10 Sept, 2008
They can work in bars, nightclubs, discos, pubs and karaoke lounges. Never mind if liquor is haram. Just make sure they wear a tudung.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
I conducted a most interesting experiment a couple of days ago. What happened was this. Someone sent me an e-mail disagreeing with something I wrote and I forwarded this e-mail to a friend. My friend then replied to the e-mail although that was not the reason I sent it to him.
The brunt of the ‘disagreement’ was the issue about the tudung.
What I wrote in that article (Inventing new religious rituals) was based on ‘accepted’ historical accounts about the crisis that Prophet Muhammad had to go through when his wife, Aisha, was accused of adultery. And I use inverted commas for ‘accepted’ because this would all depend on whether you are reading the Sunni or Shia version of ‘accepted historical accounts’. After all, is not ‘the Indian Mutiny’ to some an ‘Indian fight for independence’ to others?
My article actually ran into many pages with just a brief one-liner about the tudung. But only that one-liner attracted a response from this chap who sent me that e-mail.
It was like me writing about the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and I mention in passing that one of those who were massacring the women and children wore a green shirt. The entire point about the ethnic cleansing and about the innocent civilians being butchered is totally ignored. Instead, everyone focuses on the part about the green shirt and an intense debate is centred on just this green shirt.
Anyway, today, I do not wish to talk about the tudung. That was just a one-liner mentioned in passing and not material to the article. What I do want to discuss, however, is the seriousness of my article mentioned above, which analysed why millions of Muslims kill one another until this very day. We all know about the Sunni-Shia conflict. We all know that Shia means Shiatul Ali or the Party of Ali and it is all about the Fourth Caliph, Ali. We all know that Ali was the Prophet’s son-in-law and that it was he who urged the Prophet to divorce Aisha. And we all know, since that day, Aisha and Ali never made up and that this eventually led to the War of the Camel and Ali’s assassination soon after that.
Yes, there was great animosity between Aisha and Ali, the Prophet’s widow and son-in-law respectively. And it all started when Aisha was accidentally left behind in the desert. The young handsome Arab who rode by recognised Aisha because of the tudung that she wore. According to ‘accepted’ historical accounts, the young handsome Arab had never met Aisha before but he recognised her because of the tudung she wore and that he knew, since only the Prophet’s wives wore the tudung, then she must be one of the Prophet’s wives.
That was all I wanted to say. The article was not about the tudung. It was about how the Prophet’s wife was accused of adultery and even she was not asked to swear on the Quran that she is innocent of the allegation. And it was also about, if the Prophet himself never asked his own wife to swear on the Quran that she is innocent of the allegation of sexual misconduct, then how come they are demanding that Anwar Ibrahim do so?
But do they want to talk about this most serious issue? Do they want to discuss how this dark episode in Islam’s history greatly divided the Muslims, which has resulted in millions of Muslims killing Muslims, until today? No, they want to talk about that one-liner mentioned in passing. They want to talk about the tudung.
And that is the debate currently raging in Malaysia Today. The debate is not about the conflict within Islam and the millions who have died because of it. It is not about whether there is such a thing as swearing on the Quran. The debate is about the tudung, though the article was not about the tudung.
That is the mind of the typical Malay. They totally ignore the 99% and harp on the 1% till the cows come home. They ignore the millions of deaths, Muslims dying at the hands of Muslims, and will kill each other over a piece of cloth, the tudung. That is the mind of the typical Malay.
Let us look at another example of how Malays have their priorities screwed up. People have to eat. That is the basic need of humankind. They also need clothes and a roof over their heads. So they need to work to pay for all these needs. And they work in bars, nightclubs, discos, pubs and karaoke lounges that sell liquor, and sometimes sex as well. Hell, they even work in Malaysia Airlines that also sells liquor.
But do these same Malays who appear upset about the debate on the tudung want to debate about this matter? Are they concerned that fellow Muslims need to resort to a ‘haram’ way of life just to put food on the table? If I were to say there is no proof that liquor is haram in Islam, I would get hundreds of messages condemning me. I would be classified as a deviant. Police reports would be made against me. The Minister would threaten to detain me under the Internal Security Act. Why? Because I said there is no proof that liquor is haram in Islam. Of course liquor is haram. How can I say there is no proof it is haram? Outrage, outrage, outrage.
