The end of multiculturalism
This sounds good.
I have booked a ticket.
.
posted by PROVOLUTION at 11/13/2005 12:50:00 pm
Sunday, November 13, 2005
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5 Comments:
This is a subtle attack on religious life, with carefully chosen words and overwhelming jargons that only serve to impress and distract the listeners. I believe that strong awareness of religion that will bring about tolerance, not the opposite. We wait your report.
Actually, multiculturalism is great. I like the US-style. A Muslim businessman who has a company can freely make rules for his employees (Muslim or non-Muslim) to follow. Suppose he makes a rule that all female employees (even non-Muslims) must wear the tudung, this is his right under US constitution which upholds capitalism. He can also make a condition that only Muslims can be employed. Again, this is free market.
Same goes for a Christian businessman who makes a rule for all his female staff banning the tudung. This is free market.
However, in both cases the Employment Agreement must be very clearly stating that Islamic tudung is allowed or banned. If not, the staff could sue for breach of agreement.
That is why in Bahasa Melayu, we call USA as 'Amerika Syarikat' because USA is built on the foundation of private agreements the hallmark of less government advocated by the Republican Party. Americans hate big government as they fear PAS-style controls.
So, is it ethnical for a Christian-owned company in USA to ban the Islamic tudung for its female staff? Yes! This is not only freedom of association it is also freedom of religion. Just do not work there. There are so many American firms, Jewish-owned, Muslim-owned, Sikh-owned, or Christian-owned. Choose which firm allows you your favourite dress-code.
I wish Malaysia were like USA. We now have University Islam Antarabangsa (that forces everyone to wear tudung) but we need government to setup University Kafir Antarabangsa that (that bans tudung). This way we can protect the way of life of both Muslims and non-Muslims. If you love the tudung, go to UIA, if you hate tudung, go to UKA.
This is part of the UDHR that allows freedom of association. If I wish to associate myself as a non-Muslim, I study in a Kafir school.
Today in Malaysia, all schools (MALAY, CHINESE, and INDIAN) are very muslim-centric. We need special Non-Muslim school system where only non-Muslims are allowed to study. This way we do not have to meet our Muslim friends.
What do you think Wan Saiful?
Addendum to my earlier comment:
Keadilan is a failure as is a mono-cultural party. It may have Tian Chuas, Gobala Krishans, and Robert Kees (bobjots.org) but they are hardly Buddhists, Hindus, and Christians but just godless people pretending to be religious for political gain to further the cause of Muslim religious bigots in PAS.
As a non-Muslim who is religious, I will cast my vote in the Pengkalan Pasir by-election for the creators of Islam Hadhari (ie. BN) because I hate PAS. Of course, Malaysia needs an opposition and DAP (Malaysian version of UK Labour Party) can provide a good opposition from its 12 seats in Parliament.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) gurantees right to form communal parties, be it race-based or religion-based as long as they do not advocate racism or religious bigotry.
In Malaysia only one party breaches the UDHR and can be banned. It is PAS. I do not think UMNO falls into the category as a racist party as even Singapore Constitution gives Malays special cultural priveledges as Bumiputras. Does that mean Singapore is racist? I do not think so as even Canada gurantees Bumiputra priveledges to the Red Indians.
As a non-Muslim, I fully support the special cultural priveledges given to the Malays, such as Singapore Administration of Muslim Law Act (AMLA), regulatory body for Islam aka the Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura (MUIS.gov.sg), and a government appointed Mufti. This is because I feel Singapore is far more civilised than Malaysia giving Muslims many priveledges.
Singapore has a dual-school system, madrasah schools where tudung can be worn and secular public schools where tudung is banned. Was it right for UMNO Singapura party to harp on a non-issue making a mountain of a mole hill by questioning the dual-school system policy? No becuase non-Muslims have the right to their own identity and Muslims to their own. PAP has given Muslim Malays already many rights and majority of Malays (98%) are satisfied except less than 2% of the Malays who are allied to the UMNO Singapura opposition party. Malaysia's UMNO tried to twist the 'tudung' issue pretending Muslims had no rights (and our taliban PAS joined UMNO here) but this is usual propaganda. Actually, if we look at Singapore it is a true multi-cultured nation.
I wish Malaysia was like Singapore with a dual-school system, madrasah schools where tudung is allowed and secular public schools where tudung is banned.
What do you think?
I do not know of “the American-style free-market” you imply in your comment. So, I cannot give a detailed reply.
But in any free-market society, the government has an important role to play to ensure contracts are respected, and more importantly, are just. So, in a modern free-market society, yes, you would expect an employer to be able to make regulations, but only up to an extent. They cannot make regulations that would discriminate, for example. In the examples you gave, it looks as if there is a regulatory failure - the rules have elements of discrimination.
With regard to your comment that “if you don’t like place A, then go to place B”, you don’t seriously believe that, do you? If only life is that simple….
Choosing a job is not like choosing which brand of ice-cream to buy. Labour market cannot be compared directly to the market “market”.
On the issue of tudung in UIA, I think that is what happen when we have political parties trying to out-Islamize each other. Extremely unhealthy.
On the issue of education, I would much prefer just one type of state-funded school in which subjects like Islamic studies, Hinduism, Christianity, Malay Language, Mandarin, Tamil, etc etc are offered as options. Racially-based segregation, or religious-based segregation for that matter, will only create a society in which we are oblivious about “others”. Privately-funded schools on the other must have their freedom and must not be looked at in the same way we view state-funded schools.
I think we have to distinguish "freedom" and "license"
Freedom is our ‘right’ to choose from within that range of behaviour that is acceptable, and acceptable is defined as that which is allowed by Allah. Every human being should be given total freedom to choose to act within that range of acceptable behaviour, but only to the degree that is commensurate with their ability to carry out that behaviour responsibly. Acting responsibility would generally mean acting in a manner that will not cause harm to ourselves, to others, or to property. For example, using a knife to slice vegetables is within the range of acceptable human behaviour; but a two year child has not progressed to a level of maturity where they can safely use a knife without danger. The total range of possible human behaviour is larger than the range of acceptable behaviour. To engage in that part of the total range of human behaviour which is outside the range of acceptable behaviour would be called taking license. License is therefore using your power to choose to act outside the range of acceptable behaviour.
Since no one has the ‘right’ to act outside the range of acceptable behaviour, although they have the ‘power’ to do so, it is allowable to have individual and social sanctions to restrict people from engaging in unacceptable behaviour. At the same time it is allowable to have individual and social rewards for acceptable behaviour which would encourage people to engage in acceptable behaviour. In human society each individual has been given by Allah the obligation to command acceptable behaviour and to forbid unacceptable behaviour. This is not a restriction of ‘freedom’ which would be wrong, but instead it is a restriction of ‘license’ which can only be right.
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