IslamoFascism and Its Adherents

It has been a very long time since i have last blogged. What spurred me to post, i guess it goes back to the recent New Years Eve celebrations and what not, whilst sending Amy back to her  apartment in my car, we were visited by the local residents association doing a neighborhood patrol against vice, and they came up to my car which had its headlights on the windows clear and the engine on in a public area waving their flashlights. Upon seeing this thinking nothing of it i lowered my window to see what the particular member of the patrol wanted, He saw Amy in the car just getting ready to go up to her apartment and asked if she and I were married, to which i replied no we are not and i am just dropping her off and that we were having a conversation before being so rudely interrupted, His response, "Drop her off and be on your way or we will call JAIS (the state religious authorities) to which i replied Call them. Amy not wishing to aggravate the situation decided it was better for her to exit the car and go up to her apartment.

The next morning i awake to the news that in one of the north eastern states 52 couples were apprehended by the states religious authorities for riding in tandem Male/Female  claiming that it is in breach of the state religious laws on close proximity. Now here is the issue, unless you suspect these couples on motorcycles are jerking each other off whilst they are riding in tandem, what right have you to impede on another persons personal rights in the name of a higher moral authority.

Malaysia is slowly becoming an IslamoFascist state and the problem is that the moderate muslims are allowing to become so, they are allowing the rise of moral and "religious" policing in contravention to federal laws that state that a person may not be deprived of liberty by any other authority besides that of the police or the military. But yet Malays act like sheep to the slaughter in fear of what their society will say or What some dude in a white headdress will say God's will is. Islam is a religion of peace but it has long been besmirched by the Idiocy of Man

MH17?

As you can see by the title this post is related to the MH17 tragedy. I believe that this tragedy is the fault of both Russia and the United States, call me a conspiracy theorist, but don't you find it suspect that a Malaysian Plane was shot down just after Malaysia came out in the UN and condemned their inaction with regards to the current Gaza crisis.

What saddens me the most though is that the investigation will most likely be extremely one sided as Malaysia has not expressed any desire to work together with Russia. This saddens me because right now everyone is blaming Pro-Russian Separatists for the issue, but yet they are not seeking any form of proper clarification from Putin's administration. Dato' Seri Najib, if you happen to be reading this (which i doubt) please take into consideration the idea that you need both Russia and the United States to help in the investigation in order for a more rounded view. The Malaysian people are sad, but what is most important is the current crisis management steps that need to be implemented.

Condolences to all affected by this crisis.

Peace and blessings upon all humanity,
Ashli Bin Amir,
Intern at MIDP and International Relations Graduate.

Non-violence?

In the history of self determination and independence, the role of non-violent struggle has always been seen as the reason behind its success. However if we truly look at how these nations truly were able to be free you will realise that the biggest catalyst to its success was the violent struggle. Take the example of South Africa, the ANC and the Blacks began by using peaceful methods of public disobedience, but after so long it proved to account for nothing. Only when they were radicalized, and started committing acts of violence did people really start listening to them. Then only when they returned back to the idea of non-violent struggle, did the world go "hey, they used to be violent, but now they're being non-violent, so lets rally behind them". My point is the idea of non-violent struggle is always credited for helping nations achieve self-determination and independence but no one ever stops to think about the main catalyst, violence.

Even in India during its struggle for independence, Mahatma Gandhi was very adamant about keeping to non-violence, however not many people see that behind the scenes, the violence from the radicalized followers of Mahatma Gandhi, played a large part in securing the Independence. This brings me to the idea of how this is similar to how we celebrate ex-drug addicts who managed to rehabilitate themselves. For those of us who have never taken drugs, when we say we have never taken drugs society is like okay whatever, but suddenly a ex-drug addict says he has been off the pipe and clean for three months we celebrate him and congratulate him.

We humans as a society are a complicated bunch, when a group that deviates chooses to return to the norms we celebrate them, but when we ourselves have stuck to the norm for most of our lives it is seen as "oh okay, thats normal". The moral of the story is nonviolent struggle will only succeed if there is a period of violence that predates it.

Assalamualaikum, Heshalom Aleichem, Namaste, and Peace be upon you my readers.

