KUALA LUMPUR, June 24 — Unable to stomach the “horrible” demand on non-Muslims not to eat or drink in front of Muslims during the fasting month of Ramadan, lawyer Azhar Harun took to Facebook to express how upset he was.
His post on the social media site yesterday has since drawn over 43,000 “likes” and was shared by over 17,000 Facebook users at the time of writing.
Azhar, who is himself a Muslim, had contrasted the demands by some Muslims with his daughter’s Christian tutor’s lack of complaints over the Arabic words of “Allah” and “Prophet Muhammad” hanging in his house.
“Did he ever request that his sitting be changed? Or that those frames be moved away or at least be covered by a batik sarong? Did he ask me to 'respect' his faith? Or not to 'insult' him or his faith? Well, he never did. Not even a word about those,” he said in his Facebook post.
Azhar questioned the need to close school canteens during the Muslim fasting month and for non-Malay students to drink behind closed doors and even in the toilets, referring to the recent controversy where a senior teacher’s purported joke for non-Muslims not to drink their own urine in toilets was allegedly misquoted and misunderstood.
“The point is why must non-Malays adjust their life to facilitate us, Muslims Melayoos [sic], to fast?
“If that was necessary, why don’t we ask our non-Malay brothers and sisters not to study too hard so that we the Melayoos could at least get respectable marks during exams compared to them?” he asked, labelling such behaviour as “self-pity” and “a pity”.
Contacted today, Azhar said he was moved to post on Facebook after being “upset” with the “horrible” demands made recently, including for non-Muslims to not eat in front of Muslims out of “respect” for the latter during Ramadan.
He was also struck by the fact that the pious Christian tutoring his daughter had been sitting under the framed Arabic hangings for the past year, without complaining or alleging that Azhar was insulting Christianity or attempting to convert him.
“He seems to be very secure in his belief and in his faith. Why are we not like him? Why do we feel so threatened?” the popular commentator told Malay Mail Online when speaking on the contrast shown between these two situations.
Azhar, also known as Art, said Muslims who make such demands are actually “insecure” and not respectful of the rights of non-Muslims.
“If we want to fast, why are we denying other people’s right to eat? That is their right. So we are not respecting them and we expect people to respect us,” he said.
He also gave the example of Malaysia’s 6-0 defeat to Palestine in a football match for the World Cup qualifying stage, asking: “Do we want to demand that they adjust their game so we can win?”
“Surely as Muslims, we should work harder to be better Muslims, not to deny others to do this or that,” he told Malay Mail Online, adding that Muslims should be the ones making the adjustments instead.
Azhar did not view conservative Islam as the cause of such demands, pointing out that conservative Muslims in the past — including his parents and grandparents and religious clerics — had never treated non-Muslims in such a manner.
He chalked it down to arrogance by some Malays now due to their status as the majority group in Malaysia, which led to their distrust and disrespect of the minority groups.
“We think we are the majority, so because we are majority, we think we have the right to tell people not to do this, we don’t stop to recognise they also have rights,” he said, bluntly calling such behaviour “arrogant” and “stupid”.
The sad thing is such demands are happening in schools where Malaysia’s future lies, Azhar said, questioning the message and mentality being inculcated in school-going children, adding: “We are destroying them and we are destroying our country too.”
“When they grow up, what kind of mentality will they have and it will carry on when they go to university, come out to work, get married?” he asked.
Malaysians have to remember the reality that the country is multiracial and have to learn how to live together with mutual respect, as practised for many decades, he said.
“The solution must be moderation and mutual respect. But to have mutual respect, one has to recognise what is his rights and their rights; what is the limit to his rights and limits to their rights; and then we find a middle way, you accommodate me, I accommodate you,” he said.
“I hope something can be done to make things better. We are almost rock bottom in terms of interfaith and interracial relations,” he said.
