Learn to love

What is the point of being religious and God fearing when we can’t even learn to love one another, and pardon each other’s mistakes?

COMMENT

Q: How many Malaysian Muslims does it take to change a light bulb?

A: That’s sensitive.

Let me state the obvious here. The above was a joke. Perhaps the degree of effectiveness in its humour may vary from person to person, but I’m sure you can agree, that it is not meant to cause any harm or offense.

Yet almost every single day, we receive news of offensive materials being written or uploaded in social media.

From the controversial Alvivi duo, to the dog trainer Maznah Yusof, and most recently, the Johor resort owner who allowed Singaporean Buddhist tourists to use his surau for meditation.

It seems everything is offensive now.

Each of the events above have been said to be seditious simply because it had offended some Muslims. The reason I say some, is because many more, including myself, do not take offense. It certainly did not threaten the integrity of our faith.

Sedition is simply defined as inciting or causing rebellion against the authority of the state.

Here, we need to remember that the authority of our state is not syariah law. Islam may be the official religion of Malaysia, but we govern ourselves based on common legal law, unlike actual Islamic Republics such as those in the Middle East.

Hence, the aforementioned individuals had not rebelled against the state. Neither have their actions incited rebellion.

What they did was merely offend.

Was Alvivi’s joke funny? If you were to judge it based on entertainment value alone, it merely invited a snicker. Was it insensitive? Yes, it was.

Should their insensitivity be punishable by imprisonment for up to 15 years? No. Because before a mere few months were to pass, no one would give a hoot about Alvivi. Their so called crimes do not have the same lasting effects as rape or murder.

As it stands, Malaysian prisons are too congested. Before we sentence heavy penalties for foolishness, we should consider revamping our laws and rehabilitation systems first.

The real offenders

Perhaps those who should be questioned and charged are the ones who take offense to begin with.

The individual who uploaded the video of the Buddhists meditating in the surau had malevolently titled his video “Surau dijadikan tokong?!!” (Mosque turned into a temple). It is the uploader who intends to stir trouble and incite hate.

The people who comment on the video calling for the resort owner’s head are the real offenders. They are the ones threatening harm; not the well-intended, albeit naive resort owner extending his hospitality as any true Muslim would.

Now, the surau may face demolition because its sanctity has been tarnished. Yet, the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) allowed Christian travellers to use Masjid Al- Nabawi to pray when they visited Medina. Should that not be the noblest example to follow?

In Aberdeen, Scotland, a priest had opened the doors to his church to the neighbouring mosque because the Muslims had to pray in the external corridors, freezing in the cold.

If he were to possess the same sort of elitist and overly sensitive attitude of our Malaysian Muslims, some of those elderly Muslims could have died simply because they lacked the infrastructure.

What is the point of being religious and God fearing when we can’t even learn to love one another, and pardon each other’s mistakes?

What is the point of having these religious councils when they themselves react petulantly towards such minor offenses?

Why claim religious freedom in the constitution when we Muslims curb and police the practices of the non-Muslims?

This is why Malaysia needs to practice separation of secular and sacred laws. Religion and faith should be personal.

And maybe it wouldn’t hurt for Malaysian Muslims to learn to laugh and love a little.

Elza Irdalynna writes about art, love, and other things she pretends to understand. She is also an FMT columnist.

[photo from http://yayasan1malaysia.org/]