Star Q
iii. Mini Cheesecake
The word solidarity and moderation cannot come at a more important time like yesterday when many people called for it. They called for respect for the religions of others and they expressed outrage at those who carried out actions that did not seem to reflect any kind of solidarity. It is really not that strange when you really think of the reasons (justifiable or not according to your own reasoning) this same group of people react as they did.
First of all this religion, Islam, has for quite some time now been the ridicule and humiliating jokes by people from other religions. It is easy to visualize why these people react as they did when their religion is ridiculed even though the perpetrators may claim that they did it out of sheer fun or ignorance.
In any situation the novelty of something funny or ignorant only happens once! People whom you ridicule can only be forgiving once, but if you continue to bombard the same group of people, all the time picking at and making jokes of their religious practises, then even the plea of insanity will not get you off the hook.
All of us read about the couple who ridiculed the Muslims breaking of fast in the month of Ramadhan by cheering with an invitation of a feast which included pork. All of us read the news about the group who carried their religious meditations in a surau which everyone knows, is where Muslims pray. They don't (and will not) go to temples or churches to perform their prayers! Every one knows about those who ridiculed the Sultan of Johor for making Friday it's official weekend. And a vast majority of people know about a group of people who ridiculed Muslim employees for praying five times a day. Their contention was that, praying five times a day is a waste of time and praying during office hours will decrease companies' profits. And then there is the use of the word 'Allah'.
I count at least five different occasions of people lambasting Islam as a religion. Like I said, people can be forgiving if you plead ignorance for one occasion, but when you continue to make unwanted remarks and demands, then they no longer deserve any kind of forgiveness.
The way I look at it, nowhere in any of the five situations I mentioned above is there any kind of infringements on the rights of people from other religions. The first situation; when Muslims fast during Ramadhan, all they do is fast. They don't go around disturbing others. The second situation, the use of surau. It is a place of prayer for the Muslims (like church for the Christians and temple for Hindus and Buddhas) but it is only the Muslims' place of worship that gets desecrated. Thirdly the Friday weekend. Before 1994, Johor used to have it's weekends on Friday and having it back to Friday again should not be anything new.
As for the five-times-a-day prayers, how many of that five times do Muslims actually pray during office hours. Only once! That is during Zohor which is from 1.00 p.m. to 1.30 p.m. The other four prayers are done outside office hours! And by the way, the time mentioned above for Zohor is actually lunch break for all offices. So, in actual fact no real working hours are taken up for the 'mere sake of performing prayers'. The statements made by these people regarding the Muslims' time of prayers is for the most part done with a malicious intent. It may look like an ignorant and harmless remark, but if these people were 'educated' enough to post this insult onto a certain social network, I am sure they would have been educated enough to do some multitasking like google-ing for information about the information they made fun of. In short, they are not ignorant; only lazy people pretending to be stupid!
You can learn two major lessons from these sad turn of events created by these unscrupulous people. Firstly, there is nothing wrong with the religion. All religions (yes, ALL religions) teaches their followers to be good. It is the followers who are bad. So don't attack the religion, attack the followers personally! Secondly, if you call for moderation from the followers of one religion, you should be responsible enough to also call for moderation and solidarity from the followers of your own religions.
On a final note, never do anything out of ignorance. As Dalai Lama once said "Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace".
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