The Emperor is Exposed
It has become one of the hallmarks of the Umno method: act first, and maybe think it over later. The latest example of this is of course most evidenced by the handling of the Allah controversy.
By G. Krishnan
By now, much ink, and not to mention keyboard strokes, has been expanded in revealing the absurdity of the ban on the use of Allah by non-Muslims. The mere politicization of the issue from the very inception of the ban illustrates the mockery it made of the issue. But it also reveals precisely this propensity to act – and only then (maybe) ponder the absurdity of its actions.
How exactly could a responsible government – not to mention in a multireligious country – even issue such a ban if it had put even some modicum of sensible thought into realizing how preposterous this would be. But of course a responsible government, where perhaps there was a strong commitment to inter-faith dialogue, would be aware that the Sikh’s holy book has numerous references to Allah in its text. Perhaps even more Malaysians across the board might know this fact.
But of course that would only be possible if we had a government which was not hell bent on building walls of ignorance between us and repeatedly isolating us from each other in practically all facets of our daily lives. The religious isolation between the different faiths is only a microcosm of the wider isolation we seem to experience in our daily lives. Our wonderful Umno regime’s schemes have got us socializing and playing less with each other, sitting less along-side each other, living in increasingly segregated communities, working less with each other, eating less alongside and with each other… the list goes on and on.
So is it any wonder that the regime acts on a politically motivated religious ban without a sufficient – let alone thorough – understanding of other religions? And isn’t this utterly incompetent handling of the matter now being only further aggravated and compounded by further politicization of the matter by this latest twist of a dual so-called ‘east-west’ Malaysia policy on the ban?
Read more at: IMAGINE…
