My foot Only PAS can lead M’sia to Islam, declares Mat Taib
Collective identity is not produced by one man overnight. Mat Taib alone cannot create a culture which is deviating from PAS. After all, one hardly see any of their elected wakil rakyat jumps ship.
Oh wow, so now he is all conscience clear and stand on the side of Morality now that he joined PAS?
“Only PAS can bring enlightenment,” he told a press conference after handing over his membership form to president Abdul Hadi Awang at party headquarters in Kuala Lumpur today.
“I have to support the party that can bring true guidance.”
Muhammad said the BN has developed Malaysia but that this has been “development without soul”, leading to a morally problematic if wealthy urban society.
“Islamic values should be spreading from the cities, just like Mekah and Madinah became focal point of Islam during the Prophet’s time,” he said.
“By right, the cities in the Klang Valley, which is the metropolis, should become the beacons of Islam, to lead the way for the hinterland.”
Michael Price from the Psychology Department of Brunel University West London, equates serial monogamists such as Donald Trump and Larry King, who divorce older wives and marry younger women, as polygamists too, since they also monopolise the reproductive years of a number of women. In that sense, all celebrities, stars, prominent sportsmen and business tycoons with a series of women, can be termed polygamists as well!
Historically, the world has frowned upon polyandry (one woman with two or more men), while tolerating, if not outright encouraging by legalising, polygyny (one man with multiple sexual partners). In this one aspect, nothing seems to have changed. Even today, a woman entertaining more than one lover at a time will find much less empathy than a man doing the same.
For it is the rich who can afford such exotic indulgences. Take the case of China, where concubines have re-emerged as a trend. According to Chinese media reports, young women are increasingly interested in taking on married men as lovers in exchange for a car or an apartment. For the men, it is a status symbol to acquire a concubine, who is as much a commodity as a luxury car or mansion — it is a mark of having acquired high status. Shenzhen near Hong Kong, the world’s largest manufacturing centre and China’s richest economic zone, has acquired the dubious reputation of a “paradise of girls” that attracts Hong Kong men with its “street angels” or prostitutes, and the tempting possibility of easy-to-support mistresses or concubines. but PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang ask for donation from voters enjoy such exotic indulgences.
PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang and recycle Former Umno vice-president Muhammad Muhammad Taibby nature polygamous Mamamia, is it really true that cows jump over the moon…?PAS president is demonstrating its Islamic virtues, in willing to accept people who are beginning to realize their past mistakes. Whether it is done in sincerity or otherwise, no one will know exactly, if Mahathir was to take the same stance as Tyson, would PAS accept him. On the evidence of the latest saga, Though today Western society frowns upon polygamy, it is still legal in many non-western societies, particularly Islamic and some African countries that allow a man to have multiple partners.If Muhd Taib is so concerned about Islam he should express his repentance over his past misdeeds and donate the proceeds of his ill gotten gains towards the propagation of the faith. Without doing this he is just an opportunist.Why do PAS accept this man? It like letting the wolf into the house. Hope Hadi and the rest know what they are doing.Polygyny is legally permissible in some cultures, while polyandry has never found support. Even in the rarest of rare cases of a woman with more than one man, the husbands have almost always been from the same family, as was the case with Draupadi married to the five Pandavas. This is so because wealth is controlled mostly by men, making it easier for them to run a harem of women rather than the other way round. Also, consider biological factors; men have more to gain with multiple partners than women. Evolutionary biologists say polygamy is good for men, but not so for women. If a woman gets pregnant, a polygamous man can still have sex/children with his other partners, whereas after pregnancy a polyandrous woman cannot satisfy any of her men for quite some time. The practice of polygyny was rampant in the hunter-gatherer and tribal societies from which we evolved. Then, as well as now, it has remained the preserve of the rich and well-established. Monogamy came to be socially imposed in ancient Greece and Rome, and was later actively encouraged by Christianity. Though today Western society frowns upon polygamy, it is still legal in many non-western societies, particularly Islamic and some African countries that allow a man to have multiple partners.
Women from poor villages across China come here not so much to look for a job as to land a rich man who will maintain them as concubines. The practice is so widespread that there are “concubine villages” in Shenzhen that have hundreds of women living in spacious apartments funded by wealthy lovers. These are as near the border as possible, so that rich Chinese men can leave work early, enjoy a rendezvous with their mistress and still get home to their family in time for dinner! It is not uncommon for a man to have two to three such mistresses in separate apartments!
Humans, we are told, are by nature polygamous, and men more so. Experts explain that each human being has three centres of love and emotions — passion, attachment and romance. All three need not be satisfied by the same person at all times, and humans are attracted to new partners in an attempt to fulfill these basic needs. You may enjoy romance with one person, mutual confidences with another, and sex with yet another.
