Rilek1Corner

Tag: Muslim

  • Melayu Paling Miskin di Singapura?

    Dorling Kindersley Limited dari London telah menerbitkan satu buku teks yang menerangkan bahawa orang Melayu adalah yang PALING MISKIN di Singapura.

    Malays poorest in Singapore

    Malays poorest in SG_1

    Malays Poorest in SG_2

    Di tengah hiruk-pikuk gara-gara kenyataan ini, seorang anak melayu bernama ‘Fadhil’ setuju dan menambah bangsa Melayu memang ramai yang beragama Islam. Anda setuju dengan pendapat Fadhil ini?

    http://www.facebook.com/liyana.fadhil
    http://www.facebook.com/liyana.fadhil

    Before i start commenting, i would apologize 1st. My comment might hurt others and might be agreeable with others. Hear it goes…

    Its a known fact that generally Malays are poor. Generally Malays in SG are Muslims. So the fact that Malays are generally poorer is because

    1. They tend to leave it to fate. Always citing its fated that my future will be like this. What’s your effort in making a difference in your life?
    2. They spend on impulse & love showing off thus making them poorer due to never ending debt/riba’. We can see and hear from marriage consultants where weddings are paid on credit. Some even ended up with bad debts and bankruptcy.
    3. Islam is a rich religion and it advocates business but many are laid back and choose to grab a 9 to 5 job. Our Prophet PBUH used to ride on a camel called Buraq and the price of that camel, which is the highest grade today, is almost the same as a Ferrari in Dubai.
    4. Some fail to give their parents money thus not getting enough blessings.

    Im a human and reminding myself too. And if the comments about Malay being poor hits you as being poor materially, spiritually, emotionally, status symbol, socially or even physically, the responsibility for a change is in your hands. When an opportunity to change is present, act.

    Again Im sorry for the hard truth.

    Fadhil not Liyana

    *Foto kontribusi Shila Lada

  • Sesi Dialog PM Lee, Pemimpin Islam tentang isu Tudung

    Foto: The Straits Times

    Sesi dialog tadi berjalan lancar.  Saya gembira kerana para peserta berkongsi pandangan mereka dengan jujur dan secara terus terang, objektif dan matang.  Kami berbincang dari hati ke hati.

    Saya akur isu tudung ini suatu isu penting dan sensitif bagi masyarakat Islam Singapura.  Tapi sebenarnya isu pokok bukan tentang tudung tetapi lebih luas lagi iaitu apakah bentuk masyarakat yang kita inginkan di Singapura.

    Pendirian pemerintah atas soalan pokok ini terang dan kita telah mengambil pendirian ini sejak merdeka 50 tahun lalu iaitu kita mahu bina di Singapura sebuah masyarakat yang berbilang kaum dan berbilang agama dan yang memberi peluang saksama kepada semua kaum dan semua agama di Singapura.

    Kita juga harap kaum-kaum minoriti akan dapat ruang yang cukup untuk menjalankan kewajipan mereka dan cara hidup mereka untuk mengambil bahagian dalam kejayaan dan kemajuan negara Singapura.

    Seberapa boleh pemerintah akan menolong dan memberi sokongan yang lebih kepada kaum-kaum minoriti kerana kita harap mereka akan maju ke hadapan dengan kaum-kaum lain dan termasuk kaum Melayu/Islam.

    Tapi untuk capai matlamat besar kita ini, kita harus bersikap tolak ansur supaya semua kaum selesa dengan satu sama lain.  Kita tidak boleh berbincang tiap-tiap satu isu secara terpencil kerana kalau kita berbincang secara begitu dan berbincang mengenai hak, wajib dan bagaimana kita mesti dapat sesuatu isu, boleh jadi segala-gala objektif kita yang lebih penting akan dihapuskan.  Itu saya fikir sangat buruk untuk Singapura.

