Archive for March, 2011
What You Don’t Know About Malaysia 2
Hello there. ‘Selamat Datang ke Malaysia’. That means, ‘Welcome to Malaysia’ in our national language Bahasa Malaysia. It would be impossible to tell you everything about Malaysia in such a short period of time, but I will give you a general idea.
People
One of the things you will find most fascinating about Malaysia is its people and culture. Being a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual society of 28 million is no easy feat, as race continues to be a hotly debated issue and permeates almost every aspect of Malaysian life.
The Malaysian population consists of 62% Bumiputeras, which includes Malays and the Indigenous peoples, 24% Chinese, 8% Indians, and the rest are other minorities. Or as we say in Malaysia, ‘lain-lain’ or others. Citizenship in East Malaysia or the states of Sabah and Sarawak are a little different from citizenship in Peninsular Malaysia for immigration purposes. When West Malaysians visit East Malaysia, they are required to bring their MyKad, a biometric smart chip identity card, which must be carried by citizens of Malaysia at all times.
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Stealth Jihad by Robert Spencer
This is a review of the book: Stealth Jihad. How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs. This is the 7th book written by Robert Spencer since 2002 that supposedly warns Americans and Non-Muslims in general of the threat they face from radical Islam and its jihadist aspect. While Spencer goes out of his way to ensure that readers know that the majority of Muslims are peaceful and the title of his book suggests that he is only condemning the radical aspect of Islam, the actual words in his book testify that he is opposed to Islam in general.
His last book, The Truth about Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion, warned the U.S. to “stop insisting that Islam is a religion of peace” while he bended the truth on the life of the Prophet Muhammad and focused on his life during war time.
The most intolerant religion happens to be the religion of all the peaceful Muslims that Spencer says he is not against, but who he is offending by claiming their religion is a religion of War. Even the late Benzair Bhutto claimed in her book, that Spencer is guilty of presenting “a skewed, one-sided, and inflammatory story.” If a liberal Muslim like Bhutto believed this, then we must be suspicious of what Spencer has to say.
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Christian Missionaries in Haiti Who Made the Ultimate Sacrifice
On January 12 a 7.0 Richter scale earthquake struck the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti, bringing widespread death and destruction to the western hemisphere’s poorest nation. The earthquake killed at least 200,000 people, injured at least 300,000 others, leveled at least 250,000 residencies, and destroyed or severely damaged at least 30,000 commercial structures. It was Haiti’s largest and most destructive earthquake in more than 200 years.
Beyond the statistics, the human suffering is amongst the most heartbreaking the world has seen in some time – the break-up of families, the orphaned children, the lack of food and water, the emotional and physical pain, the fight for daily survival.
This tragedy, however, has born witness to the generosity of Americans once again and others throughout the world who have given of themselves financially – donating roughly $528 million as of late January. But long before the earthquake put Haiti on the world radar screen, it stood out for its dismal standard of living. For generations Christian missionaries have come to do what they could. They were there on January 12 before the bottom fell out. A few of them even made the ultimate sacrifice. If we have missed anyone please let us know so they can be honored for their sacrifice.
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