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Friday 15 August 2008

Undermining People's Faith

One very effective way to ensure a book is read: Ban it.

However, I'm not sure if that was the intended result when the Home Ministry made this move.


Malaysia bans books; Muslim women activists upset

An excerpt:

The activist group Sisters in Islam, which published the book on Muslim women, criticized the ban.

Norhayati Kaprawi, an official with the group, said the book was an academic work in which female activists and scholars studied the impact of extremism on Muslim women's lives.

"For me, it's very ironic that the book itself is a victim of extremism. Does that mean women cannot even discuss extremism?" she said. "What do they want us to do? Lie down and shut up?"

Ever since the recent talks with PAS, the UMNO government is outdoing itself with its religious posturing - first by the disastrous protest over the Bar Council forum, and now by banning books discussing Islam.

I wonder if there are Muslims out there who fall for these kind of political tactics.

4 comments:

Pat said...

Very few people read. Not only in Msia, but everywhere.

So what's the best way to get someone to read something? Ban the book lah! That's when everyone and his uncle will want to read it!

It is a sad day when we are denied the fundamental right to choose what we deem worthy of reading or not reading.

Not everyone is going to agree with what they say in this book. So reading, and then discussing the issues that arise would be the way forward. What on earth good does banning the book achieve?

Perhaps there are truths revealed within its pages. Perhaps there are some salient, relevant and unpleasant realities we're better off not learning about....

Crankster said...

If I was given a ringgit everytime a friend mentions he/she has read the May 13 book by Kua Kia Siong, I'd have a nice, healthy bank account.

Pat said...

That's a book worth reading - and I've yet to get a copy of it :(

walla said...

In an emerging market, women are an untapped force for change, not only for their multi-tasking intellectual prowess but also for their communications skills so needed to rise above the thuggish grunts that have become the indigestible diet from our media these days.

Let no man hold down a woman. Women can pioneer many new ways of doing things. They can tick men off when the latter burn down the kitchens even when using induction cookers.

How women can work in the office, do those pesky household chores, hold up the family and yet have enough energy, love and patience left to still nurture those who would only later grow up to exercise discriminative policies on them will befuddle even the least enlightened minds.

Maybe that's why the Almighty in all His Wisdom gave them XY rather than XX chromosomes so that there would be a fifty percent chance they would survive to continue the propagation of this ungrateful species.

i am walla, driver, mop cleaner, floor sweeper, clothes washer, garments ironer, table wiper, garbage disposer, protector of the realm and most of all, induction cooker burner.