Spot the contradiction
How’s that again?
Malaysia’s highest court has rejected a Muslim convert’s six-year battle to be legally recognised as a Christian. A three-judge panel ruled that only the country’s Sharia Court could let Azlina Jailani, now known as Lina Joy, remove the word Islam from her identity card. Malaysia’s constitution guarantees freedom of worship but says all ethnic Malays are Muslim. Under Sharia law, Muslims are not allowed to convert.
I’m sorry, I must be dense – I don’t understand. Malaysia’s constitution guarantees freedom of worship but says all ethnic Malays are Muslim – but if Malaysia’s constitution says all ethnic Malays are Muslim, then it doesn’t, in fact, guarantee freedom of religion, does it. Perhaps you meant Malaysia’s constitution says it guarantees freedom of worship? Or that it pretends to, or claims to, or pays lip service to the idea that it ought to? You can’t say it does guarantee it when it in fact allots it by ethnic group, though. That doesn’t compute. More to the point, of course, Malaysia can’t say it does guarantee it when it doesn’t. Also of course, that goes double when the religion one is allotted by ethnic group forbids departure and punishes it by death. Religion mandated according to birth and remaining mandatory throughout life is not a good definition of ‘freedom of worship.’
Today, I made a little red card and neatly printed the words “ISLAMOPHOBE” on it.I’m going to carry it with me everywhere.So it’s official folks, and I’d like you to be the first to know.
Fuck, that ruling was so expected.
You want to know why?
Because a few days ago the Court of Appeals told another non-muslim woman that sharia trumps civil law and actually quoted the fucking koran at her. That woman, was seeking to stop her estranged husband from dissolving their marriage and converting their second son to Islam.The elder son had already been secretly converted to islam by the father.
Not the first case either. You see, non muslim husbands who want it all – divorce the wife, get the kids, pay no alimony- have figured out that they can get it all – if they convert to Islam. Sharia protects men from women and muslims from non-muslims.
http://www.aliran.com/content/view/244/10/
In April, the religious authorities discovered a 22-year marriage which had produced 6 kids was illicit because the wife happened to be born a muslim though she had been living most of her life as a hindu.The family was forcibly broken up; the wife and kids went to a rehabilitation camp and the man went to court to try to win them back. He was offered the choice to convert himself and the kids or to lose them all forever. The wife, courageously but tragically, set the husband and kids free by divorcing them since there was no way she could continue to live with them. Of course it goes without saying that she cannot leave islam. malaysians refer to the religion as Hotel california, you know, you can check in but never leave…
That was not the only case last month.sigh. Another woman who had just given birth, was caught when she tried to register the baby’s birth. She was born a muslim but abandoned by her muslim parents and thus brought up as a hindu by her grandmother. She remains in custody, together with her child (also deemed property of Islam, you see)
I’ve given up on being resigned to these travesties or keeping politely quiet about them for fear of the islamophobe tag. The Linas, Revathis, Raimas, Subhashinis, their chldren and their husbands – all ordinary,most of them dirt-poor folk – deserve more noise on their behalf. Those fuckers trumphantly crying the praises of Allah need to be shouted down.
Ophelia, really sorry to bother you but could you please remove the IHT link which doesn’t work?
Here’s some that do:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/06/asia/AS-GEN-Malaysia-Custody-Struggle.php
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/18/asia/AS-GEN-Malaysia-Custody-Struggle.php
http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2007/05/03/marimuthuraimah-case-foreign-media-reports/
“You can’t at whim and fancy convert from one religion to another,” Ahmad Fairuz said.
At whim and fancy? Surely that’s the most sensible basis on which to switch faiths, given that they are all mutually exclusive bits of nonsense…
Oh, godalmighty, that’s a horrible story. Thanks for the link and for telling us about it, mirax.
Yeah, isn’t that whim and fancy remark just precious? What can we convert at then? Considered, deliberate, protracted intention? Uh……..no.
Too cases of flagrant abuse of human rights due to Islam, in my corner of the woods Ophelia. I have friends and relatives in Malaysia. I have warned the women whom I know that their civil liberties and access to the law have been severely compromised. Some have left the country but not all have the option.
Could you delete the link starting with the document tag and ending IHT.mht, please?
thanks.
If their constitution guarantees freedom of worship, then why is there a religion column on the identity cards? I wonder how they justify that.