    Jadi kejayaan Singapura tidak diukur berdasarkan satu-satu perkara sahaja tetapi dalam konteks yang lebih besar – sama ada kaum-kaum yang berbeza hidup secara harmoni; sama ada semua rakyat berpeluang untuk maju dan hidup dengan aman dan selamat.  Inilah perspektif yang lebih luas yang saya ambil dalam perbincangan tadi dan saya percaya peserta-peserta faham dan terima pandangan saya.

    Jika kita lihat selama 10 tahun lalu, jelas dalam isu tudung telah ada kemajuan.  Banyak badan berkanun telah membenarkan kakitangan mereka memakai tudung bersama pakaian uniform mereka.
    Dan keadaan yang kita lihat hari ini, saya tidak fikir, akan selalu kekal begini kerana masyarakat kita sedang berubah, dunia sedang berubah, negara sedang maju ke depan. Saya fikir setiap tahun secara beransur-ansur, perlahan-lahan, apa yang kita buat di Singapura dalam masyarakat kita akan juga berubah.  Tetapi perubahan ini mesti berjalan dengan teliti, dengan berhati-hati, mesti berjalan tidak terlalu cepat atau menghapuskan apa yang kita telah capai iaitu suatu masyarakat di mana semua kaum dapat hidup dengan harmoni dan dapat menjadi orang Islam yang dapat menunaikan wajib Islam dan pada masa yang sama seorang warga Singapura yang menunaikan kewajiban sebagai warga Singapura.

    Jadi pemerintah inginkan yang terbaik untuk masyarakat Singapura dan untuk masyarakat Melayu/Islam. Dalam isu ini ada pandangan-pandangan yang berlainan tetapi hasrat kita tidak berbeza.  Kita harap yang terbaik untuk kaum Melayu/Islam dan kita harap kita boleh bekerjasama dengan kaum Melayu/Islam untuk mewujudkan hasrat kita.

    Tadi dalam dialog ada yang kata kita patut bertanding antara satu sama lain supaya dapat menjelaskan isu ini.  Saya kata tidak.  Kita patut menari bersama, supaya kita boleh bekerjasama, supaya kita boleh capai apa yang kita sama-sama harapkan.

  • Constructive Dialogue and Constructing Legitimacy

    The government’s continued policy to ban the hijab should not come as a surprise.

    Yaacob Ibrahim said in his note that he wants us to continue constructive dialogue with him. According to Yaacob, he and the Malay MPs will then raise it with PM and the Cabinet.

    Constructive dialogue is a nebulous term. The best definition is an event where two or more parties speak and listen to each other to help everyone improve. A dialogue requires speaking and listening. The parties should have relatively equal power.

    But that is not how it works with the Singapore government.

    There are several key components to constructive dialogue Singapore style:

    1. Citizens provide feedback to the government.

    2. This feedback should be held in proper respect and decorum.

    3. Government representative listens to the feedback.

    4. Representative explain their position.

    5. Representative assures citizens their views will be taken under advicement.

    This is not a dialogue. It is a claim for legitimacy.

    But let us assume there is a constructive element to dialogue. Is being constructive evenly applied? Or is there greater expectation on one party than another?

    If the engagement is based on citizen disagreement with government policies, then the constructive nature applies to how the citizen engages the government.How does the engagement take place? What are their relative powers?

    The power differential is large. The government is the sole decision maker. Because it is held under the banner of being constructive, the manner, not just the message is important.

    Criticism would be considered negative. Instead, feedback should be given with proper deference.But what is also important is not the actual meeting. Both parties know how the other would react. Take yesterday’s meeting between the government and Muslim leaders for example. What was the meeting about?

    The optimists had hoped the government would make concessions. They attended the meeting with the belief that a decision had been made and the government would shift their policy. In this scenario, they expected the government to accede to their request prior to the meeting. The meeting itself was not to construct a new position. It was to listen to an announcement. That cannot be seen as being constructive.

    The pessimists (who were proven right this time), had expected the government to announce the policy would remain as is. Once again, there is nothing constructive. The only constructive argument made is that feedback is given so that the government may modify the policy in future. But this is not a new issue.

