A couple of updates that might be of interest:
1) Lina Joy was abroad when she got word of the rejection of her appeal and she’s very seriously thinking of permanently leaving Malaysia. I wouldn’t be surprised if she eventually renounces her citizenship and the Western country that she’s currently visiting should waive the 2-5 year waiting period and give it hr on humanitarian grounds.
2) The non-Moslem Malays are deeply, deeply consternated by the decision. To me, Malaysia won’t celebrate its 60th anniversary in its current form. Either non-Moslems get out of Dodge (and if I were an East Timorean politicians I’d be courting them to come) or they break up the country and create their own (Sabah is particularly far enough from Kuala Lampur)
The Moslem Malays are crowing but it’s a pyrrhic victory and a sour one at that.
Yes, it is a pyrrhic victory, but Islam in Malaysia has deteriorated to the point that it probably can’t tell the empty from the full cup anymore.
One extended consequence of such thinking and behavior is a slow-down of the economy, especially since the educated groups, the Chinese and Indian populations, are the ones who are “consternated.”
Though the full article is behind a firewall, The Economist Intelligence Unit gives this summary:
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A court ruling that puts Islamic law above religious freedom for a Christian convert bodes ill for social and political stability in this multi-ethnic, multicultural nation.
To quote Frédéric Bastiat, my favorite economic philosopher:
“But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others.”
Sharia Law has never understood or applied these basic principles, since it is a form of law based on retribution, and retribution is a primitive and regressive form of control, not freedom. Thus it violates the fundamental faculty of human beings: the freedom to choose.
How long will it take Islam to learn that this is the reason for its inability to catch up with Western progress by any other means than force and subjugation?
Or perhaps inculcating that knowledge would mean the end of Islam? That remains the question.
Pyrrhic victories, indeed.
2 comments:
I, too, have been following this story.
Non-Muslim Malaysians here in the states really believed that Lina Joy would be able to have her ID card altered by the civil court. Instead, that court has bowed to the judgment of a religious court. No wonder the young Muslims in Malaysia are celebrating.
Islam cannot co-exist with the Western world and the West's freedom--right down to freedom of thought.
Dympha:
Thanks for the plug :)
My own view is that Islam is unreasonable and thus will have immense difficulty to reason coherently both towards believers and non-believers on shar'ia and other aspects of Ismalic theology.
Over at Winds of change, there was a fascinating post about a Moslem scholar who participated in an international philosophical colloquium . He despaired when a very distinguished Islamic scholar refused to participate in any discussion of modern/contemporary philosophical subjects and said so through an interpreter. By contrast, the Vatican prelates spoke several languages and were completely at ease discussing the current philosophical issues.
The aforementioned Moslem philosopher pleaded with his Islamic counterparts to acquiant themselves with the evolution of philosophy since the end of the 9th century.
xavier
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