Madness in Malaya, sanity in Sarawak

Around Christmas, some Muslims in Malaya went practically berserk over two air wells separated by a common (also called ‘party’) wall.

Strange but true.

So what’s with two air wells separated by a common wall? you might be asking.

Well, you know, in those terrace houses in Malaysia, you have common walls, that is, the two longitudinal walls that define one unit. The tops of the common walls may be made to extend maybe some 30cm upwards past the roof.

At either side of one common wall, you sometimes have an air well. Meaning, one air well is for one unit, and the other is for the unit next door.

Now, when seen from a point high enough, the juxtapositioning of the two air wells and one common wall form the configuration of the crucifix.

O-o-o-o-h, that just wouldn’t do! Hurry! Close the air wells and let the units’ occupants breathe stale air.

“Be careful, Malay Muslims,” a female netizen is reported to have warned. “This is a veiled agenda to mislead the faith of fellow Muslims.”

The sight of something that only vaguely resembles the crucifix can adversely affect your faith? There must be something terribly wrong with your brains, lady.

Fortunately, not all Muslims in Malaya are like her.

One said that as a Muslim, he was embarrassed by Muslims who were just out looking for trouble, to the extent that even such a thing was considered wrong; while another one, who seems to have an architecture background, explained the features to show that there was nothing insidious about the whole thing.

Indeed, there is nothing insidious, at all. I know, because I have studied building design.

Doubtless, many of you are occupying a terrace house. If you look at the floor plans of your row, you will find that the enclosed spaces inside one unit are mirrored inside the next unit. There is a simple reason for this.

Let us take as a simple example the ground floor of a terrace house where you have a kitchen and a spare bedroom-cum-store at one end of it. You don't want that bedroom in one unit to be next to the kitchen of the other unit, do you? So, those enclosed spaces are mirrored in the next unit.

The particular terrace houses that caused much frothing and foaming at the mouth are in what Malaysia’s prime minister is hoping to be the Monaco of The East, Langkawi Island.

Fat hopes. But that is another story.

This paranoia about the crucifix is simply insane. It is the height of absurdity. It is pure madness.

There are 1,001 other things that resemble the crucifix. What are you going to do about them?

DAP MP Lim Lip Eng, in fact, pointed out that the KL International Airport itself has various structures that resemble the crucifix when viewed from above. “Do you want to demolish them?” he asked.

Sanity in Sarawak

In Sarawak, you find the direct opposite. Practically all, if not all, Muslims there are sane.

I am writing this long after my dinner on Sunday, Dec 27. Earlier this evening, there was a joint Christmas gathering on the premises of a church in Miri City, in the north of Sarawak.

Note that it was a ‘joint’ Christmas gathering. It was a joint activity where the pastor of the church and his parishioners on the one part, and the chairperson of a nearby mosque and his fellow Muslims on the other came together to celebrate the occasion.

And it wasn’t something that has just happened today; it has been happening over the past 50 long years.

The church and the mosque also let worshippers from the other use their respective car parks.

The chairperson of the mosque said it is natural for the Muslims to share whatever facilities and occasions with the Christians and other Chinese there. “It is so natural to us that it is part of our daily way of life,” he said.

It does seem to us that the Muslims in Sarawak have a faith in Islam by far stronger than many of those in Malaya. Their ustazs and imams must be doing something right.

It does seem to us that the Muslims in Sarawak cause Islam to be respected instead of ridiculed.

So, when are you emigrating to Sarawak? -Mkini