Between your God and mine!

Goa Inquisition

It is probably due to cognitive dissonance. Finally listening, for once, to what they were saying, they must have had a revelation. It must have sounded so ridiculous that they must have thought of what they were smoking when they plunged head-on into the cult. Hey, heck no! They are not going to denounce everything. They had invested too much time, resources and life to give it away. The next best plan is to convince others. They would get the numbers. It cannot be so wrong if everybody buys their story. And they thought, while we are at it, let us monetise the whole concept!

Hence, the worldwide inquisition started. Because they felt they had been told the inside story about the Creator and thought they knew the backstory of everything's creation, they walked around with a chip on their shoulders.

It is funny how overconfidence leads to aggression. It does not feel wrong to inflict all the pain, injustices and cruelty upon another being because it is viewed as carrying God's will here on Earth. Nobody actually saw the memo or had the guts to ask the same. They risk the label of a heretic.

Another group would take the Word of God and spread it as a religion of peace but with violence and ambush. As if to soothe the bleeding wounds, they would send in nuns and nurses who have dedicated their lives to saving lives. To make the natives useful idiots, schools would be built with the conquerer's belief systems. Servants of God would parachute down to spread the Word and plead with compassion and forgiveness as if trying to whitewash their previous misgivings.

Another method employed to subtly convert the next generation was through the boarding school systems. Horror tales of promising students uprooted from society with the promise of a better life, which ended with tragic ends of torture and death, are rampant in the Australian, Canadian and American aboriginal communities.

Just when you thought this was a footprint of colonial times, think again. Subversive religious conversion of adults and minors has always been ongoing below the radar. Much evangelism work was ongoing under the pretext of providing educational, medical and emotional support. Good for them.

Recently, a video flared up on social media of strategies for converting Malaysian secondary school students and keeping their religious conversion under wraps until they reach adulthood when they are free to profess their religion of choice.

Firdaus Wong is sharing advice on TikTok with teachers
 on converting their students to Islam without their
parent's knowledge. F.B. pic; June 6, 2024.

This naturally created a lot of apprehension amongst parents who saw schools and other governmental institutions as hotbeds for religious activities. Murmurs about this had been in the people's consciousness all this while. Still, everyone naively believed that the Nation had adequate laws to protect people of different belief systems from professing their religion of choice. If formerly conversions were done at the end of the sword, now it is insinuated through subtle reasons like economic prosperity and rebel yells of the ignoramus.

For anyone to trust the legal system, laws must be carried out, and justice must be seen to be done. Over the years, as evidenced by the pile of cases taken up by NGOs against the State, citizens cannot be blamed if they were to think that there exists a sinister plan to subjugate one religion over the others. 

 

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P.S. As any other Indian mother would, Amma was apprehensive when her much-loved son had to spend two years training in a state in the Malay heartland. Her circle of friends constantly told her tales of many promising young Hindu men falling flat for the fauna and flora, fawning over females there, returning home with a different name and surname, spotting moustache-less beards, and refusing to partake in functions deemed necessary by their parents, i.e. final rites and ancestral worship. So, Amma saw a shaman to make an amulet to ward off evil spells. The only restriction to be observed while wearing the amulet was that it should not be worn in places considered unclean with negative energies. Well, what does the shaman expect in a hospital? Of course, there will be deaths, suicides, diseases and all the negativities that need correction! As a good son, yours truly did don the contraption. Expectedly, Amma had thought too highly of her offspring. He fell for the flora and fauna, but there was no inkling of fawning over or by someone!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Hey Ram!

A saying goes... 'With Ram in your heart, you don't have to look for places where he is and where he is not!' At one look, it seems to make a lot of sense; that God is within you, you decide your fate, you sow the seeds, and you reap the benefits or wallow in misery. That you have to be confident of your belief in the Almighty that nothing can sway you from his path of righteousness. That whatever people say, your communication with your Maker is so strong and personal. And you do not need to show your piety through mammoth structures to awe the non-believing others.

I guess this is what the dwellers of the land, which later became known as Hindustan, thought when the first wave of foreigners came with the good news. They assumed that the newcomers indeed had another path to approach the truth. After all, after aeons of philosophising, pontificating and searching, the natives had come nowhere near the answer. Perhaps, the newcomers could help. Come, come, the more, the merrier. Thus arrived in droves, more messengers of peace with their own scriptures.

The dwellers held the ownership of the land whilst the visitors, the holy book. Let us close our eyes in prayer, they said. Everyone followed suit. To everyone's amazement, when they opened their gaze, the deed was with the guests and the inhabitants the faith (the book). Still, they said, the richness of the world is for all to share.