And of course there had to be shouts of “Allahu akbar” and death threats. De riguer in any case involving Muslim sensibilities, dontcha know.
Clearly I haven’t been paying enough attention to Malaysia.
Will delete the link, mirax. This database takes a lot of (slow) steps, so it takes me awhile, that’s all.
“then why is there a religion column on the identity cards?”
Well…their constitution never said anyone gets to practice that freedom in secret. I mean, come on – there’s a limit to this whole freedom thing.
I did know that much – that it was all about rivalries and communalism and so on, and that the Empire messed things up. But only in outline; the details are – well, as always, shocking. Horrible real life situations.
Another congratulatory wave to dear Homa Arjomand for managing to prevent this kind of mess in Ontario. Now for two, three, many Homas.
“Malaysia’s constitution guarantees freedom of worship but says all ethnic Malays are Muslim – but if Malaysia’s constitution says all ethnic Malays are Muslim, then it doesn’t, in fact, guarantee freedom of religion, does it”.
No, quite emphatically – it does not indeed!
According to the Population and Housing Census 2000 figures
“Malaysia is a multi-religious society and Islam is the official religion of Malaysia. approximately 60.4 percent of the population practiced Islam; 19. 2 percent Buddhism; 9.1 percent Christianity; and 6.3 percent Hinduism. The remaining 5 percent was accounted for by other faiths, including animism, shamanism, Sikhism, Bahá’í, Taoism, Confucianism, and other traditional Chinese religions.[37] Until the 20th century, most practiced traditional beliefs, which arguably still linger on to a greater degree than Malaysian officialdom is prepared to acknowledge. The aforementioned figures may be skewed as they do not take into account the fact that all Malay persons are officially regarded and treated as Muslim, regardless of private belief.
OK. I guess I get it now. The constitution guarantees freedom of worship, as long as you’re a Muslim.
Realy intresting stuff Mirax I never new any of that!one small beef though at some poin cant we stop blaming whitey?
It’s not so much freedom of worship, as a duty to worship. the second you stop worshipping the thing you were mandated at by birth to worship, the right disappears and is replaced by a compulsion to worship it even more fervently. It’s really quite sophisticated, and far superior to our western notions of “religious freedom”.
Do you think they’d have a massive problem with a westerner who lived in malaysia converting to Islam? I’m guessing not, It would also be interesting to see what would happen if that same Westerner were to request the denomination of “atheist” when they received their ID card.
Some of the comments on Elizabeth Wong’s site regarding Lina Joy make for gruesome reading. How can people be so hardhearted. It is to say the least thoroughly depressing to have to contemplate their Moslem mindset just before bed-time. Moslem is not just a faith it is an institution etc, etc.
The following Census taken from WIKI is more up to date.
In 2005 approximately 58 percent of the population were Muslim; 22.9 percent practice Buddhism; 11.1 percent Christianity; 6.3 percent Hinduism; and 2.6 percent Confucianism, Taoism, and other traditional Chinese religions. The remaining percentages were accounted for by other faiths, including animism, Sikhism and the Bahá’í Faith. However, this figure may be misleading as all Malays (the majority race of the country) are required to be Muslim as defined by the Malaysian Constitution.
Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic Faith and speaking against it and its ministers. Holding erroneous opinions about the Trinity, about Christ’s divinity and Incarnation. Holding erroneous opinions about Christ. Holding erroneous opinions about Transubstantiation and Mass.
Claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity. Believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes. Dealing in magics and divination.
Denying the Virginity of Mary.
The Pope expressed himself in favour of a guilty verdict. Consequently, Bruno was declared a heretic, handed over to secular authorities on February 8, 1600. At his trial he listened to the verdict on his knees, then stood up and said: “Perhaps you, my judges, pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it.” A month or so later he was brought to the Campo de’ Fiori, a central Roman market square, his tongue in a gag, tied to a pole naked and burned at the stake, on February 17, 1600
2007
Generally, the punishment for a Muslim is death if two other Muslims testify that he has lost his faith and he does not deny this publicly within a day. Obviously, permission to leave Islam is almost never granted, as illustrated by the Lina Joy case.
Religion from a Catholic/Muslim perspective was/is all about death/threat of death if one did/does not adhere to its divine rules. It is so eerie indeed.
Nothing ever changes! Religion still rules!