Is beer halal or haram?

Now, what I do not understand is: why emphasis ‘on a Chinese woman’? The Chinese scream that they are not racists. Yet they send me this very racist e-mail. This woman was humiliated or treated badly. That is wrong. Period! But to play up this issue as a racial issue is more wrong. And this is what Malaysians like to do. They like to emphasis that so-and-so who is Chinese or Indian is a victim of such-and-such.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

There are some who say I am being too idealistic by comparing Malaysia to the UK. You have been in the UK too long you are no longer realistic, some say. Malaysia can never be like the UK because Malaysians do not have a mature mind like those in the west, some others say.

Saying that Malaysia can never be like the UK because Malaysians do not have a mature mind like those in the west is as good as saying that YOU (those saying this) do not have a mature mind. ‘Malaysians’ here would mean the first party and not the third party. You might as well have said WE Malaysians, which means you included.

If you start off by believing that this or that cannot be done because WE Malaysians are backward then we will never move forward. This is just like the old folks of the pre-Merdeka days believing it is useless to send their children to school because they are better off planting padi. After all, sending them to Qur’an reading classes is good enough. What more do they need?

If the Malays had continued believing this then, until today, the Malays would still be in the padi fields. It took the British (more than 100 years ago) to convince four Malay Monarchs (Sultan Idris of Perak, Sultan Suleiman of Selangor, Yang di-Pertuan Besar Mohd Shah of Negeri Sembilan, and Sultan Ahmad of Pahang) to agree to the setting up of a school to educate the sons of the elite so that one day the Malays could take over the running of the country.

This school, the Malay College Kuala Kangsar (no longer a school for the elite), was the brainchild of R .J. Wilkinson, the Inspector of Schools for the Federated Malay States (F.M.S). In a letter to the Resident-General dated 24th February 1904, he wrote about “establishing at a suitable locality in the F.M.S., a special residential school for the education of Malays of good family and for the training of Malay boys for admission to certain branches of Government service.”

A 1910 report said, “From this school the Government have great hopes that the sons of Malays of the Raja and higher class will be educated and trained on the lines of an English Public School and be fitted to take a share in the Government of their Country.”

So, the Malays were dragged screaming and kicking into the 20th Century to receive an education in the British tradition -- in what was then known as ‘the Eton of the East’ -- so that they could one day become ‘Brown Englishmen’ in thinking and mentality but yet still retain their ‘old values’ regarding Malay customs and traditions and Islam as the religion of the Malays.

And that is why those of you who are in your 60s (like me), or in your 70s-80s, always lament that the Malays you knew back in the 1940s, 1950s or 1960s were very different people compared to the Malays of today. You admired and loved the Malays of the old days but find the Malays of today very obnoxious and lacking principles, ethics, honour, etc.

Yes, that is very true. Just ask the Chinese and Indians who are in the 60s or 70s and they will sigh and talk about the good old days. And that is why those Malays, Chinese and Indians of my age (or older) can agree with what I say and do but the younger Internet/social media generation whack me. You in your 20s and 30s (or even you in your 40s) just do not possess the same values that we do. 

Hence I would blame what we used to call back in the 1960s ‘the generation gap’ as being the reason for this. You do not understand the meaning of principles, ethics, honour, etc. To you, the ends justify the means. However, those of our generation would regard this as ‘not cricket’. It is not winning that counts but how you play the game that was our code of conduct and ethics back in the old days.

But it would be useless to try to explain this to you post-Merdeka Malaysians. You have not received the type of breeding that we did back in the 1950s and 1960s. You have been corrupted by the education system that was ‘modified’ back in the 1980s. And that is sad because what we are seeing today is what I call ‘The Ugly Malaysian’ (after the 1958 book and 1963 movie ‘The Ugly American’).

Hmm…I wonder which Education Minister I should blame for this.

I received the e-mail below entitled ‘HUMILITATING TREATMENT BY BULLY COPS.....on a Chinese woman’. A number of Chinese friends from various parts of Malaysia sent me this e-mail.

Now, what I do not understand is: why emphasis ‘on a Chinese woman’? The Chinese scream that they are not racists. Yet they send me this very racist e-mail. This woman was humiliated or treated badly. That is wrong. Period! But to play up this issue as a racial issue is more wrong. And this is what Malaysians like to do. They like to emphasis that so-and-so who is Chinese or Indian is a victim of such-and-such.

And don’t try to pretend that this e-mail being circulated has nothing to do with race. It is all about race. You want us to know that it is a Chinese woman who was humiliated by Malay police officers.

Lim Kit Siang said he feels sorry for Umno Youth chief and Rembau MP, Khairy Jamaluddin, who was appointed Youth and Sports Minister. “I am no friend of Khairy’s but it is unfair to him that he is put in charge of one of the most minor posts in the Cabinet,” he said, adding that Khairy was an Oxford University graduate and deserved better.

