Tag: religion

Categories
Society

[2472] Douthat on Hitchens

Whereas they feel entirely authentic when they’re couched as “aux armes, citoyens” rallying cries in the struggle against tyranny. Hitchens is never more himself (for better or worse) than when he’s railing against the supposed cruelties of Benedict XVI, or comparing God to Kim Jong-Il. In this sense, he’s really less of an atheist than an anti-theist: Whereas Dawkins and co. are appalled by the belief in God, Hitchens is far more appalled by the idea that anyone would want to obey Him. Every true romantic needs a great foe, a worthy adversary, a villain to whose destruction he can consecrate himself. Never one for half measures, Hitchens just decided to go all the way to the top. [Evaluations. God and the Political Romantic. Ross Douthat. June 17 2010]

Categories
Liberty Politics & government Society

[2365] Should action be taken against Utusan Malaysia? A libertarian perspective

Utusan Malaysia recently alleged that Malaysian Christian heads were conspiring to make Christianity the official religion of Malaysia. The conservative Malay daily cited two blogs of questionable credibility to back its front-page report. For a society highly conscious of  ethnicity and religion issues, the report caused uproar and tension between various communities.

Assuming the allegation is false which is likely the case, should action be taken against Utusan Malaysia for reporting it and in effect, spreading falsehood?

Our incentive system is imperfect to say the least. It is not at all surprising to have somebody spreading falsehood, lying or deceiving someone else to get what he or she wants in general. To complicate the matter, those acts might not by wrong all the times. There are times when those acts might be necessary to protect the innocents.

Even when those acts are wrong, unilateral public action through state authority might be out of the question with the principle of free speech in place, along with other typical individual rights.

Individual rights do not include the legitimization of fraud. Any action based on lies and falsehood that adversely affects individual rights cannot be condoned by the state or any authority invested with the powers to protect individual rights. It just cannot be let go off the hook.

One example is this: in a transaction, one party lies about the state of a good for sale to a person. If the person bought the good while supplied with false information, then the lying seller has obtained the money wrongly, with money being a private property of the purchaser. The right to private property is an individual right and the transaction based on deceit violates that right. The lying seller has to be punished by the state — unilaterally — since the prime rationale of the establishment of the state is the protection of individual rights according. The punishment is important not just for the sake of principle, but also for a very pragmatic reason. It is imposes a cost on such act and so discourages such fraud from recurring in the future.

Within the context of Utusan Malaysia and its recent controversial report, was there any violation of rights?

I cannot answer it in the affirmative. Therefore, I cannot to support unilateral state action against Utusan Malaysia. The best I can come up with is that the falsehood affects reputation. Yet, individual rights do not include reputation.

This of course does not mean individuals involved in the reporting — meaning the one reported involved the conspiracy — cannot seek redress against the Malay daily. Conflicts between private parties have always happened and a trustworthy third party can and has always been appointed to resolve the conflicts. The third party here is usually the state. The third party’s judgment then is enforced to resolve the conflict as civil as possible.

In the case of interest, the group accused by the Malay daily can bring their grouse to the courts. If Utusan Malaysia did spread falsehood and that the falsehood adversely affected the reputation of the group, then the daily should be compelled to compensate the group or be fined. The fate of the two bloggers should be the same as the Malay daily.

I like this route the best because it is clean. It makes the issue as a conflict between two private parties and makes the concern of unilateral state action against Utusan Malaysia merely academic if indeed Utusan Malaysia did spread falsehood (which, again, I do not doubt that is the case).

By making it private, it does not mean that there is no public interest in the case. There is but it is hard if not impossible to account for that interest and its very public effect without resorting to discretion.

If unilateral state action has to be taken — which I will contest its legitimacy — there may be a mechanism for that. Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia may have a mechanism that can be modified to justify unilateral state action against Utusan Malaysia. Be warned that I am taking the idea in a very restricted sense. Nozick is concerned with a much larger issue than that which I am focusing on now.

Early in the book, Nozick demonstrates how various insurance and compensation arrangements will address threats and actual transgressions of rights. Insurance and compensation arrangements here are simply different terms used for protection provided by an entity, which can be the state, a private security firm, a gangster group or other entities capable of provide that service. Meanwhile, threat is not simply some kind of warning or a menacing declaration that something will be done if something else is not done. Rather, it is the possibility of something bad happening. The chances of a pedestrian being hit accidentally by a car is one of such threats. The chances of a person makes good of his threat to break your leg is another example of such threats.

