Archive for March 11th, 2011
Religious bigotry on the rise again under Najib’s 1 Malaysia policy
Posted by Kit in 1Malaysia, Dr. Chen Man Hin, Najib Razak, Religion on Friday, 11 March 2011
By Dr Chen Man Hin, DAP life advisor
The seizure of 30,000 Christian Bibles printed in Malay and imported into Malaysia is a serious breach of religious freedom. This is a glaring example of the failure of Najib’s promise of a better Malaysia for all, irrespective of race, culture and religion.
Reliable sources say that the Bibles do not contain any philosophy or teachings which are any different from the Bibles used in the country for centuries, since Christianity came into the country whether in the Peninsula or in Sarawak and Sabah.
It would appear that the Bibles were seized because the authorities consider the use of the word ‘Allah’ in the bibles was prohibited and therefore seditious. This is religious bigotry on the part of some fanatics in the muslim community.
ALLAH is the name of the God of the Christians and Muslims in Arab countries for centuries. They invoke the name Allah when they pray and, freely when they greet each other.
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A clarion call to the Christians in Malaysia
By Thomas Lee
Enough is enough! The usually docile, meek and temperate Christian community in Malaysia has had enough, and has exploded in anger over what they perceive as their human, civil and constitutional rights being denied and rendered illusory, with the latest seizure of 30,000 Malay Bibles from the Kuching Port in Sarawak.
Several such incidents over the last few years are nothing less than an assault on their God-given rights to worship, and to practice and propagate their faith in their own national language, without any legal restriction or political oppression.
There should no place for such evil bigotry and discrimination towards any religious belief in our country which is founded on the fundamental human right basis of freedom to worship and to practice and propagate one’s faith without hindrance, as enshrined in the Federal Constitution.
Article 8 of the Federal Constitution states that “All persons are equal before the law and entitled to the equal protection of the law”, and “there shall be no discrimination against citizens on the ground only of religion, race, descent, place of birth or gender in any law ….”.
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Education in multicultural Malaysia
Posted by Kit in Azly Rahman, Education on Friday, 11 March 2011
by Azly Rahman
Malaysiakini
Mar 9, 11
Q: Being a multicultural society that Malaysia is, how should our education system be designed? Or, should it be designed at all?
A: Education is a deliberate attempt to construct human beings who will participate in society as productive citizens. The question whether our education system should be designed or not is quite irrelevant when education, schooling, training, indoctrination, and the spectrum of ways by which the child is “schooled” are all based on intentional design.
Schooling is the most contested terrain in any society; it is a battlefield or a conveyor belt for the creation of human beings. We go back one step before the question of design. In a multicultural society, who should be entrusted to design schooling – politicians or philosophers of education trained in the study of political economy and anthropology and alternative historicising?
Are those designing our schooling system equipped with the varieties of philosophical perspectives in education? We have essentialism, progressivism, romanticism, cultural rejuvenation, social reconstructionism, spiritual capitalism, technicism… or even cultural revolution.
These philosophies call for a different perspective of what a human being is and how to draw out the potentials in each and every human being. Hence the Latin word “educare”, from which education comes from, meaning “drawing out”.
My question for all of you: What philosophy of education will be suitable for a multicultural society such as Malaysia? And how do we translate such a philosophy into praxis (Paulo Freire, “Cultural action for freedom”). Read the rest of this entry »
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