

    Chinese Teacher Helps Adopted Muslim Kids Practice Their Faith

    A Chinese woman from Kota Kinabalu adopted five Muslim children in the past 20 years, reported Sin Chew Daily.

    Kindergarten teacher Connie Wong, fondly known as Cikgu Wong, is a Buddhist but she makes sure the children, aged between 11 and 20, practise their faith.

    She now has two children staying with her – Jefri, 13, and Ridzuan, 11.

    They attend religious classes in school and go for Friday prayers.

    Wong, 59, prepares halal food for them daily. During the holy month of Ramadan, she makes sure they observe fasting.

    The two oldest children have started working while the third, Aiza, is in a learning centre.

    Recalling her first adoption, Wong said a woman brought a two-day-old baby to her family and begged them to look after it temporarily.

    A week later, the woman said she did not want the baby anymore.

    Two years later, Wong adopted a baby boy after her sister’s neighbour wanted to put him up for adoption.

    Wong adopted the third baby, also a boy, not long after that as his father had died and his mother could not afford to look after him.

    Her fourth son was brought to her by a woman who said her tenant had left the baby and disappeared.

    Her youngest adopted son was found by her family at a rubbish site near her family’s grocery store.

    “It is not easy to raise the children but I am happy,” Wong said, adding that she would not give them up.

    She supplements her income by collecting recyclable items and selling fruits at the market during weekends.

     

    Source: www.thestar.com.my