Oh Mas Selamat! U lucky devil

The Minister of Law has decided to come (pseudo) clean on how Mas Selamat was harboured and managed to getaway from watchful eyes.

Without a doubt, it paints a picture of lapses on many levels. We can call it intelligence failure or national security failure. It's like watching an ant crawl through a piece of kueh lapis effortlessly. At the same time, I cannot help but to marvel at how lucky Mas Selamat had been. From breaking out, commuting around Singapore to his arrival in JB. It's like watching Bruce Willis come out with only a few scraps with each installment of Die Hard (though MSK is very much at the other side of the law).

Now we Singaporeans cannot stomach the fact that the authorities had actually let slip that he would go to his immediate family for help. To us commoners, we would think that it is a no-brainer, watch his brother's place damnnit. On MSK's part, it was a huge gamble and it certainly paid off. What's not so fortunate now is that his brother's family is implicated. Kinship? Blood is thicker than water? This presents a moral dilemma. Citizen first, family second, religion third? How many of us have actually called the police so that they can arrest a family member? Many armchair critics have commented online that perhaps the Asmoms could have at least ratted on him after sending him away in the religious headdress. Honestly, what would the rest of the 100+ family members think of the Asmoms if they know that MSK had been betrayed out by his closest kin? Maybe this demonstrates the fact that MSK is the hardened terrorist that the authorities have painted him to be. His obvious priority is to escape and disregard the implications that he would bring upon his closest kins.

At the same time, it is clear that we Singaporeans are more upset with the authorities then the family for allowing the harbouring to happen. Singaporeans are divided on the punishment meted out to the Asmoms. Some say it's too light. Some say it's too harsh. My take is just let Nur Aini (his niece) serve her 18 months. Already, her future looks bleak. Besides, a sentence any longer only means that the taxpayers are paying for her imprisonment and her uncle's detention.

On hindsight, we've got MSK back without having to kill anyone. A certain country I know had gone to war on Iraq for years and still have not the chief yet.

I hate to think of how many of how many people would use the headdress to avoid scrutiny.

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Of the word that Malaysian non-Muslims cannot say

"Allah", meaning God or Supreme Being, applied largely in Islam is now a word reserved for Muslims in Malaysia only. While the most immediate reaction is to attack the religion and the Malaysian government, let's not forget that in other parts of the world, where majority of the people subscribe to one religion, the minorities are affected too. The BBC article below provides an interesting read.

However, the spate of violence that has been taking place in Malaysia proves detrimental to the world's view on Islam. Since the 911 attacks, Muslims leaders worldwide have emphasised that Islam is a religion of love and peace. Yet the attacks against the churches and temples in Malaysia have indicated that Muslims (at least those in Malaysia) are quick to resort to violence to make a stand. Regrettably, the belligerent ones have yet to end their attacks.

It is a tough call. Upon a delicate weighing scale, the Ministers in Malaysia cannot speak out against the ban for it will deem them as "lesser Muslims".

I can only hope that the violence will end soon.

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Faith Diary: Whose God is Allah?

By Robert Pigott
Religious Affairs correspondent

Religion can be a tense affair in Malaysia.

Roughly two thirds of the population is Muslim, and religious minorities have repeatedly accused the government of undermining their rights.

The interception by Malaysian authorities of thousands of Bibles bound for Christians in the country has produced the latest flashpoint.

The reason - the Bibles use the word Allah to describe God, and that's been banned by the government.

It says the risk of causing upset to Muslims is too great.

Muslim groups claim that Christian use of a word so closely associated with Islam in Bibles and children's books could be aimed at winning converts.

Religion is closely associated with ethnicity in Malaysia, with ethnic Malays obliged to be Muslim.

Ethnic Indians and Chinese who practise Hinduism and Buddhism are welcome to convert to Islam, but Muslims are not allowed to adopt another faith.

The Malaysian government confiscated 5,000 Bibles earlier this year as they were imported from Indonesia, and it has now intercepted another 10,000.

But Christian leaders - representing a little under 10% of the population - say Malays have been using the word Allah to refer generally to God for hundreds of years.

Christians are now fighting back.

