Be cool as ours is a tolerant multi-racial society

I was in JB on Friday when the commotion outside the mosque in Austin Perdana happened.

A Chinese man got himself beaten and his car smashed up for repeatedly honking outside the mosque during Friday prayers.

His car was apparently blocked by those parked by the roadsides outside the mosque.

This is The Star's report of the incident;

Group attacks motorist outside Johor mosque 

and the warning by police;

Cops warn against further unrest following mosque incident 

and this is RPK's commentary today;

Don’t build mosques in towns and where there are humans

Actually, I'm not really sure what RPK was getting at but maybe he was being sarcastic.

I was shown the video of the incident just moments after it went viral on Friday by my friend who is a Chinese.

We were lepaking at his shop near Taman Nong Cik.

"Susah la macam ni. Lagi la polarised negara kita," he said.

"That is just people being stupid" I replied.

Earlier in the day, my friend and me were at a church attending the wake of a friend who died a few days earlier.

Everything was okay there as my deceased friend lay in rest before his funeral the next day.

There were Chinese, Malays and Indians among his friends who attended the wake.

I think the best way to avoid such an incident at Austin Perdana was to stop all racial and religious incitements.

Under normal circumstances, I don't think the Chinese guy could be so stupid to incessantly honk away like that as he knew that the owners of the cars blocking his path were praying in the mosque.

In all probabilities, he could be like one of those whose comments in this blog using words such as "Fucking Melayu....bla bla bla" I had to spike off for being overly racist.

That, I blame on politicians who went around telling Chinese that they are second, third, fourth,  or fifth class citizens because the Melayu people are oppressing them.

As for the people who beat up the guy and smashed his car, I don't think they would react like that under normal circumstances.

They would likely be more patient, having just finished their prayers.

However, in this case, maybe just the other day some politicians had told them that the Chinese are kurang ajar power grabbing bastards out to get them.

So, I think it's a combination of all that which caused the fracas.

I don't think it's really about cars being blocked or anything.

By the way, cars parked by the roadsides during prayers causing congestion were not only at mosques, okay.

Cars parked along the roadside of Jalan Maarof, Kuala Lumpur during prayers at the Arulmigu Sri Ramalinga Eeswarar Temple

This reminds me of a conversation I had with two Christian friends when I was in college.

Both are members of the Francis Xavier Church at Jalan Gasing in Petaling Jaya.

One of them (let me named him as Leslie) was complaining to me about the Christians being discriminated by the Muslim-led BN government.

The other guy (let me named him as Shawn), however told Leslie to cool off.

'Where do you park your car when you go to church on Sunday?" he asked Leslie.

'By the roadside la,' said Leslie.

'Why you didn't park inside the church compound?" Shawn asked again.

"Not enough space. Hey, you also parked by the roadside what," said Leslie, a bit irritated.

'Ya, I parked by the roadside too every time. You ever kena saman?" said Shawn.

"No," said Leslie.

"See, the police didn't saman us because they knew we were in the church praying. If they really want to oppress us they would just saman everyone who parked by the roadside. After all, the law is the law what. But they didn't. It's because ours is a tolerant multi-racial society. That's the way it is in this country la," said Shawn.

I remember this conversation with my friends very clearly despite it being years ago.

I think we Malaysians need to have more conversations like that rather than getting hooked up too much on politics of hate.