By Aaron Ngui
I am an ardent reader of your blog. Your insights into the Malaysian political landscape are nothing short of biting and accurate. May you continue to write, and serve as MP, for a long time to come.
I’m writing this letter to you in response to your posting entitled “DAP does not insult Islam or any religion and does not condone any DAP leader or member in insulting Islam or any religion”. Your points in the posting are good and well noted. The post is in rebuttal to the recent brouhaha over Nik Aziz’s supposed comments. In addition, I have never seen any leader from DAP or Pakatan Rakyat insulting Islam.
Might I be so bold to point out that there might be errors in the news reports over Nik Aziz’s comments. I think the point to note is that Nik Aziz NEVER condoned DAP, or any other political party, to insult Malaysia’s official religion. From the report(s), he only opinied on why DAP leaders allegedly insulted the religion – a shallow understanding. Again, the PAS spiritual leader DID NOT give the green light for anyone to insult the religion; all he did was presumed that people who (supposedly and stupidly) insulted Islam were doing so out of ignorance. This is entirely different from what the report(s) presume.
Another point to note is the report has no direct quotation of Nik Aziz having no objection insulting Islam. As any first-year journalism student can tell you, a direct quotation is a word-for-word reproduction of what somebody said in writing. If Nik Aziz was supposed to say what he had said, any reporter worth his or her salt would put it in a “direct-open-inverted-and-close-inverted-commas-quote” to make the report as strong as can be. I know I would, being a former journalist.
Keep up the good work YB and thank you for reading my 2cents.