Author: Hafiz Noor Shams

For more about me, please read this.

Categories
Economics Humor

[758] Of April Fool’s Day

In Malaysia, it’s been roughly 50 minutes into April 1st. So, don’t believe everything that you, especially in the blogosphere. If things appears too good to be true, too surprising, too abrupt, too unbelievable, chances are, they are.

Oh yeah, I’m getting married. Oh, lucky me…

p/s – Lowyat.net officially adopt Flying Spaghetti Monsterism as its official religion. This also renders part of their forum inaccessible, annoyingly.

Wikipedia itself has plans for April Fool’s though it won’t make it to the front page until eastern standard time’s midnight. Don’t forget to check Wikipedia soon.

pp/s – just found out that Dell is acquiring Alienware.

Dell has agreed to purchase gaming PC maker Alienware, in a rare acquisition designed to improve Alienware’s supply chain and boost Dell’s standing among PC enthusiasts.

That sucks. I’ve always hated Dell but admire Alienware.

Categories
Liberty Politics & government Society

[757] Of Jill Carroll is free

Yes, she is. I saw a report on Bloomberg just now and Bloomberg says Al-Jazeera and Reuters have confirmed the news. I however have yet to see an online report. Should be up soon, I presume. She’s from Ann Arbor and would probably be on her way to Ann Arbor soon.

Jill Carroll was kidnapped sometimes ago in Iraq and was feared dead earlier.

p/s – remember my post entitled [754] Of the strengthening role of religion within the government?

Well, in that entry, I wrote in jest that “through extrapolation, maybe, the government would send Muslims to jail for missing prayers in the future.” I didn’t quite believe it was possible. Apparently, I was wrong.

There is already such provision in Kelantan. It’s Section 101 of the Kelantan Islamic Council and Malay Customs Enactment 1986 (Amendment 1994). More:

In a rare case, a 68-year-old man was fined RM300 or one month’s jail for not attending Friday prayers in his mukim (sub-district).

Mohamad Taib, from Kedepal here, pleaded guilty to not attending Friday prayers at a mosque in his area three consecutive times, an offence which in Kelantan carries a maximum RM1,000 fine or a six-month jail term.

Religious prosecution is not all. Civil liberty was also threatened; privacy intruded:

The labourer was caught by Pasir Mas Religious Affairs Department officers after two months of surveillance at the mosque.

Pasir Mas Lower Syariah Court prosecutor Rohani Kadir said the officers and mosque officials found that Mohamad had not attended Friday prayers at the mosque between June and July last year.

And I thought the presence of CCTVs in Kuala Lumpur is already bad. Thank goodness, Kelantan is not my home. In a way, I’m grateful that Malaysia is a federation. If it were a unitary state, it would get really ugly to have such law.

If there a similar federal clause on that, those green cards would start to be overly attractive. Imagine the reason to emigrate: escaping religious prosecution. LOL!

Or maybe, it’s not so funny after all.

pp/s – two hours to the tabling of the Ninth Malaysian Plan and what am I doing? Trying to convince my mom into buying equities of major Malaysian construction-based firms. Well, correction – a buying frenzy.

ppp/s – alright. Not A2 but Boston.

Categories
Earthly Strip Environment

[756] Of Earthly Strip: Safe Smelly Water

On New Straits Times’ front page today: Analysis reveals tap water in Klang Valley safe to drink.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

I think it’s safe too. Nobody has died so far.

Categories
Personal

[755] Of a very slow day

· · – – · – &nbsp · · – – &nbsp · – &nbsp · &nbsp · – &nbsp · – · &nbsp – &nbsp · · · ·

(di-di-dah-dah di-dah di-di-dah-dah di-dah dit di-dah di-dah-dit dah di-di-di-dit)

Categories
Politics & government Society

[754] Of the strengthening role of religion within the government

I read a disturbing article in Utusan Malaysia (in Malay) earlier this week. A bill known as Enakment Zakat (literally, Tithe Enactment) is set for enforcement next year at the latest in Selangor. The bill will enable the state’s Islamic religious authority to imprison any person that failed to pay alms or zakat; zakat is obligatory alms on Muslims and part of five pillars of Islam. The troubling part here is the power the state government has to enforce religious tenets on its citizens. The state is enroaching on private citizens’ life in the name of religion.

The past few years have seen the strengthening of role of religion, specifically Islam, within the Malaysian government. Not too many months ago, we saw how certain religious authority had the audacity to form moral police squads despite public disapproval. It took several hard no’s to convince that religious authority to abandon that idea. More recently, policewomen had been ordered to wear headscarf at an official function regardless of belief. The police stated that it was for the sake of uniformity but I suspect something more sinister going on. Though this enactment is only effective at state level, it may well be another step taken to further erode secularism in Malaysia.

This trend is definitely the effect of intense UMNO-PAS rivalry that started in 1999. PAS managed a stunning win in the year’s general election. In effort to counter PAS, UMNO tried to be more Islamic than PAS, enticing conservatives that would normally vote for PAS. It worked and in the 2004 general election, UMNO gave PAS a severe beating.

The “I’m more a Muslim than you” policy may have accomplished what UMNO desired but they’re disfranchising the more moderate Malaysians. For such reason, I hope to see UMNO’s current policy to backfire in 2008 or 2009, the year the next general election is due. Such backlash would halt UMNO and indirectly, the government’s march to the right. PAS suffered somewhat similar backlash during the Pengkalan Pasir by-election, or not.

Else, soon, through extrapolation, maybe, the government would send Muslims to jail for missing prayers in the future. Hey, they’ve already sent those that don’t fast during Ramadan into a “timeout”. That could happen unless we stop giving those in the right more power to impose their self-proclaimed superior moral and other religious rules on the masses.

The problem is, of course, we have a commie wannabe as an alternative to UMNO and PAS and that makes things tougher than it ought to be. In the end, it’s all about the lesser devil, unfortunately. And that lesser devil is currently somewhere on the left.