Recently, another controversy erupted in the country when the issue of Christmas wordings and greetings decorated on cakes became the subject of much discussion (and confusion!) among the public here; and apparently, there was more to it than met the eye!
Actually, the matter blew up after a memo was circulated on the X platform (formerly Twitter), stating that employees at a local Berry's Cake House were disallowed from incorporating the word "Christmas" or its variations to decorate festive cakes - even upon customers' request!
Its employees then confirmed, saying that they were barred from writing "Merry Christmas" or "X'mas" on its upcoming Christmas-themed cakes; however, apparently, they were not informed of the reason behind the decision.
Subsequently, as was reported by the online news portal Focus Malaysia, the bakery’s operations manager, Daniel Teoh, explained the outlet’s policy stating that it was merely adhering to JAKIM (Department of Islamic Development Malaysia) regulations on halal certification; he was further quoted as saying that since they were holding the halal certificate, they were required to fully support and comply with all the ‘halal’ rules and requirements set by JAKIM.
For the record, the issue first came to light in 2020 when the then religious affairs minister Datuk Dr Zulkifli Mohamad al-Bakri clarified that piping Christmas greetings on cakes would not void any halal certification by JAKIM; he had said that it was only wrong for cake shops to write “Christmas greetings” if they put the items for “public display”.
The news report added that if this was still the case, then Berry’s Cake House could have misinterpreted JAKIM's regulations and therefore it was wrong of them to deny customers' requests to include Christmas greetings on their cakes.
Nevertheless, to their credit, JAKIM’s corporate communications department - in response to the cake house’s internal memo that went viral - issued a clarification that there was no objection to Malaysian Halal Verification Certificate (SPHM) holders to put any form of festive greetings related to a festive celebration on a cake or pastry product; it further stated that all SPHM holders were thus advised to refer to them if any confusion arose regarding the Malaysian halal certification.
Meanwhile, the same news portal then went on to ask whether the situation has become so bad that franchises such as Berry’s Cake House or others in the pastry industry have become overly fearful that their halal certification might be revoked; so much so, they felt it was imperative to issue a blanket ban on festive greetings as a pre-emptive measure?
Furthermore, it raised the question of whether - apart from Christmas - will a bakery also lose its halal status if it displays cakes emblazoned with the words “Gong Xi Fa Cai” or “Happy Deepavali”?
The bottom line is, Jakim seemed to have acted within its powers in exercising its jurisdiction over halal-certification matters; therefore no one should poke their nose into the matter and question the Islamic body particularly if the bakeries or cake shops are owned by Muslims.
Moreover, the current religious affairs minister Datuk Dr Mohd Na’im Mokhtar had also reassured the public there are no restrictions on halal certificate holders writing celebratory festive greetings on cakes for customers to take home. (Read here)
However, in the context of a plural society such as in Malaysia, the tricky question would be: is it fair for a “non-Muslim” owner of a “halal-certified" bakery to be prohibited from publicly displaying or promoting products relating to his or her own religious festival?
Perhaps, for the sake of fairness and in order not to create (yet) another controversy in the country, shouldn’t the ban on the “public-display" of non-Muslim festive wordings on cakes and other food items be restricted to halal-certified “Muslim-owned” bakeries only?
Main Information Source: Focus Malaysia and NST
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.
