`


THERE IS NO GOD EXCEPT ALLAH
read:
MALAYSIA Tanah Tumpah Darahku

LOVE MALAYSIA!!!


 


Saturday, October 11, 2014

Oktoberfest blues

A major bone of contention appears to be a publicity poster showing a waitress in a low-cut German costume.
COMMENT
oktoberfest posterThe Oktoberfest is a festival of food, drink and fairground fun of German Bavarian origin. It is celebrated every year for about two weeks from late September. It has been enjoyed by the expatriate community in Malaysia for decades without much fuss or even notice.
In 2010, the celebration received a boost when two local beer producers, Carlsberg and Guinness Anchor Berhad, decided that they would sponsor the event annually. Local non-Muslims have been enjoying this celebration for the last four years without much ado. But suddenly, politicians, religious groups and Malay rights groups have decided to make a fuss. The question is, why bother now when they have left the event alone for the past four years?
The BBC zeroed in on the heat trail and had this to say: “Apart from issues surrounding alcohol, one of the major bones of contention appears to be a publicity poster for the Carlsberg Malaysia-backed festival, showing a waitress in a low-cut German costume.”
Apparently the religious conservatives led by PAS’ Nasrudin Hassan Tantawi take greater offence at the visually suggestive promotional posters than the drinking festival itself. There is no modest averting of the gaze for these agents of religious morality. Only a public apology from the organisers and the dismantling of the promotional billboards will suffice, for now.
Nasrudin’s PAS colleagues Khalid Samad and Suhaizan Kaiat were almost brotherly in defending the non-Muslims’ freedom to consume alcohol and run their own festivals in non-Muslim majority areas, so long as the promotion of it was directed only at non-Muslims.
Predictably, Nasrudin’s rhetoric included the argument that events held by non-Muslims must be respectful of the Islamic context of the country and the sensitivities of Muslims. Some right-wing Malay groups have echoed Nasrudin’s calls for the local councils and the Selangor Menteri Besar to shut down the event completely, arguing that the inaction of Muslims against such vice would make them complicit in it. The event must be stopped or be held out of sight.
One Muslim group said that it was even more insulting that the beer festival was being held in the month of Zulhijjah, when Muslims perform the Hajj. This calls to mind another incident displaying the same sense of conceited oppression, at that time applied on innocent non-Muslim children in SK Seri Pristina. The children were made to have their meals in the shower rooms during Ramadhan so they could be kept away from the fasting Muslims.
Where are the peacemakers who profess the religion of peace? Where is the quickness of anger they have often displayed when pointing to oppression elsewhere? Are they blind to tyranny in their own yard? The commonality in both the Ramadan and Zulhijjah cases is undoubtedly the conceited ego and lordly assumption that non-Muslims are insignificant and account for nothing in this Islamic country. One sees daily the obsessive attention paid to religious ritual and practice, but where is the kindness, the generosity of spirit, and the truthful soul that is meant to bring one closer to the Supreme Being?
Is this the kind of freedom and tolerance that non-Muslims can expect from politicians on the side of the coalition for change? Does one group’s freedom depend on the say-so of another? Or would the non-Muslims simply be substituting an ethnic chauvinist group with a religious chauvinist group for a government? The responses and demands of Nasrudin and Zaidy sound eerily similar to the ones from the right wing Malay groups. Is there now so little by which we can tell them apart?
The organisers could have been advised to remove the adverts without demeaning anyone. An apology might even have been forthcoming if their public relations departments understood how distasteful the adverts were to some people. But the leadership of Nasrudin and Zaidy Abdul Talib opted for the most minimally democratic route of asking for a shutdown because the purveyors of the demon brew can’t possibly be reasonable people.
What baffles is why did Zaidy, a new Exco under Azmin Ali, not discuss this issue with the MB to find a quick and amicable solution? Why shout at the MB from afar when you can speak to him in person? Or was this a joint venture action with Nasrudin to get one back at Azmin for forcing Khalid Ibrahim out of office and reducing the PAS seats in the Exco from four to three? Is this the making of Azmin’s first migraine? Fortunately, Oktoberfest is at its tail-end.
PAS is certainly not in prime health with Khalid Samad and Suhaizan taking so much heat for their defence of what is seen as lax and liberal values from PAS’ own members. Meanwhile, the next-gen Nasrudin does what he is best at, which is court controversy with Pakatan partners, this time with Zaidy riding shotgun.
So will PAS’ motto in the future read something like, “If it’s wrong for PAS, then it must be wrong for all”?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.