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| Malaysians are an emotional lot Posted: 15 Nov 2013 01:24 PM PST
So carry on and be emotional. That is your right. You can be emotional about your religion. You can be emotional about your language. You can be emotional about your culture, customs and traditions. You can be emotional about your prejudices and superstitions. You can be emotional about your gender. You can be emotional about your sexual orientation and preferences. NO HOLDS BARRED Raja Petra Kamarudin
A reader by the name of 'Joseph George' posted a comment in my article 'Where the fuck is Anwar Ibrahim's statement?' saying that I get very emotional when the subject (or discussion) is regarding the Monarchy (or Rulers). I would have thought that passionate (and not emotional) is the correct word to use considering that I have been carrying the cause for change for about 35 years when most Malaysians such as Joseph George woke up only very recently in 2008. To be able to stay with a cause for 35 years you certainly have to be very passionate about that cause. If not you would have moved on a long time ago. Anyway, most if not all Malaysians are emotional about one thing or another. Hence it is not surprising that I would be emotional about the subject of the Monarchy if that is how Joseph George would like to describe it. After all, I have never denied that I am a Royalist at heart and offer no apologies for being one. I mean, would I condemn you for being a Republican and should you apologise for being one? I respect your right to be a Republican, as you should respect mine to be a Royalist. This is what a democratic and civil society is all about -- something I have been propagating for a long time now and which appears to escape most people. As I said, most if not all Malaysians are emotional about one thing or another. Hence allow me to be emotional (although I would claim to be passionate rather than emotional) about my cause and you can be emotional about yours as well. That is called respect for each other's fundamental liberties. The Malaysian Hindus are emotional about their temples and would masuk hantu (go berserk) if the authorities demolish any of their temples even though that temple may be squatting on other people's land. The Malaysian Chinese would also masuk hantu if the government denies them what they consider as their right to Chinese schools and Chinese education although some people regard mother-tongue education as a hindrance to racial harmony and national unity and although in other countries such as the UK mother-tongue education is not an issue to the Chinese. The Malaysian Christians are emotional about being allowed to use the Kalimah Allah (the Allah word) although Christians in other parts of the world would not be emotional about this issue and, in fact, would refuse to use Allah for God and would even consider it an insult if, say, the Church of England uses Allah in its sermons in church. The Malaysian Muslims are emotional about the Christians wanting to use the Allah word because they regard it as a clandestine move by Christians to proselytise Muslims. The Umno members are emotional about the ABU (Anything But Umno) movement because they regard this as an attempt to end Malay political dominance and thereafter abolish Malay privileges and remove Islam as the religion of the Federation and later abolish the Constitutional Monarchy in favour of a Republic. The Penang Chinese are emotional about maintaining a Chinese government in Penang and they switched from MCA to Gerakan and now to DAP every time they see an erosion of Chinese political power and Umno becoming too strong in Penang. (Anwar Ibrahim himself said so). And Anwar Ibrahim is emotional about becoming the Prime Minister of Malaysia and he would work with anybody who can assure him that his dream can materialise. Some say that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is emotional about maintaining his legacy and in assuring that his dynasty would continue in the spirit that Malaysian politics is very dynastic in nature for both the ruling party and the opposition. So you see, at the end of the day, everyone is emotional about one thing or another. And this is the beauty of a democratic and civil society. You are allowed the right to be emotional about your cause. The Bersih activists and supporters are allowed to be emotional about the general elections and even allowed to declare the present government illegal although in the Westminster first-past-the-post system the party that gets to form the government is the one that wins the most number of seats and not the one that wins the most popular votes. So carry on and be emotional. That is your right. You can be emotional about your religion. You can be emotional about your language. You can be emotional about your culture, customs and traditions. You can be emotional about your prejudices and superstitions. You can be emotional about your gender. You can be emotional about your sexual orientation and preferences. In short, you can be emotional about anything under the sun and even believe that the sun revolves around the earth or that the earth is flat, like what Christians used to believe (and would kill those who believed otherwise), if you so wish. And as for me, I am 'emotional' (to quote Joseph George) about maintaining the Constitutional Monarchy because I am not convinced that an American-type Republic can work seeing that the political corruption in the US is far, far worse than in the UK. Hence, as the Pakatan Rakyat supporters would say, I choose the lesser of the two evils (yes, this is what Pakatan Rakyat supporters believe).
