MCA president Chua Soi Lek is under intense pressure to retain the Tenang seat for BN and as he is unlikely to secure the Chinese vote, has adopted characteristic underhand tactics to undermine the opposition.
This time, he has decided to deride PAS candidate Normala Sudirman’s religious views.
Has Chua an ounce of decency in him? Will he not respect the traditional beliefs of Normala? Or does he feel he can ridicule her just because she is a woman?
The right to hold religious beliefs and to act in keeping with one’s faith, is being set against the necessity of not offending others. Chua is using the need to shake hands and to go to temples as the benchmark for accepting the eligibility of the candidate.
It does appear that from the various events leading to this Tenang by-election, BN is desperate to derail the Opposition.
Recently, Serdang MP Teo Nie Ching received a death threat and a dead chicken was left as a warning. Before that, she had been accused of wearing tight clothing in an aerobics/health and fitness morning, in the grounds of a mosque in her constituency.
BN seems bankrupt of intellectual capital and its only tactic is to criticise the dress code of the ladies in the Opposition. Chua appears a mean and pathetic character. Or is he sexist to the core?
This time, Chua has been going around the temples in Tenang and the Chinese community, badmouthing Normala.
He said, “She will not come here (a Chinese temple), she doesn't even shake hands with the people. I have received complaints about this.”
He then compared Normala to Dr. Wan Azizah Wan Ismail: “She is like (PKR de facto leader) Anwar Ibrahim's wife (Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail). She wears gloves when she shakes hands. If you can accept this kind of Islamic value, go ahead and vote for PAS.”
In Islam, physical contact between the sexes in public is frowned upon, even in the innocuous act of shaking hands. Thus the practice of embracing, hugging and even of shaking hands with members of the opposite sex is, in theory, totally absent.
Shaking hands between members of the opposite sexes is prohibited as Islam forbids physical contact between the sexes. The exceptions to the rule are when the person of the opposite sex happens to be a family-member.
What a great pity that Chua, who is supposed to champion Prime minister Najib Abdul Razak’s 1Malaysia’s ideals, has forgotten that Normala is a woman of religious conviction. Is he saying that she should sacrifice her religious beliefs to satisfy his distasteful personal agenda?
On the other hand, Chua would have made political capital if Normala had been seen entering a temple or shaken hands with males, who are not her family members.
What Normala has done, which is to put gloves on when shaking hands, is perfectly acceptable.
When Normala uses gloves to shake hands, she is not saying she considers the other person unclean or unhygienic (although with Swine flu or H1N1, it would be a good idea to wear gloves to stop the spread of germs).
When Normala shakes the other person’s hands with her gloved hands, she is showing respect to that person and at the same time is conforming to her religious and traditional beliefs. How wrong can that be?
No one from Umno or Perkasa has complained about Chua Soi Lek’s ‘insult of Islam’. Normally they would be waving krises in parliament, issuing death threats and staging demonstrations in Kuala Lumpur.
This lack of action by Minister of religious affairs Jamil Khir Baharom, Umno and Perkasa shows that their previous protest about the “Azan volume” was just electioneering, orchestrated by Umno and Perkasa thugs - It was nothing to do with upholding the religion. It was hypocritical and bought Islam into disrepute. - Malaysia Chronicle
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