Actually, exactly 30 years ago, back in 1983, Anwar Ibrahim too was appointed the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports. But then Anwar is not an Oxford graduate like Khairy. Anwar went to Universiti Malaya so maybe that is why Kit Siang did not feel sorry for Anwar back in 1983.

Ravinder Singh sent a letter to Free Malaysia Today (read the letter below) asking: “Is gerrymandering halal orharam?”

This is like asking is beer, which has only 5% alcohol, halal or haram?

Why do we even need to argue whether gerrymandering is halal or haram? If you really want to kira halus, the Westminster system of choosing the government itself is not halal. Malaysia’s system is already un-Islamic. So why bother about whether gerrymandering is halal or haram when the system itself is in a way haram?

Let me put it another way. Ask any Malay-Muslim what makes a Muslim and he/she will reply anyone who accepts Prophet Muhammad as the Last Prophet and follows the Qur’an, the Sunnah and the Hadith, plus precedence.

Okay, now quote me one verse of the Qur’an regarding the Westminster system of government. None? Okay, if the Qur’an is silent on this issue, then you need to look at the Sunnah and the Hadith plus by using precedence.

How was the successor (caliph) to Muhammad chosen? The successor to Muhammad, Abu Bakar, was chosen by a committee after a three-day ‘conference’. Omar, who was Abu Bakar’s deputy, took over because he was the deputy (but he did not appoint any deputy when he took over). Osman, the third successor, was appointed by a Committee. And Ali took over because he was the last of the four comrades of Muhammad still alive (but he was bitterly opposed by many).

So, was there any Westminster system in appointing Muhammad and his four successors to the leadership? Hence is Malaysia’s system Islamic? And hence, also, should we worry about whether gerrymandering isharam or halal when the system itself is not halal?

Beer is not haram. It is the alcohol in the beer that is haram. So alcohol-free beer would be halal. So I suppose you can argue that a Westminster system without gerrymandering is like alcohol-free beer. Why bother to drink beer then? You drink beer to get high. You play gerrymandering to make sure that the minority can rule over the minority.

And is this not what politics is all about? Even the committee that decided on Muhammad’s successor was a minority decision and the majority just had to accept what a handful of people decided.

Is that halal or haram, Ravinder Singh?

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Is gerrymandering halal or haram?

FMT LETTER: From Ravinder Singh, via e-mail

Just days ago well known Malaysian cleric Mohd Asri Zainal Abidin stated that it was haram for Muslims to incite tensions between peoples of different races and religions. While his words are still ringing in the ears, more racist words have been spewed out. No one, not even the Chief Executive, seems to care about what Asri pointed out.

Asri was surely not giving his personal opinion, but stating a fact from the teachings of Islam. When racist words continue to be spewed out by people in high and privileged places, what is to be made of the “haramness” of their actions?

Now, one of the main complaints about our elections and not just the 13GE, is about gerrymandering. This is not something that was raised only after the elections but had been raised long before that.

Gerrymandering is clearly about cheating in the elections by giving undue advantage to a certain party over its opponent(s). It is cheating because the ruling party does not have any right, legal or moral, to change electoral boundaries to favour it. The Constitution does not give it any such right.

The cheating is done by manipulating the boundaries of the constituencies such that supporters of the ruling party are put into smaller groups (constituencies) and the non-supporters into very much bigger constituencies. This is how with about 47% of the popular vote the BN has about 60% of the Parliament seats.

How does the EC find out who supports whom? Very easy. Votes are now counted in the very same room they were cast. Voters are streamed into the different rooms based on their residential locality, which is only a short distance from the polling station. Thus based on the results from each room, i.e. a maximum of about 600 voters in a stream, the EC can draw maps showing the voting trend of each locality with great accuracy.

Each locality’s votes are therefore no more secret as the EC knows what percentage of a locality voted for whom. This information is then used to draw up new electoral boundaries. In fact our votes are no longer truly secret as the EC knows how voters in a small area voted.

The new electoral boundaries are drawn in such a way that the ruling party will have advantage over its rivals. In other words, it is like moving the goalposts.

So, could anyone please tell us whether gerrymandering, which is a cheating game, is halal or haram? This is very relevant as Malaysia is said to be an Islamic state. The non-Muslims, I’m sure, would like to know whether an Islamic State condones cheating in this way to remain in power?

Let it be remembered that the Constitution orders the EC to ensure that the number of voters in the different constituencies must be approximately equal. In Padang Rengas P61 there are only 28,518 voters but in Kapar P109 there are 144,159 voters.

Now, in the eyes of the EC, is it halal to say that the number of 28,518 voters in Padang Rengas is approximately equal to the 144,159 voters in Kapar?