Country Cottage Arts

3 November 2011

The news of Elton John's  upcoming show  in November 22 at the Gentings Resort, has, as usual, brought out the  voice and thoughts of the  Conservative  Malaysian Islamic Party ( PAS ) represented by their Youth leader, whose stance and  views have since  gone viral all over the world, except maybe Zimbabwe and Tonga, I guess. And what was the reason of their objection ? " The gay singer promotes hedonism  and so the concert would corrupt young Muslims because of his homosexuality ".  Really ?  My, my ! What a great and erudite man, this PAS Youth Leader, Shahril Azman is  .  Hello Mr Shahril Azman Abdul Halim Al-Hafiz,  I've  got an urgent  message for you ,  the Talibhans are actively looking for such great thinkers like you in their midst.  Would you like to go over and  join them pronto?


Now, I'm trying to be sober and reasonable here instead of  shrieking and shooting my mouth off......... Is this the best argument he and the party he represents  can put forth to object to  a concert ? 


And in case my Muslim friends think that as a non-Muslim, I have no jurisdiction to question him, let me gently remind that I'm not questioning his faith, I'm questioning his arrogance for speaking for all Malaysians of all faith in Malaysia.    Just as he has the right to speak out for what he thinks, so have I and the rest of right thinking sane Malaysians who can differentiate the wood for the trees.

My argument is simple - I want to be able to attend the Elton John or  any Tom,  Dick and Harry  concert,  if I so wish, for its entertainment value, for the singer's  voice and his/her  songs . It doesn't matter really, it could be a myriad variety of reasons for which I may or may not want to attend the concert .  The point is this - who is Sharil to speak on  my behalf and take objection ?  If he's only informing  his party members ( preferably through sms ! ), he should only tell them   inside the  four walls of  his party's office and not seek cheap publicity and open his  mouth to all and sundry and in the process usurp my right to watch the Elton John/ Tom, Dick and Harry Show or whatever .  It says so in the Malaysian Constitution, Mister, and I suggest that you read all of it before you  open your mouth and remove all doubt of your  lack of grey matter ! Oh and by the way, if   you  do so strongly believe that just by attending Elton's concert, everyone will become like Elton, then you  should seriously put your  money where your  mouth is and buy me and all Eltons' fans,  two way flight tickets to US , including the concert tickets, of course. 

In a country as diversified as ours, there are bound to be different views, perceptions and values  acccording to their beliefs and faith.  The maxim " one man's meat is another man's poison" hold so true and I'm surprised that a Youth President of a political party is so shallow in thinking and is not aware of it.  It's really mind boggling the kind of people elected to party/political posts in this country.  Are the citizens so bereft of good and right thinking leaders to elect or are the members of political parties such nitwits and simpletons from the boondocks that they vote for the first one who makes the most noise, like in empty cans?    This is directed to not only PAS but to all the 'itsty bitsy', " kuching kurap"  and major parties in Malaysia, the Government of the day included .

We have Prime Ministers who blatantly buy voters in elections,  Deputy Ministers who flaunt their race first rather than be Malaysian first, a string of imbeciles appointed as Education Ministers who have messed up the education system of this country big time  and still doing it with great gusto, the Sports Ministry which bought 23 horses for RM5.66million without approval and the Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek has the cheek to say that he goofed when he explained " we are  not a horse-breeding nation and don't have the expertise.  We followed the recommendation of foreign breeders enthusiastically " .

That's not all.  We have the Ministry of Tourism  which  paid millions for a facebook feature ( even my good friend ,Tengku Norashikin , a relative  newcomer to emails, is facebook savvy in a matter of days ! ) ministries which exceeded their budget by RM3.73 billion ( did  you  know that our national debt has exceeded 50%  (53.1% ) of our GDP at RM 407 billion  ), the Ministry of Agriculture disbursed RM8O million to one single feedlot company (  linked to the Minister of Women &  Welfare ) which was to produce 60,000 heads of cattle annually  for local consumption  but which only produced 3,289 heads - meaning the company spent an average of RM25,000 for each cattle which also means about RM 170.00 for a kilo of meat !  ( Now  I cannot stop myself )

The list doesn't stop here, of course ,and  all these and more  were in the Auditor General Tan Sri Ambrin Buang's 2010 report . Go read it, people  and decide for your self what our beloved country has come to - the laughing stock of the world  and it happens every year ( Now I'm really angry ) The downright stupidest ( if I can call it that ) one of all was the error in placing a decimal point  which  resulted in a pensioner receiving RM21433.00 a month instead of RM214.33 ( the Sun Nov 1, 2011 )


Also extracted from  the Sun,( dated 2 Nov 2011) is  a letter written by one Mohd Yusoff which I have copied here

Matter of faithPosted on 2 November 2011 - 05:04am
IT appears that this is a hostile world for Muslims. Every individual, group or organisation appears to be conspiring to erode the faith of Muslims in their religion. Hence about four to five thousand Muslims (out of the expected one million) were crying out to the government for help to protect their faith at the Shah Alam stadium.I find this episode to be sad and pathetic. I would have thought that one’s religious faith, or the onus of guarding one’s faith is on the individual. It is incredulous that a Muslim requires government intervention to help protect his faith. It’s the height of naivety. Muslims everywhere, do grow up.Mohd YusoffShah Alam

Write on, Mr Yusoff, write on for the likes of Sharil and his types

Finally, I received this email going viral and thought that I'd share with my readers. Came at the most opportune moment, it did !























Happy reading and painting


Lakshmi