Nozick describes how a general open threat creates fear among the threatened. Depending on the credibility of threats and the level as well as the spread of fear the threats create, it will disrupt day-to-day activities of the person or even the society. In order words, there are costs imposed on society by the threats, regardless of realization of the threats.

I think this parallels concerns regarding lies and falsehood. It gives the qualification why some lies and falsehood should be punished. When lies and falsehood creates widespread public anxiety, then there is a case for unilateral state punishment. Under this line of thinking, the priority is fear minimization, or in the parlance of Malaysian political discourse, sedition or incitation of hatred. In the end, Utusan Malaysia clearly must be punished, if this method is adopted.

The question is how widespread before punitive unilateral state action should be taken?

This may require some kind of discretionary powers, which like any discretionary powers, are open to abuse.

The need of discretion is one reason why I do not like this method, on top of the fact it does not follow from the first principle aimed at the protection of individual rights.

Discretion tends to create dissatisfactory judgment. It will inevitably be inconsistent and in the end, ruin the reputation of the third party wielding the power to punish. Discretionary powers will lead to abuse.

The wielding and the exercise of the discretionary powers have caused troubles in the past. Some newspapers have been punished for publishing controversial material while others have been let go. Indeed, Utusan Malaysia has been let go off the hook by the government despite its controversial report of unverified truth. If reported by other newspapers less friendly to the government, that newspapers would have been punished.

So, long story short, no to unilateral state action against Utusan Malaysia but yes to making the case a private conflict between two parties involved.

Categories
Education Society

[2318] Increasing the appeal of national schools by reducing the role of religion

Prejudice against any group depends on generalization for it to take root successfully in one’s mind.

Although I have to admit that sometimes there are voices in my head whispering ethnic prejudice and stereotype, I typically find it hard to harbor such sentiment for long. I have friends of ethnicities different from mine. If I succumbed to such prejudice, I must necessarily think badly of them. I appreciate my friends and thinking badly of them disturbs me.

I take comfort that I know many of them do not fit into prejudicial descriptions that exist out there. I know my friends violate such prejudicial generalization, hence falsifying it. This forms my first barrier against such prejudice.

I am only one person, whose preference and experience are not necessarily shared by others. Yet, I do think the idea that a person’s familiarity with individuals of different ethnicity acting as a contradictory force to prejudicial generalization can be extrapolated to others’ thinking. The idea encourages one to evaluate a person based on his or her action or words instead on others’ who share the person’s ethnicity.

This is why I support any platform encouraging interaction between individuals of different ethnic backgrounds. This is why I support the national school system and frown upon any system contributing to ethnic segregation, despite the shortcomings of the national schools, and despite my appreciation for choices within the Malaysian education system.

While tuning in my blue iPod to the BBC in London recently, I caught David Cameron announcing that multiculturalism has failed. He lamented the policy of passive tolerance that has caused individuals to segregate themselves according to their ethnic background. From far, British society is multicultural but a closer look may justify Cameron’s concern.

Although the situation in Britain is different from that in Malaysia, there are communities in Malaysia that segregate willingly.

The education system in general does not help in breaking this trend. The Malays mostly go to national schools, which are Malay or Muslim-dominated. The trend repeats itself in the vernacular streams.

There are exceptions. Some national schools are diverse, especially those that are well-endowed and located in urban areas. Some vernacular schools are diverse as well. It is worth stressing again that these are exceptions, however. There are simply not enough children from different ethnicities learning in the same classroom when one assesses a majority of these schools individually. This limits the opportunity for interaction.

There are many reasons why that trend prevails in the national schools. I will not go into all of them. I intend to highlight only one of them in hope of bringing focus. Others can highlight other factors if they wish to do so.

Religion, specifically Islam, plays too much of a role in the national schools. That erodes the idea that the national schools are national, hence inclusive. When one religion appears to dominate, the idea of inclusivity bows down to exclusivity. The dominance may cause parents with other religious beliefs — as well as those without belief — distrust in the national schools being able to provide their children with the necessary education without instilling Islamic belief.

Worse, the heavy presence of Islam in the system creates the perception that non-Muslims are second-class citizens. This is best demonstrated when Islamic prayers are said during school assemblies. While students of other beliefs are encouraged to pray in their own way when the Islamic prayers are said, the practice does say a lot about which religion takes the foremost position.

