Hogs, values, niceties and other distractions
Praba Ganesan, The Malaysian Insider
No two persons would agree on most things, with some of those contentions separated by a values abyss. It would seem on the face of it that resolutions for those fundamental contentions would be improbable, if not impossible.
Relationships are never easy, but they are necessary.
Their necessity prompt, nay force, constant efforts to work them out.
Cringing through his marriage, my uncle often tempered his predicament by saying, “You have to go home sometime, somehow.”
If you bought relationship/marriage advice books, or complex geo-political theory dissertations (great reading on “dateless” Friday nights), you’ll find massive agreements in them, surprisingly. And they would both pity my uncle.
Which brings me to the Sepang Town Council meeting last week, and what hogged it.
A night-stall operator in one of the council’s food-courts was about to lose his licence because he was sub-letting the unit to someone else. Part of the action report included an unverified complaint that the sub-let was serving pork.
Some councillors were annoyed that a non-issue was attached to a matter which was straightforward to decide.
So being the one prone to asking the forbidden, I just queried why the council had a rule against pork being served on council premises.
The answer was curt and uninspiring from the council president
“There is a nationwide tradition barring pork in government buildings, in order to respect Islam as the official religion.”
Nodding away, one councillor asked for the tradition to be inked down as a regulation.
