Category: Society

Categories
Liberty Society

[1165] Of tale of two courts: common denominator

I am in the opinion that the trend of the strengthening role of religion in Malaysia reaches a new level after the civil court directed a Hindu to seek redress in the sharia court. For the past several months, the civil court has delegated many cases to the sharia court whereas the civil court should have deliberated on it instead. From a layperson’s point of view, this action increasingly widens the scope and the power of the sharia court over all Malaysians. This creates great controversies and indeed, it is another in a series of cases which test the boundary of the civil and sharia law.

This is a very worrying trend. Having the executive branch of the government enforcing religious rule in one thing, having the judiciary trading off civil liberties for religious conservative value is quite another. The judiciary is supposed to be the bulwark against the religious conservatives. When the bulwark starts to fail, the perfect analogy would be when the dykes of the Netherlands start to leak. The consequence of the leak needs no explanation.

In Malaysia right now, more than ever, we need a little boy to plug his little finger into a tiny hole, stopping the leak. This is because we as Malaysians have achieved so much since we last formed a federation in 1963. If the dyke fails, we have too much to lose.

As a libertarian, the legitimacy of the sharia court is only possible through the consent of individuals being judged by such court. I for instance only accept any sharia court ruling on me if I assent to be judged by the court — indeed by the sharia law — in the first place.

For certain reasons in this country, Muslims have two courts in this country; those courts are civil and sharia. While I have issues of being judged in the sharia court, the bigger issue is when there is an overlap between civil and sharia laws. In particular, this occurs when Muslims and non-Muslims’ interests collide.

When such event happens, in order to resolve the dispute as civil as possible, all sides will have to agree upon on whom should be the arbitrator. When there are more than one kind of courts and each side preferring one court or the other with such preference never coincides, there must be a common denominator that everybody could or must fall back to settle the original dispute. In the case of two courts, the common denominator is the civil court.

Why the civil court is the common denominator?

I like think the reason is the obvious. While the sharia law in Malaysia in theory governs certain aspects over Muslims (regardless of what I think), the civil law governs all. It is through this reasoning why the civil court is the common denominator. Again as a libertarian, this common denominator argument is valid to all, regardless of religious belief.

If we refuse to have a common denominator, to accept the civil law as the common denominator, perhaps it is better for us to quit trying to embrace each other, to live and let live, to live separately, peacefully.

Categories
Humor Society

[1148] Of literally, whistle-blower

I was a little bit confused, perhaps, hilariously confused for awhile, after reading a report today:

KUALA LUMPUR: If everyone carries a whistle and blows it when a crime occurs, the nation will be a safer place.

This is what the Malaysian Crime Prevention Foundation (MCPF) believes, and so it unveiled the “safety whistle” campaign at its 14th AGM on Saturday as a crime prevention method for the people.  [MCPF kicks off whistle-blowing campaign. The Star. March 24 2007]

A little bit too literal, if you ask me. When I read the term “whistle-blowing“, I was thinking of a different kind of whistleblower. Anyway, further in the report:

“When, for example, burglar breaks into a house, the houseowner or anyone who witnesses the crime can immediately call for help and attention by blowing his whistle and, hopefully, that will scare the burglars away,” said MCPF executive council member Datuk Robert Phang.

Yeah folks. If you happen to stumble into a burglar in your house in the middle of the night, take a whistle and blow it as hard as possible. Hopefully, the burglars would run away, fearing the all powerful shrieking whistle!

Prreeettt! Prreeettt! Prreeettt!

Categories
Economics Pop culture Society

[1108] Of the poor listen to local music

At the Marginal Revolution, based on a paper by Omar Lizardo:

…the data supplied by Professor Lizardo show that the poorer a country, the more likely it will buy and listen to its own domestic music. This makes sense given that music is a form of social networking and the relevant networks are primarily local.

There is an article discussing the same subject on the NYT written by the author of Marginal Revolution.

I skimmed through the paper for regression analysis and I found this on page 15:

Omar Lizardo. Fair use.

Malaysia is somewhere in the middle, above the regression line. You may take a closer look at the graph by clicking on it.

I wonder how the inclusion of population size would affect the analysis.

Categories
Society

[1102] Of a xenophobic bill

Thanks to Chinese New Year, a typical weekend became a four-day holiday for many in Malaysia. According to several sources including TV3, foreign laborers flooded Kuala Lumpur for recreational purposes on Sunday. In the news reports, locals expressed discomfort of seeing foreign laborers walking around so freely in large number. I thought it was normal for the locals to feel some discomfort and since I have blogged about such xenophobia earlier, I decided to let it go. When I saw a post by The Malaysian which quotes the International Herald Tribune however, I changed my mind. In the IHT:

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: Foreign laborers in Malaysia’s largest city denounced Monday proposed legislation that would restrict them to their work sites unless they receive special permission to leave.

Home Minister Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said he intends to propose a bill next month that could see nearly 2 million foreign workers in the Southeast Asian nation confined to their living quarters, the Star newspaper Web site reported Sunday.

