Malaysia Tells Religious Police Not to Copy Taleban," from Reuters, with thanks to Twostellas:
KUALA LUMPUR, 25 March 2005 - Malaysia clipped the wings of its religious police yesterday, warning that it did not want to be like Afghanistan under Taleban rule, and ordered national police supervision of their controversial raids.The religious police stirred a storm of protest with heavy-handed behavior during a January raid on a nightclub in the Malaysian capital, and in another incident by detaining a transsexual person visiting the home of Muslim friends.
"This is a very serious matter, we do not want to see Malaysia turning into Afghanistan during the Taleban (rule)," said Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, the minister who announced the change. "If this is not stopped, it may happen," he said.
Yes, and why might it happen? Because Islam asserts itself politically everywhere it exists. That is what it has done yesterday, is doing today, and will do tomorrow.
"This is a very serious matter, we do not want to see Malaysia turning into Afghanistan during the Taleban (rule)"
I guess the Malaysian government knows it makes sense not to overly scare the dhimmi population that lays the golden egg for the rest of Malaysian society. Just treating them as second class citizens plus making sure they know that if they step out of line the Islamo/stazi police is always ready to be unleashed upon them is sufficient to pacify them. The threat of improvised sharia by rampaging mobs has that effect on people I suspect.
The concept of religious police is anathema. Isn't Malayasia a "pluralistic society"? It seems that non-Muslims are being shown their place...at the bottom of the heap as they are in all Muslims countries that have so-called "non-compulsion in religion and religious tolerance."
As for the police model --- the Taliban whipped men and women in the streets and jailed them for small infractions. The Saudi "morality police" allowed school girls to be burned alive because they couldn't get to their burqas because of the flames. That's real morality!!
The Malaysian government has to end the Bumiputra system, which requires non-Muslims to support and subsidize Muslims. If it does not do this, the talented non-Muslims will simply up and leave. European and North American governments should now permit into their countries only those with a well-founded fear of persecution. Who are those with a well-founded fear of perseuction? Not Muslims. Only non-Muslims, in various Muslim countries. Those Chinese and Indians can also go to China, or to India, respectively. Malaysia will suffer economically. Bumiputra, that cruel jizyah, is a symbol of Muslim dominance -- a few decades ago, the Muslims were not a majority, but inexorably, their constant chipping away at the rights of non-Muslims, and the steady drip of Sharia-influenced attitudes, has had its effect. But China and India are not the economically moribund places they once were; Malaysia will suffer unless it begins to change its ways.
Re: Hugh
Bumiputra laws by the way derive from British colonial era laws (instituted for a variety of strategic reasons). (Just as did the laws in Singapore which led to an American vandal being caned about ten years back with predictable uproar in the US.)
I think some of the Americans and Europeans here forget how much colonialism and Cold War foreign policy has stoked the fires of Islamic fundamentalism.
On the other hand I admit that India shamefully clings to many horrible Victorian British laws (e.g. sodomy) whilst bemoaning the Partition, etc. There has been ample opportunity in other words to cast of these unjust legacies.
From a posting above: "Bumiputra laws by the way derive from British colonial era laws (instituted for a variety of strategic reasons)..."
Is this true? I know that Muslim spokesmen and bully-boys like to refer to an "agreement among the races" (i.e., Muslim Malays, Chinese, Hindus) but that is hardly the same thing as laws based by the British. And that "agreement" is open to some questioning as well. But this is how it is referred to:
"According to UMNO deputy chairperson as quoted by Malaysiakini,
"He said the founding of Umno in 1946 coincided with an agreement by the main three races whereby citizenship would be granted to the minority groups in return for their acceptance of Malay special priveleges. "
“Fifty-eight years ago we had an agreement with the other races, in which we permitted them to ‘menumpang’ (temporarily reside) on this land. In the Federal Constitution, our rights as a race have been enshrined.
“Let no one from the other races ever question the rights of Malays on this land. Don’t question the religion because this is my right on this land."
Whether that was a real "agreement," or a diktat by some Muslim community leaders to a handful of Chinese and HIndu community leaders hardly matters -- it was not a law, and had nothing to do with the British. And the o'erweening sense of arrogant rule that comes out in the statement by the Muslim in the few paragraphs just quoted shows what Chinese and Hindus still face today in Malaysia.
The "Bumiputra" system is talked of, by Muslims, as being about race. It is not. It is about preferential treatment for Muslims, at the expense of non-Muslims. And that is it. Non-Muslim Malays are not given its benefits; Muslim non-Malays, including those from India or Pakistan, per contra, do receive its benefits. In other words, the Umma al-islamiyya is to be rewarded.
The whole idea was phony to begin with, because it consisted of persuading people to forget the history of the area. Hinduism and Buddhism preceed by at least a thousand years the mere appearance of Islam in the world, and by 1400 years the establishment of Islam, first through Muslim merchants (especially Hadramis) in the East Indies. The Hindu kingdom of Bali, the Buddhist kingdom of Srivaja based in Sumatra, long predate the fateful appearance -- fateful for the political, economic, intellectual, and social development of the East Indies -- of Islam.
The real Malays, who are called the indigenous tribes, are entirely Christian or pagan -- but they, of course, do not benefit at all from the "Sons of the Soil" or "Bumiputra" system. It is simply a disguised Jizyah and has to be understood, and talked about, as such.
As for the elements that make up the Bumiputra system, it is Affirmative Action Plus, for it not only affects admission to schooling, but it requires businesses to make sure that Muslims own at least 30% of each company -- and that of course often leads to payoffs to those who do no real work, but take their government-mandated cut because they are Muslims. No Muslim objects to this on moral grounds; perhaps a handful think it unwise only because it helps drive away foreign investment, and causes local Chinese and Indians (non-Muslim geese with their golden eggs) to leave Malaysia altogether.
An article on the Bumiputra system, and its many provisions, can be found by googling "Wikipedia" and "Bumiputra."
Better yet, just find someone Chinese (the name "Cheah" will do nicely) or HIndu from Malaysia, and ask that person what the "Bumiputra" system is all about. You will get an earful.
The dynamic economies of Malaysia and to some extent Indonesia are fueled by Chinese and Indian initiative and sweat. Muslims have been skimming off this and are expecting that the smaller populations of motivated people will continue to support their larger populations. Let's hope the companies that rely on the Chinese and Indian people will relocate in China or India and let the arrogant 'native' muslims make do on their own. I have the basic philosophy of isolating the pure muslim populations and letting them completely support themselves. I want to see what muslims that are not sitting on a sea of oil can actually do.