To MCA, nothing is more important to Non-Muslims than UNISEX HAIR SALONS

While it has remained mum on many issues affecting non-Muslim civil rights and concerns over their religious freedom, Chinese-only party MCA now appears to suggest that nothing is more close to non-Muslims' hearts than unisex hair salons.

Since last week, the BN component party has turned into a factory to dish out statements condemning a local council rule by the Kota Bharu Municipal Council which came into force in 1991, prohibiting unisex services at hair salons.

The rule was introduced amid complaints from the public that hair salons in the state too were being abused to solicit for sexual services, as is the case in other states, where many a raid by enforcement agencies had led to discovery of illegal brothels masquerading as unisex hair and beauty salons.

A report that a hairdresser was slapped a fine by MPKB recently for flouting the rule has given the Chinese party a cause célèbre, at a time political pundits warn that the party could well forget about coming out of its political hybernation at the coming polls following its disastrous performance in 2008

Sacred struggle?

Yet again today, party leaders took turns churning out their respective statements of 'outrage', to the extent that a person foreign to Malaysian politics reading them will be forgiven for thinking that the matter of unisex salons assumes a hallowness to Malaysian non-Muslims and is considered something sacred.

Within the last 24 hours, several MCA personalities have passionately argued in defence of the plight of the 'oppressed' hairdressers, issuing statements containing clichéd puns, arguably the lowest form of wit in journalism.

Within the last 24 hours, several MCA personalities have passionately argued in defence of the plight of the 'oppressed' hairdressers, issuing statements containing clichéd puns, arguably the lowest form of wit in journalism.

Wong Chun Wai, the party's master propagandist, was in the usual anti-PAS element when he tried to hint that women in many respected professions are exposed to vice.

"Will we see PAS banning women doctors from treating male patients?" asked the group chief editor of MCA-owned daily The Star.

The task given for MCA's organising secretary Tee Siew Kiong, meanwhile, is to target DAP over its political alliance with PAS.

Tee even suggested that DAP's Socialist Youth chief Anthony Loke Siew Fook "must carry some responsibility" for the hair salons rule, and went a step further by linking this to the hudud enactment in the state.

"Immediately after the issue of the ban on hair salons, Anthony Loke should have spoken up against this regulation which have caused dissatisfaction among the people of Kelantan and creating difficulties for them," declared Tee.

Not to be outdone, MCA Youth's secretary general Chai Kim Sen chipped in, describing the MPKB rule as one which threatened "freedoms and livelihoods of non-Muslims".

The party whose current president Chua Soi Lek was caught on camera in 2008 with a prostitute, also expressed dismay that MPKB has a rule disallowing cubicles in hair salons, a normal rule enforced by many other municipal councils nationwide on other businesses including reflexology centres.

"From the regulations above, it is very obvious that the Kelantan state government encroaches into the freedoms and livelihoods of non-Muslims as their business operations have been greatly hindered," Chai added.

No word on Lynas, Dong Zong

Meantime, the party has yet to give its take on two major demonstrations during the weekend: the protest in Petaling Jaya organised by the United Chinese School Committees Association (Dong Zong) against the National Education Blueprint 2013-2025, and the anti-Lynas walk which ended in Dataran Merdeka.

One cannot help noticing that the bulk of participants in those two gatherings were Chinese, although they were joined in solidarity by other races.

The question whether MCA thinks the right to live without radioactive poison is secondary to the right to get unisex services, is now answered by the party's outpouring of grief over MPKB's rule.

-Harakahdaily