“Table for two. This way please.” (Wow, full house again!) This famous dumpling chain restaurant in town, is busy as every other day.
(I’m starving…) I didn’t manage to catch my breakfast this morning. So, now, ‘brunch’ is what I am getting. Hunger for some sour and spicy food. (Let’s see what I can find from their menu.) Alright, orders placed. What’s next? Look to my left and right. While waiting for my food to be prepared and served, my habit ignites, i.e. searching for anything that might catch my attention.
This restaurant indeed needs a lot of staff to serve their full-house customers. Both their waiters and waitresses are busy patrolling from table to table, from kitchen area to dining zone.
(Oh, could they be… from the race that doesn’t consume pork? I guess so.) Their service crews are formed by people from various races. A few of their staff are Malays while majority are Chinese, and only two were Indians.
(Well, I don’t see any issue with that, at all! As long as the person in question doesn’t see that as an issue, then, all good.)
Human needs to earn a living, to have their basic needs fulfilled; i.e. food to feed their hungry stomach is inevitable. As simple as that, just to be able to have the energy and strength to continue surviving; and live the everyday, on this mundane world.
The crews work harmoniously even though they are from different races. Well, our country is, literally, made up of community of various races. For so many years, we have been living our life and spending our days, harmoniously. Although sometimes, there is certain group of community that is quite emotionally sensitive to racist or religious topics and acts in rather aggressive way.
Example One
When one’s religious prohibit their believers to consume pork. Then, do as you wish. Why the need to go and criticise on others that consume it?
Humans, eat to survive. Each of us are trying our best to survive and life our everyday life. Some might not care much about their meals and ignore their body health; while some emphasizes balance diet in their meals. Some works hard to earn a living and bring food to the table; while some was lucky enough to have born with silver spoon, no worries on monetary stress to get both needs and wants.
Back to basic, every human needs to eat to survive. If we look at the basic NEEDS, first goes with Oxygen, Water, and Food. The rest of ‘WANTS’ including clothes follow after this. The ranking of WANTS is subject to one’s desires. When there’s no fancy clothes are available, we would still need to focus on searching for food to fill our hungry stomach first.
I once saw a goldfish in the tank that kept by my neighbour. It ate the dead body or corpse of another goldfish. Isn’t goldfish only eating those tiny-bead fish food? Is goldfish actually carnivore like piranha? Just that goldfish eats meat in a gentler way and at a much slower speed? Was my basic knowledge about goldfish wrong, all these years? It ate that corpse, in front of my eyes! Why? Hungry stomach. As simple as that. The goldfish’s owner seemed to have forgotten to feed the gold fishes the fish food for days. One died; so the rest of the gold fishes consumed it instead.
The Harvard Law class tutorial that I happened to hear over the YouTube video really hit me hard… It was about moral topics. The lecturer’s interesting way of teaching drew the students’ attention from a few funny yet mind-triggering scenarios to ‘The Case for Cannibalism Sandel’ that introduces the principles of utilitarian philosopher (Jeremy Bentham), with a famous nineteenth century law case involving a shipwrecked crew of four. After nineteen days lost at sea, the captain decides to kill the cabin boy, the weakest amongst them, so they can feed on his blood and body to survive.
See? Even the educated, civilized and matured adults, would still throw away all they have learnt, choose to murder and consume the weak cabin boy, just to survive. So, how sure those non-pork consumers are – that they would never consume pork even though in a situation (such as war) where no food is available except for that pig that (is running for its life) appears before their eyes?
(Are you sure, you would choose to eat dried tree roots, still? Or when that moment comes, you would overturn your believing and interpretation from the guidebook and say something like, “I trust that my Lord will forgive me for consuming pork.” “I am not an offender.” “I would still go to heaven.”) I ask, in my monkey mind.
(Ha-ha… I think many will choose the latter. Don’t make me laugh. From what I see, often times, your believing, your guidebooks, your Lord or God, can be shape-shifted at your CONVENIENCE! You tweak them to fit what you think fit; you change the interpretation to what benefit you and your needs.)
Example Two
The news about Iran’s morality police arresting and allegedly beating an unarmed woman who was so happened to have her hijab improperly worn – certain part of her hair being exposed and not covered under the hijab. She, was just like any local commoners that walking on the street, doing her errands. Who would expect that she would suffer severe damages to her head that led her to coma and then death.
Who did such evil act? Well, they were the ones that claim themselves as the morality (religious) police. I believe that one of their main tasks was to ‘catch’ their religious believers that do not practice what has been set or taught in their religious guidebook.
