February 13, 2011

i wish my exam answers was this long.

disclaimer: this post represents only a certain number of 'wise' Malaysian people and does not represent Malaysians in general. i use the word 'malaysians' just to ease my job of writing this.

if you are a malaysian, you should know that as far as we Malaysians are concerned, we like to discuss matters of absolute no great importance in a lengthy details even the newspapers are doing coverage of these issues. honestly i do not blame you The Stars, Berita Harian and all. the truth is good stories sell. and you want to sell your papers.

it is just that well, since tomorrow is Valentine Day, everybody (especially the Muslims) want to talk how evil and hideous are this celebration. from the Deputy Prime Minister to the commoner (me) wants to talk about it. the difference? one get his opinion published on a national level and one don't. ;)

wait, actually i do not want to talk about how evil and hideous this celebration is. i'll just make one statement about the celebration from Islamic point of views, and that is, the mainstream idea about what Valentine day is all about goes against the teachings of Islam unless you are a married couple. so there you go.

now, let's talk about we Malaysian Muslims, who goes all out to 'educate' and 'remind' the Muslims about how dangerous Valentine day is.

problem 1:

a guy from PAS youth (PAS youth divison is going to 'check and monitor' sinful activities at whatever area they had decided on) claims that valentine day end result is babies getting dumped in the trash bins. but think about it, with or without valentine day, out of wedlock babies are still being dumped in the trash bins, toilets or public places. so i suggest this guys to look into a more serious underlying issues here. why do this strayed souls decided to throw their babies away in the first place? because in Malaysia, the society (Malay Muslims) especially can be very unforgiving. some even denounce their children when they found out about the sins they had done. a strong society, ideally, should support these teenagers (i believe usually it is the teenagers or young adults who dump their newborns away) and help them recover their footings in the society.

in malaysia, raudhatus sakinah is doing a great job helping girls who had to go through these type of situation. the ladies and gentlemen behind the institution have my highest regard for what they are doing.

ok, i am not against the raid if it is done correctly. however, from what i read, it is just not right Islamically. i don't quite understand the reason why our morale police needs to spy on people, waiting behind bushes looking at illicit acts (is that not a sin?) and then when they have appropriate evidence (think hadith about 4 witness and zina) jump on the couples and arrest them. and by the way, how many ladies exactly are on these raid teams? i had heard of girls who got caught in these type of raids being treated immorally by the males. seriously, what the hell?

i agree, this might not be the case all the time, but these type of stories gets into the newspaper. the one about our morale polices breaking a couple before they went too far and giving nasihat to the couple before anything happened rarely find it's way into mainstream media. so what kind of ideas are we giving to our non-muslim friends?

i think as Muslims, we should understand that our most important job is to educate and spread da'wah to others. education is the key. once you have the knowledge, the how should you act on the knowldege should be left to the individual person. the choice is yours. to do or not to do.

what struck me when reading an article about this particular issue was what was said by a SIS rep;

"SIS urged PAS to focus on real issues affecting Muslim women such as backlog of cases in the Syariah courts.

Yasmin said SIS had cases where women waited for five years for their divorce cases, adding: “In the meantime, their husbands did not pay maintenance for them and their children.

There are also many cases where court-ordered nafkah (alimony) for children was not enforced. Men get away scot-free while women are left having to eke a living to feed their children.’’

truly, what happened to our priority? take care of the children first man!

problem 2: the christian celebration or the modern day commercialized celebration?

if you want to talk on the national TV, please, at least realize that whatever you say will be watched and scrutinized by other people, even when you are talking on a show that specifically talks about religion and social issue. when a famous lady figure in Malaysia openly made claims that Christians are the one who celebrate Valentine and Christians are the one commiting all sinful activities at club, you should brace yourself for the after effect. people are cruel and unforgiving, and the dear lady should know better about the history of Valentine day. so once Mr Valentine turned St Valentine got martyred and the people who holds him dear to their heart decided to celebrate his contribution to the society. this was a bazillion years ago. and by the way, it should also be noted that in the christian faith, there are many saints and these saints are usually exclusive to certain areas. the areas where they were once a respected social figure. and one of them happened to be Valentine and so once he was widely celebrated. but after some time, his stories was forgetten (but, no worry, wiki know it all!)

"The day first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer (famous for the Canterbury Tales, by the way, i hate the creepy story) in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished."

so, it is actually the Chaucer Day. Mr Chaucer turned it all into a lovey dovey thing. and thanks to the media (Chaucer was the media once) and Hollywood (i blame Hollywood for everything), we know the valentine day as what it is today. it has nothing to do with the actual St Valentine, and obviously nothing to do with the Christian faith. the poor man is probably turning in his grave everytime someone think it is his fault for what is happening today. and heck, he might be a good man, i mean, you don't grant sainthood to just anyone right?

by the way, harry valentine is not st valentine ok? he is just a cute guy from my favorite book.

please please please, keep it in your head that the modern valentine day is actually a damn effective marketing strategy to make people feel guilty about not loving their loved ones enough and that means going out to buy expensive (triple price!) flowers and gift to make it up to them. and all that entails after that. nothing to do with christianity.

blame it on hollywood. they really don't care. ;)

by the way, it is not just us Muslims who are against the mainstream idea of what constitute the valentine day, read this article to expand your horizon.

so what do i plan for the Valentine Day? call wani and sing her a 'Allah selamatkan kamu'. happy birthday dearest friend!

2 comments:

InkFlow said...

I like this post title very much. Well done.

Najat said...

lols.
every year wani is my valentine.
oh,btw.i <3 this post.haha.well said.