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By Mihar Dias (C) Copyright January 2023
May I attract your attention to a recent tweet by Hannah Yeoh calling on every supporter of Harimau Malaya to ensure that the stadium is clean once the game was over.
"Malam ini saya menyeru semua penyokong Harimau Malaya untuk memastikan stadium bersih sebelum pulang. Kos pembersihan kurang, kos penganjuran juga akan lebih terkawal. Stadium Nasional adalah rumah kita. Sama-sama kita jaga dengan cermat." @hannahyeoh. 03 Jan. 23.
I don't know whether supporters of Harimau Malaya cleaned the stadium before they left. I wasn't there.
I only hope they followed her advice doing just like what the Japanese fans did at the recent World Cup. They left the stadium as clean as they possibly could gaining admiration from the world over.
Their behaviour is exemplary. No other country has yet been able to emulate the Japanese in making clealiness next to godliness at sports venues the way they did at the recent World Cup. Their team lost but they did not thrash the stadium. They took the thrash away with them.
The majority of citizens in this country are Malays and Muslims where the religious practice emphasises on making cleanliness next to godliness. But the cleanliness seems to be left only in the mosque. Muslims are required to clean themselves before they pray five times a day through self ablution.
However, there is a disconnect between cleaning oneself and keeping one's surroundings clean. They keep their houses clean but litter everywhere irresponsibly.
Sometimes you'll see the mosque is spick and span but the surrounding is not, much like a Malay house. His front yard is clean but garbage is strewn everywhere beyond that.
Islam insists on keeping oneself and one's environment clean. While the earlier is the responsibility of the individual the latter known as "fardhu kifayah" requires a community effort. This is where most Muslim communities fail in their cleaning role. The collective effort is missing in our society most of the time, that the Japanese though non Muslims seems to appear more Muslim than the Muslims themselves.
Although Hannah's message applies to all Malaysians irrespective of race or religion my contention here is that being Muslims most Malays love football and the majority or more than 60% who often show up at stadiums are from this community, cleaning up after every football match should be automatic since the religion strongly emphasises on keeping the self and the environment spick and span at all times.
So, this is the right place to put your love for sport and your devotion to your faith into action.
But let's not just stop at one Harimau Malaya match. Let's make cleaning up a habit at every sports meet. Just like bussing your own tray at McDonald's. It's just a matter of behaviour conditioning. Let's condition ourselves to keep our environment clean.
Here's looking forward to the day when other countries will speak of Malaysian football fans as positively as they do about the Japanese.
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