Politik, Legislatif, Dasar dan Tadbir Urus

By Bulbir Singh I REFER to the report “Stand united and prosper” and Wong Chun Wai’s article “See the beauty in all religions” (Sunday Star, June 25). I share Wong’s sentiments as I too come from a Catholic school, St Paul’s Institution in Seremban. I went there in the 1950s and I would say this school made me a good Sikh. And thank you, Star Media Group, for your efforts in running a patriotic campaign that aims to bring Malaysians together. I applaud your efforts. You are a caring media group and as a consumer advocate, I like your attempts in striving for moderation. I say that we must do everything we can to replace hate with moderation and end extremism in any form and be serious about removing it from the root. With mutual respect, we can create a harmonious nation as we celebrate the coming National Day. The spirit of moderation will be the source of success for our country. Moderation is the way for a multiracical nation. This is how we should live. Let us strive...

by Maajid Nawaz On the theme of living better together, Maajid Nawaz argues that identity policing has further marginalised Muslims and that Britain was wrong to not expect minorities to embrace liberal values. For years in Britain there has been a pernicious trend to shy away from making a case for our liberal values among minority communities. As these values continued their march unabated among the mainstream, certain multiculturalists assumed that to assert them among minorities would be deemed offensive, perhaps racist, and in the Muslim context even Islamophobic. The successful turnaround of the "Trojan horse" school Park View — now Rockwood Academy — couldn't have proved this view more wrong. Two years after the scandal, the school has surpassed expectations, with cadet recruitment, after-school drama classes, counterextremism workshops and trips to Wimbledon. Those who worried about a more active integration policy alienating the Birmingham school's predomi...

By Zaid Ibrahim The Economist posted a leader article recently entitled “The Tragedy of the Arabs” in the midst of the latest round of intense Israeli bombings and the killing and maiming of hundreds of Palestinian women and children. The blame for the tragedy was, as always, placed on the Arabs, particularly extremists and militant Muslims. Given that, they had the gall to suggest that it’s the Arabs themselves who are responsible for finding the solution to this violence. Israel’s criminal actions and America’s complicity were not mentioned, and neither were the brutality and mistakes of Western powers in the Middle East in the last 100 years. Meanwhile, Malaysia and the rest of the world are watching in silence, making only the most facile condemnations just as they have done in the past. The UN Security Council took a week just to come out with the usual line that “Israel has a right to defend itself”, as if the Palestinians were not human. The rest of us can only watch in hor...

My article was earlier published in TheAntDaily.com on 22/7/2014 The formation of the Negara-Ku movement ought to be welcomed by all as this new NGO’s aim is to heal our nation of divisiveness which has been caused by the rising influence of the racist and extremist groups. As we all know, Negara-Ku’s primary objective is to promote national unity, peace and harmony among the multi-racial and multi-religious communities. It is a fact that the Negara-Ku movement has nothing against anybody or any parties at all. This NGO is promoting positive values amongst Malaysians from all walks of life by going back to the basics to counter negative elements that are threatening to tear our communities apart. We should well note that although the racist and extremist groups are no doubt a mere minority, it would be a big mistake to ignore their threat from afar. We must remember that the existence of the originally small band of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria fighters was initially ignored by th...

Christians are not alone in their struggle to use the word "Allah" in Malaysia, as Muslim non-governmental organisations (NGO) have taken it upon themselves to educate fellow Malays that the word predates Islam. Islamic NGOs, such as Sisters in Islam (SIS) and the Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF) , have taken to social media to spread awareness on the issue, bringing with them views that are a far cry from the threats and exclusivity espoused by groups such as Perkasa and Isma. “Yes, it is possible for Muslims to voice their support (for the Christians), and Muslims have been doing that – most visibly on social media. There’s been an outpouring of voices who have critiqued the Federal Court’s decision (on the Allah issue),” SIS programme manager Suri Kempe told The Malaysian Insider. “SIS has also been using our social media channels as a platform for discussion, which is essential for people to understand the issue and formulate an opinion.” On its Facebook page, SIS shares ...

N.B. This article was earlier published in the Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS) website on January 2013 On the recent statement by the Parliamentary Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim citing the importance and need to have more interfaith understanding, Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS) applaud his call as a step forward towards a stronger political will to ensure interfaith understanding in this country is in place. IRAS has seen this call by the country's top opposition leader as encouraging and we would like to see that the future government would take this step towards implementation once the voters decide the who should be the new government after the next general elections. Interfaith understanding is what the current sitting government in Putrajaya has failed to preserve. What we had seen and are seeing now is the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition is disintegrating from within just because of this problem. Umno wanted a more "supreme" position for the...

In the beginning, we all regard religion as an avenue where people would seek refuge with and to practice it spiritually; its teachings by the prophets, the "nabis", the various masters, Gods, "Tuhan", "Allah", the Buddha, Jesus Christ, and many more. People would use the religion, to follow its teachings and make it practical in our daily life and to be aware of what or who we are in our everyday cores and responsibilities. People would take up religion as a guide towards their livelihood. It is something like a "way of life", sometimes we could also describe it as an education for our livelihood. Religion is something that everyone of us should considered as personal in our heart and mind But today, here in Malaysia, religion has been blatantly misused, politicized and brought up in public for debate and now someone or two has dictated that this or that word was not supposed to be used by any other people and so on. Then, some politicians...

Can all political leaders including the prime minister himself, all his cabinet ministers and civil servants stop politicizing religion and acting like God or Allah? Can political leaders concentrate and focus only on the running the daily affairs of the country while the civil service should professionally focus mainly on the nation's administration and policies laid down by the government of the day? Let the religious people handle their religions and liaison amongst themselves. These religious leaders are considered expert in their respective religions and they are the one's who should dictate policies and procedures in regards to the religions that they are appointed or elected to take charge. Politicians should not interfere on religious matters and religions would be politicized from bad to worst, because all religious matters and issues related to inter-religious conflict, liaison and so on are case sensitive and they need to be handled as careful and cautious as poss...