A Curriculum for ISMA, JAKIM, and friends

I have a friendly educational suggestion for Islamic-coalition organisations such as Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) and the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim) that are still in need of a platform to base their well-intentioned struggles. I am sure that these groups want the best from all Malaysians – to promote peaceful dialogue.

Of late the debate between ‘liberalism’ and ‘Islam’ seem to be raging; one I believe can be reframed to eliminate the dark aura of antagonism and chart a peaceful path through education.

In 2014, we are at a juncture wherein we cannot afford to waste precious national time to argue endlessly over religious permissibility of this or that such as whether one is allowed to visit another’s house of worship or to give a talk in it. We must come together to resolve these mundane issues of how knowledge and level of competency in cross-cultural and inter-religious understanding ought to be acquired.

Here is our present situation offering a unique predicament to nation-building, as I lamented recently on my Facebook status page:

MALAYSIANS…

BE AFRAID..
BE VERY AFRAID
you have arrived at a 30-million-strong-population juncture
if peace is not your strategy…
multiculturalism is not harnessed beautifully
a sense of malaysian-ness is not cultivated with deep honesty
politicians do not stop these fights that have gone off-tangent nauseatingly
education is not your top priority
safety of your citizens is only a lip service handled gleefuly
feeding, clothing, and housing the poor is not an agenda taken seriously
making sure race and religious bigotry is dealt with harshly and legally
the lost and dispossessed youth is not paid attention to educationally
the corrupt, the white collar robbers and the politician-thieves amongst you not put behind bars justifiably
the nation is going to go down the drain, definitely
as law and order breaks down
violence from race and religion rise with great intensity
and we shall all end up as hutus and tutsis
in a malaysian zimbabwe waiting for the powerful empires
to create peace and stability, in a new form of global slavery
as what happened to the pakistanis and the iraqis
or another thailand and myanmar we think will never be part
of our domino theory … – ar

Teaching tolerance

How do we begin looking at possibilities in education, to arrive at a society better equipped to manage conflict that may escalate to dangerous levels especially in the area of religion?