Conservatism in Malaysian Islam

Amir Hafizi, the satirical anarchist, strikes again! This time, he takes on Islamic extremism, armed as usual only with a YouTube video and heavy streaks of profanity.

Unlike most people, Amir doesn't really beat around the bush. Referring to the case of a Hindu woman who is being forced to remain Muslim because that is her nominal religion:

Leave the bitch the fuck alone, you buttfucking sons of bitches! She wants to be a Hindu, let her be a Hindu. What are you afraid of, huh? Less pussy? Go to Thailand, you stupid fuck. Pattaya has over 20,000 sex workers for all your fucked up needs.

A more articulate person would explain that coercion in religion is pointless, and only demeans your God by making it sound as if you have to force people to believe in him.

Another salient issue Amir raises is that of racial polarisation and Malay Arabism:

Maybe all this race-religion thing can only be settled with all the races going back to their own countries. I mean, if we hate each other, why not just stop living together? It's that simple.

The Chinese can go back to China.

The Indians can go back to India.

The Malays can go back to Saudi Arabia. What? Malays are not Arabs? NO! Malays ARE Arabs, cause they're fucking Muslims. Well they sure try to ACT like Arabs. Fucking Arab-wannabes. Arab-colonized losers.

The Malays have moved to adopt the Arabic version of Islam as their own, without reading and interpreting the Quran in their own way, as the Malays of old did. Instead, any Islamic practice coming from Arabia is automatically assumed to be the correct one, ignoring the fact that there are many other schools of religious thought in Islam.

But then, Amir doesn't need to explain that. He just swears his mouth off, and he also refers to the historical revisionism meant to make people think Malays have always been Muslim. The story is a bit long, so I won't bother quoting it, but suffice it to say that of course this revisionism is false; even government history books acknowledge that the Malays were once Hindus and animists.

The real kicker, though, is when Amir starts talking about what good the Bumiputra status has been to him:

I mean, fuck man. I'm a Muslim, but I am not going to allow those assholes sitting in the Malaysian courts tell me that I HAVE to be a muslim. Or throw me into Pusat Pemulihan Aqidah if I get it on with a hot pagan or devil-worshipping Thai. Fuck my Bumi status. All I got from my bumiputra status were two free bags of manure. You can have my two free bags of manure back in return for total freedom from assholes in the judicial system trying to claw at my money through the fucked up MALAYSIAN fara'id system.

It's not far from the truth that being a Bumi only means two bags of manure. Non-Malay Bumis get the short end of the stick — a Bumi friend of mine was rejected from UiTM because he wasn't Malay — but the Malay Bumis don't fare much better. Most of them are still living on subsistence incomes, because most Bumi privileges only really help those who are already rich.

The best point made, however, is that about the Syariah courts. Some Muslims claim that these have primacy over the civil courts because they were here before the establishment of the civil law. Amir says:

Big fucking deal, you motherfucking sons of bitches!

Caveman Law existed and was in place way before the first Syariah court proceeding. So should we defer to Caveman Court instead of the civil and Syariah? How about Jungle Law, huh?

There's really nothing left to say. The religious extremists who seek to impose their intolerant and radical worldview — one which can not really be called Islamic considering how open-minded so many early Muslims were — are an embarassment to those who think, including Amir:

I am NOT against Islam. I am against idiots who try to force their will and stupid interpretation on the religion, corrupting certain things for their own fucked up benefits. ANd I am against people shoving their shit down my throat.

It's sad that these extremists are dominating Muslim society in Malaysia today. If we had more Muslims who could think, like Amir (but hopefully not swear like him), this country would be a better place.