    There had been numerous discussions over 41 years. Where is the constructive agenda in the process?The pessimist’ assessment is however flawed on one significant point. They believed that the government met with Muslim leaders to inform them of the rejection prior to announcing it to the public.

    It is supposed to break the news a little easier. The argument follows that since the government took time to meet and announce it to them, it shows that the government takes the issue seriously.

    But that is not why they were invited to meet. Because what followed was more important than what was said during the meeting.

    When the government announced their rejection, they referred to the meeting to claim the decision’s legitimacy. Various media reports referred to the government’s meeting with Muslim leaders. They further indicated that the leaders understood the government’s decision.

    Halimah Yacob posted her FB page saying:

    “We had a very good discussion with representatives of PERGAS and the Malay Muslim organizations at Mendaki just now on the hijab issue. The leaders appreciated that the Malay Muslim MPs were doing our best on this issue…”

    The meeting was not simply to inform Muslim leaders of the decision. It was to grant moral authority to the rejection of the hijab. The government claimed that Muslim leaders understood the ban. That should mollify the community. If our leaders accept and appreciate the decision, then so should we.

    Constructive dialogue then was not a mere exercise to find a better process. It has always been a process to grant legitimacy to unpopular decisions.

    Zulfikar M Shariff

  • ARE WE READY FOR THE HIJAB-IN-UNIFORM?

    When Muslim girls wearing the tudung in Singapore’s public schools became a major controversy in 2002, many Muslims asked for accommodation. The government counter-argued that public spaces shared by diverse ethnic and religious groups in Singapore have to remain strictly secular and any exceptions would invite competing demands from other communities.

    The issue never went away, but we seemed to have progressed a little. When the issue of allowing the hijab in the uniformed services became a matter of public debate recently, the government responded in measured tones. While asserting that it must manage the diverse needs of society to maintain overall harmony, the government now calls for constructive dialogue and the search for practical solutions.

    It was implied that society is not ready for the hijab-in-uniform and until such time that other communities are willing to accept it, the status quo would remain. Now that the ball has been thrown to ‘society’, the question seems to be: are we ready for the hijab?

    The Dastar and the Hijab

    Dastar is the Punjabi word for the Sikh turban. In the recent debate, the dastar was frequently cited. Proponents of the hijab-in-uniform pointed to the accommodation of the dastar as a reflection that society is ready, while opponents dismissed it as a historical legacy that postcolonial society had already gotten used to.

    I think both sides are wrong.

    Accommodation of the dastar is indeed a legacy, a British colonial one. But the British decision to accommodate it was not for multicultural reasons; it was political and racial – even racist. After experiencing great difficulties subjugating the Sikhs in India, the British co-opted them into their imperial army because they were believed to be a martial race.

    The dastar, a symbol of spirituality and holiness in Sikhism, became primarily a sign of honour, courage and loyalty to the British empire.

    But those who dismissed our postcolonial accommodation of the dastar as simply being based on historical legacy are also mistaken. Such an argument amounts to saying that Singaporeans are merely tolerating the wearing of the dastar in public institutions because the British had allowed it. This smacks of condescension to Sikhs and insults us all.

    So why did we, as a postcolonial society, allow the accommodation of the dastar to continue? I believe we did so because we recognised that the dastar is an important component of Sikh culture – and the Sikh community is an integral part of our society. This is why the Chinese tomb guarded by statues of dastar-wearing Sikh guards quickly became the icon of Bukit Brown cemetery. Contemporary Singaporeans who discovered Bukit Brown immediately recognised the significance accorded to the Sikhs and their culture by the Chinese of our colonial past.

    Similarly, any accommodation of the hijab should be done out of multicultural respect and understanding, not for political expediency or the symbolic function of co-opting the purported ethnic essence in the service of the state.

    Therefore, those who used the example of Muslim women wearing the hijab in the armed forces of Pakistan or Iran to argue for accommodation in Singapore are also mistaken. The hijab is not being accommodated in these countries, but being co-opted as an Islamic symbol for the political ends of the state.

