doggone it! how ridiculous!

on 21 feb, malaysiakini reporter yoon szu-mae asked is the subang jaya municipal council’s (MPSJ) new requirement that dog owners need to obtain prior written consent from neighbours before being granted a dog licence a double standard policy and signals a growing attempt towards islamisation?

DAP (democratic action party) selangor chairperson, ronnie liu seems to think so. he had issued a press statement calling on MPSJ to revoke this unfair double-standard condition relating to application for dog license.

some readers from malaysiakini thinks so, like badak bodoh why question MPSJ, why not cats too?

what is this new guideline from MPSJ all about? according to MPSJ, residents who wish to own a dog must obtain written permission from their neighbours on both sides of the fence that they are not opposed to having dogs next door.

(note: earlier, before this ruling came about, there was a requirement for dog owners to submit a veterinarian’s health certificate before they can get a licence.)

don’t you think that is rather ridiculous? if i want to own a pet, i must obtain permission from my neighbours? oh sorry, it is not a pet but specifically a dog. now why a dog?

if i’m not mistaken, this came about when sometime ago, in johor, a muslim neighbour complained to the authority that her/his non muslim kept a dog and let the dog run wild. now to the uninitiated, to some muslims (or it seems so) a dog to them is ‘haram’ (unclean). thus when this muslim neighbour complained to the authority (which of course the leadership are muslim), with a knee-jerk reaction, they (MPSJ) decided to slap a ruling that if you want to own a dog, make sure your muslim neighbours give the go-ahead. ahh… were they so vehemently protecting the interests of the muslims? hence the feeling of islamisation creeping in.

not all muslims look to dogs as unclean, like alfean abu bakar, a muslim who owns a dog, feels that this action of MPSJ is just another irrevocable step towards entrenching malay-muslim prejudices into their daily lives. (btw, i personally knows a muslim friend who owns a dog.)

malay-muslim prejudices. that’s a good way of putting it. i always thought many of the actions of our bolehland authorities in trying to ‘protect the interests of the malay-muslims’ only serve to give a bad impression of the muslims to the non muslims. for example (i always like to bring up this example), long ago, the govt. did not allow the muslims to visit the m.v. doulos ship, a christian ship that sells books… all sorts of books, mind you (there were books on islam too) but of course more on christian books. by not allowing the muslims to visit this ‘floating library’ it was as though the govt. was telling us that muslim faith were so weak… that just by visiting a christian ship, they might decided to convert to christianity! yep, they succeeded in providing me prejudicism towards islam!