Another example is the segregation that happens during Islamic lessons. Non-Muslims typically are asked to shift to a different class where they are expected to go for moral studies while Muslim students stay in the same class. That happened during my time as a student in a national school.

While the practice more than anything else is a matter of convenience — most students are Muslims — it does create the perception that, again, Islam is the religion of the national school and other religions do not deserve attention. Still, the ultimate reason they were segregated is that one group is labeled by the state as Muslim and the other as, well, others.

The perception is dangerous because children learn something about inequality. The greater danger is that these students may accept the lesson as simply the way things are in Malaysia, when such inequality should be fought instead of condoned.

There are other more sinister examples. One includes an incident several months back when a student was caned because he brought pork for lunch to school. Islam prohibits Muslims from consuming pork and that wrongly guided the action of the responsible school official to cane the non-Muslim student. The wider implication is that the example suggests that non-Muslim students should follow Islamic teachings. This links back to the issue of trust mentioned earlier.

The perception that non-Muslims are second-class citizens is not something non-Muslim parents would want or should let their children accept. Malaysia belongs to all Malaysians. Religion should not matter.

If attendance at the national schools encourages acceptance of inequality by these young students, then non-Muslim parents who believe in equality have a reason — likely another reason out of many — not to enroll their children in the national schools. This ultimately hurts the national schools’ function as an unofficial social integrator within Malaysian society.

One solution is to separate religion from schools. The national schools should be made blind to religion in a way that religion stays only within the necessary lesson. Religion should not be included during school functions and not in science classes, but only in religious classes.

The separation can remove the apprehension non-Muslim parents have about the national schools with respect to religious belief, hence making the system more appealing to non-Muslim parents. Muslim parents meanwhile can continue to be assured that their children will learn about Islam during Islamic lessons, if they wish their children to learn it.

Perhaps as part of larger liberal values, all students should be allowed to choose what they wish to learn, regardless of their religious beliefs in the spirit of free inquiry. This also includes the arts and the sciences. No longer will students be segregated during lessons based on religious beliefs but they will be separated based on their interests and curiosity.

Hopefully, after making national schools neutral of religion, we will be a step closer to becoming an inclusive national system to encourage interaction, where individuals of one ethnicity befriend those of another to acquire the idea that his or her friend contradicts many of the prejudicial generalizations that exist out there.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

First published in The Malaysian Insider on February 16 2011.

Categories
Politics & government Society

[2288] Of ridiculously supernatural by too much

As long as there are those who believe in supernatural explanations to rationalize the completely natural world and as long as there are public choices that require collective decisions, religion will be relevant in our society. The relevance of religion, however, is not a ticket to be used with impunity in the public arena.

In The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World, author Matthew Stewart described how the religious of 17th-century Europe were anxious about the advancement of science. As the explanatory power of science grew, the room for supernatural explanation shrank. Four hundred years on, the room for the supernatural continues to shrink as we continue to understand more about the world around us. We have become more rational than ever.

Unlike in the days of old, this is an era when many assertions relating to the secular world require rational reasoning as its thrust. Many individuals no longer accept an assertion as true simply because someone invokes the name of god, or any being of similar status.

While the relevance of religion in society is not denied, it is easy to see how its relevance has been overestimated by some. That overestimation invites ridicule, especially so when the invocation of god’s name is based on self-interest.

When Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan swore on the Quran that Anwar Ibrahim violated him, it was quite clear that his purpose was to strengthen his case, regardless of the truth behind his allegation. While the truth in his case was at best uncertain, he tried to use religion to pre-empt the civil justice system. One can take comfort that the supernatural bows to rationality in the justice system for else, truth would be so cheap that it would be worthless.

A starker example involves former Selangor state assemblyman Lee Hwa Beng of the MCA. When he wrote that the Christian god commands Christians to oppose the concept of an Islamic state, he was using religion for his own political purpose. He linked the DAP with an Islamic state as promoted by PAS to cultivate the fear of Christians towards PAS so that they would vote for BN instead.

Of interest here is the use of supernatural-based rationale against another supernatural-based position. Even in the realm of the supernatural, supernatural rationale is problematic. It was so problematic that criticisms came in fast and harsh. What was supposed to be an insignificant statement on Twitter became a considerable embarrassment for Lee and he was forced to retract his statement and apologize.

