JAN 31 — I have a feeling that I will be the first person detained by the shariah police.
I patronise Chinese restaurants. I enjoy good jazz in clubs. I visit my relatives who keep dogs, and enjoy good wines and on occasion pay respect to my grandparents whose ashes are interred in a temple.
I am sure I will be the poster boy whom the pretend “police” will use to describe their usual suspects. I can already imagine them, hovering around in their walkie talkies.
“Our suspect is in a Chinese shop, without non-Halal sticker having teh o ais. Should we charge in, over?”
“Negative, we wait for his char koay teow first before going in, over!”
The sad part is my tax money goes to funding them.
What are we trying to achieve by having these shariah police around?
Is it the creation of a moral society? Or to cow Muslims into Islam? Perhaps to create employment for those unemployed graduates with Islamic background?
If the answer is yes to any of the above, then the Home Minister needs to revisit his decision.
Those who have travelled abroad will agree that you cannot produce a moral society by policing the people. Visit Acheh, Pakistan, Nigeria. Their public toilets, amenities, public services, and cities are generally in a mess.
Yes, they may not sell alcohol in public, or have casinos and four digit lottery shops, but in my travels I have seen men in skullcaps double park, women in hijab litter, and public urination, defecation so rampant that you wonder what perverted morals are they looking after.
In Pakistan, for instance, they ban phone calls and SMSes to stop people from engaging in “immoral” chats, and monitor late night calls for “obscene content.” Misplaced ingenuity aside, they forget that the world has different time zones. Multinational companies, with offices in different time zones, therefore work almost 24 hours, non-stop.
Perhaps there are no Pakistanis abroad, or expats working in Pakistan?
In Nigeria, one of the accomplishments of their moral police was to destroy 240,000 bottles of beer last year. They blame alcohol and other “immoral” activities for their economic and social regression that churned out so many “princes” and “princesses” looking to give away millions of dollars online.
What kind of society places emphasis on such superficial values, fear, void of any real substance that hides and stymies individual progress and national growth?
We all sin, to a varying degree. Getting one sinner to police another in the name of religion is blasphemous not to mention stupid, and a waste of time, funds and resources.
Are these countries what the BN government want us to be? What happened to the Malaysia that Muslim countries the world over can look up to, the country that spent so much time and money promoting Islam Hadari and the Global Movement of Moderates?
To the non-Muslims who think this is not about you, think again. Yes, it may start with the Muslims. But they will grow and before you know it there will be no ASTRO. There’ll be lights in the cinemas. No skirts, sleeveless blouses, shorts. No hugging, holding hands and pecks on the cheeks.
They will enter your shops, invade your property “looking for immoral Muslims.” Who knows, they might even install CCTV cameras as a “deterrent.” They already have an affinity for voyeurism using their camera phones.
And since they judge piety by skin colour, those of you who are a bit tanned might get trapped in the net when they raid clubs, restaurants, parties.
As a doctor, I am trained to look at evidence before dispensing treatment and giving medical advice. And applying the same thing to our current scenario, I don’t understand why we would want to do this when those who have done so have miserably failed? There is not one model country that can boast a moral, just, developed and progressive society by putting in place the shariah police.
And there is a high chance we won’t either.
Muhammad Abduh, an Egyptian scholar, said, “I went to the West and saw Islam but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam.”
He is right.
Safeguarding our borders from smugglers, terrorists, improving living standards, social and healthcare services in the country, keeping crime and banning racist, bigoted movements will resonate more with Islam than any shariah police could.
Quran said 6:107, “Had God willed, they had not been adulterous. We have not set thee as a keeper over them, nor art thou responsible for them.”
The Quran also said 109:1-6, “Say O unbelievers! I do not serve that which you serve; Nor do you serve Him whom I serve; Nor am I going to serve that which you serve; Nor are you going to serve Him whom I serve; To you your religion, to me mine.”
A moral society is an educated society. A moral society is a progressive, moderate, respectful, civil and tolerant society.
Keep that in mind.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.
