Be Sensitive

The Shah Alam mayor, Mazalan Md Noor, informed that 17 out of 79 7-Eleven outlets in the city located in Section 1 to 24 had decided to stop selling alcohol beverages.

The positive move shows the support and respect of the non Muslims to ensure harmony relations with the Muslims counterpart.

Earlier, there was a miscommunication on the enforcement law when MBSA offices confiscated the alcohols from 7-Eleven stores in Sect. 9. Dr. Hasan Ali has fully supported the idea to ban the sales of alcoholic drinks in the majority Muslims communities.

The issue had sparked controversy between the politicians. Selangor Mentri Besar had ruled out that stores should conduct self regulate by storing the alcohol drinks in separate refrigerators. Also, the drinks should be sold to non Muslims and above 18 years old.

At this instance, I remembered my experience in the US more than 2 decades ago. It was just a few months, the six of us, arrived in the States.

One of the lecturers had treated us to her family's Thanksgiving party cum a welcome party during the festival break.

As a tradition, Thanksgiving was not complete without a roast turkey. We were about to politely making an excuse for not eating the main dish, when the lecturer, Mrs King, had a full smile on her face.

"Ya, don't worry about the turkey. It is halal. My mother got a slaughter one."

We were so embarrassed as the 80 year old granny nodded. Mrs King went on " My mom used to study Islam during her college days. So she understands the requirements."

However, I figure out that not all non Muslims in Malaysia have the awareness and sensitive towards Muslims especially involving halal foods.

The understanding was as long as the food does not contain pork, it is halal. To certain extend, the halal certification also been questionable.

I also wish to voice my dissatisfaction on non Muslims who have dogs as pets. I am not totally against the ideas but what upset me are the way most pets' owners treat their pets.

Normally, the owners will take their lovely pets for morning or evening walks. It is annoying to see the pets are trained to urinate at specific trees and leave their droppings along the ways.

There are also cases where the owners misuse the playground facilities where as there are big signboards clearly specified 'no dog'.

The worst scenario that I experience is that the owners just keep the pets for the sake of guarding their houses. So, the dogs ransack garbages as their food staple.

So, hopefully, the non Muslims in Malaysia could have the awareness and give due respects to sensitive issues like this as a first step to visualise the 1M nations.