Would these same ‘concerned’ Malays take the trouble to debate on how to help those fellow Muslims, who are forced to resort to a ‘haram’ way of life, find ‘halal’ employment? Would they diligently pay their zakat and ensure that this zakat money reaches those who have no jobs because they are not able to work in bars, nightclubs, discos, pubs and karaoke lounges? Or would they not care because if fellow Muslims have to work in bars, nightclubs, discos, pubs and karaoke lounges then that is their problem, not mine? They can work in bars, nightclubs, discos, pubs and karaoke lounges. Never mind if liquor is haram. Just make sure they wear a tudung.
Yes, much ado about the tudung. Everyone is hot around the collar because of that one-liner mentioned in passing. Who cares about the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia? We want to only debate that green shirt.
And these same outraged and concerned Malays are very silent on the incident where 13 Umno Penang divisions called the Chinese squatters and immigrants. Look at the message below that has been making its rounds and has been posted on a few ‘Malay’ blogs and websites. None of those who sent me e-mails or posted comments about the tudung want to talk about this matter. This is not important. This is not serious. The tudung is.
YB Brother Anwar Bin Ibrahim (YB BABI) is indeeed a "makhluk perosak", a dangerous pestilent, and a pestiferous living organism!
This is taken directly from Rocky's Bru with permission, and relevant to the country and so I decided to re-publish it. Rocky received the SMS below and I would like all of you like-minded Malaysians to regurgitate this message as long as it takes to understand the gravity of the problem. This message is especially mean to Umno members, those Malay-morons in PKR, and fence-sitter Malays in general on how warped this Malay called BABI is in his desperate and futile quest to be the prime minister of this country. This is what happens when you take money from someone or a country promising that you can be the leader and then will look favourably after the interest of others, this will include giving free water, which Malaysia has in abundance. Below is what appeared in Rocky's Bru:
"Bru: Everyone's doing his/her countdown to Sept 16, the day Anwar Ibrahim says he will topple the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. This sms is part of the fever that's sending shivers down our collective spine. This one's about how the anxiously-anticipated defection of BN MPs to PR for the sake of 16/9 would reduce cosniderably the Malay-Muslim representation in the new PR government. Sms received last night after buka:
Sebarkan: BN: 140 Kerusi (MP Islam - 89 kerusi; MP bukan Islam - 51) Pakatan: 82 kerusi (MP Islam - 43 kerusi; MP bukan Islam - 39). Katalah jadi 30 yg lompat, semua bukan Islam, maka kerusi Pakatan 43 MP Islam & 69 MP bukan Islam..jika 30 yg lompat, 5 Islam 25 bukan, maka Pakatan jadi 48 MP Islam & 64 bukan Islam..jika inilah yg Anwar kehendaki, maka dia akan memusnah Islam & Melayu di M'sia..kita berdoa agar ia hanya impian kosong & Allah lindungi BN."
So basically if Pakatan Rakyat under YB BABI were to rule the country, Malaysia will be like Bosnia-Herzegovina (B-H) where after Muslims there being massacred those who were spared were forced to accept a "comprehensive" settlement under the Dayton Accord, which allowed the presidency of B-H to be held only by Bosnian-Muslim, the rest of the presidency (or something like a parliament which B-H does not have) will be controllefd by majority Orthodox-Serbs and Catholic-Croats. Mind you after 350,000 Bosnians are unaccounted for, either killed or killed or massacred or massacred, and the Bosnian Muslim only get the dismembered presidency of B-H!!!!
BABI now you know why I am calling you YB BABI because you are indeed a BABI for not knowing your recent history, f*@k you and your "Serbs" and "Croats" for trying to rule this country.
Anyway, here is the latest news from our 50 or so Barisan Nasional Members of Parliament who are now in Taiwan. I was told they have each been given RM50,000 pocket money. But they may not be able to spend it all from the looks of things, judging by the Reuters report below:
Taiwan shuts last brothel
TAIPEI - AUTHORITIES in central Taiwan have turned off the red light at the county's last legal brothel after the death of its pimp aged 87, newspapers said on Friday.
Ai Le was the last legal brothel in Nantou county in central Taiwan, and police revoked its permit because the 48-year-old business could not be transferred, the Liberty Times reported.
Prostitution has been illegal in Taiwan since 1997, and licensing of new brothels stopped in 1974, but isolated illegal brothels can be found all over the island. Brothels licensed prior to 1974 were allowed to keep operating.
The closure effectively leaves Ai Le's two prostitutes, aged 40 and 50, jobless, the paper added.
A photo in the newspaper shows Ai Le as a building with a pink flower-print facade, rimmed by a tattered roof.
'Actually, with this sort of thing, there's no real loss,' township government Secretary-General Liang Wen Teh said.
'The brothels may have legal permits, but that doesn't mean all the people inside are legal.' – REUTERS, 10 September 2008
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