The dawn of a new beginning

This is the third reflection piece by my good friend, who is feeling inspired.

The dawn of a new beginning

When the prospect of the DAP using the Pas logo arose, the Barisan Nasional launched with even greater fervour a campaign to play up the fear of Islamic law and hudud. The New Straits Times and The Star notoriously ran stories over and over again on their front pages about how Pas intends to introduce hudud law if they come to power.

While commentators, analysts and experts have shown in their writings that this is not possible, a simple analysis by any discerning person would bring us to the same conclusion … this is not possible at all, and it is a fabrication and a fear tactic.

Nevertheless, the powers that be have succeeded in causing some form of dissonance amongst some of us. While it is obvious that the target “audience” is non-Muslim, it seems to have affected some Christians who are within this target group, to a greater extent. This dissonance has been further fuelled by rumours, hearsay, deceptive and even fraudulent sms-es, twitter and email.

One such email, purportedly written by a person or a group of Christians, presumably supporters of the DAP, was forwarded to me. The content was well crafted to persuade any undiscerning person, especially Christians, to look at the impending ‘danger’ ahead of us. It cites the perils of Islamisation and specifically the hudud law and the possibility of its implementation if the Pakatan come into power. It even insidiously suggests that the reader abstain from voting, almost making it sound like a religious duty to passively protest.

I found this email, just like other similar attempts to confuse and mislead the rakyat, immature, short-sighted and deceptive. I suspect its credibility and its authenticity and would go even further to call it mischievous.

Far from eluding us, the truth is staring right at us:

… The truth is that corruption has reached an intolerable stage. Corruption has robbed this country of her resources thereby compromising the quality of life of every Malaysian.
… The truth is that racism and religious bigotry are rearing their ugly heads in every facet of life of every Malaysian, thus causing division and disharmony.
… The truth is that many of us are not happy with how things are in this country and have felt helpless.
… The truth is that these are the fruits of the present system.

We come to this truth from our own discernment. Our conscience speaks to us and it cannot lie, it is formed by our religious and moral values. Our intelligent minds coupled with the wisdom that we have acquired cannot but point us to the truth. Our hearts filled with the passion for life, with goodness and hope, strive for this truth. And our hearts will not rest until we find it, experience it and live it.

And we also hope that our beliefs, ideas, moral attitudes are shared by others in our society, thus making it a collective conscience and collective wisdom.

Knowing the truth, we must trust ourselves to know what to do, to be certain of our discernment and hence our decision despite the rumours, deceptions, illusions, cons, coercions and threats around us. This certainty will give us the courage and freedom to choose wisely, to choose how we want to live from now on, to choose change.

At this point in time I feel that we need to remain calm and collected as we prepare to do one of the most important tasks of our lives. A task that will also have an important bearing on the lives of our family, friends, the whole of society and it is going to be part of one of the most important chapters in the history of our country.

We have the power to make this happen, to make an immeasurable difference to the lives of our children and our children’s children. Let this be the dawn of a new Beginning.