Today, I shamefully read about a Muslim man who had caused the death of his parents in a ritual killing, where he and his cousin beat the old folks with helmets, a table top and the table's legs in hopes of driving out evil from their bodies. Along with his cousin, who abetted the misdeed, he will be jailed for ten years as punishment.
What is shameful is that in this more enlightened age of the Internet, there are people who still believe in violent spiritual cleansing rituals such as this (apparently, the victims believed it, too, as they had consented to the ritual), and these men, being "Muslim", give a bad name to the other Muslims, especially when people are looking to generalise. Also, I think it is shameful that these men are getting only 10 years in jail, for killing your own parents! Whether consented or not, a murder is still a murder. In Western countries, people get more than that for euthanasia.
However, this time I did notice one good thing by the Agence-France Presse, who are fond of attaching the following footnote to almost anything related to Malaysia: "Minority Chinese and Indian citizens fear rising Islamisation in a country with a Muslim Malay majority." Or something to that effect.
Anyhoo, this time their footnote read: "Malaysia is a predominantly Muslim country and the authorities periodically crack down on unauthorised sects including the one the accused
was a member of."
The authorities should crack down harder on these sects so that we can avoid murders such as the one described, while the AFP should include more remarks like this that paint a more accurate picture of Malaysia (rising Islamisation? yeah, right).
