oh ye of little faith

they finally allowed ‘the passion of the christ‘ to be shown on the cinemas.. after about 130 days of its release… after many people had already seen it on VCD/DVD. and do you think the gomen will allowed it to be shown just like that? oh no, of course it come with restriction – a restriction that is not surprising, a restriction that is so riduculous, a restriction that once again make the gomen a laughing stock.

the restriction is of course, only christians are allowed to watch the movie… well, short of saying ‘not for muslims’, i suppose.

teresa kok, the DAP MP for seputeh rightly argue against this move to the home ministry. read about it here, in my mentaljog extra, since only members of malaysiakini will get to read the news. (i specially subsrbie via sms – 24hrs only – to get the news for you to read!). suresh of suaramalaysia has a good write-up on this subject too.

tell me, how to tell one is a christian? how do the cinema staff make sure the patrons are christians? check to see if they have a cross round their neck? they have to show their baptism certificate? peter, aren’t you glad you finally got your baptism certificate a few weeks ago eh. can safely watch the passion of the christ in the theatre. 🙂

when i mentioned this restriction make the gomen a laughing stock, i meant:
1. why do we need the gomen to decide for us what we want to watch or don’t want to watch? we are adults. we don’t need the gomen to babysit us (esp. so when it concern entertainment).
2. if they disallow muslims from watching the movie, aren’t they telling us they don’t trust muslims… that the faith of muslims are weak… just by watching the movie… poop!! they will convert to christianity! oh ye of little faith! hahaha.

whenever i talk on this subject, i like to bring up the subject of the christian ‘floating library’ ship named n.v. doulous, which visited out country many years back. ok if you want to read about my long-winded grumblings on this matter, do click on ‘jog over for more’. good that now i can have a permanent record of my grumblings so that next time i don’t have to grumble again but just refer people here.

to continue reading, click on ‘jog over for more’.

i remember the ship n.v. doulous docked at the klang harbour and also penang. when it was here in penang, since it was the first time, we encountered a ‘floating library’, everybody was excited to visit it. almost everyday, there were long queues of people going to the ship to have a look at the books, which were for sale. the first few days, everything was fine. a lot of people visited the ship, many of them non christians. then one day suddenly, the gomen announced muslims were not allowed to visit the ship. there was even a signboard where the queue was saying “for non muslims only”.

why the ban? first of all, it was a christian ship, and they were selling christian books. christian books? obviously the one who slapped on this ban had not visited the ship. the library were full of all kind of books… books that you expect to find in an ordinary bookshop. and only 10% of the books were on christianity! believe it or not, there were also books on islam!!

secondly, it seemed that staff of n.v. doulous were seen distributing pamphlets to visitors… pamphlets on christianity. well… so what? so the gomen was scared that muslims who took the pamphlets, read it, will all of sudden decided to leave their faith and joined christianity! ain’t that ridiculous? what’s wrong with reading books/pamphlets on another faith? if not anything, it would be good for general knowledge. and anyway, anyone can choose to not receive the pamphlet.

when the gomen banned muslims from visiting the ship, they were telling us that the faith of muslims are not strong… their faith might waver after being exposed to christian materials. what a laugh! actually a few of my muslim friends themselves were quite irked at the ban. they had never visited a ‘floating library’ ship before and were eager to go, and especially wanted to bring their children to experience it but they were banned from visting it. how frustrating!

i find it very strange the gomen choose to ban muslims from watching movies on christianity (or other religions) or ban muslims from visiting exhibition/concert show on christianity. i mean like for me, if there is an exhibition on islam, i would love to attend, so that i can get to know more about islam, and knowing it more doesn’t mean i will join it. actually i remember many years back, there was an exhibition on islam at dewan sri pinang. since the dewan was near where i stay (at that time) and i passed it everyday, one day i decided to drop in to visit it. (no, no sign that said ‘non muslims not allowed’). while i was browsing through the exhibits, i can feel all eyes of the staff on me. they were wondering what was i a chinese doing there, i think!

come to think of it, an exhibition by a particular religion say relgion A, it should be that people of that religion A, wouldn’t like to visit it since it is their religion, they already know about their own religion. it is people of other religions, B, C, D that should visit it. well, that’s my thinking but the gomen’s thinking is ‘terbalik’ from mine. *sigh*

coming back to the restriction on ‘the passion of the christ’, why don’t the gomen let movie-goers make their own decision? on whether to allow the movie to be screen, that movie-goers have no say, but once the gomen gave the go-ahead to screen it (after potong sini, potong sana), then the decision should be left entirely to the individual movie goers choice.

well as suresh pointed out, maybe we need a new category for movie rating – the R instead of restricted should be religious? i can see it now… new rating! R-C (religious – christianity), R-H (religious – hindu), R-B (religious – buddhist), R-M (religious – islam) and finally R-NM (religious – non muslims). malaysia boleh!