The Dark Life of Lancy

It seems to me that a guy can’t even properly read the news these days without feeling enraged, insulted or just plain pissed off.
I had another one of those increasingly frequent WTF moments just a few minutes ago.
Reading The Star Online a minute ago when I came across the heading "Malay NGOs Unhappy with Selangor Government".
Seems like some parties are getting all gung-ho over the state government’s recent decision to lift the restriction on the number of non-Muslim places of worship in Selangor.
Their reason was that "this would result in non-Muslim places of worship being built
indiscriminately even in housing areas where non-Muslims were a
minority."
My immediate reaction was those big, loud WTF alarms going off in my brain.
Seems like religious discrimination is still holding on strong in Bolehland.
Over RM400 million of public funds is allocated for Islamic facilities, and there’s a big round of applause from everybody. Build more kuils, temples and churches…errmm…nope, sorry, no can’t do.
Just what the hell does that mean, places of worship being built indiscriminately?
Mosques even in Chinese or Indian majority residential areas are OK, but kuils, temples and churches are not? And so what if kuils, temples and churches are built in Malay majority residential areas? The non-Muslims living there have no right to religious freedom there? They have to "go elsewhere" to worship and pray because kuils, temples and churches are ugly, evil and sinful places that should be shunned?
And just to remind ourselves, kuils, temples and churches are generally quiet places of worship that pretty much keep to themselves. They don’t disturb anyone at all, they just allow people to go in and pray. What’s so wrong with that?
To me, as a Chinese Malaysian, it just reinforces the feeling that no matter what the Umnoputera government says, I am still a second-class citizen. One that they regret giving citizenship to, way back in 1957.
I can just hear them say it again: "If you don’t like it, go back to China!"
Yup, I’ll go back to China the day that the Malays go back to Indonesia, the Indians go back to India and the Baba Nyonyas go back to Portugal.
If I have to be a second-class citizen, then, in my very humble opinion, only the Orang Asli should be first-class citizens.
Malaysia Truly Asia…my ass. WTF!

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 7:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.