The reason why they enjoy insulting Muslims

 This is what the Agong said yesterday in conjunction with the Islamic new year,

Don’t ridicule religions in the name of free speech

excerpts;

“Religion is not something to be joked about. I am afraid that such an act will fuel the flames of racism and destroy the bond of unity between all races that has been built for a long time,” he said in conjunction with the Maal Hijrah celebration and commemoration of Warriors’ Day.

Apparently the king, not unlike me, was concerned over the current trend of people insulting other people's religions.

The king was careful not to be too direct about it, but I believe what he actually meant was the trend of insulting Islam by some people who get a kick out of rubbing dirt on Muslims' faces.

The obvious example was the comedy club couple case.

The less obvious example was the Loh Siew Hong case.

I have highlighted both cases in my previous postings.

I'm perfectly alright with people discussing religions but not if it was done with malicious intent.

For instance, if you want to explain why you prefer to worship multiple gods instead of just one, that should be alright.

Explain all you want, but you don't have to insult the people who worship only one God.

And if you want to explain why your religion prohibits you from eating pork or beef, then by all means please do so.

I'm alright with that as long as you don't resort to insulting the religion of those who eat those types of meat.

Personally, I find eating pork repulsive because as a Muslim, I was thought that way since I was a little kid.

But I don't go around calling people who eat pork as swines.

The most I ever did was say, "Urgh...I don't know how you can eat that."

Pigs are not exactly nice looking animals, okay. At least not to me.

Anyway, I did accidentally eat pork once.

It was when I was having breakfast at Corus Hotel near Hyde Park in London in early spring of 2009.

It was the sausages that I ate that morning. I forgot to check first and was only told later that they were pork. 

Pork is so repulsive to me, that I remember the incident in detail till this day. I even remember that it was a rather cold morning.

By the way, the pork sausages actually tasted so good.

Urgh.

Back to the issue at hand, why did some people get a kick out of insulting Muslims by smearing their religion?

I think it's primarily because these people feel they are superior compared to the Muslims and resent them for being the majority in this democratic country and thus have the power to influence its direction.

How could a group of people whom for them were inferior have more say in this country?

These Muslims are after all less wealthy and educated than them.

They are mostly backward kampung people, while we are sophisticated urbanites who speak English (mostly the broken version though) and part of the woke culture.

So, let's insult the Muslims to vent our frustration over the whole arrangement in this country, and the best way to do it should be by hitting where it hurts them the most - their religion.

Hey, it was just a comedy. Why are you Muslims so unsophisticated and can't appreciate a joke?

Hey, we are handling this case as according to the laws. We are after all smart lawyers and you are just a bunch of uneducated fools. What? You all feel insulted? Fuck you and your religious sensitivities.

Well, at least that's how I see the attitude of those people.

You know, when the majority of Malay Muslims started to return their support to BN, not long after Pakatan's 2018 victory, many people blamed Umno for playing up racial and religious sentiments.

They also blamed the Malay Muslims for being so stupid for wanting to go back supporting a bunch of people whom according to them were corrupted to the core.

What they didn't even bother to consider was that so many things were said and done by Pakatan leaders and supporters after the 2018 election that hurt the feelings of Malay Muslims.

Pakatan people felt that the victory gave them the rights to do what ever they please, including disregarding the feelings of Malay Muslims.

I could give many examples, but the one that really hurt me was the way they handled the death of fireman Adib. I don't think I could ever forgive the irresponsible comments of Pakatan politicians and insulting behaviour of their supporters in the social media.

Well, they don't even seemed to learn even after the Pakatan government imploded following a series of BN's by-election victories.

I believe they know now that the 2018 Pakatan's victory won't happen again, at least not for a very long time, and all they could do now is to throw tantrums.

That's why now we see more and more incidents of these people lashing out by insulting Muslims and their religion.

They knew that most Muslims in this country now don't want to support their cause and therefore they don't feel the need to be nice anymore.

Upsetting the Muslims is the least they could do to express their sense of superiority.

Yeah, go ahead guys.

I'll just wait until the Muslims form a super majority in parliament and change all the laws.

Let's see what will happen then.

Muslims shouldn't get angry, they should just remember

 This is the Malay Mail's headline this morning;

Abuse survivor’s ordeal sheds light on Malaysia unilateral conversions

It's actually a story by AFP.

excerpts;

Malaysian woman Loh Siew Hong says her husband brutally abused her, battering her over the head and breaking her ankle, before running off with their children and converting them to Islam.

