Right only until proven wrong

Right and wrong depends on at what point of time you are looking at the event. And right is only right if no one is bothered to prove it wrong. Until someone can prove it wrong, then it will remain right. So, what is right today can be wrong tomorrow. You just thought you were right because no one came along to prove you wrong. But that does not mean you are right.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Zahrain Mohamed Hashim, Zulkifli Noordin, Ezam Mohd Nor, Ibrahim Ali, and many of those ilk, are foaming at the mouth and screaming their heads off in the defense of Islam.

Basically, you will notice two things.

First, they are all ex-opposition people who said some very nasty things about Umno-BN when they were in the opposition and now scream the loudest because they are trying to score points with their new masters.

Second, they are Malay-Muslims who want to show that they are holier-than-thou and are more Muslim than even Prophet Muhammad himself. They are of the opinion that they are right, and only they are right, and everyone else is wrong.

That reminds me of the man with two Muhammads in his name who screwed the late Sultan’s daughter and then swore in the name of Allah he never touched her with a six-inch pole -- and then got caught smuggling money out of Australia, but got acquitted because he no speekee ingeris.

Anyway, what these defenders of Islam who are declaring a jihad on DAP in the defense of Islam do not realise is: right and wrong is a matter of opinion. There is no such thing as absolute right or absolute wrong. And just because you THINK you are right does not make you right and everyone else wrong. And just because you THINK you are right does not give you right to call for someone’s blood to be spilled.

I am sure the butcher who slaughters the cow is of the opinion that he is right in doing so. However, try asking the cow and see if the cow shares this same opinion. What is right to the butcher may not be so to the cow.

In that sense, both the cow and the butcher are right. There is no wrong. It is merely two different ways of looking at the same event.

Muslims (meaning Malays, of course) are of the opinion that it is right to propagate Islam to the non-Muslims and to try to get them to convert to Islam. In fact, if they can get VVIPs (such as President Obama), superstars (such as Michael Jackson), Christian leaders (such as the Bishop of Canterbury), to convert to Islam, these people will be so proud they will shout from the highest mountain regarding their ‘victory’.

To the Muslims, this is absolutely right.

Of course, the Christians will not share this view. The Christians too would like to see VVIPs, superstars and Muslim leaders convert to Christianity and they too will be so proud they will shout from the highest mountain regarding their ‘victory’.

To the Christians, this is absolutely right. But the Muslims would be outraged at such a thing.

So, who is right and who is wrong? If both are right then certainly there can’t be any wrong. And since both sides say they are right and the other side is wrong, how do we resolve this and stop these people from foaming at the mouth and screaming their heads off?

That is just it. We can’t. When both sides think they are right and the other side is wrong, there is no way to resolve this matter. Thousands of years of history has proven this.

Right and wrong depends on at what point of time you are looking at the event. And right is only right if no one is bothered to prove it wrong. Until someone can prove it wrong, then it will remain right. So, what is right today can be wrong tomorrow. You just thought you were right because no one came along to prove you wrong. But that does not mean you are right.

This is what those holier-than-thou, self-righteous people do not realise. They think they are right so they foam at the mouth and scream their heads off. And since they think they are right they feel they have the right to demand the blood of those they think are wrong.

In the old days, they thought that the plague was caused by witches. So, when the plague hit any community, they rounded up all the women and burned them alive at the stake.

All the women got killed until the plague ended. More than one-third the community got wiped out. Eventually, the plague ran its full course and ended by itself. Probably two-thirds of the community somehow had immunity to the plague so they did not die.

But this ‘proved’ that by killing all the women suspected of being witches (which sometimes meant every woman in that community) the plague could be stopped. This was certainly the ‘right’ thing to do in fighting the plague. And the church agreed with this course of action. In fact, the church was the one burning all these ‘witches’.

Over time, doctors discovered that the plague was actually spread by rat fleas. So, you fought the plague by burning the rats, not by burning the women. However, in the meantime, thousands of women were burned alive in the mistaken belief that witches and not rat fleas caused the plague.

So, yes, hundreds of years ago, that was the 'right' thing to do -- to burn women alive at the stake. No one, not even the church, thought that this was wrong. Today, we know that that was wrong.

So, who are these people like Zahrain Mohamed Hashim, Zulkifli Noordin, Ezam Mohd Nor, Ibrahim Ali, and many of those ilk, who are foaming at the mouth and screaming their heads off, to tell us what is right and what is wrong? They think they are right, just like those who burned women alive to fight the plague. But, in time, they will be proven wrong, just like those who burned women alive to fight the plague.

Why must everything be about Islam? And why must everything you do not agree with be classified as an insult to Islam? The minute someone disagrees with you, you label that person as an enemy of Islam. And since they are enemies of Islam, then violence is justified. That makes it right.

Well, so was burning women alive at the stake hundreds of years ago. That too was the right -- but right only in the minds of small-minded people.