One of the most annoying experiences that you have to abide by in being a non-Muslim in Malaysia is that you are always the one that has to do the pathetic job of defending such things as drinking or gambling in the country.
It’s always people like PAS that wants to ban things like drinking and gambling, while the non-Muslims are always the ones that have to step up to the plate and do the thankless job of defending gambling and drinking.
By the way, I have never met a non-Muslim who says that drinking and gambling are good.
I drink, by the way – don’t really gamble, but every now and then I will buy a 4D ticket – but even I don’t think that drinking and gambling are good.
The people in PAS, by the way, are not the only people who have tried to ban alcohol.
The Puritan Christians, for example, have also tried to ban alcohol during the Prohibition era in the United States, between the years 1920 and 1933, under the reasoning that alcohol caused such problems as alcoholism and domestic violence.
In Buddhism, other than killing, stealing, lying, and committing sexual misconducts, taking such things as alcohol – or any other intoxicating substance that causes carelessness or recklessness – is something that is categorically deemed to be bad,
Even Genghis Khan knew that drinking was bad.
“Who can’t stop drinking may get drunken three times a month. If he does it more often, he is guilty. To get drunken twice a month is better; once, still more praiseworthy. But not to drink at all – what could be better than this? But where could such a being be found? But if one would find it, it would be worthy of all honour,” the Great Khan reflected about drinking.
I personally use the Great Khan's Rule to manage my drinking habits.
I try my best not to drink at all. If I fail, then I will not drink more than three times a month. If it comes to pass that I have drunk more than four times a month, I will look at the man in the mirror and be ashamed that I am looking at a loser.
Now you might ask me: “Nehru, if you don’t have a good opinion about drinking, why do you not want drinking to be banned? While at it, why not be for the banning of gambling as well? Wouldn’t that promote all that is good and prevent all that is bad, in tandem with your views?”
Well, the answer to that question is that to stop drinking is a spiritual pursuit, but I don’t think that the laws of the country have anything to do with one’s spiritual quest.
Yes – we all want to be spiritually better – we all want to enlarge our minds, purify our hearts and perfect our virtues, to the point that peace and happiness will be part of our experience in this life as well as the next. But I don’t think it is the job of the government to be forcing a citizen to better themselves.
I think the job of the government is just to make sure that the pursuit of success and happiness by one citizen does not infringe on the pursuit of happiness of another citizen.
As for the job of spiritually perfecting themselves to become worthy of a superior and everlasting happiness, the government should just leave that job to the citizens themselves.
In other words, the non-Muslims did not vote for a government that is capable of leading the people to spiritual happiness.
I think you have to be kidding yourself to look at our lawmakers and ministers , and assume that you are seeing a bunch of people who have any inkling as to what spiritual happiness means, even if it slaps them in the fact with a hammer.
When I look at the politicians of Anwar or Mahathir, I don't see a person who knows the way to happiness, salvation or heaven - I just see a bunch of people who knows how to win and succeed in this world.
As a non-Muslim, I think I speak for all of us when I say that we believe that everybody is looking for worldly success, and having worldly success includes having such things as wealth power and authority. However, we also believe that the right way to gain such things as wealth, power and authority is by competing in the marketplace or contesting and winning things like an election or a cup or a prize in a legitimate arena of contest, and not by claiming that you are more spiritually perfect that everybody else, to the point that you can insist that everybody has to follow your lifestyle and example.
As a matter of fact, we tend to be suspicious that those who look for power and authority by claiming to be spiritually more perfect than everybody else, because we tend to believe that only losers and charlatans will make such a claim. Being unable to gain worldly success rightfully through contest and competition, we think that they are now engaged in the act of trying to grab worldly success by claiming that they have spiritual prowess, that is not only unprovable, but is most likely to be untrue, because why in the world would anyone who has found spiritual happiness, be that intent on gaining worldly success, by seeking such thing as power and authority?
As Eric Hoffer said: It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer from something; that they are showing the way when they are running away; that they see the light when they feel the heat; that they are chosen when they are shunned.
If we give power and authority to these loser types who too conveniently assume they see the light because they feel the heat – or think they are spiritually refined because they are too impotent to achieve worldly success – not only are we going to not be spiritually happy, but we are likely going to be losers who can’t find success in the world too.
So it is for this reason that we, the non-Muslims, are forced to undertake this thankless job of defending such things as gambling and drinking.
We have to, because we don’t want to end up with a government of losers and charlatans, who will not only be not able to provide us with spiritual happiness, but deprive us of worldly success too. Instead, all they will desire to do with the power and authority in their hands, is to find everybody’s faults and punish everyone incessantly, because when you are a loser than is neither spiritually happy or successful in the world, the only pleasure you will gain is in the misery and unhappiness of everybody else.
So rather than see non-Muslims being people who are defending gambling and drinking, I think that the better way to see it is that non-Muslims are defending the country from being taken over by losers who can’t win in the world, and charlatan who pretend that they possess spiritual happiness, when they actually don’t have it.
TheRealNehruism (nehru.sathiamoorthy@gmail.com) 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!
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