That opening paragraph set the tone of the whole story.

No attempt was made by the writer to get the ex-husband's version of the story or those directly involved in the conversion of the children.

Bear in mind that the ex-husband had never been found guilty or charged with using violence against Loh.

By right, Loh's ex-husband could sue her for making the accusation, AFP for writing a defamatory story and Malay Mail for publishing it.

Same as what Lim Guan Eng did to the Chinese newspapers the other day for publishing his accuser's story without getting his comment.  

Oh, and this is the picture used for the story along with the caption.

This picture taken on May 30, 2022 shows Loh Siew Hong (right) hugging her son next to her other children by a river in Gombak. — AFP pic

Compare it with this picture when Loh won the custody over the children;

Yup, it's a victory for them.

The whole thing was after all about annulling the children's conversion to Islam.

Loh being reunited with the children is now secondary, despite her initial insistence that religion was not the issue.

It's actually a trend now.

They actually love rubbing it in the face of Muslims when these things happened.

For instance, this is the picture released to the media by the legal team of the woman who was charged with insulting Islam at a comedy club the other day after they supposedly managed to raise the bail money for her and her boyfriend through "crowd funding".

It's supposed to be a picture of a Muslim woman in baju kurung and tudung hugging her non-Muslim boyfriend to celebrate their victory of some sort.

I believe that their intention of wanting the media to use the picture was to make the Muslims flipped some more over their antics.

It's the same as when she pulled off that distasteful stunt at the comedy club.

Well, this is the real picture of these ugly people;

My opinion is that Muslims shouldn't get angry over the whole thing.

Let the authorities handle them. There are laws against what they are doing and sooner of later they will get punished.

For now, just remember who these people really are and let them wallow in their own shit.

Oh, and if there are people who support them contesting in the next general election, vote against them.

Ya, remember what happened after the 2018 general election.

Remember Adib, and the insults they threw at us in the social media after the fireman died.

A good Sabah politician

Just got back yesterday from a bit of holidaying in Sabah.

Quite a pleasant trip, actually.

It was so pleasant that I had not bothered to keep up with the political happenings in the country this past week.

What's there to keep up with anyway other than the usual nonsense.

Just look at the PKR election. Was it worth monitoring?

Isn't it just the usual merry go round of a party which has lost all sense of significance?

The election process of the party itself was a joke.

Just read here,

One election, three winners - the joke about Ampang’s PKR election

And yesterday, Anwar appointed some of the losers to key party posts.

Some said it's to balance the influence of his new deputy Rafizi.

I don't see why he needed to do that as Rafizi is just a clown.

Aren't you all tired of such politicians, who could only talk nonsense and not much else?

Seriously, PKR is just a circus full of clowns like Rafizi and I just can't wait to see it get thrashed in the next general election.

Anyway, I met Joniston Bangkuai of PBS when I was in Sabah.

Went to his beautiful kampung in Kiulu, actually.

Now, that's one politician that I like.

The guy is down to earth, know how to articulate things properly, can do his work exceptionally well and as cool as a sea cucumber.

Best of all, I know that the guy is honest and sincere with what he's doing.

Really.

You see, I have known Joniston since before he became a politician and we used to spend many hours talking about all kind of stuff, usually after he had a few drinks.

Okay, the guy drinks a bit too much sometimes, but that's normal considering where he comes from.

And he's most honest when he's a bit drunk.

He would tell me all kind of things he wished he could do for his beloved kampung and Sabah.

The guy however doesn't seemed to have any political ambition at that time.

Then things got a bit funny with him when he was conferred with his datukship for his social and charity works, particularly in his capacity as the then president of Sabah journalists' association.

I used to tease him for getting that title and he got quite flustered every time. 

I was told by another Sabahan friend that Joniston had even tried to decline the award as he felt he's not worthy of it but was pushed by then CM Musa Aman to accept it.

He would at that time tells me that being a datuk was a bit of a burden as people in his kampung would ask him for help and he can't do much being only a lowly paid journalist.

I only knew that he was with PBS shortly before the 2013 general election when he quit his journalist job after being nominated by the party to contest in his kampung in Kiulu.

