YOURSAY 'Respect and sensitivity are owed to all and not just to members of a particular faith. So all students should learn about all civilisations.'

Abim says Titas will prevent repeat of Alvivi incident

your say David Dass: Knowledge of one another's culture and religion will be good for all and will avoid religious insensitivities as in the case of the two Malay journalists who went into a Catholic church and took the sacred hosts and subsequently desecrated the hosts .

Nothing could have been more offensive to Catholics than that. Respect and sensitivity are owed to all and not just to members of a particular faith. So all students should learn about all civilisations and all religions.

Yellow Bird: Diversity by learning about only one civilisation? Yeah, right.

God Save Us: Kid yourselves and continue to drive the best brains out of this country. The problems started from segregation and discrimination in primary schools.

When attitudes of adults are tainted, when the system has been systematically engineered to heighten racial polarisation from a young age, what would you expect the end products to be?

Moral studies, which is basically largely religiously slanted, can only be a failure when responses in exams are meant to be memorised and regurgitated.

The subject matter and curriculum in the history syllabus is a joke. And now some dimwits clamour to introduce Islamic and Asian civilisation (Titas) for all private universities?

Haveagreatday: It will not, as has been shown, prevent cow-head stomping by some misguided Muslims.

LogicalMalaysian: What the bloggers Alvin Tan and Vivian Lee did was horrendous and they should be punished for their unwarranted action.

Also, Abim president Amidi Abdul Manan must insist that all those who insult the sentiments of those belonging to other faiths should sent back to school or college to re-educate them, including those who carried the dismembered cowhead in public.

EnyumUnta: Abim, on a similar note, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Asian Civilisation studies would also have prevented the likes of Perkasa chief Ibrahim Ali, and his vice-president Zulkifli Nordin, from insulting and ridiculing other religions.

Chipmunk: So what about teaching Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity to all students in Malaysia?

In that way, we will ensure that every one learns to respect and understand all major religions in Malaysia and not only Islam.

Make this compulsory and I hope the Umno leaders will first learn to respect all other religions before trying to make things right.

Odin: Amidi, in his Golden Rule of Ethics, Confucius (about 551-479 BC) said, "Do to others as you would like them to do to you." Some 500 years later, Jesus taught exactly the same thing.

If you want others to respect Islam, then Muslims should respect other religions. We all know how some of you have shown utter disrespect to certain other religions. And these people included those who are supposed to be well educated, too.

Respect flows both ways. A respects B, and B, in turn, will automatically respect A. You can teach all the subjects under the sun in Malaysian universities, but it will never but never inculcate in students the need to respect other religions when their religions are not respected.

Abasir: The teaching of the Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana in private higher education institutions will inculcate respect among races and avoid any incidents which can be deemed offensive to Hindus, such as the derogatory speech ridiculing Hindus and Hinduism by Umno's "winnable" candidate Zulkifli Nordin and other Muslim politicians like him.

I'm sure Amidi will agree that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Wira: Amidi, blogger Alvin Tan studied in a public tertiary institution in Singapore. Go sell your 'ingenious' theory to the Singapore premier.

In all likelihood, this yearning-for-attention couple might have thought they could get away with such a crass joke from lenient government actions to racist Umno supporters/leaders because none who insulted the faith of others were prosecuted.

Kookie: Insensitivity is a matter of attitude and no amount of knowledge will change it. Amidi is talking absolute rubbish and he also is guilty of insensitivity by promoting Titas.

Teach Muslims to be better Muslims, Christians to be better Christians, Buddhists to be better Buddhists, etc, and we will have a better society.

Fair Play: Mutual respect is a two-way street, especially for a diversified nation like Malaysia. Is it too much to ask all communities to respect one another?

Besides, using the example of these two to justify the proposed action is poor use of statistics to justify the means to an end.

Progressive: One Alvin Tan and Vivian Lee does not make Malaysia. And why not have Buddhist, Taoist, Hinduism, Christianity studies so that no Umno Muslims will ever want to burn a bible or perform a cow-head demonstration?

Myop101: I disagree on Titas. I doubt it can fix the problem. Look at the history lessons taught in Form 4 and 5 where lots of emphasis is given on Islamic civilisation (which these idiots, Alvin and Vivian, would have learnt when they were in school).

If you listened to their confession and read the interviews in the newspapers, they claimed to be fully aware that eating pork is forbidden in Islam and they still proceeded to offend Muslims on the pretext it was just dark humour.

It just shows their lack of respect for others. The best way for such people to learn is to throw them in jail.

Baiyuensheng: I think we should also teach other religions and civilisations as well, as we don't want our students becoming like Perkasa veep Zulkifli Noordin.

This will also show our multi-cultural and multi-religion society. The Muslims will become better Muslims and non-Muslims will become better non-Muslims. It will also promote a more harmonious co-existence.

Swipenter: See how one sided are their reasoning and arguments.

What compulsory subjects should be introduced in our schools and tertiary institutions that would stop some people from verbalising, printing and falsifying facts deemed offensive to Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, etc?

Anonymous #71627369: If you want people to appreciate diversity, then include all civilisations and religions in the subject.

Call it Teaching of Religious Understanding and World Civilisation Education (Truce). So you don't want Alvivi, but what about Zulkifli Noordin, Ridhuan Tee Abdullah, Harussani Zakaria and the like?

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