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| Posted: 14 Nov 2013 04:57 PM PST
I once related a story (I think it was eight or nine years ago) about one of Anwar Ibrahim's old classmates in MCKK, a retired army colonel, who went to do his Friday prayers at the KLCC mosque. The imam was going on and on about utter nonsense and this 'Old Boy Budak Kolet' stood up and shouted at the imam to shut up and sit down. NO HOLDS BARRED Raja Petra Kamarudin
Islam's holiest day Friday is where Muslims perform a weekly communal prayer and listen to sermons to guide their life. But for the past two weeks, national laureate A. Samad Said has been attending the Friday prayers in KL's Masjid India where the sermon is preached in Tamil. Fondly known as Pak Samad, the octogenarian told The Malaysian Insider yesterday that he does not understand Tamil but that does not bother him one bit. In fact, he is relieved. Relieved because he prefers not to understand what the message is as the sermons have turned too political for his liking. Samad used to fulfill his Friday religious obligation at the As-Syakirin mosque in KLCC but there was one Friday where the imam called on the people not to demonstrate, but right after prayers, the congregation demonstrated. That made him feel uncomfortable and so he moved to the National Mosque. But it wasn't any different. He stopped doing so two weeks ago because the "preacher was reading the sermon and not preaching". He became disillusioned as politics and BN propaganda are being propagated in mosques these days through sermons prepared by the federal Department of Islamic Development (Jakim). (As I see it: http://helpvictor.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/political-sermons-in-malaysian-mosques.html) ***************************************** I once related a story (I think it was eight or nine years ago) about one of Anwar Ibrahim's old classmates in MCKK, a retired army colonel, who went to do his Friday prayers at the KLCC mosque. The imam was going on and on about utter nonsense and this 'Old Boy Budak Kolet' stood up and shouted at the imam to shut up and sit down. The imam was so shocked he actually did shut up and sit down. A few weeks later the imam died and this Old Boy felt so bad because he was not sure whether the imam was so shocked that his heart gave up on him. Invariably, this Old Boy retired colonel is quite a maverick. I suppose that is why he was my friend although he was not from my batch but from Anwar's batch. Now we have another maverick, Pak Samad, who would rather pray in a Tamil-speaking mosque than a Bahasa Malaysia-speaking mosque because he does not want to hear (or rather hear but not understand) what the imam has to say in his kutbah (sermon). So, yes, I am not the only maverick in town. When I was detained under the Internal Security Act in 2008, one of the four 'criminal charges' listed in my Detention Order was my so-called crime of insulting Islam. And this crime was the result of a police report made against me by JAKIM, the authority that is behind all these Friday prayer sermons. It seems JAKIM took offense to my criticism of their kutbah. Hence that is perceived as an insult to Islam. During the two weeks interrogation session, I argued that I did not insult Islam. Instead, I insulted Muslims, in particular Muslims who distort the teachings of Islam and give Islam a bad name. The fact that I wrote 'Muslims are the real enemy of Islam' shows that it is Muslims and not Islam that I insulted. However, that 'defence' I put up did not stop them from packing me off to Kamunting two weeks later. And in Kamunting I was ordered to attend religious rehabilitation classes. I also remember writing some years back about how one day I was so disgusted with the kutbah of the imam of the Sungai Buloh mosque that halfway through I stood up and walked out of the mosque. I did not wait for the prayers to begin and never went back to that mosque again. When I criticise JAKIM's kutbah that is perceived as an insult to Islam. How would JAKIM perceive Pak Samad's boycott of the kutbah by going to pray in a mosque that he does not understand what the kutbah says? Interesting, is it not?
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