Money talks, religious bullshit walks

By MT Webmaster Last updated Dec 31, 2015

Look at the economy and don’t worry too much about whether e-cigarettes should be declared haram and should be banned. As Bill Clinton said in 1992, which helped him win the US Presidency, “It’s the economy, stupid!” And Constantine and Muhammad knew this while Moses did not. And that is why there are more Christians and Muslims in this world than Jews. Someone should have told Moses that money talks while religious bullshit walks.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Today, in about six or seven hours’ time, there are going to be about 14 people in my house for Christmas lunch. No, we are not going to have turkey. We are going to have roast beef and lamb.

Yesterday, my wife, Marina, and I sent bottles of wine to those neighbours who are on friendly relations with us. We also gave a bottle to Carrie, the lady who delivers our stuff. Our neighbours reciprocated with chocolates so I have been stuffing my face since yesterday. (Where do you think I get my ‘beer’ belly from?)

In the past we used to put up a Christmas tree with presents below it. But now I just give the kids a Christmas ang pau. We also don’t bother with the tree because our house in the UK is too small, as most new UK houses are. Our house is just slightly bigger than a low-cost house in Malaysia.

A few days ago the hospital called and said that I am cancer free (I was admitted for colon surgery 10 days ago to check for suspected colon cancer). Earlier this year the hospital discharged Marina and also declared her cancer free after five years of treatment that included surgery and radiotherapy treatment.

Marina and I have five grandchildren and the sixth is due in February next year. We have four boys and one girl and I told my daughter-in-law it had better be a girl or else — so that we will have four boys and two girls. Well, the good news is it is going to be a girl (I didn’t know that fear of ‘or else’ could determine the gender of the baby).

A Malaysian of Chinese ethnicity who lives in China visited me two days ago and he told me that he informed all his friends (which was quite a large number) that he was travelling to Manchester to meet me. And do you know what? He told me that not a single person had a nice thing to say about me. Ninety-nine out of 100 people he spoke to condemned me. The only one who did not condemn me, Ben Singh from London, just refused to hear or mention my name.

I just smiled because what he told me was not something new. I have heard this ‘news’ so many times over the last couple of years. I know that ‘Petra’ is now a four-letter word amongst those whom I used to know. And over the last year or so my pariah status has reached new and unprecedented heights.

Actually I wrote about this about seven years or so ago. I said that the day when both sides of the political divide and more than half of Malaysians hate me would be the day I can be considered as having arrived. That day is probably now and I can consider myself as the top Blogger in Malaysia — top Blogger in terms of I am the most hated Malaysian Blogger (is there any other Blogger more hated than me that I do not know about?)

Well, that is all the good news so I suppose it should be a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. But then should it? What is so ‘Happy’ and ‘Merry’ about 2015? And is 2016 going to be any better? The birth of Christ 2015 years ago on the 25th of December was actually the beginning of most of the problems in this world.

I mean before the birth of Christ we had the Jews and the pagan Romans. And the Jews revolted and were whacked kau-kau and colonised by the Romans. In fact, even earlier the Jews were whacked kau-kau by the Egyptians and then by the Persians and both times were taken into slavery. So the Jews were not very successful with their Reformasi movement like the Malays were in 1946 and then in 1998.

Anyway, Jesus started doing his ceramah at the age of nine and he was more successful than Mat Sabu of Parti Amanah Negara in attracting crowds (maybe because Jesus was not arrested for khalwat like Mat Sabu was). The crowd was just captivated by Jesus who could sway them like Marc Antony (the Roman, not the singer) with his ‘friends, Jews, fellow anti-ulama’ speeches.

Jesus eventually went on to form the Jewish Reformasi movement, which was known as the Jesus Movement. The Romans called them the Nazarenes although Jesus was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem in Judea and not in Nazareth in Galilee.

The Qur’an refers to the Nazarenes as Nasrani — so the Muslims accept the Jesus Movement as those from Nazareth — and the Jews as Yahudi or those from Yehudah, meaning from Bethlehem or Judea. Anyway, both places are currently in Israel and it is the British and not Jesus who did this.

The truth is the Jesus Movement was more political than religious (just like Muhammad’s Medina movement). It was about self-rule so that the Jews could kowtow to God and not to the Roman Emperor, who also needed to be worshipped as God. I mean, the Holy Book says there is only one God so how could the Jews accept a second God, the Roman Emperor?

And in Rome anyone who worships any other God than the Roman Emperor would be put to death. So Jews had to become closet Jews and openly worship the Roman Emperor (and secretly worship Allah) while they could openly be homosexuals, which was quite a popular practice amongst the Romans, as were orgies and toga parties (bless those Romans).

Things, however, started going downhill after Jesus died (as it did with the Muslims after Prophet Muhammad died). The Jesus Movement split into two (just like what happened to the Muslims). And it was all because of the anti-Jesus Saul, who became a turncoat and changed his name to Paul to give an impression he had ‘changed’.

Initially the Jesus Movement preached only to Jews. Saul, however, wanted to increase the membership of the movement by preaching to the Gentiles or non-Jews. So Saul changed the rules and told the Gentiles that they need not circumcise or stop eating pork to join the movement. And this infuriated James and Peter who considered Saul a Trojan horse who was trying to contaminate the movement by bringing in pariahs as members.

Saul also told the non-Jews that once they join the movement they would no longer be pariahs but would become ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’. So many slaves who were considered lower than pariahs joined the movement just so that they could become equal and would no longer suffer a status lower than dogs.

And, yes, you guessed it right, Saul’s ‘Team B’ eventually became bigger than James’ and Peter’s ‘Team A’. Anyway the story is already becoming too long. Suffice to say that Saul’s ‘Team B’ eventually became known as Christianity while ‘Team A’ died out, except for those who ran off to Syria and to what today is known as Saudi Arabia.

And as refugees they were free to practice what they considered the true teachings of Jesus while Saul’s ’Team B’ took on a new leader 300 years later and was transformed into the Holy Roman Empire.

Meanwhile ‘Team A’ flourished in Syria and the Arabian Peninsula and many Arabs (who believed in 360 gods) eventually converted to the doctrine of the One God. And amongst the most famous of these converts was Muhammad, who started his own Movement that today is known as Islam.

Muhammad understood that the ‘Team A’ Jesus Movement failed because it was poor while ‘Team B’ flourished because it had economic power. Muhammad’s movement, which was Medina based, did not go very far in a decade because of this very fact. So he decided to conquer and occupy Mekah, which was the centre of economic activity.

And this strategy proved correct. One year later Muhammad died but his movement went on to conquer almost half the known world from Europe to India. So it is money and not doctrine that talks.

However, if you want to blame anyone for this then you should blame Moses. When Moses brought his tribe out of captivity he crossed the Red Sea and settled in what today is known as Israel. If instead he had brought his people further east or to the south, then today the Jews and not the Muslims would own all the rich oil fields.

So I suppose Moses was not really that smart after all. He spent too much time worrying about laws, rules and commandments and did not focus on the economy. And that is my advice to Umno. Do not make the same mistake that Moses did.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK