Another 3R-related controversy has erupted in the country after a video went viral recently showing white sports socks with the Arabic inscription of “Allah” on them being sold in a popular store in Selangor.
Following the “expose" the founder and group executive chairman of the convenience store chain KK Mart Group Dr K.K.Chai made a tearful apology for the blunder; he also urged consumers not to boycott his outlets, saying that he was deeply sorry for the untoward incident.
Yet, despite the prompt, public apology and clarification by the company owner, outspoken UMNO Youth leader Dr Akmal Saleh was adamant that they should be taught a lesson for being “kurang ajar!”
In fact, in a hard hitting message on his Facebook page he had posted: “Do it first and then apologise. It’s that simple. If Starbucks can boycott until it closes, let alone this supermarket!”
His fellow Umno colleague and Duyong assemblyman Mohd Noor Helmy had also called on the public not to purchase anything from KK Super Mart as well as their supplier Xin Jian Chang Sdn Bhd!
Subsequently on March 17 Umno Youth then went on to demand that banners be hung at all 881 of its outlets nationwide apologising over the controversial socks issue, failing which they threatened to take more "drastic" action.
Meanwhile, a remorseful Dr Chai had humbly pointed out that his company KK Mart has been in operation for around 23 years but they have never committed such a bad mistake.
Moreover, according to him, they have assumed full responsibility for the incident and have even lodged a police report within hours after it went viral while also having promised to extend their cooperation to the police in their investigations.
Dr Chai further explained that, checkings at all their outlets nationwide had revealed that in total only 14 pairs of the socks with the Allah inscription were found in three of their outlets - and fortunately, as yet, none had been sold.
He also expressed his willingness to meet up with all aggrieved parties including the Umno Youth chief Dr Akmal Salleh and implored that the call for boycott be withdrawn at once.
Actually, it was reported that the socks were imported from China and the supplier Xin Jian Chang Sdn Bhd had admitted that their employees were negligent in not vetting the consignments properly. They also hoped that the Muslim community here will forgive them for the blunder while saying that it was a lesson for the company to be more careful in the future when importing goods from overseas.
Additionally, a senior official from KK Mart had also appealed to those who had called for a boycott of the minimarket to abort their action as it will directly jeopardise the livelihood of its workers numbering around 5,000 - out of which around 60% were Muslims!
For the record, the incident was first exposed by Chinese Muslim convert preacher Firdaus Wong Wai Hung last week via his Facebook page which subsequently went viral.
In the post, he had also questioned the action of the convenience store management for openly displaying the products which according to him was tantamount to going overboard and not respecting the sensitivities of the Muslims here.
This incident certainly warrants a thorough investigation as the act of disrespecting any religion is bound to deeply hurt the sensitivities of its believers and disrupt public peace.
However, at the same time, the police also must be given time to investigate and make sure there isn't any element of sabotage involved as both KK Mart and the supplier were caught off guard and a big question mark still remains as to why it only involved 14 pairs of socks out of the thousands despatched to the popular convenience store outlets! Isn't it a bit odd?
Interestingly, back in 2015 a similar incident was reported in Surabaya, Indonesia where around 10,000 slippers bearing a design resembling the word “Allah” inscribed on the sole, was confiscated from a supermarket and subsequently burnt in a bonfire.
According to the same report, the slippers were imported from China and the business owner had confessed that he was totally unaware of it and had openly apologised for the oversight.
Following that, the head of an Islamic body there had urged the local people - as good Muslims - to forgive the supermarket owner; he further urged them to maintain “good manners” and not overreact since it was a human error and apparently there was no malicious intent. (Read here)
Information Source: Focus Malaysia, Media Lah, The Star and H.Metro
JK Joseph is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact Newswav.
