It is improper for an individual to use the freedom of expression as a reason to state an opinion which can confuse the people, especially Muslims, in the country, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
What this woman is saying is correct. People should refrain from saying things that can confuse Muslims in this country. Yet she is the very one who is guilty of this, since she has been going around saying nurul said something which she clearly did not! What a hypocrite.This whole advice against speaking one’s mind on the topic of Islam basically says that one doesn’t have the right to free speech, an era that prides itself on ripping away dreamy veils to reveal ugly truths, a sense of mystique is a rare, undervalued commodity!she has smartly teased rumour mongers further by well-executed, pre-meditated acts.she leaves people with a sense of wonder and curiosity even in an era of totally intrusive and aggressive media coverage. To their credit In an era of dog-eats-dog, where we see the loudest voices compete for attention and the soft ones drown unsung,
There is no compulsion in Islam, popular Islamic scholar Datuk Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin has said in his defence of PKR’s Nurul Izzah Anwar who has been under attack from Umno-linked conservative Muslim groups over her recent remark on the subject of faith — a hot button topic in mainly Malay-Muslim Malaysia.
The still influential former Perlis mufti was weighing in on the controversy that has erupted following the PKR vice president’s statement at a public forum on “Islamic State: Which version, Whose Responsibility?” in Subang Jaya last Saturday, with several religious hawks suggesting that her remarks meant she supported Muslims renouncing Islam and turning “murtad” or apostate.
“After hearing her explanation, I understand what she meant. The no compulsion is from the aspect of practice in the religion of Islam.
“If truly there were compulsion, this country’s government would certainly take action against a Muslim individual, for example a Muslim woman who does not wear the tudung (headscarf) LIKE ROSMAH,” he told Malay daily Sinar Harian.
The Univesiti Sains Malaysia (USM) lecturer told the newspaper he had written an article two years ago titled “Iman Tidak Boleh Dipaksa (Faith Cannot be Forced)”, and added that the content was “the same” as what Nurul Izzah had stated.
“Malays cannot be forced and [they] believe voluntarily. But, through preaching, a person can be brought back to the faith,” he was quoted as saying.
Mohd Asri was also reported saying that Nurul Izzah’s initial remark could have been misconstrued because it was not explained in detail.
He added the first-term federal lawmaker had contacted him to help explain to the public her statement and that he agreed with her remarks that there was no compulsion in Islam.
The Lembah Pantai MP, who is expected to defend her parliamentary seat in the coming 13th general election, was reported by state news agency Bernama as saying that no one should be compelled to adopt a particular religion and that this applied to Malays as well.
Following the outcry, she has been forced to deny that she was supporting apostasy or encouraging Muslims to renounce Islam.
Race and religion issues are inseparable in Malaysia, where the Malays — who make up 60 per cent of the 28 million population — are constitutionally defined to also be Muslims.
The country’s supreme law states that Islam is the religion of the federation but also provides for other religions to be practised freely.
Do you know the purpose of your life and are you actively contributing to it?
What is the most worthwhile thing in your life? How do you feel about the way you spend each day? What tangible or intangible difference do you make to people and the world? Do you feel worthy and important to those around you?
These are crucial questions that a lot of people are beginning to ask themselves.
Time was when leading a normal life in an honest and upright manner, imparting good values to your children and generally being a good human being was enough. Not anymore. Today people realize the importance of leading a worthwhile life that rises above the mundane concerns of living, eating, working and procreating.
The purpose and what we can contribute to it is what makes life worthwhile. Some of us just seem to know the purpose of our lives and stride confidently towards it, while others dither on the edge. A colleague asked Aruna Roy what made her resign from the IAS at an early age and follow her dream. She replied that once she was sure of what she really wanted to do, she just followed her heart and has never regretted it to this day. To find the purpose, we have to be able to trust our hearts, our instinct and allow it to lead us.
If you get a general feeling of well-being and happiness most of the time when you think of your day, you have found your purpose and are leading a worthwhile life. A friend suggests that each of us write down five things that make us happy and try to follow at least three daily. After a while, he says, we would realize what really matters. It doesn’t matter what the purpose is so long as it translates into making our lives and those of others worthwhile and happy.. As Albert Einstein said, “Not everything that can be counted counts. And not everything that counts can be counted.”
So, what is the one thing for you that would make your life worthwhile? Think about it and let’s discuss
Those who know the art of dwelling long in public imagination and hearts, learn the art of keeping the veil in place; it is those who are desperate for any kind of attention, even if short-lived, that insist on tearing all veils down and executing regrettable full montys!The incessant blows to imagination by hard-hitting reality make it impossible to indulge the ‘willing suspension of disbeliefwhich is so intrinsic to the true enjoyment of art — be it fiction, films, theatre or painting and sculpture. It’s almost as if everybody has a compulsion to keep lifting the veil of imagination to let reality make its way through.