He won the seat with a razor thin majority of 44 votes that year but increased it to 1,443 in the difficult 2018 election and maintained about the same majority in the 2020 Sabah election.

It's a testament of the good work he had done for the constituency, and the people there recognise what he had done for them.

Kiulu, which used to be purely an agriculture-based area is now a popular tourist spot where people may enjoy the tranquility and beauty of Sabah rural area or experience the thrill of white water rafting down a river which flows from Mount Kinabalu.

The place, despite categorised as rural, is actually just an hour drive away from Kota Kinabalu.

Joniston had done such a good job at promoting tourism in his constituency and other parts of Sabah that he was appointed as the chairman of Sabah Tourism board and State Assistant Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment.

I have not met him for quite a few years until a few days ago.

Honestly, I expected him to change now that he's some sort of a big shot politician.

However, I was pleasantly surprised that Joniston turned out to be still the same guy I knew from long ago.

He's still the jovial cool fella who drinks a bit too much when he's lepaking with his friends.

And he seemed still the same honest and sincere guy.

The only criticism I gave him was when I poked his stomach a bit and told him he's getting a bit too fat now.

He just laughed and accused me of also being fat, which is actually quite true too.

It was nice seeing that guy again, but I didn't spend hours talking with him like in the old days as he seemed very busy and most of the time surrounded by people who wanted to be close to him.

Well, that's normal. People tend to want to be close with those who had made good of themselves.

I'm just glad that Joniston is still the same and hopefully he will remain true to himself and continue to do good as a politician and an elected representative who truly works for the people.

We do indeed need more politicians like him instead of those many clowns and crooks who are trying to con us with their sweet bullshit talks.

Comedy clubs are not funny

I believe most of you have known by now about the not funny strip tease comedy at TTDI the other day.

The woman who did it is now in police custody and the venue where it happened had temporarily been banned by City Hall.

The woman clearly has no excuse for doing what she did.

The Crackhouse Comedy Club however has plenty of excuses and those who supported it.

There were Harith Iskandar, Afdlin Shauki and this one,

Expressing solidarity, Merdekarya urges DBKL to lift Crackhouse's suspension

excerpts;

The entertainment venue explained that this is because open mic provides everyone and anyone the opportunity to perform their respective acts, and it is nearly impossible for the organisers to predict what the artist would say or do.

So, if someone opens a venue as a platform for others to say whatever hell they want to say, then that someone is not responsible for what's being said, right?

It's I think like someone opening his/her house and let people do whatever they want there and when police raided it claimed that he/she shouldn't be held responsible for the drug induced orgy that happened there.

"You shouldn't blame me. I only told these people that they can do whatever they want. I didn't tell them to have a drug induced orgy," that someone would argue.

Hey, even printers are held responsible for printing offensive stuff. They cannot argue that they were just printing the stuff ordered by their client.

Anyway, who gives these so called comedy clubs the right to use their venues as platforms for people to say anything they want.

Don't they know there are laws against saying certain things in this country, even if they were meant to be comedy?

I suspect that the strip tease incident was not the first offensive nonsense that happened at the club.

It's just that one got caught on video.

Otherwise, it would have been all okay.

The crowd was clearly enjoying the "comedy" with cheers and clapping.

Nothing is more pleasing for them then seeing a self-confessed Muslim insulting Islam.

Personally, I have never think much of Malaysian comedians. Never found any of them to be really funny.

That includes Harith and Afdlin.

Farewell Abe

My beloved was the first to alert me about the shooting of Japanese former prime minister Shinzo Abe yesterday.

I was shocked over what happened.

Who would have ever thought that such thing could happen in Japan these days.

Violent crime there is after all very rare nowadays.

The annual number of murders in Japan has been in a single digit for years. In fact, there were many more suicides than murders in Japan.

When NHK announced that Abe had succumbed to his injuries, I was surprised that I felt genuine sadness over the news.

After all, Abe was just a foreign leader who has no direct connection with me.

Then again Abe had been around for many years as the Japanese prime minister, and I had grown familiar with his administration's policies.

I particularly applauded his move to strengthen the Japanese military, which many, including those in Japan seen as being too aggressive for that pacifist country.

They always brought up what Japan did during the Second World War.

But that was almost a century ago.

The new Asian bullies now are those communists in Beijing who are threatening Taiwan and claiming almost the entire South and East China Sea.

No other country in this region other than Japan could stand up to them.

