Driving Out the Darkness

I know this is a bit late, folks, but I wish you all lots of light and happiness in the coming year!

I've been very slack I know. My current excuse is that I've had a bad cough this past week. The trouble with coughs is that you don't always look unwell but when the coughing fit comes, then you become doubled up into this convulsive mess and really it's not a pretty sight. And when it happens at night, then you wind up not sleeping. Cue one very grumpy Marina the next day.

Of course my usual excuse is that I much prefer the fast-paced world of Twitter, where you get news very quickly and move from subject to subject at the pace of eye-blinks. The trouble with that is of course that you get no time to really sit and ponder the issues of the day with any depth. And perhaps that is the problem with all of us today, that we no longer ruminate enough, we react from the slightest of information, stimulated by quick impressions.

Anyway a lot has been happening lately that it's hard to sort out what to comment on. Over in Libya, Muamar Gadaffi finally lost. Unfortunately he lost in the most gruesome of ways, which doesn't bode well for the future of Libya. I get quite amused seeing all sorts of indignant Malaysians commenting on how ungrateful Libyans are about Gadaffi. That's a bit like foreigners telling us our country is paradise when we know there's a lot wrong with it. I don't think we really know unless we live there what it meant to live under Gadaffi. Like many Arab leaders, there were some things he did well, and many he didn't. We might like his defiance of the West, but that didn't help some of the Libyan citizens who were jailed and even killed during his very long regime. Besides, there is really no excuse for anyone, no matter how benign, to stay in power for 42 years.

As an aside, Gadaffi was wellknown for his flamboyance including his odd costumes and his female bodyguards. Many thus assumed he was somewhat nuts. But about 20 years ago, I  sat next to a foreign ambassador who had actually served in Libya and he said that most assuredly, Gadaffi was not crazy. Which rather makes things worse.

In much the same week, the Israelis and Hamas finally came to an agreement to exchange prisoners. In return for the one Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who has been held for about five years by Hamas, the Israelis agreed to release 1027 Palestinian prisoners. This was fabulous news for for the families of the released prisoners, some of whom had been in Israeli prisons for over 30 years, but not so great for the remaining 6000 or so Palestinians still imprisoned, including women and children. So as always with the Palestinian issue, one tiny step forward but millions more to go before peace actually becomes reality.

Back home, I don't even want to get into the ridiculous debate going on about hudud. Despite all the wishful thinking of some of our politicians, it is not going to happen. And it should not happen. And certainly not by force as some delusional so-called ulamas have claimed, without seemingly realising that not only is a system imposed by force ever likely to succeed, but it is in fact unIslamic.

Among the best arguments against hudud is by the Islamic Renaissance Front here and by Art Harun here. And for a view on how hudud will affect women, do go to the Recommended Readings section of the SIS website.

And then there was HIMPUN. I have no problem with their right to speak out and to gather peacefully. But I don't have to agree with them. And it seems that the 995,000 Muslims who didn't turn up at the gathering also didn't agree with them. Or at least couldn't be bothered to get off their butts to.

Not to be cowed by the underwhelming numbers though, HIMPUN leaders, perhaps bolstered by our PM praising them for not being like Bersih 2.0 ( you know, larger numbers, more multi-ethnic and multi-religious, more focussed, also peaceful if it weren't for the teargas and water cannons fired at them), insisted that the Government has to implement their 10-point demands which include an Anti-Apostasy Law. So we'll see la if our dear leaders will accede to a 5000-strong crowd's 10-point demands instead of the at least 30,000-strong rally's 8-point demands, some of which they are already implementing.

I think sometimes our country is just plain crazy. In the same week that the Obedient Wives Club launches a sex manual that nobody will be allowed to read ( because you have to be an overseas OWC member to get it), PAS Youth predictably enough is protesting about Elton John coming for a concert here. Art Harun is tremendously funny and sharp about it here. I saw Elton perform a long long time ago in London when I was a student. I certainly didn't become gay because of it, and neither did the guys who were at the same concert. Meantime in the years since, through his Elton John AIDS Foundation, Elton has raised millions of dollars to fund treatment for People Living with HIV all over the world as well as prevention programmes. No wonder he got a knighthood from Queen Elisabeth II in 1996.

We on the other hand only thrive on condemning people. Some of you may have read my last column. If you don't know what that was referring to, here's the programme in question. (I can't upload the video here because it is unlisted. Hopefully you can see it.)

So my wish this Festival of Light is really for more enlightenment, where people realise that to be hateful, to spew hate, is only to attract more hate, not love.

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. so aptly put it: Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

p/s do you like the new format?