Sincerely,
Ashli Burton Bin Amir

Faith?

This may not be a popular opinion amongst many of my fellow muslims but i feel i must rant about it. When it comes to practicing your faith i believe that each person has their own special way of doing so, even so i agree that there are certain observances that all of us follow particularly when it comes to the Salat. However recently i have seen on facebook that there are certain parties that wish to correct how a female performs the Salat, because apparently if they don't follow it their submissions are not going to be accepted by the almighty. Now Islam claims to be a religion that eases its followers but yet now their are parties that wish to say that if you do not pray in a certain way suddenly your prayer is not going to be accepted. Now i believe that regardless of your faith, belief as well as Mazhab that if you submit yourself before the Almighty, how you do so is none of other peoples business. What matters is that you do it with the pure intention of submitting before the Almighty. Intentions are what legitimises your submissions not how you submit.

Thats all from me,
Assalamualaikum, Shalom Aleichem, Namaste

Ashli Burton Bin Amir

An Open Letter To Most of my Countrymen with Half a Brain

Dear sir's and Madams,

Recently the whole issue on the word "Allah" has been thrust into the limelight of our local media, where a raid by the Selangor Religious Department (JAIS) illegally apprehended members of the Bible society of Malaysia, on the reason of them distributing bibles that still referred to God as "Allah". Now there are stories of a protest that is going to be conducted whilst Christians are having their Sunday Mass by a group of Muslims. Since when did we revert to the days of Ignorance a.k.a Jahilliyah, why are we so worried that the usage of a word such as Allah will corrode the faith of the Muslims. Why is it that we are repeating the mistakes of the Catholics in the 15th Century that is the religious Inquisition, too root out "threats" to the faith.

Why do we always force others to accept our dominance, for is not the most dominant one the God of our faith. Does not God, Allah, Yahweh or whatever you choose to call the supreme being, say that we must respect one another, and not fight amongst each other. My friends what is needed is more critical thought over our own actions, we should not condemn those who we feel are wrong just because they are of a different belief than us, instead we should engage each other in dialogue and we will see that there is no difference between us. Alas, i know the people who really need to be enlightened by these words i have written will not be enlightened as they are too busy fanning the flames of hate and ignorance, but for those who do, please take a moment to ponder as to the beauty of all religions and how all religions are in fact one regardless of the semantics and distinctions that are made by those who claim to know better, for did not the supreme being give us all minds to think with.

Shalom Aleichem, Asalamualaikum, and Peace be Upon you all.

Ashli

Prices?

Recently there has been a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction among the people of my country, due to the rise in costs of living. So much so that it led to the recently concluded "TURUN" rally which supposedly was to urge the government to lower living costs. My problem in the whole scheme of things is that 1) I agree the government should do something to  keep the economy afloat and the price increase is justifiable to a certain extent. However at the same time this brings me to problem number 2) The government should also start cutting the salaries of the members of parliament, and other higher ranking officials who are earning salaries higher than 15K a month as well as stop this need for government aid to the people because this is what is draining our economy in the first place.

In addition to this issue, I personally believe that members of the opposition should not even participate in events such as "TURUN" because they too are partly the reason why the country is going arse over tit. They earn just as much as the Government officials do, but yet because it is a "Government" decision to increase prices they feel that they can latch on to the feeling of dissatisfaction for their own gains. At the end of this diatribe i feel that there is a need for everyone to have some minor knowledge about economics because then and only then can they rationally decide whether or not the price hikes are justified instead of just jumping on the band wagon because prices have risen.

Think For Yourselves For Once People,
Ciao,
Ash "The Dashing" Li

Words?

What is the point of telling people things when they just choose to ignore whatever it is you are saying, even if what you are saying has a legitimate basis. Why are humans so fucking arrogant that they cannot bring themselves to accept the experienced opinions of those who have legitimate views. At the end of time all that happens is someone is "wrong" and has to apologize for being wrong even though they have had a legitimate point when the discussion started off. These days unless you come from some fancy university or have money or title no one listens to what you say. Everyone is too fucking arrogant to accept the possibilities proposed by others because said possibilities do not conform to the institutionally set possibilities...

Sick and tired,
Me