The Column That Never Was.

It can be very frustrating writing for the mainstream media in Malaysia. Stories have been killed because they're too "sensitive". Articles have been made to disappear sometimes because the of the subject's friendship with the higher-ups in the company. Worse still, reporters are sometime made to write stuff because of connections certain people have.

I feel it a little more now that I've become a columnist. There are certain "no-go" areas, certain things we're not supposed to write about. One of these things is the recent spate of religious fucked-upness that's been going on in the country.

Thankfully, I still have this blog. So, here it is, the column that never was:




When I was a child, my favourite song at church used to be called Pass It On.

It had an opening line that I really loved, which went, “It only takes a spark to get a fire going.”

A very positive message indeed. But those same words can be used to describe the possible outcome of the repeated poking and prodding of the religious hornets’ nest that is being carried out by some elements in our country.

I refer to the increasingly shocking cases of religious baiting that have suddenly become the “in” thing to do for protestors who want to make a splash, people who want to make a flashy point or journalists that want a cheap headline.

In January, a student found a pig’s head on a PAS flag in a surau at Universiti Malaya’s Islamic studies academy. A month before that in Malacca, a wild boar head was found hanging next to a banner highlighting issues concerning Malays there, including that of a pig farm in Paya Menkuang.

Then, a couple of months ago, there was the case of the two crusading journalists from Al-Islam magazine that “infiltrated” a church hoping to land a story about Muslims being surreptitiously converted to Christianity. When they didn’t find any, they decided that they would partake of the Holy Eucharist – the holiest of Catholic rituals. They then spat out the sacred wafer, took pictures of it and published the story in their magazine.

And now, we have the case of Shah Alam’s Section 23 residents who were apparently so angry at the relocation of a Hindu temple to their area that they thought it warranted a cow’s head being dragged and defiled in front of the state secretariat.

All it takes is one spark to get a fire going. These insensitive actions are being uneasily tolerated by the larger segments of society. But, it’s impossible to expect that cooler heads will always prevail. It’s inevitable that the more people tear down each other’s dearly held beliefs and values, the more likely it is that we will eventually arrive at a disastrous flashpoint.

We’ve seen it happen over and over again in many countries around the world. The Bombay race riots of the 90s. The lynching of blacks in America’s Deep South. Hitler’s persecution of Jews during World War II. Time and time again blood has been spilt because insular and chauvinistic beliefs have held sway. Time and time again evil has flourished because good people have done nothing.

What if one day, some decide they’ve had enough? What if they decide to strike back? How long will it take for it to descend to all out racial and religious warfare? How long will it take for our streets to become as troubled as those in Sri Lanka or Gaza? How long will it take for Malaysia to literally become tanah tumpahnya darahku, spilt by our own brethren?

It’s not as farfetched a scenario as you can imagine. After all, the instigator behind the cow’s head incident proudly told the media that the residents will not budge an inch, “even if lives are lost and blood is made to flow.”

In To Kill a Mockingbird, lawyer Atticus Finch, in an attempt to divert his children from his town’s bigoted worldview, tells them that they can never understand a person until they consider things from his point of view, until they climb inside his skin and walk around in it.

These people would do well to do the same. The protestors, who say they are residents of Section 23 insist that there shouldn’t be a temple there because 80% of its population is Muslim (reports vary on the actual demographic mak-up). They would do well to put themselves in the skin of the remaining 20% and ask if they too deserve a right to have a place to worship. How would they have felt if residents in a non-Muslim majority area were to have paraded a pig's head in response to reports of a mosque being built?

The reporters from Al-Islam should ask themselves how unhappy they were when the caricatures of Prophet Muhammad appeared in Scandinavia. Or, closer to home, when The Herald used the word Allah in a Christian context?

The culprits who put the pig’s head in the surau should do well to ask themselves if they’d like their house of worship desecrated in such an awful manner. Is it too much to ask for everybody to just treat others the way they themselves would like to be treated?

What can the larger populace do about this though, is a question that still boggles many. A veteran reporter I was talking to about this voiced his own dismay and confusion at the terrible turn things are taking.

“It doesn't go away any more. It goes everywhere, immediately, and stays forever,” he said. “What do we do? Forgive them, for they know not what they do? Or crucify them? Make examples of them?

“In the past, education was always the answer. One learned. One understood. One figured things out from the facts - even the facts of others' myths. Understanding wasn't impossible. I'm sure this still holds true for many but, I fear, not for most,” he told me.

The authorities are quick to come down hard on civil rights’ protestors. They’re quick to use the various laws of the land to incarcerate those who are deemed to be disturbing the peace. They’re quick to come up with harebrained ideas to censor the Internet (and equally quick to dismiss them when they see that they don’t find favour!). Why can’t they be equally quick to do something about this, be it through education or enforcement?

At the same time, the rakyat these days are becoming increasingly aware of their rights. They’re becoming increasingly effective in finding ways to air their grievances. Isn’t it time for people of all stripes to get together and tell those among us that would sow strife and discord that hate will not prevail, that we, as a nation, want peace, love and harmony?

It’s impossible to expect Malaysia to be a utopia of rainbows and daffodils, where everybody loves each other. But is it too much to ask that we at least respect each other?