via MSNBC:
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Malaysian customs officials seized 32 Bibles from a traveler, a church federation said Monday, adding its voice to a raft of complaints that the Muslim-majority country is becoming less tolerant of other religions.
Brett wrote:
I confessed how I’d been reading through the bedside Koran in my hotel rooms, and I was a bit shocked by how unabashedly anti-Semitic it sounded. Not all of it, I said, but certain parts sounded quite hateful and intense. It seemed inevitable that some folks would take it too far.
“Oh dear, my friend! You must have been reading Imam Abdul Habibi’s translation. The one the mullas put in hotels - No good! You really must read the translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. You MUST!” he insisted.
I wonder what else they put in the Imam Abdulu Habibi’s translation…
John wrote:
Malaysians have an annoying inferiority complex when it comes to Singapore. Most Malaysians fall into two fallacious categories; they either believe that we should emulate Singapore as much as possible, or that we should avoid emulating it to the greatest extent.
This petty childishness of course has many root causes. But one cause, sad to say, seems to be that Singapore does everything better.
Of course, the “patriotic” Malaysians are up in arms now. “What?!” they indignantly ask. “How dare he say that Singapore does everything better than we do!”
But it’s an unfortunate fact of life. The Singaporeans outdo Malaysians in virtually every arena. No matter where you look, Singapore is, in everyday parlance, kicking Malaysia’s ass.
Probably more for the non-bumis. Must-read.
Radzi wrote:
Somewhere in a corner behind Chow Kit Road, Kuala Lumpur, next to a parking lot, lies a small building which invites questions. The building is a small Chinese temple under a jejawi tree (a jungle tree with lots of roots and foliage), quite a normal sight in Malaysia. What is out of the ordinary is the sign-board at the temple bearing the name “Datuk Matsita”… Ait?? Came a big question mark when I first saw this a month ago. The name “Datuk Matsita” sounds Malay. Why is a Chinese temple named after it?
Anyone knows why?
Viknesh wrote:
Identifying one as a ‘son of a farmer’ or a ‘son of a blacksmith’ would offer a picture to represent the environment that particular individual was/is exposed to or even describes an individual’s social status. It marks the ancestry and the heritage of an individual, and is not intended for discrimination purposes. Unfortunately, the wide intra-group variation that exists within the ‘varna’ extended beyond occupation and nature into socio-economic inequalities. The nature of each particular occupation and also its monetary returns not only fluctuate but also vary hugely, creating socio-economic barriers between ‘jatis’.
Some occupations which are ‘clean’, requiring higher levels of training/technical ability/skill and yields greater monetary returns are more favourable and command greater respect within the society as opposed to occupations that are ‘dirty’, requires less skill/training and yields lower monetary returns. This consequently led to prejudices and stereotypes attached to each ‘jati’ or guild, and eventually ‘in-group favourability bias’ exists and a particular ‘jati’ is viewed either positively or negatively. Combined with a lack of social mobility, this eventually became a fixed and rigid system that is perceived by many (and wrongly so) as the ‘caste system’ in Hinduism.
in 5 parts, pretty lengthy but interesting perspective nonetheless…