By now, everyone in Malaysia should know about the KK Mart controversy. In case you live under a rock, popular Chinese-Muslim preacher Firdaus Wong discovered a pair of socks bearing the word ‘Allah’ on the 13th of March 2024. He discovered the pair of socks at KK Mart's Bandar Sunway store and proceeded to share it on social media where it drew outrage among Malaysians all over the nation. This prompted netizens especially those who are Muslims to start a boycott movement against KK Mart. Some have even attacked KK Mart with petrol bombs which shows how this simple discovery of a pair of socks has turned into an event that is getting out of hand by the day.
The latest video that went viral is related to the KK Mart controversy as well - it shows a man crushing food products in a KK Mart outlet. The video was initially uploaded by @/edisiumat on popular social media platform, TikTok; it was later deleted after it went viral. However, some netizens such as Siti Kasim and Teoh Paik Leong have managed to download the video and reupload it on their social media.
The 22-second video shows a person in a KK Mart outlet exclaiming “Boycott, boycott!”. They then walk towards an aisle and crush a chocolate bar with their hands. The person then had his eyes on the baked goods aisle and proceeded to crush packaged waffles and buns all the while exclaiming, “Kau cari pasal ye?” (It means, “You are looking for a fight?” in English). They then ended the video here and left the KK Mart outlet.
Many netizens expressed disappointment with the actions of the individual. One netizen commented, “I'm boiling seeing this. This is not the teachings of Islam”. Another commented in Malay (translated into English for this article), “Apologies to non-Muslims, we are ashamed to have people behaving like this. Islamic morals are not like this. O Muslims, we must uphold the dignity of Islam, lest Islam be seen and judged as a violent religion and give rise to many Islamophobic individuals. This is crucial in Islamic propagation.” Others have urged the KK Mart outlet to check their CCTV and lodge a police report to capture the person responsible for the act in the video.
It is sad to see the actions of some Malaysians in response to the KK Mart controversy. If there is one key lesson to be learned from this video, it is that actions borne out of anger and frustration can only lead to further discord and division within our society. The viral video depicting the destruction of food products serves as a stark reminder of the importance of restraint and understanding in times of turmoil. We should not take matters into our own hands and engage in acts of vigilantism if you can call “destroying food products” that. Besides, what does the individual hope to achieve by destroying food products? Will this enact the social change required to move Malaysia forward? Or will it merely frustrate other customers who walk into the outlet to buy food?
Aaron Colt 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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