    Canada and Norway are better international comparisons for Singapore’s situation. Singapore was ahead of both countries in accommodating the dastar, but is now falling behind these progressive multicultural societies in failing to accommodate the hijab. Recently, Canada allowed the hijab in uniformed services for multicultural reasons.

    The proponents of the hijab-in-uniform in the recent debate in Singapore mainly used the Arabic name for the headscarf instead of the Malay tudung, thus signifying the conversation is part of a global movement to gain multicultural acceptance of the headscarf.

    A Maturing Discussion

    Is it inconceivable that one day, outside Parliament House, we could have a statue of the first woman speaker of parliament wearing the hijab? It would be a statement that the hijab is not just an incidental ethnic dress, but an important component of Muslim culture – hence demonstrating a greater multicultural acceptance of Muslims in our society.

    My sense is that in 2002, it was inconceivable for most Singaporeans that a prominent political leader would wear the hijab in the secular spaces of our public institutions. But a decade later, we have had its significance explained to us and are more  accustomed to our friends, colleagues and neighbours wearing the hijab.

    In fact, many Singaporeans applauded the prime minister when he appointed Madam Halimah Yacob speaker of parliament in 2013, not because she was a hijab-wearing Muslim woman, but because she was most suitably qualified by her political work and moral integrity. The point is that Madam Halimah’s hijab is irrelevant to her performance as speaker.

    Likewise, if the hijab can be designed to be incorporated into the uniform and does not interfere with job performance, would Singaporeans care that the nurse, the police officer, the paramedic or the soldier was wearing a hijab?

    After decades of meritocratic and multicultural education, it would be hard to believe that Singaporeans would mind persons in positions of trust wearing the hijab because of their faith. We are meritocratic and multicultural because we embrace our cultural diversity. And we judge each other not by our different cultural practices but by professional performance.

    You Never Know Till You Try

    So, is society ready for the hijab-in-uniform?

    There is no way to really know until we try allowing it. No matter how many surveys we take or how much we debate the issue, there will always be the suspicion there are too many of us with prejudices hiding behind politically correct opinions. If we do not try, we will not rid those prejudices lingering in us. Trying is the best way to search for practical solutions.

    And if we are not even prepared to try, what is the point of dialogue?

    By all means, start small by trying it out with one police division or with nurses at one public hospital. But at least let us start trying.

    We owe it to our cherished principles of meritocracy and multiculturalism to try.

    Daniel PS Goh

    Source: http://bit.ly/1dvAZjf

  • DARI PARLIMEN: JAWAPAN DPM TEO TENTANG HIJAB

    Timbalan Perdana Menteri Teo Chee Hean berkata, membenarkan variasi dalam uniform seperti hijab atau tudung, dalam khidmat-khidmat beruniform tertentu, akan mengurangkan identiti umum perkhidmatan berkenaan.

    Dalam jawapan bertulis beliau di Parlimen hari ini, DPM Teo berkata dengan tidak membolehkan variasi sedemikian, amalan sekular Pemerintah boleh ditegakkan.

    Ini juga kata beliau akan meyakinkan rakyat bahawa mereka akan menerima khidmat-khidmat utama dengan adil dan saksama tanpa mengira kaum atau agama.

    DPM Teo berkata demikian sebagai menjawab pertanyaan AP pembangkang, Pritam Singh, yang mahu tahu sama ada Pemerintah akan menimbangkan kemungkinan membolehkan pemakaian hijab dalam perkhidmatan beruniform.

    Pemerintah kata Encik Teo perlu mengimbangi keperluan kumpulan-kumpulan berbeza dalam masyarakat Singapura yang berbilang kaum dan agama.

    Encik Teo yang juga menjadi Menteri Ehwal Dalam Negeri menambah, rakyat Singapura memahami perlunya mengimbangi apa yang diinginkan kumpulan mereka, dengan keperluan memenuhi kumpulan lain.

    Serta memahami perlunya mengekalkan ruang bersama yang memberi manfaat kepada semua, terutama kumpulan-kumpulan minoriti.