A sad couple of days - ramblings and rantings

Sad because the UMNO led BM government has allowed the recent religious based violence in Malaysia , not just allowed, even encouraged .... by double standard and using religion as a means to further their political agendas to stay in power. It is not just the use of Allah by non Muslims. It is so many other brazen acts of racism and religious bigotry that for decades have been cultivated for personal and political gain. How can politicians who lead a nation (that boasts to be a model for multi cultural and religious harmony - which has been a pretty hollow boast for decades now) be so so stupid to think that they can safely promote, manipulate racism, religious bigotry and hatred without it getting out of control?

So now it has come to this - the cowardly burning of a church, attempted arson of others, manhandling of a pastor, threats, allowing Muslim groups to organize "peaceful protests" (but not giving the same courtesy to non-Muslim groups), but allowing the "peaceful" protesters to make violent veiled and even open threats to intimidate.

I won't even bother to link this post to news items.... go and google for yourself. Well done! Malaysia BOLEH! Now we are again in the world news for the wrong reasons again.

It is a little late (but by God's mercy, I pray not too late) to be making statements condemning such attacks etc. Of course the government will now make an effort (for a while at least) to do something. But I am skeptical that it is because it is due to real concern for justice and racial and religious harmony etc. I think it is more to again protect their political careers and personal wealth. So I am cynical, but I have more than ample reasons to be cynical. We are reaping the harvest of generations of seeds of hate, racism and false propaganda that have been sown.

Hate has been taught for decades. I know this as I have personally seen (in the early 1980s) a class of the cream of MARA Science College scholarship students preparing to go overseas for studies turn from intelligent, humble and pleasant people who sincerely believed in racial justice ... into hate spewing irrational beings that almost exploded into violence. All at the mention of the WW2 holocaust in a classroom environment. "All Jews are evil. They want to take our land. They all deserve to die!" etc. Only one student out of the whole class could see the lack of logic in the explosive rants of his classmates and even then was emotionally distraught because his heart told him to hate but his mind told him something was not right. He literally ran out of the class because of his inner conflict.

The horror scene that stood out the most for me was last year's cow head protest video where there was the young boy who came up to step on the cow head. He was smiling and his face was one that reflected pride. How not to when everyone is cheering you on? Another innocent child corrupted by hate ...

I am hopeful though - simply because God, no ALLAH (and for me, I mean the God of the Bible) is still all powerful. And there are so many Malaysians, many of them Muslims who clearly are sick of all this nonsense. But it will take a long time to recover from this ...

God have mercy!