But before Abe changed his country's foreign policy, a Japanese soldier serving in an international peacekeeping mission could not even try to defend his fellow peacekeepers from other counties, if they came under attack.

That's how pacifist Japan was after Second World War.

They can't even honour their war dead, including the civilians, in peace.

Abe was the one who was brave enough to realise the absurdity of Japan's position and tried to change it.

He saw the threat posed by the communists in Beijing and did his best to make them realise that they could not walk all over everyone in this region.

Some in Malaysia may argue that the Japanese did horrible things when they occupied this country, but as I previously wrote, our country had suffered many more deaths and atrocities during the communist insurgency supported by Beijing.

What happened in Hong Kong just months before the pandemic struck the world in 2020 confirmed the worst fear about Beijing's attitude towards those around it.

Tensions with Taiwan was also retched up to a point where the communists tried to stop others from sending vaccines to the island when the number of Covid-19 infections there got to a worrying height.

Japan was the first to defy Beijing by sending help to Taiwan in the form of millions of vaccine dosage.

Many Taiwanese admired Abe, as he continued to support their desire not to be bullied by the communists in Beijing.

My beloved, who studied in Taiwan and has many friends there forwarded me this tweet yesterday...

I was glad that when Abe stepped down as PM due to health reasons, Japan maintained the same attitude towards ensuring the stability of this region.

Despite being the longest serving Japanese PM, Abe didn't cling on to power. 

He knew when it's time for him to go....unlike most Malaysian politicians.

Well, some Islamic religious people may not like me saying this.....but what the heck....

Rest in peace honourable Abe. 

About the highly regarded Chinese newspapers

 I was once very close with a reporter of a Chinese newspaper.

She worked for Nanyang Seang Pau and later Sin Chiew.

I asked her why she choose to work for the Chinese newspapers as the pay was quite low at that time, even when compared to the pay of reporters working for Malay and English newspapers.

She explained to me that it's because Chinese newspaper reporters are well respected in the Chinese community and that she believes she could do good for them in her role as a journalist.

I actually admired her a lot.

She was very tenacious, hardworking and idealistic.

One may questions why she was specifically focused on her community and not others, but I understand her position because I know where she came from.

Her father was a carpenter while her mother ran a small hawker stall. She studied in a Chinese school and graduated from a Taiwanese university with a degree in education.

Her family was relatively poor and she worked as a waitress for two years after school to save enough money to get enrolled in the Taiwanese university.

There was no government scholarship or PTPTN for her.

She's the one who told me that there are three most highly regarded institutions in her community - their schools, newspapers, and guilds. Those who work for the institutions were respected as they were not paid well, yet still choose to do good for the community with their work.

When I think of it, I really miss our chit chats back then as I learnt a lot from her.

Why I'm writing all these?

It's because I saw this report yesterday,

Guan Eng wins defamation suit against Chinese dailies

excerpts;

Judge Datuk Seri Tun Majid Tun Hamzah said in his judgement that the dailies had failed to get Lim’s side of the story before publishing the reports.

The dailies had previously told the court that they had sought Lim’s comment after the articles were published, but he refused to comment.

It was a press conference and the reporters reported what was said by the person who called for it.

Were they committing such a terrible thing for not immediately get Guan Eng's reaction that he has to sue their newspapers?

After all, they did try to get his comment after that.

Not only did he refused to comment but he also slap their newspapers with a legal suit.

Can't he cut them some slack, as I believe that the majority of Chinese newspaper reporters were ardent DAP supporters based on my conversations with them and their writings? 

Didn't what they wrote to a certain extent helped DAP won almost total support of the Chinese community in several past general elections?

Let's say Guan Eng or any other DAP leaders called a press conference and accused Najib of being corrupt, should the reporters immediately get Najib's rebuttal before publishing the allegations? What if Najib was purposely not available that day? Should they kill the story because of that? Should Najib then sue their newspapers because they didn't immediately get his comment?

I don't know lah, maybe the attitude of the Chinese community has changed.

Maybe they think Guan Eng did good by suing their newspapers.

Whatever it is, I hope that person who was close to me is not too upset by what happened to her once beloved newspapers.

She probably didn't expect a leader of the party strongly supported by her community is now capable of suing the Chinese newspapers over an error, which in my opinion was not so great.

I hope she's well, where ever she is now.