Also, it’s another repeat of the powers-that-be insulting the intelligence/faith of the people – saying that just one statement can “confuse” people. Isn’t it healthy to have debate and questions about one’s faith so as to strengthen it, instead of blindly following what one has been told? Blind faith without debate/questioning leads to fanaticism and/or a shallow understanding.
Also, it’s another repeat of the powers-that-be insulting the intelligence/faith of the people – saying that just one statement can “confuse” people. Isn’t it healthy to have debate and questions about one’s faith so as to strengthen it, instead of blindly following what one has been told? Blind faith without debate/questioning leads to fanaticism and/or a shallow understanding.
Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Senator Datuk Dr Mashitah Ibrahim said that though the government believed in the principle of freedom of expression to state an opinion, matters related to religious issues were most sensitive to Muslims.
“In the effort to exercise control over sensitive issues among Muslims, action can be taken under Section 298A of the Penal Code which relates to causing disharmony, disunity, or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will, or prejudicing the maintenance of harmony or unity, on grounds of religion,” she said when replying to a question from Amran Ab Ghani (PKR-Tanah Merah) on the measures taken by the government to control the issuing of ‘fatwa’ (rulings) by unauthorised individuals.
Mashitah said the legal proceedings under the provision were handled by the civil courts and a convicted individual could be sentenced to jail for between two and five years.
Replying to a supplementary question, from Datuk Mohamed Aziz (BN-Sri Gading), Mashitah said that though there were no legal provisions to act against Muslims who propose that Muslims should be free to choose their religion, action could be taken against them for insulting Islam or causing it to be despised.
Mohamed Aziz has asked what action could be taken against PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar for having said last Saturday that Malay Muslims should be free to choose their religion. please, please allow us to weave back together our web of shattered dreams once again…. Allow us to suspend disbelief!
Mashitah said enactments in certain states provided for a fine of up to RM3,000 or a jail sentence of up to two years, or both, for those convicted of insulting Islam or causing it to be despised orally or in writing. — Bernama
There is no doubt that going into the final days of this presidential election there was a greater disparity in the perceptions of what the outcome would be among the media elites of each political side than any other time in the era of modern technology. Liberals were completely convinced that President Obama would be reelected, while conservatives tended to not just believe Mitt Romney would beat him, but that he would do so in a landslide.
So why did the conservative media get it so wrong? Because I am a conservative who was confident that Obama would win a tight race, I think that I may be in unique position to explain why this happened.
First, while you would think that the advent of modern technology and the explosion of polling data which now exists (it is truly staggering how much more information there is today than there was, say, in 1980) would help in making political predictions, it actually does the opposite. This is because having access to so many numbers allows political partisans to cherry-pick which data points they like in order to fit their agenda and preferred outcome.
As Mark Twain is alleged to have said, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
For conservatives, this natural human inclination to embrace the data that they like and discard the rest is greatly enhanced, and essentially injected with steroids. This is because they have a very understandable and highly justified distrust of a news media which has been showing open hostility to the prospects of our candidates for as long as any of us can remember.
While I am not the very first person to question the credibility of everything I hear in the news media, having once worked for a polling institute and having commissioned several high profile national polls myself, I understand that polls, while hardly perfect, should not generally be thought of as part of the biased news propaganda machine (which is why, ironically, the Fox News poll is often not at all favorable to conservatives).
But because conservatives are understandably so distrustful of everything they are told by the media, it becomes easy for them to fall into the trap of assuming that polls showing Obama winning are inherently flawed. They are even able to come up with enough real numbers to make arguments which appear to be based in intellect, even though they are really being driven by emotion and self interest.
This phenomenon was made even more pervasive because to the conservative political junkies who spend their lives absorbing every possible news item with the assumption that it is simply not possible to comprehend how anyone would vote to reelect Obama. This fed into their fervent belief that the polls must simply be wrong (as did their forgetting that, when nearly everyone votes in a swing state, it really doesn’t matter how much more enthusiastic one side is than the other).
What they didn’t seem to understand is that an incredibly small percentage of the electorate was dealing with the same data points about Obama as they were. The vast majority of voters, especially those who make up “undecideds,” make their candidate selections based on a frighteningly small amount of “information” (which is why, as silly as it was, Obama was politically smart to jump on the “Big Bird” issue).
Not realizing this reality further perverts what is already the modern bubble in which commentators tend to live due to this era of extreme media fragmentation. Because we all gravitate to the information we want to believe is true, this creates a set of circumstances in which the truth gets easily lost.
For instance, at the well respected conservative website Hot Air, well over 90% of their respondents to a poll the day before the election believed that Romney would win, most by a large margin. It is not a coincidence that the site provided information and commentary which almost universally both backed up and facilitated that belief.
Related to this is also the commercial aspect of the modern news media. There is absolutely no doubt that partisan outlets (which now describes about 100% of the media) do far better with their audiences when they tell them what they want to hear. I personally got an enormous amount of irrational grief (and actually lost twitter followers!) because I dared to write about how I thought Obama would win, even though my predictions were actually more optimistic than what the left was tending to portend. The fact that I was correct will mean absolutely nothing to my detractors because credibility no longer has any currency in this celebrity driven culture.