Historically, the world has frowned upon polyandry (one woman with two or more men), while tolerating, if not outright encouraging by legalising, polygyny (one man with multiple sexual partners). In this one aspect, nothing seems to have changed. Even today, a woman entertaining more than one lover at a time will find much less empathy than a man doing the same.
Polygyny is legally permissible in some cultures, while polyandry has never found support. Even in the rarest of rare cases of a woman with more than one man, the husbands have almost always been from the same family, as was the case with Draupadi married to the five Pandavas. This is so because wealth is controlled mostly by men, making it easier for them to run a harem of women rather than the other way round. Also, consider biological factors; men have more to gain with multiple partners than women. Evolutionary biologists say polygamy is good for men, but not so for women. If a woman gets pregnant, a polygamous man can still have sex/children with his other partners, whereas after pregnancy a polyandrous woman cannot satisfy any of her men for quite some time. The practice of polygyny was rampant in the hunter-gatherer and tribal societies from which we evolved. Then, as well as now, it has remained the preserve of the rich and well-established. Monogamy came to be socially imposed in ancient Greece and Rome, and was later actively encouraged by Christianity. Though today Western society frowns upon polygamy, it is still legal in many non-western societies, particularly Islamic and some African countries that allow a man to have multiple partners.
Frustration clouded my mind 10 minutes into a TV debate on whether strong nationalism could lead to a strengthening of secularism in India. I switched off.
The host of the show, Karan Thapar, had posed a straightforward question: Was Narendra Modi’s recent definition of secularism “acceptable or expedient”? Within minutes, it became apparent that the debate would veer off in a direction that would not produce a discussion of what would be a valid definition of secularism. Instead, it became an argument over whether Modi was the right man to raise the question.
What had Modi said? He had defined secularism as “India first”, which he had expanded to mean aiming for a goal of “India’s well-being” which in turn would lead to secularism for it would be “automatically in our blood”. Was it expedient? Well, Modi is a politician and therefore uses rhetoric timed to suit his purpose. That is an acceptable motive in any politician. But was his definition of secularism acceptable?
Modi’s lone supporter on the show supported it as the correct definition. His critics asserted that given his record of hostility towards minorities Modi was far too intolerant a person to define secularism in any way. In my view, the problem was that both sides seemed to assume ‘secularism’ and ‘tolerance’ to be identical.
They are not. It is a confusion emerging out of a unique Indian interpretation of secularism by which the concept, which in much of the world is defined as the separation of religion and religious activities from the affairs of the state, is assumed here to mean religious tolerance. But if you go by the globally accepted definition of secularism, you would find it possible to be secular while being deeply devoted to a particular religion to the extent of actively disliking devotees of other religions.
Similarly, you might be secular and be at the same time intolerant of all religions. The tolerance you might show in either case would come not from your preference for secularism but from the fact that you’d most likely be in a democracy of which tolerance is the bedrock. Without institutionalised tolerance and a framework for peaceful, i.e. non-violent, disagreement there is no democracy, secular or otherwise.
For those who agree with Modi’s definition, there is yet another conflation of definitions that should be tackled: Does nationalism create secularism?
In fact, nationalism has little to do with secularism. They are parallel concepts. You could believe in ‘India First’ and be a religious nut who believes no devotee of any other faith can ever be a true Indian. Or, you could be a secularist who is tolerant of all faiths but a weak adherent of patriotic nationalism from perhaps a linguistic or regional perspective, as has been the case in so many instances in the 63 years our republic has been in existence. Nationalism means different things to different people. Any singular, rigidly imposed idea might actually destroy India.
History throws up evidence to suggest that a severe form of nationalism can create terrifying intolerance. Adolf Hitler was nothing if not fiercely nationalistic; but his Germany was hardly an example of tolerance even though it saw itself as ‘secular’.
India is an exceptional experiment in democratic nation building. No other nation exists with as much diversity of language, ethnic identity and religion jostling for national space within an overcrowded mass of 1.2 billion people. The attempt to build a democratic nation out of such diversity was not an option for our founding fathers. Tolerant democracy, which institutionally accepts and protects each of those diverse identities, was the only way forward if India were to succeed.
Similarly, secularism was not an option, no matter how we twist its definition. India was in its very essence the ‘non-Pakistan’. It was not to be defined by a single religious identity. It would house people of all faiths to demonstrate that diverse people could live together within a tolerant, democratic framework.
That’s why India has a population of Muslims almost as large as military-managed, Islamic Pakistan’s, but they live in a secular democracy. We can justly feel proud.
