THE only way forward for this country is for all Malaysians to unite and lend each other strength without any room for racism or parochial mentality, a veterans’ association said.
The National Patriots Association’s (Patriot) target was Perlis mufti Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, who during a recent sermon said “Tanah Melayu is only for the Malays”.
“The last thing we need is for someone to publicly declare that Tanah Melayu is for the Malays,” said Patriot president Brig-Gen (rtd) Mohamed Arshad Raji.
“Wisdom has escaped Perlis mufti Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin when he did just that in a recent video sermon.”
Arshad reminded Asri that Malaysia is for all Malaysians, adding that no one disputed the fact there’s a dominant race in national identity.
“Rather than fanning fire to the already high tempo of socio-religious discourse, he should urge all Malaysians to stay united to face the economic challenges ahead.”
Arshad said by stating that China is for Chinese, India is for Indians, Western countries are for whites and Tanah Melayu is for Malays to make his point, the Perlis mufti has “instigated an unwelcomed mockery that may rip further our fragile inter-ethnic relations, and the peninsula-Sabah and Sarawak distrust”.
He also asked why Asri side-stepped all the scandals that riddled the previous Barisan Nasional administration, which governed for more than 60 years with a near monopoly of a dominant race.
“Scandals were aplenty, from Bank Bumiputra Finance in the 1980s to the mother of all scandals, 1MBD (1Malaysia Development Berhad).
“Yet, Asri said little or nothing at all against the perpetrators of those scandals.”
Asri and all Malaysians should instead be concerned about the nation’s economic health, Arshad said.
“We in Patriot are concerned about our economic situation and how badly our people will be affected in the impending world economic downturn.
“We are facing numerous challenges, many inherited from the previous administration plus new ones. If not handled well, our nation and people will suffer a long period of poverty at best, or lead us to a national break-up and economic chaos.”
It is, therefore, important that all Malaysians, including Asri, to comprehend the new socio-economic-political construct of Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s “shared prosperity”, he said.
“He’s setting a clear direction forward,” Arshad said of Dr Mahathir’s address to mark Pakatan Harapan’s first year in power on May 9.
Under the “shared prosperity” concept, the government will, among others, provide a decent standard of living to all Malaysians, to ensure that all people will benefit from the nation’s wealth.
The key to the concept is fairness, equitable, inclusiveness, and justice.
Arshad said with a national debt and liabilities now at RM1.1 trillion, declining gross export, high household debt and cost of living pressure expected to continue for those in the B40 group, there is simply no time for race rhetoric.
UK finds Zakir’s Peace TV guilty of hate speech
PREACHER Zakir Naik’s satellite channel, Peace TV, has been found guilty of hate speech by the UK’s broadcasting regulator, and may see its licence revoked.
Free Malaysia Today, citing a report by Ofcom last month, said four of the five Peace TV programmes investigated, following complaints on homophobia and criminal incitement, were in breach of the broadcasting code.
Two of the breaches involved the channel’s Urdu and English editions, and may be punishable with “statutory sanctions”, said the commission.
Besides hate speech, said FMT, other violations include incitement to crime and abusive treatment.
The four shows were aired between November 2017 and March last year.
The Urdu-language “Kitaab-ut-Tawheed” programme featured discussions on the works of Wahhabism founder Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. In one episode, speaker Shaikh Ashfaque Salafi voiced support for the beheading of magicians.
Club TV Ltd, Peace TV’s licensee in the UK, has defended the show.
“The programme is not about Harry Houdini, Paul Daniels, David Blaine, or other entertainers performing magic tricks for money or fun. It is about black magic, witchcraft, sorcery and enchantment, as viewers will understand,” it said in a defence submitted to Ofcom.
Meanwhile, the “Strengthening Your Family” programme saw homosexuals being compared to pigs.
“Here are two human beings… trying to justify something that even animals don’t do. Subhanallah, worse than animals,” presenter Imam Qasim Khan was quoted as saying in the Ofcom report.
“Human beings can be worse than animals. At least animals have the dignity of confining their passion, their sexual passion, to the opposite gender.
“Homosexual Baptists, homosexual Methodists, homosexual Catholics, homosexual Jewish people, and embarrassingly, homosexual Muslims. That’s insane. What are we going to do about it?”
To this, Club TV said the show was directed at Muslims “with a specific emphasis on teaching how to live a religiously observant life in line with the scriptures”, and so, it was likely that viewers expected the speaker to hold strong views against homosexuality.
Ofcom, meanwhile, said it has no intention of curbing any religious figure’s right to free speech.
“However, when transmitting materials of this nature, broadcasters must comply with all the relevant rules in the code, including Rule 3.1 (prohibition on materials likely to incite crime), Rule 3.2 (hate speech must be justified by the context) and Rule 3.3 (materials that contain the abusive or derogatory treatment of individuals, groups, religions or communities must not be included on television).”
Peace TV is broadcast from Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.
The Mumbai-born Zakir has caused a firestorm in Malaysia, where he holds permanent resident status, over his comments on the country’s Hindus and Chinese.
Besides being banned from giving public talks nationwide, police are investigating him under Section 504 of the Penal Code, for insult with intent to provoke a breach of the peace.
Zakir faces up to two years in prison, or a fine, or both, upon conviction.
The televangelist is also wanted in his home country of India for money-laundering and terrorism-related charges.
– https://www.themalaysianinsight.com/
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