This last point is why Dick Morris can add to his extraordinary record of being catastrophically wrong about just about every major prediction he makes without fear (as long as Fox News renews his contract) of being held accountable. Conservatives are not going to be angry at conservative commentators for telling them what they wanted to hear. They will now simply blame the mainstream media, fraud, and the “low info” voters instead. The conservative outlets themselves will now be all too happy to still have Obama around as a cash cow for the next four years.
I will say that I was shocked that the usually credible Michael Barone also fell into this trap of predicting a Romney landslide based on instinct rather than actual data, but the fact that it can even happen to him proves just how strong all of the forces at work here really are.
I was not influenced by these factors not because I am particularly smart, but rather mostly because I don’t trust people. I only trust actions based on self interest. I was perfectly willing to buy the notion that the polls were, to a small but significant degree, biased in favor of Obama, but there were far more reliable factors which told me this was not really the case.
It was clear to me that beating Obama would require a performance equivalent to a major “upset” in sports. In almost all cases when such an event happens there is at least one moment when something dramatic occurs to change the balance of the contest. The first debate was not that moment. All that did was get Romney into the game. He still needed to land his knockout punch and, despite being given the Benghazi story as weapon with which to deliver it, he was either unwilling or unable to do so.
When the Romney campaign decided at the last moment to make a significant play in Pennsylvania (the graveyard of modern Republican presidential candidates) it was a dead give away about what was really happening. Interestingly, those who interpreted that action through their hearts and their wallets saw it as a sign of strength and a coming Romney landslide. Those of us who only seek the truth saw it for what it really was: an act of desperation caused by the belated realization they couldn’t win Ohio because they were too weak in their response to Obama’s attacks on the auto issue there.
One of the many reasons that the conservative movement is in such deep trouble is that those who were wrong here will suffer no consequences and those who knew the truth will receive no benefit.
wondering about places that are declared danger zones! As old as Adam and Eve, temptation is what led the original First Couple to taste the fruit of that one forbidden tree, and commit the Original Sin that led to the Fall of Man! Temptation is very easy to give in to, and near impossible to resist.
The Devil outside may be easier to resist than the Devil within, which makes temptation a natural state of existence for us. Our natural urges are all set to be tempted and lead us astray. We give in to temptation when we rationalize the outcome and convince ourselves that we are doing the right thing by giving in. The body craves pleasure and so, all the wrong things; the mind, which knows better, tries to resist, but then rationalizes the craving and gives way. Curiosity is a huge factor in temptation. Curiosity, which is basically a function of the mind, is aroused by denial or unapproachability.
The mind kicks in and starts wondering about the denial, wishing to discover what would happen if we did exactly what we are warned not to do! When a man hears colleagues rib each other about extra-marital affairs, he starts wondering if he is missing out on something, an experience he may regret not having had? His curiosity and competitive spirit are aroused and he becomes a vulnerable candidate for infidelity. The mind plays tricks on us and we convince ourselves of the reasons we do certain things.
Notice how the day you start a diet also seems to be the day you crave all kinds of unhealthy food! You think of reasons to put off the dieting, or convince yourself that a little indiscipline will not cause much harm! The mind has its reasons that decide whether you give in or not. Temptation is the weapon used by unscrupulous people to control others. When Ravana wanted to abduct Sita, he took on the form of a golden deer that tantalises her. She sends Rama off in hot pursuit and Lakshman after him, thus falling into the hands of the evil Ravana! When Lord Indra wished to test King Kaushika (later Sage Vishwamitra), he sent Menaka, an apsara from his court, to disturb his meditation. Kaushika lived with Menaka for 10 years and they had a daughter — Shakuntala.
His arrested meditation had to continue thousands more years before he became Sage Vishwamitra and managed to overcome all passion and temptation. Temptation by itself is not a sin, though it may pave the path towards sin. To be tempted is normal, a natural state of affairs. Whether you give in to that temptation or not is what determines your character. If ever a married person were to tell me he or she has never felt attracted to a member of the opposite sex; if someone said they have not been ever tempted to cheat or lie, I would find that difficult to believe! We all have our weak moments, and to be tempted is not wrong. So temptation is a good indicator of character. You do not know you are honest unless tempted by dishonesty! How do you know you are faithful unless you are tempted to be unfaithful? The strength of your resistance is a measure of your faith, fidelity, or your honesty!
What fun would a life without temptations be? Temptation is also the stuff seductions and wild imaginings are made of! To be tempted by love and desire, to allow the mind to meander through forbidden pastures before resolving to resist them in the long-term interest, or to give in at times… Can you imagine life without ever being tempted by anything at all? What a pallid, colourless existence that would be! In Oscar Wilde’s words, “I can resist anything except temptation!”
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