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By Mihar Dias (C) Copyright May 2023
"A person won’t lose their faith by attending a concert." Shah Alam DAP chairman Shakir Ameer lambasted PAS because it demanded a cancellation of Coldplay’s concert on the grounds that it promotes hedonism and deviant cultures. Does Coldplay promote hedonism and deviant culture?
Does it indulge in the pursuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence for its own sake?
In other words, hedonism is the belief that pleasure is the most important thing in life.
It also means indulging in pleasure (by satisfying desires) with the single purpose of making it the highest aim in human life.
But is going to Coldplay concert likely to make you hedonistic and lead you into becoming a folower of deviant cultures?
Is that what Coldplay is projecting?
Is it stated anywhere that Coldplay is hedonistic as claimed by PAS?
Anyway, the DAP leader defended the British rock band. He claims that Coldplay stands for the opposite of what PAS says.
In fact, Coldplay is out to promote sustainability, recycling, and a reduction in CO2 emissions. All these are good values and are acknowledged by Islam, wrote Ameer in his Facebook.
But will Coldplay be able to change a person's faith by just attending one concert?
Would a person emerge from 90 minutes of performance shouting and screaming "I am a convert and do believe in Coldplay?"
I doubt it because behaviour does not change over night nor does one change faith just by attending one sermon or one musical performance. I don't know about you but it took me longer than one concert to be a Beetles fan or a follower of Eric Clapton.
That's when Shakir Ameer tells PAS, "Don’t insult the intelligence of Malaysians. There is no need for PAS to intervene in the thought process of Malaysians,” he said on his Facebook post on May 10 as reported by Focus Malaysia.
That's how all this started. Coldplay a British band is coming to town in November and all its fans are excited. They'll be performing in Indonesia (with a huge Muslim majority) before coming to Kuala Lumpur for the first time.
However, PAS central committee member Nasrudin Hassan has aired his grievances and displeasure against the Coldplay concert planned for November, on his Facebook page, saying that it does not bring any benefit to “race, religion or country” and call upon the government to ban them from performing in Malaysia.
PAS has opposed several concerts by foreign bands in recent years managing to get bans over performers that they found objectionable.
Ameer accused PAS of seeking cheap publicity and that it does not care about positive values and that they tend to protest over anything for the politics intent on undermining PMX's government by misleading voters in the forthcoming state polls.
That's probably what it's about this time around. PAS is looking for an issue that divides faith.
By playing on a sensitive issue, like one's faith, it would be able to entice the masses towards PAS, making the government of the day look like it's siding with the hedonistic elements that could undermine one's faith.
It is not difficult to mislead the masses who have been brainwashed to believe that Western values are essentially hedonistic and they are the source of deviant teachings and Coldplay is easily lumped into that category.
We believe the average Malaysians who can afford to buy tickets to the show are smart enough to be able to distinguish between facts and fiction.
“Based on the logic adopted by PAS, it means the internet, television, radio and any other social media which they heavily depend on to spread their propaganda should be banned as well for promoting certain values that they do not agree with,” said Shakir sarcastically.
But our people are not easily swayed. They are not as gullible as PAS would like them to be.
Let the people decide. Let them go see and enjoy the concert. Let them make up their own minds whether Coldplay is a band they consider worth giving up their faith for!
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