Finally the PM and DPM are reacting over the tudung issue. Surprisingly too Minister Yaacob mastered enough courage to marshall his kakis to go and meet with the PM to present the communitys position. Perhaps he did not want to be outdone by Speaker Halimah who had met with several Malay Muslim organisations yesterday afterwhich she made a call on the government to review its policy on not allowing nurses to wear the tudung while on duty. Things are really moving now. Wonder why they allowed it to fester for so many years. Lets wait and see what comes next. In the meantime allow me to share some of my thoughts on these developmment. I notice the areas touched on by the ministers revolve around a few areas like a) managing and balancing the diverse needs of our multi racial and multi religious society, b) the need for accommodation and compromise and c) fostering goodwill among the people. On this tudung matter I dont think there so much a need for balancing. Balancing with what may I ask? It is a straight forward matter of allowing Muslim women working in certain vocations to wear tudung while performing their duties. They include nurses in public hospitals and uniformed women officers in the Police, Immigration and the SAF. This admittedly would require minor adjustments to the uniforms which many countries, including those in Australia and the west, which are not Muslim majority, have shown to be non problematic. Uppermost in our mind is the fact that freedom to practice our religious faith is clearly spelled out and provided for in our constitution. This practice would neither intrude into the domain of other communities nor deprive followers of other faiths of anything. Furthermore there has never been any outcry whatsoever from the non Muslim communities protesting against the wearing of the tudung. Like the countries which have allowed this practice it would not even be noticed. On the contrary it would be looked upon as something very normal. The government has clearly mismanaged this issue and made it out to be something really big for which some kind of balancing needs to be done by the government to sooth the feelings of the other communities. In such a matter it would not be difficult for the other communities to accommodate. There is nothing for them to compromise. I am pretty sure if the need arises for them to get something similarly done to comply with the requirements of their religious faiths the Muslims would be happy to go along with it and not raise any objections. There are of course other critical matters that would require sensitive handling and where all parties would need to compromise and accommodate. I will write about these issues some other time but this tudung issue is not one of them. I cannot understand why the government is not wise enough to see it this way. If it is not too sure about the Islamic ruling on the matter and its importance to the Muslims community why didnt it seek the advice of the Mufti whose primary job is to do just that? As I have said earlier the government has really mishandled this matter and is causing unnecessary strain in the relationship. There is no need for any bogeyman. Next we come to the question of fostering goodwill. Here again the governments conduct is found wanting. You cannot foster goodwill when you consciously implement policies which deliberately discriminate against us Muslims and your top leader regularly issues statements that insult and provoke the Muslim community. Statements like Islam is a venomous religion, ...... suppose you have a famine, will your Malay neighbour give you the last few grains of rice or will she share it with her family or fellow Muslims or vice versa?, I would say today, we can integrate all religions and races except Islam Over my dead body (would I allow the tudung to be worn) and many other similar statements definitely do not sit well with the desire to foster goodwill. There are many more examples of the PAPs conduct that do not help in fostering goodwill among us Singaporeans. So I urge the PM and his government not to complicate matters further and do the right thing for Singapore. LET US CELEBRATE OUR UNITY IN DIVERSITY. LEADERS MUST LEAD.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 08:55:59 +0000
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