“I don't have a drinking problem 'cept when I can't get a drink.”
― Tom Waits
COMMENT | The cancellation of Better Beer Festival 2017 has nothing to do with social ills or any of that other claptrap that Islamists claim is destroying the moral and social fabric of this country.
This has everything to do with robbing people of their choices. When Amanah's Bukit Raja MP Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud uses Prohibitionist-era arguments as a “moderate” stance against speaking out for freedom of choice, it demonstrates that when it comes to freedom of choice and religion, the latter always wins.
Apparently, alcohol and smoking are evil but collecting taxes on them is good. Using those taxes to fund or reward religious schools that are safety hazards and contribute to the death of 21 children is good. Using such taxes from other such “Islam”-defined social ills to subsidise religious pilgrimages is good.
They use Islam to rob us of our choices then fund the radicalisation programmes that create Facebook users who claim “Until she’s dead too people can see the shape of her vagina and aurat,” when chastising a local medal-winning gymnast for wearing a sports uniform.
It would seem to me, that the more pious a Muslim in this country, the more obsessed they are with:
1. The shape of a certain private part
2. Western singers
3. Cancelling concerts
4. Sex in private between consenting adults
5. Homosexuality
6. Banning beer festivals
7. Banning books
8. Reminding non-Muslims that Islam’s position in this country means that all other religions are subservient to it.
Zaid Ibrahim, perhaps the only Muslim in the opposition who always has the courage to speak truth to Islamic power, is right when he claimed that Muslim men are allowed choices in their sexual proclivities, but frown upon anyone else having choices in any other areas of their lives.
Malaysiakini columnist R Nadeswaran makes it clear that the Islamists do not care about sexual deviancy amongst the umrah but have no issue sticking their noses into the choices that non-Muslims make with regards to their lives.
When Nades writes “Nasrudin and Riduan should be looking at the pious types who don’t drink beer, who say their daily prayers, and prey on their daughters,” the real Islamic response to this criminal problem would be that all Muslim men should be banned from having female children.
Now this "solution," while stimulating, may not be the burning issue that some would latch on to. Alcohol is a scapegoat for most social ills in this country. Some people because of their religious beliefs have this puritanical idea about alcohol and people who choose to consume it, but I would argue that because it is a safe bet when it comes to curtailing choices, it sets the stage when the political sensitivities of the Muslim majority becomes the basis for the erosion of rights of the minorities.
This has been happening for decades and it will only get...