Lee’s was a case where a person spoke on behalf of a god. He is, of course, not unique. Many members of PAS have taken the tone where the Islamic god wants this and that. Still, they are more or less Islamists and it is only expected of them to use religion to justify their political ambition. Nevertheless, they do struggle to justify the goal of an Islamic state while trying to widen their appeal and achieve their national ambition of wrestling Putrajaya from Barisan Nasional. Rather than appealing to supernatural reasoning, PAS has in the past tried to promote some of its ideal by stressing universal concepts like justice instead. If the 2008 general election is any indication, then secular methods are more successful than ones inspired by divine diktat.

And recently, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, president of PKR, said that her husband Anwar Ibrahim is a person granted by god to Malaysians to become our leader. As if the obvious needs pointing out, it is not hard to see how the fortune of Anwar is closely related to PKR. Maybe after criticism regarding PKR’s recent direct election, she thought that the outdated concept of divine right might justify Anwar’s position. Well, it did not work. She burnt her fingers. The wolves of Barisan Nasional pounced on her and she deserved it.

In each case, if they had resorted to the more rational path, they would have been less susceptible to ridicule. Saiful’s legal counsel could have presented convincing evidence in court. Lee could argue that an Islamic state may discriminate individuals based on creed. Wan Azizah could instead say that Anwar Ibrahim’s leadership is indispensible, for instance.

But no. They had to tickle the pink unicorn. Whether the unicorn has been entertained, we will never know. What we do know is that if they had chosen the more rational path, they would have been less susceptible to ridicule.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

First published in The Malaysian Insider on December 13 2010.

Categories
Liberty Politics & government Society

[2276] Of it requires an answer

At a recent public lecture in Sydney, Australia, Anwar Ibrahim said he avoids answering which he aspires to: a secular state or an Islamic state. He reasoned that the issue is contentious and unproductive to engage in. He believes what exists instead is a quasi-secular state, and a hypocritical one at that. He went on to state that the problem revolves around hypocrisy. I left the lecture dissatisfied with the message. Immediately after he ended his speech, I began to wonder about the kind of consistency he was looking for.

He argued that part of the reason why the issue is contentious is that both mean different things to different person. For instance, there are opponents of secularism who believe that secularism is anti-religion. That illiberal brand of secularism stifles religions in the public sphere, like what happened in Turkey before. And then there are proponents of secularism who assert that secularism is neutral of religion. Backed by liberal principles, a liberal secular state will treat all religions equally as long as those religions do not infringe on individual liberties. I myself subscribe to this idea.

Being the glue that holds Pakatan Rakyat together, it is completely understandable why he avoids the question. If anybody needs a reminder, DAP and the Islamist PAS are both the main component parties of Pakatan Rakyat. Both have rattled sabers over the matter within the Malaysian context. In Sydney, he stressed the need to build consensus. Fair enough.

The avoidance, however, is problematic when he is critical of the double standards in the implementation of Islamic law in Malaysia, where the rich and influential get away with what Islam frowns at while others get punished. That criticism relies on the idea of equality before the law. Such equality itself is a sound concept. Yet, not all equality ranks equally in terms of preference.

While the application of unequal weight of the law is distasteful, I shudder to think of a situation of equal implementation of Islamic law, especially in its current form in Malaysia. This is because it violates individual liberties — especially for those whom the state considers as Muslims — such as freedom of conscience. That translates into law that states whom a person can marry, what he or she can eat or drink, what a person can believe in, etc. It excessively dictates one’s personal life. An Islamic state that runs on Islamic law necessarily does that.

Religion has always been a personal, private matter for liberals. When religion is a private matter then the state has no say, freedom has more opportunities to flourish. This is why liberals prefer a secular state with respect to any religious state, while holding all other concerns constant. The opportunity for liberty to flourish doubles when there are guarantees for individual liberties within a liberal democratic framework, which addresses the problem of tyranny of the majority.

Criticism of hypocrisy and the existence of preferences in different kinds of equality essentially introduce back the question of secularism and Islamic state. The question does not need to be framed in such a stark contrast. Forget the labels. Ask instead, will religion, specifically Islam, be used to dictate a person’s lifestyle? More specifically, will it be used to dictate a Malay’s lifestyle?

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

First published in The Malaysian Insider on November 18 2010.