From Gail Email 7/19/2014 12:15 PM
Since I'll be heading to KL in September (via Paris), I thought you might enjoy this message from my friend, Robert Hunt.
Gail
Dear Friends,
First. I arrived safely in Kuala Lumpur. Yet it was a little
strange taking off for a flight along the same route as a plane shot
down half a day earlier by Vladamir Putin’s buddies in Eastern Ukraine.
Well maybe they aren’t such good friends any more.
Maybe he’ll take them off his list for Christmas gifts like surface to
air missiles.
And Kuala Lumpur is safe. For all those asking that I “be safe.”
Indeed KL is quite safe and entirely normal, despite what you may
read in the news. I arrived at the very nice international airport. Made
my way without problems to the excellent high speed train to the city
(US $10.00). In an hour from landing I was
being picked up outside the station at KL Sentral, which is a newish
transportation hub close to downtown. And in another hour of fighting
mad traffic had showered and was having dinner at an outdoor restaurant
that served many excellent things. (I don’t want
to make you suffer by describing my meals. Let’s just say that half the
coffee shops in KL can put a better meal on the table than the best
Chinese restaurants in Dallas. For a fraction of the cost.)
So why might one think that KL isn’t safe. Well perhaps because
such news as comes from Malaysia is about Muslim religious extremists
who pretty regularly spew out hate filled speech about Christians and
Jews. Malaysia has the unique distinction of having
no known Jewish population but having the highest rate of anti-semitism
of all Muslim nations in the world.
But the reality is that these Muslim extremists, who have a lot of
public forums and are well embedded in certain parts of the government,
don’t actually have much power and have even less popular support. The
result is that thus far they haven’t been
a public safety issue. A few attacks (no significant property damage)
on Christian churches. Small Hindu shrines torn down under the guise of
enforcing zoning laws. But that is about all (for now, he adds
ominously.) For now most Malay Muslims have your back.
After the first church attack Muslims themselves organized to form
human shields around churches that had been targeted.)
That said, Malaysia’s Islamist establishment possesses a
combination of vast ignorance and petty meanness that continually leads
to senseless harm and a good deal of Muslim self-humiliation (not that
they will recognize it). I’ll give an example of each.
Petty meanness and senseless harm in the fact that a few times a
year, at a Christian, Buddhist, or Hindu funeral, the Islamic religious
authorities will show up, grab the casket, and haul it away for an
“Islamic” burial based on a claim that the person
had sometime in the past converted to Islam. The fact that they imagine
that God approves of this activity, and so should their fellow Muslims,
indicates the complete bankruptcy of their religious sensibilities. But
at least (I know, damning with faint praise)
they don’t blow up churches and slaughter their fellow Muslims like
their compatriots in Nigeria and Iraq.
Anyway since I don’t plan on being buried in Malaysia I’m not potential fodder for that particular violation of human dignity.
Vast ignorance. In late May Malaysia’s health minister announced
that, in a routine test to determine if Cadbury’s chocolates were made
from only halal (Islamically acceptable) products, indications of “pork
DNA” was found. Immediately the Islamist groups
piled on the demand that Cadbury’s be boycotted and shut down. Then
they went further. Religious leaders announced that anyone who ate the
infected chocolate would permanently have pork DNA in their system, and
could never go to heaven. Little children who
ate chocolate were doomed to spend the afterlife as little pigs in
hell. And on and on. It wasn’t in the faintest way related to any kind
of Islamic teaching. Indeed it was so ludicrously stupid that local
Islamic authorities tried to quell the flood of utter,
complete, lunacy.
Pause – let us consider. If anyone who has eaten pork will go to
hell and be reborn there as a pig, then of course all the Chinese are
doomed. But wait. Remember the Islamic authorities stealing all those
bodies for an “Islamic burial.” Yeah, why bother
since all that pork DNA from before their conversion has doomed them to
hell? And why bother with the multi-billion dollar effort to convert
the Chinese to Islam?
Anyway, in the end it was all bogus. They wasn't anything in
the chocolate at all. Absolutely no conclusive evidence from the first
tests. And the second tests (carried out by the Islamic authorities)
found nothing at all. BUT the Muslim Consumer
Association still stands by its call for a boycott. “We still have a
lot of questions.”
Of course Cadbury has suffered a little economically. But there is
also a back story. Like the fact that certain Malaysian government
officials have a large financial interest in a huge new Hersey’s factory
being built in Malaysia. Hmmmmm. They wouldn’t
benefit if Cadbury’s was run out of business would they?
But, back to the main point. This hardly endangers the tourist to
Malaysia, or even Malaysia’s booming economy. It just illustrates what
happens when ignorance and religious bigotry find a way to get wedged
into the machinery of government. The losers
in this were primarily innocent Muslims made to fear for their own
salvation and that of their children. And Muslims who find it offensive
to their faith that their supposed leaders run around stealing caskets
from bereaved families.
So. Malaysia is safe. Unlike the Middle East and Afghanistan the
Islamists haven’t been given rocket launchers and submachine guns to
play with. Just an ever gullible press and a lot of helplessly pious
believers.
Which is why without hesitation I went out this morning for a 4
hour walk in the jungle to set the trail for a race next Monday. I
regret I won’t be there for it, since in the roughly 7 miles it is
assured that the runners will find mosquitos, swamp water,
thorn covered leaves, vines to trip on, leeches, and the odd hornet.
But this race, called a “Hash” is considered fun only if you arrive at
the end wet, bleeding, and exhausted. A good end to a working day.
Then a three hour academic meeting, (you really don’t want to know)
over tea and deep friend anchovies with onions and chilis. Then home,
then dinner (Chicken rice with big slabs of roast pork).
So dear friends. I am keeping safe.
Cheers,
Robert
Dr. Robert Hunt
Director of Global Theological Education
Director of the Center for Evangelism and Missional Church Studies
Southern Methodist University
P.O. Box 750133
Dallas, TX 75275-0133
Office: 303C Selecman
Phone +1 214 768 1374
Email: roberth@smu.edu
“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” anon.
"Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty." Mark Twain
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