Current affairs

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7627791.stm
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/21/asia/pakistan.php

Very recently there was a suicide bombing attack at the Marriot hotel in Pakistan. Over 50 people dead including the ambassador of the Czechs. I’m not going to discuss the motives of the attack or the dirty politics behind it. I will however talk about the consequences of their actions on Muslim in general and Bruneians overseas in particular.

I watch in horror as the devastation unfolded while knowing somewhere out there a group is watching with sheer joy of mission accomplished. The sad thing is they are probably Muslims. Now you may say “Well how does this relate to us, our particular people?” I will get to that.

As scenes like this continues to be shown in the media, the negative image depicting Muslims as a terrorizing, suicide bombing, devil worshiping, women degrading bunch of ingrates, will continue to incite more hatred towards us. People are always afraid of what they don’t understand, and acts like these pushes people i.e. westerners, further away with some being absolutely terrified of us. While some Muslims continue to reach out and make a positive step forward, when this happen we take step backwards.

By not knowing who we truly are, westerners will always be ignorant to us and what we really stand for. Not the terrorist. This is where we are affected, Brunei students studying oversea showing any form of their Muslim identity e.g. wearing Tudung, sporting a beard, wearing jamis, topi haji, and even going for prayers are target of abuse, be it physical or verbal, by these ill-informed, angry and basically frighten people.

Some tudung wearing Bruneian girls are constantly on the receiving end of those attacks. In one incident someone threw a bottle at her narrowly missing her head. Another incident, their window was smash, however nothing was stolen. This indicates their motive was to frighten them and possibly make them move away. Subsequently they did. A friend of mine, a Bruneian sporting those Arab looking beard and wears a topi haji reported almost being run over and one time received an atrocious verbal abuse I’ve ever heard in my life. Things were said that makes you skin crawl beyond believe. I mean I can’t believe they kiss their girlfriend, wives, kids, mother with those mouths. It was horrible, frightening and bordering on physical abuse.

Did we do anything wrong. Should the girls just not wear them for the sake of not being singled out? Should we just try to blend in and lose our identity? Should we just hide the fact that we’re Muslims? No! This is our beliefs and this is our choices. The very freedom i.e. freedom of choice, speech and self-expression that the westerner so loudly advocate should not be forgone by us. We shouldn’t be tormented for self-expression. Are the terrorist aware that their actions are causing us grieves and harm?

Personally I don’t give a shit on what your beliefs are. Whether you’re Muslim, Christians, Jewish, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheist or whatever, as long as you just follow their respective teaching of peace, harmony, tolerant, kindness to fellow human being (Blabness: "and animals, lets not forget those animals". Md:"You never let me forget them") then I don’t see why we can’t get along. They basically have the same underlining message. “Love thy neighbor” rings a bell?

So what if you’re a Christian, just be the best Christian as you can be and the same for others.