An Evangelical church launched a legal action in an attempt to win the right to refer to God as Allah in children's books.

The Roman Catholic Church has also gone to court after its newspaper in Malaysia was threatened with the loss of its licence if it continued to use the word.

Christians are turning the issue into one about how minorities are treated in Malaysia.

The Christian Federation of Malaysia says the country's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, and it's asking whether that can still be meaningful if Christians are denied Bibles which use their own language.

SWISS DECIDE ON MINARETS

When the treatment of Christian minorities in Muslim-majority countries becomes an issue, Christian-majority countries are apt to compare it unfavourably with the equality they give to Muslims.

But strict equality - at least in the architectural arena - is up for debate in one Christian-majority country: Switzerland.

Later this month the Swiss will vote in a referendum on whether to ban the construction of minarets in the country.

The proposal came from right-of-centre groups and is backed by Switzerland's biggest political party, the far-right Swiss People's Party.

There are about 100 mosques serving some 300,000 Swiss Muslims and small minarets are not unknown - although they're not used for calls to prayer.

Muslims have found allies among Switzerland's Jewish population, who have claimed that the plan would threaten religious harmony and hold up the integration of Muslims.

As in Malaysia, the constitution is being invoked by opponents of the proposal.

The two largest Jewish groups said the referendum infringed religious freedom, a concept enshrined in the Swiss constitution. ITALIANS CROSS ABOUT CRUCIFIXES

Part of the Swiss People's Party's argument against minarets is that they are a symbol of political power - more than they are about religion.

Now with a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights against the use of crucifixes in Italian schools, the same claim is being made for this symbol of Christianity.

Soile Lautsi wants to give her children a secular education and objected to the presence of a crucifix in every classroom at their school in northern Italy.

A law dating back to the 1920s requires crucifixes to be hung in Italian schools.

The European Court said the compulsory display of a symbol of a given religion in public buildings violated the rights of parents to educate their children as they wished.

The ruling has produced an angry response from politicians and church leaders who say the crucifix is much more than a religious symbol in Italy.

Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini said the crucifix was a "symbol of our tradition", not a mark of Catholicism.

The Reverend Frederico Lombardi said the European court should not interfere in what was a profoundly Italian issue, and said it was wrong to imply that the crucifix could be a sign of division or exclusion.

Soile Lautsi's case is similar to one brought in 1995 by a parent in the German state of Bavaria.

A German constitutional court decided it was against religious freedom for crucifixes to be imposed in classrooms.

The Bavarian parliament came up with a new law, requiring the removal of crucifixes - but only if a parent insisted.

The US Supreme Court has also had to decide whether religious symbols break the constitution, and its separation of church and state.

It recently ruled against the positioning of framed copies of the 10 Commandments in two courtrooms in Kentucky, because they had a "predominantly religious purpose".

However, the court did acknowledge that even the 10 Commandments - taken from the Book of Exodus in the Bible - could be displayed, if it was done to illustrate the country's legal history.

It said a monument outside a government building in Texas could continue to display the Commandments, which the Bible describes being given to Moses by God.

But even without court rulings some Italian Christians suspect that long-established traditions are under threat by the changing atmosphere.

Among the casualties, they complain that schools are abandoning nativity plays for fear of offending people from other faiths.

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Of the romainian who got away

everyone, and i mean everybody hates hit-and-run drivers

it could be the fault of the driver. it could be the fault of the pedestrian. however, the scenario's abit different. the driver is in a vehicle and relatively unharmed while the one who got hit out there is possibly battling the death gods while lying there on the asphalt

and Silviu Ionescu, Dr Silviu Ionescu, Charge d'Affaires with the Romainian embassy has cooked up a cock and bull story and hiding back home.

his testimony of his stolen Audi not only insults the intelligence of the people, he obviously doesn't give two hoots about the casualties.

could the local government not have prevented Ionescu from leaving the airport 3 days after the accident? so what if the local government have urged the Romanian government to cooperate fully with the investigations? isn't it just saying the diplomatic obvious?

though Ionescu enjoys diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations which Singapore is a signatory of, it covers only his official and administrative duties in Singapore.

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