(I don’t quite sure, if there really have such requirement on hijab wearing in their guidebook that says ‘no excuse at all if a single strand of hair was to expose, one deserves a death title’. Was it set by their religious guidebooks or simply the ‘rules’ set by those who wrongly interpreted the content in their guidebook?)
Humans, often act in the ways that they have interpreted and understood (vastly based on the experiences he or she had thus far); and other people’s thought could never supersede what they already set their mind to. In short, ‘Other people’s interpretation? Always wrong. Don’t bother.’
But hey, who is supposed to examine what one has interpreted from the guidebook was actually correctly interpreted or not? Only God can review and confirm if those ‘believer’ or ‘rules maker’ have done a good job in interpreting the meaning of the words or sentences from the religious books correctly, isn’t it? Only God can tell. Why? Only the AUTHOR can clarify what HE intended to convey. Just like what I always do at work, i.e. goes back to the file owner and get him or her to explain their working file or their analysis table. I don’t simply guess, as through clarification work done, I knew my initial interpretation or guess was wrong.
Everyone might interpret a sentence, in different ways. This happens most of the time! It happens to me and my colleagues, at work, when reading the same email. It happens to me and my friends, when we were watching the same movie; different takeaways we have.
For a ‘morality’ police to attack and hit a public to severe injuries; is that really what religious guidebooks have taught? Is this still the so-called MORAL? I seriously doubt it. There’s a saying in Bahasa Melayu (or Malay) that goes ‘Harap pagar, pagar makan padi’. If directly translated into English, it would be ‘Putting hope on the fence, yet the fence ate the grains’. This phrase means when we actually placing our hope on one to safeguard an item, that person gone and destroyed the item instead. What a sarcastic world we live in.
Every human is trying to survive. NO ONE has the right to end other’s life! What’s more when he or she are unarmed innocent public? What’s more when the reason you hold to accuse them was merely your own egoistic, just to sooth your own throat as the ‘powerful’ morality police?
How about we change the perspective of looking at this matter? The morality police are male (men). Could they ensure that in a 24-hour day, no matter what they do, be it they walk, run, jump, sleep, scratch, touch or however they move their body, their pubic hair won’t stick out from their underwear? This test is only applicable to those men that didn’t go for Brazilian hair removal treatment for their private part. Can he (or they) make sure that no single strand of his pubic hair would stick out or uncover by his underwear (panties or brief, call it what you want)? If he could proof that he could have all his pubic hair properly remained under his underwear 24/7, then he deserves to have his name be on ‘The Guinness Book Record’! If he couldn’t, he would get a death sentence or have his penis chopped right away. How about that? Will they take the challenge? I doubt so. But they might have better chances to win as men’s brief has elastic band sewed at the edge of the brief (which help to better control what’s need to hold in).
(Don’t be so irrational please…)
I felt so pissed off after reading that saddening news. I appreciate life; many do too. Those ‘morality police’ had demonstrated themselves as devils. Feel like tangled them with hijab. I have to emphasize once again.
Humans on this earth is doing their very best to survive.
Get back to basic NEEDS before fulfilling the desires in those never-ending WANTS.
For one to harm another human to the extent of snatching away his or her life and their opportunity to live, just for the sake of fulfilling one’s own ego rather than religious issue, that’s just too much. You went overboard! Egoistic people often choose those that look weaker than them, to bully.
I am not sure about others but I would rather interpret the phrase, the situation, with my life principles and my basic moral practise. I won’t simply take in everything a book was written or a person said. ‘尽信书，不如无书’ (in Pin Yin – Jin Xin Shu, Bu Ru Wu Shu); this phrase in Mandarin means ‘if fully believing or trusting the book, then better not having the book’.
Never blindly take in what is presented to you. Instead, it is wise for you to use your common sense, the knowledge you have learnt, the scenarios that you have seen or experienced, the moral actions that you have put in practice in your everyday life. With all that, if still not convincing, then please do a further search for other references and feedbacks before jumping into making one and only conclusion, rashly. There are 101 ways of doing things. You can’t think of any, doesn’t mean that there’s no other options available.
You don’t have to take in what I have just wrote above. Everyone is wise enough to think it through, yourself. Be open minded, wouldn’t you?
I would better focus on the dumplings that have been served on my table ten minutes ago. I was lost in my train of thoughts there. Before they get cold, let me consume my food that provides me energy to continue living! Yay!
