islamic supremacism in disguise

i refer to my post ‘yeah yeah… so the NEP won’t end‘.

here is an interesting post which touch on the NEP too. before that, some chit chat from me.

you heard of ‘malay supremacy’… you know those cries of ‘ketuanan melayu’ from the UMNOputera, right, but have you heard of ‘islam supremacy’? not really eh? however looking at things that had been happening in our country lately, we can tell for sure there is islam supremacy…. e.g. the lina joy case, the reevathi case, the pulling down of temples… and of course the fight against the establishment of the inter-faith council (IFC). we have heard some UMNOputera, PASmen and a blogger, how they said that islam is the supreme religion of all religions… cannot ‘mix’ with other religion, cannot stand together with the other religions in a group known as IFC. see? islam supremacy… and ‘ketuanan melayu’. religion and race. the cards those UMNOputera, especially the ministers like to play.

ok, here is the article now:

Malayasia: Islamic supremacism behind a facade of moderation

Malaysia, the so-called "moderate Islamic State", is in truth a supremacist Islamic State, like all others. The difference is one of degree and brazeness, not of the nature of the state. The anonymous Malaysian friend who sent us this story alerts us of the practice of banking discrimination, of which this writer was unaware, and of the practice of "affirmative action" in higher learning, of which this writer was. The email is so good I’ll quote it at length:

The prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, has reiterated that the New Economic Policy (dubbed the Never Ending Policy by detractors) will remain. The NEP is a "positive discrimination" affirmative action policy. But, probably being the first in the world to do so, this policy benefits the *majority* community at the expense of the minority. Apartheid is practiced openly in Malaysia, thanks to Islamic ways of doing things.

Muslims get a minimum of 7% discount on property prices in Malaysia. It is mandatory for property developers to specify the amount of discriminatory discount given to Muslims (under the term ‘bumiputra discount’) on their advertisements. During property expos, the discount for Muslims can go as high as 15%. Considering that the average middle-class Malaysian earns around RM3500 and the price of a decent piece of property is around RM250,000 to RM300,000, the discounts that Muslims get for buying property is not small at all.

Furthermore, some banking institutions have implemented policies of allowing only Muslim-owned legal firms to be their panel lawyers. Government projects also make it mandatory for Muslim-owned companies (called "bumiputra contractors") to be the only ones eligible. It is also an open secret that for public examinations, the Muslims always get better results because their examination papers are marked with a default handicap equivalent to the passing rate. However, these same students consistently exhibit poor command of mathematics and the English language at all levels, and are often rejected by foreign institutions of higher learning.[…]

Our friend is wrong–but only about whether this kind of discrimination is first practiced in Malaysia. Other majorities have treated their minorities in such ways and worse. This doesn’t detract, however, from the vicious, unjust nature of affirmative action in general and these practices in particular. They are, besides economic discrimination, a weapon of Islamization; ethnic Indians and Chinese would have an incentive to re-label themselves as "sons of the soil" by becoming Muslim, or could simply choose to leave the country to escape discrimination. People who try to leave Islam, on the other hand, cannot do so at all by law. It is through practices like these, through the generations, that Islam obliterates other religions and cultures.

and as the blog advise, don’t forget to read farish noor’s excellent piece ‘malaysia’s shame‘, which was also posted on lim kit siang’s blog.