The bill is xenophobic and must not pass. We are talking about humans here, not dogs.

If the bill goes through, then Malaysia must be prepared for rocky relationships with several countries which will inevitably include our neighbor, Indonesia.

Further in the report:

Police Chief Musa Hassan said foreign laborers may be restricted to their living quarters and their “activities monitored” as part of efforts to curb crime. Musa said 5,000 crimes were committed by foreigners last year from a total of about 230,000.

And:

“It is a way to prevent those employees from committing crimes,” he said adding 2% of the crimes committed in the country are by foreign workers.

Based on the statistics, if we are really concerned about crime rate, we should restrict the locals instead. But no, there are those that are encouraging the Mat Rempits to disregard the law in the name of fighting crime:

BALING: Putera Umno will reward Mat Rempit here with motorcycles for helping police detain snatch thieves.

Its chief Datuk Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim said the incentive was one way of curbing snatch thefts in the Baling district and to encourage the illegal racers to be police informants.

However, he added, before the Mat Rempit could take home the motorcycle, they would have to catch at least 30 snatch thieves and be rewarded RM50 per head.

A great policy from a person whom “graduated” from the “prestigious” “Preston University“. For more on Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim, please read an article by Joceline Tan.

In the end, are we as a society being honest here?

Categories
Liberty Society

[1092] Of liberalism, multicultural societies and multiculturalism

One of the characteristics of liberalism is tolerance. While that might be true of liberalism taken as a whole, as usual, I am interested in classical liberalism and will refer such liberalism as simply liberalism. This tolerance originates from the non-aggression axiom. While I understand the relationship between tolerance and the non-aggression axiom, I had a hard time trying to justify multiculturalism in the name of liberalism. It turns out that it is hard to justify because it is unjustifiable.

I had the impression that multiculturalism is the apex of tolerance where different people from very different backgrounds come and live together in harmony, respecting each others’ rights. This impression, that both are related to tolerance, has brought me to assume that liberalism actively supports multiculturalism by virtue that both share the characteristic of tolerance. That opinion further strengthened my opinion on the relationship between liberalism and multicultural societies; that a liberal society is a multicultural society and multicultural society is synonymous to multiculturalism.

After a couple of headaches, enlightenment rained upon me. I somehow began to realize the difference between the descriptive multicultural and the prescriptive multiculturalism. The former merely describes a state of a society without espousing what state should the society be. The latter actively advocates for a state of multicultural through policies collectively called multiculturalism. With that realization, I have come to the conclusion that liberalism is neutral of multicultural society and unsupportive of multiculturalism.

It must be noted that a multicultural society is the natural course of a liberal society. Be aware that this is not similar to stating that the only cause a multicultural society is liberalism.

Liberalism by its very nature is tolerant and a liberal society is a tolerant society. This tolerance exhibited by liberal societies attracts people from all over, especially from illiberal societies. While liberalism produces multicultural societies, multicultural societies are not the goal of liberalism. To make the idea clearer, multicultural society is a side effect of liberalism; liberalism indirectly causes the creation of multicultural societies. The relationship between liberalism and multicultural societies stops there and goes no farther.

To actively encourage the formation of a multicultural society is taking it one step farther; that is multiculturalism and not liberalism.

A pillar of liberalism is spontaneous order. The policies of multiculturalism contradict the spirit of spontaneous order. A liberal must not force to turn a society into a multicultural one. By force, I mean, the state, which has the monopoly of policing power, actively promoting multicultural society as an end. It is worth reiterating that a liberal society would sooner or later become multicultural unconsciously. Forcing the process to go faster is counterproductive. Just as we cannot force others to be free, we cannot force society to become multicultural.

While multicultural society is, depending on point of view — I certainly do see it as such — a positive unintended effect of liberalism, liberals themselves, or rather, liberal states, should be neutral on issues relating to multicultural societies. Such neutrality is essential because whether a society is multicultural or monocultural, it is not related to liberty. In an already liberal society when negative rights are secured, do we expect the state of multicultural to affect liberty in any way?

I would answer no.

I do believe that I was not the only that that had tried to say multiculturalism is part of liberalism. A lot of multiculturalists do call themselves as liberals and it is easy to understand how such confusion could occur.

As stated earlier, a creation of a multicultural society is a side effect — a symptom — of liberalism. Advanced liberal societies more often than not are multicultural societies. Those that misunderstood the relationship between liberalism and multiculturalism will try to emulate these advanced liberal societies to the letters, instead of to the spirit. The strong relationship between liberalism and multicultural societies blurs the causality and causes many liberals — I would call these liberals as neophytes — to accept multicultural societies as central to liberalism.

Again, multicultural society is a symptom of liberalism; a multicultural society is simply a sign of a maturing liberal society. Multicultural society is not central to liberalism while multiculturalism is out of the equation.

For us to emulate advanced liberal societies, we need to secure the roots of liberalism, not the symptoms of liberalism. For once the roots are secured, the symptoms will come in good time.