How the role reversed. The sojourners dictated what the truth is and the natives' archaic thoughts were vilified. Still, inclusion was the order.

Fast forward. The old ideologies were scorned, ridiculed and made to look stupid. Newer generations went agape in awe of the visitors, now rulers' 'civilisation'. 

In this midst, natives' try to rekindle the thoughts of the good old glory days of the forefathers. Unfortunately, the fell into the same trap as the conquerors. They insist that theirs is the only truth and others' deluded. And the childish play of sibling rivalry continues. One brother trying to outshine the other. The 'father' just smiles and thinks to himself, "How can I love my right eye over the left?"

 https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

It is all a political agenda!

THE MYTH OF THE LAZY NATIVE (1977)
Syed Hussein Alatas
Professor of Malay Studies, University of Singapore 

A study of the image of the Malays, Filipinos and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th century and its function in the ideology of colonial capitalism.

Reading this book, I was reminded of this joke.

An American venture capitalist was visiting a picturesque lagoon somewhere in the secluded interior of Mexico. He was fascinated with the scenery and quickly his capitalistic mind went overdrive. He saw great potential in that place, with its lovely blue sea and its abundant sea produce. He was perplexed that none of the locals was keen to develop the area. He approached one of the Pedros slouched against a tree enjoying his afternoon siesta chomping on his half burnt cigar and a fishing rod dangling lazily between his thighs. Even his faithful dog seem to be suspended in time with no urgency, just enjoying his forty winks. He woke the annoyed Mexican from his slumber.

"Buenas tardes, Señor! You own the boats here, Señor?" he asked.

"Si, Señor," the Mexican answered, half annoyed that his sweet dream was disturbed by this fast-talking American kid in accented Spanish. He squinted his eyes against the glaring sun. 

The American went on a rant of his plans to develop his serene hideout. He would develop the lagoon, buy big fishing vessels, go deep sea fishing, make big bucks, improve his life, go holidays with family, enjoy life and so on and forth. 

The Mexican, still bedazzled after being rudely awoken from his snooze, politely asks him, "All that for what, Señor?"

"To have a good life, of course. To enjoy a quality life. To go holidays to some exotic place, laze away and benefit from the fruit of your labour!"

"But, Señor. I am already doing that right now. Having a good life doing all the things that you said until you disturbed me!"

This is a classic text often quoted in discussions of social anthropology, politics and history. It argues that the colonial masters have put labels of being lazy or indolent on the natives of the South East Asia, i.e. the Malays, the Javanese and the Filipinas, as their activities do not conform to the conquerer's agenda of the day. The masters, being Spaniards, Dutch and the British have uniformly labelled their subjects as lazy, clueless on the concept of punctuality, of being 'less civilised' and many other derogatory names.

The natives refuse to plant cash crops which would enrich the colonists. They are not so keen to be bogged down by the masters' regimented schedule of work like in the mines because they see no need to be involved in such activities as they already have their own work to tend to. They may appear to be very free as the actual planting of padi only means two months in a year. They actually involve themselves in many other related and non-agricultural related activities. 

This trait of not conforming to the Imperial whims and fancies is a form of resistance. The Westerners labelled them as lazy to justify their action of bringing in droves foreign labourers into Malaya. The Malay ruling class also had the same outlook on their subjects, when they themselves, are the spoilt indolent ones.

The writer also takes a swipe at the aristocrats who seem to parrot the tune of the Westerners. These stereotyping continued in their publications, Revolusi Mental (1971) and Malay Dilemma (1970) by Mahathir Mohamed. The 19th century was a time when there was much research into the subject of race and the superiority of one over the other. Many renowned thinkers including Marx and Engels are guilty of downplaying the Asiatic races. They overlook the Easterners' already established track record of an established advanced civilisation, complex trading web and economic achievements. They conveniently label them as lazy when the privateers themselves plundered and created a monopolistic trade policy.

In summary, the author asserts that the natives are anything but innately lazy. It is just a label put on by the Western Imperialist powers to justify the actions and fulfilling their political agenda. Interestingly, the ruling class that came after Independence found it just too convenient to continue their colonial masters' modus operandi as it also fulfils theirs.

P/S. The post-colonial administrators believe governing in the style of their previous colonial masters much to their favour. They continue downtrodding the masses with their propaganda, suppressing knowledge, keeping them unaware and encouraging corruption to fulfil their unquenchable desire to stay in power!