Different colour same smell

Whatever it is, I am happy that Chua Soi Lek is making these statements. That can only help Pakatan Rakyat. We can’t deny that the support of the Malay heartland is very crucial if Pakatan Rakyat wants to form the next federal government. And Chua Soi Lek’s Islam-bashing will achieve just that.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Saudi Arabia practices Wahhabi Islam. Wahhabi Islam, also called Salafism, is a religious movement within the Sunni branch of Islam. Iranians, who are of Persian stock and practice Shia Islam, regard the Saudi Arabs as deviants -- and vice versa.

By the way, today I am talking about history and politics, not religion, so hold your horses and don’t foam at the mouth just yet.

Wahhabism was started by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, a Muslim theologian, in the 1700s, almost 100 years before the French Revolution. That was during the time of the Ottoman Empire. It is a very ‘harsh’ form of Islam and extremely intolerant with ‘impurities’ and ‘deviants’.

Incidentally, now do you understand why they wanted Malaysia to extradite 23-year old Hamza Kashgari back to this motherland whose tweets are regarded as blasphemous by the Saudi authorities? Saudi Arabia still regards blasphemy, heresy and apostasy as crimes punishable by death. They would execute you with a sword in a public square after Friday prayers.

Anyway, it was not until about 100 years later, in the 1820s, that the Arabian Peninsular saw the first Wahhabi uprising. That was around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. However, the uprising was put down by the Egyptians who conquered the Arabian Peninsular in many battles throughout the 1800s.

After the First World War, which saw the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, there was a resurgence of Wahhabism when the Arab Revolt started. This time they succeeded where they had failed about 100 years earlier when the Saud family of Riyadh teamed up with the Wahhabis to sweep across the Arabian Peninsular.

The ‘final solution’ was simple: either you are with us or you are against us. As the Saud-Wahhabi army moved from village to village, they just asked one question: are you Muslim, Jew or Christian? If you were Jew or Christian you would be spared. If you were Muslim, you would be executed. This was because if you were Muslim then that would mean you were not Wahhabi Muslim and therefore should be put to death.

Very brutal and barbaric, don’t you think so? Well, President Bush did the same thing. President Bush said: either you are with us or you are against us. And if you are not with us then he will send in the Marines and bomb you back to the Middle Ages.

Now, Teresa Kok is saying the same thing. She said: Is FMT (Free Malaysia Today) neutral, friend or foe to DAP? (READ HERE).

Again, are you with us or are you against us? So what does that make Teresa Kok? A Wahhabi Christian?

Pakatan Rakyat leaders must learn to stop talking like wild Arabian tribes from the desert. We whack intolerant Muslims who refuse to allow civil liberties, freedom of choice, freedom of opinion, freedom of expression, freedom of lifestyle, etc., and call them Talibans and camel-bonkers. We express outrage when a 23-year old Saudi chap is deported back to Saudi Arabia to meet his death by execution for ‘insulting the Prophet’.  Are we really that better and think we have a right to moralise?

On another matter, Chua Soi Lek has taken it upon himself to become Islam’s greatest opponent. No, I am not going to whack him. In fact, I like what he is doing. What Chua Soi Lek is doing is exactly what 23-year old Hamza Kashgari did and who has now been sent back to his country to be executed.

Okay, maybe Chua Soi Lek’s choice of words and phrases is a bit different from that used by Hamza Kashgari. But the implications are the same.

Muslims believe that whatever they are propagating are the teachings of Prophet Muhammad. Hence, if you whack these teachings, in that same breath you are whacking the Prophet. If you say the teachings of Islam are stupid then it would be interpreted as you are saying that the teachings of the Prophet are stupid, and this means Prophet Muhammad is stupid.

Is Chua Soi Lek being properly advised on this or not? Or is Umno asking him to do it because Umno themselves can’t do it lest the Malays rise up in an uproar? Or has Chua Soi Lek made a secret pact with Anwar Ibrahim where the former would become the latter’s Trojan horse in Barisan Nasional by making statements that will enrage the Malays and send them to the opposition resulting in Umno losing Malay support?

Whatever it is, I am happy that Chua Soi Lek is making these statements. That can only help Pakatan Rakyat. We can’t deny that the support of the Malay heartland is very crucial if Pakatan Rakyat wants to form the next federal government. And Chua Soi Lek’s Islam-bashing will achieve just that.