Malays charged over cow protest

[Coventina]

Source: BBC

Six Malaysian Muslims have been charged with sedition for parading the severed head of a cow through the streets of Shah Alam in Selangor state last month.

The men were protesting against the building of a Hindu temple near a mosque in the area.

Some of the demonstrators stamped and spat on the cow's head.

The case has stoked tensions between Malaysia's Muslim majority and the Indian, mainly Hindu, minority to whom cows are considered sacred.

The six accused men were among a large group of people who marched from a mosque in Shah Alam, the capital of Selangor state, to the state chief minister's office on 28 August.

Their actions were recorded on video and uploaded onto the internet.

Twelve of the protesters were charged with illegal assembly, which could see them fined and jailed for up to a year.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8246272.stm

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Real mature, guys.

:eyes:

How fragile is their faith, anyway, that they freak out over the building of a religious minority's temple?

[Ian David]

1. Mutual Assured Destruction.

They desecrate a cow.

Someone draws a cartoon.

Nobody wins.

Live-and-let-live is the only way to go, assholes.

[Chulanowa]

2. Your question could go the other way, of course.

How fragile is your faith that you find a severed cow's head offensive? Even if they're trying to be offensive, they come off looking like silly douches, so why worry?

It's ridiculous to fight over who's invisible space monkey is more important, no matter which space monkey it is.

[Coventina]

3. Well, I found what they did offensive, although I'm not Hindu.

But then, I find the eating of cows offensive, although I don't consider them holy.

I think (based on what I know of Malaysian politics - and I'll admit I'm not an expert) the government's position is that these guys were deliberately trying to be provocative and trying to cause problems, possibly even violence, between the two religions. Based on that, I would say criminal charges are justified, although I would stick with fines rather than jail time.

Like you, I don't give a rat's behind about the religious angle, other than that it was attempting to incite problems beyond religious debate.

[Chulanowa]

7. Oh yeah, taking these guys off the street is a good move

Incitement is clearly their intent, and nobody goes for that.

"Religious debate" is kind of an oxymoron, since there's never really an allowance for "maybe" in religion.

[Coventina]

10. You're right. :-)

Couldn't come up with the proper words for what I was thinking. Maybe there are none.

[nolabear]

4. What's with the sudden Malaysia fascination? nt.

[Coventina]

5. No sudden Malaysia fascination. I regularly post news from Asia

and there just happened to be some interesting stories coming out of Malaysia today.

I also posted a few from the Philippines. There's also a couple from China.

:shrug:

[grantcart]

6. The problem in Malaysia is not the fragility of their faith but the fragility of

controlling their own political destiny.



When Britain left Malaysia the Malays were only 45% of the population and controlled only about 15% of the assets.


They kicked out Singapore and that helped the ethnic Malays reach 51% of the population.


In the meantime there have been various affirmative action programs to give preference to ethnic Malays and Malay run businesses to help equalize the wealth and earnings.


From time to time Minority Malay parties will sometime join with Chinese and Indian parties to defeat UMNO and this raises ethnic tensions:

Last year:

Malaysia's government and ruling coalition declared defeat in a landslide victory in by-election by Anwar Ibrahim. Muhammad Muhammad Taib, information chief of the United Malays National Organisation which leads the Barisan Nasional coalition stated: Yes of course we have lost . . . we were the underdogs going into this race.<2> Anwar won by an astounding majority against Arif Shah Omar Shah of National Front coalition. Malaysia's Election Commission officials announced Anwar won by an astounding majority against Arif Shah Omar Shah of National Front coalition and over Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi's United Malays National Organisation (UMNO).<3> Reuters reported "Anwar Ibrahim has won with a majority of 16,210 votes, according to news website Malaysiakini (http://www.malaysiakini.com): Anwar won 26,646 votes, while the government's Arif Omar won 10,436 votes.<4> Anwar's People's Justice Party spokewoman Ginie Lim told BBC: "We won already. We are far ahead."<5>




So this is really a reflection of a policy struggle between the old guard Malay and the young turks led by Anwar Ibrahim who the government once backed but has persecuted relentlessly.

[Chulanowa]

8. This is how the British Empire handled its breakaways

Israel and Palestine
Blacks and Arabs in Sudan
India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh
Kenyan tribes
Sunnis and Shi'a in Iraq
South Africa

Whenever you look at a former British colony, very often you're going to find two or more antagonistic peoples crammed together within the same lines on a map, usually with whoever hhe minority is having "favored status." Even when granting independence, the British favored a "divide and conquer" strategy that would keep the nascent country powerless and indebted - this is in contrast to, say, the french, who tended to just smash everything up and abandon ship cold turkey.

[grantcart]

9. In the case of Malaysia I don't think that it was intentional so much

as they could source vast numbers of very low labor in India and China.


The Malay population was content and not interested in working 12 hour days for a quarter.

[Igel]

12. Everybody else, too, if the truth be told.

Then again, places like Iran managed to do precisely that by itself. Afghanistan, as well--you can claim "Durand line" but that doesn't help the fact that the Kingdom of Afghanistan independently produced a country with Uzbeks, Tadzhiks, and Dari speakers in it. So did lots of other countries, as well as those poor wretches on whom such an disease was inflicted by the Russians/USSR or other countries.

On the other hand, take away all the immigrants in the last 400 years and Malay would still not be the only language there. Lots of languages whose presence predates Malay. (Then again, Hinduism predates Islam in Malaysia.) Presumably the same kind of tribalism--power is wielded primarily to benefit one's own tribe (however you define "tribe"), not the entire population--would obtain.

[izquierdista]

11. Thank FSM they didn't dump a plate of linguini!