hey, two days ago i was just blogging about michael backman’s (picture left) article ‘while malaysia fiddles, opportunities are running dry‘, in which he label malaysia as ‘bodoh’ (stupid), and suddenly yesterday he came out with a second article.

as i mentioned in my previous post, our fat lady minister, the makcik, had exclaimed that she couldn’t care less what backman wrote since backman is a foreigner, thus this article of backman seems to hit out at her! why, the heading itself is telling of her, being the trade and industry minister - ‘malaysia bites back and industriously trades the insult‘.
go and read it here, at the age website (or my mentaljog extra site).

1st dec. 2006 had been declared by our bishop as a day of prayer, fast and penance in response to the mob gathering at the church of our lady of lourdes, silibin, ipoh. yes, we respond with prayers and not demonstration. though the leaders of the demonstrators had refused to apologise, it’s ok. we’ll respond in the way we always do - prayers (dialogue, or talk, like in the case of the da vinci code movie). we will pray for peace in our country, peace among all the religions and let there be no extremists among all religions.
the letter from the bishop is up on the penang diocese website.

i just switched on tv3 in the middle of its 8.00pm news and happened to catch an excerpt of parliament proceeding of which there was a shouting match (as always) between opposition leader, lim kit siang and a umno minister (didn’t catch who he was).

they were debating about the article by aussie writer, michael backman, in which he label malaysia as ‘malaysia bodoh’. remember? this umno minister was of course condemning backman’s article something like how could he label us malaysians as bodoh, i think. didn’t catch the earlier part but what i caught very clearly was how he label lim kit siang as unpatriotic because he agree with the article written by backman.

you did it again, girl! congrats to you!

(picture taken from BBC sports)

UPDATED: from popular bloggers, jeff ooi and rockybru.

“nothing new or seditious in their speeches” as he said.

nothing seditious? when one say things like “do not challenge our rights. if you do, may 13 will occur”? or when one urged him to use the keris?

yeah sure nothing seditious because they are your own members. if it comes from some non UMNO members, you will scream seditious.

see more of the seditious remarks at kit’s blog.

do you know that kerismuddin also said:

some of the issues raised by umno youth delegates this year were not new, but certain sensitive matters were made public due to the assembly’s live telecast.

JAIS - jabatan agama islam selangor (selangor islamic affaris department).

(picture taken from mystar, showing one of the video)
these moral police from JAIS not only spy on couples to catch them for khalwat (close proximity) but they also filmed what they spied… and now thanks to the popular youtube, we will all get to see some of the clips.

more later as now am busy. just got hold of the news from jeff ooi and knowing that it will be a hot topic, quicky post it up here in summary first. oh yeah, the ever quick howsy had also started blogging on it already. me, always many steps behind howsy, so i’ll talk about it only later.

…so that was what i gather from lim kit siang’s blog.

well, our no. 2 man, the DPM spoke up yesterday that we should leave it to the authorities (police) to decide on the course of action on those umno buggers who spew racial and seditious speeches during their just ended general assembly.

why only now the talk of the authorities taking action?? why earlier, about a week before, there were already two police report lodged against ‘em umno buggers and yet the ‘authorities’ do nothing?
it is as plain as can be - the police will act only on the ‘go ahead’ from either of the two top men (or some other top umnoputra MPs!!)… or at least where it concern umno.

we all know that ‘islam’ means ’submission to god’ in arabic, don’t we? you don’t? good. then now you are learning from me.

islam grants freedom to its adherents because submission to god cannot take place through force or compulsion.

freedom of expression and freedom of choice were the cornerstones of Islam.

if submission to allah involves free choice, then the same principle must apply if one wants to leave the faith.

if one leaves the religion out of free choice, let them become what they want.

muslims should be more confident. nothing will happen to islam if people leave the religion.

UPDATED: …or better still, perak mufti should apologise (to the church). he was instrumental in instigating the mob to gather at the church!!
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so they had found the woman who started the whole thing (so according to the perak mufti) and charged her. why her? why not perak mufti, harusanni? as i had blog here, it should be the perak mufti who should be charged. he was the one who acted irresponsibly when he spread the rumour to several muslim NOGs in a public mosque. the woman did not spread the news; the woman only told him (perak mufti) about the news.

UPDATED: forgot to include this very good article from azly rahman, found on lim kit siang’s blog:
malay nationalism and post industrial tribalism

on the issue of those umnoputra screaming thier heads off on ‘don’t question our malay rights/islam’ - the recently ended UMNO ethnic bashing forum, remember?… here i append below some views from some malays themselves… those grassroots malays. i will only give excerpts… do read the entire article/post.