Unable to comprehend the larger overview of the Article 11 coalition, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahamd Badawi has essentially sided with the disruptive, obnoxious protesters. Where his official justification of harassment will lead to, time will tell.
People who are unable to accept, let alone appreciate, humanity's infinite variety will always cling to generalisations which place them at the centre of their narrow realities. For example, we officially demonise Ismailis and Sufis without attempting to understand that in their hearts, they feel themselves as Islamic as any of us. I've heard Malays refer to a centuries-old community (and a substantial one at that) of Chinese Muslims as 'mualaf'. Wish they knew how many Arabs still consider us (South-East Asians) converts, ie. less-than-pure Muslims.
The smallest and stingiest of souls see themselves as defenders of a monolithic belief system, which any degree of exposure will show is mainly a local kadi-spun myth.
To personalise my point with simple examples right at home, I believe that since the injunction against alcohol is about intoxication, then a drop or two of alcohol in a cologne will not send me straight to Hell. I can't walk into a petshop without wanting to pet a puppy and since most shopping mall toilets do not have the necessary accoutrements for 'samak', I wait till I get home. For these trivialities I have been called everything from 'murtad' to 'Yahudi (!).
This nuance in belief is my own personal contract with God. It is as deeply held in my heart as the hatred those protestors in JB and Penang feel. Why is their version of faith given credence over mine? Does Abdullah and the ruling elite know how many little girls are pressured to wear the headscarf? Do they know that there are those who lecture Malay (ipso facto Muslim) staff against working in hotel lounges and bars? That's hundreds of thousands of the most well-trained and diligent young Malays denied income from the service sector.
Everybody deserves to feel good about themselves. Yes, there is a sense of self-importance that the protestors and their ilk now exult in, especially with the PM's official sanction. If he has ultimately hammered in the thin end of an insular Islamist wedge, time will tell. But what we can clearly see right now is the empty sloganeering of his Hadhari.
