It’s Nothing But A Turf War
By Masterwordsmith
In this way, politics and religion are both the same. Only that in politics they will call them frogs while in religion, they foam at the mouth and get all excited at what they consider apostasy.
A turf war is “a bitter struggle for territory or power or control or rights”. We can see turf wars erupting between street gangs for control of a particular area or spot to sell drugs. In the board room, a president could resign following a turf war with the board of directors. Basically, it is a contention for any kind of resource desired by two or more sections resulting in a confrontation. In our own backyard, recent developments indicate it is nothing but a turf war being played out by major players in the game.
In our midst is a coalition government of different parties who claim to serve the groups they represent. Realistically speaking, they cannot really see eye to eye and yet they have to sustain the coalition government. Obviously, any political party controlling the helm of power would enjoy immense power over many areas of our lives, even in religion.
Currently, we see a turf war being played out between the evangelists (Christians) and dakwah groups (Muslims) whereby each group has been accused of trying to poach believers/followers from the other side to covert to their side.
BOTH Christians and Muslims are equally guilty.
It is common to hear of reports whereby an organization brags about so and so (normally a VIP, etc) converting to their religion.
In many parts of the world, Christians brag about this famous Muslim or that famous Muslim now has become a Christian.
And Muslims also brag about that famous Christian or this famous Christian has now become a Muslim (eg. Muhammad Ali, Michael Jackson, Neil Armstrong, etc.).
Many times, it is rumours only (or worse still, could be a lie). But they are proud to announce their list of Who’s Who who has left either Islam or Christianity to join the other side.
Basically, they feel that if they can impress us with their list of Who’s Who then it will attract more converts. If so and so VIP/super-star joined our religion, then we must be correct.
Too often, it’s a numbers game. They want to show how many converts they attract. And the bigger the name, the better.
In many ways, this is much like UMNO announcing PKR or PAS people coming over in droves and the same goes for the other side.
That is why when Zaid Ibrahim, Chua Jui Meng, etc. joined the opposition, they may make a lot of noise about it.
