Dr.Abdul Kalam's Visit to Penang

I read a copy of “TheSun” last Friday on “Abdul Kalam’s trail of lesson” it was about his recent trip to Penang with the highlight of his visit to “ Street of Harmony”.I didn’t know that such a street ever existed in Penang, in our very own backyard "Pearl of the Orient". It seems it is the street formerly known as Pitt Street, which he called "Street of Harmony"! Anyway I am not going to write about the history of Pitt Street but what intrigued me was his visit to all the religious sites along Pitt Street which by the way was a Christian Church, a Chinese Temple, a Hindu Temple and a Mosque.

Wait a moment, isn’t he a Muslim by birth? I thought, hold on there for a while as it could be some kind of mistake here! Himanshu Bhatt the writer went on to say “ he entered into each of the historic religious sites, he responded with a deep open heartedness and brimming enthusiasm”. I told myself, isn’t that interesting!

Furthermore it was also written “ He spoke freely from the pulpit of a Christian Church, prayed gently with joss sticks in a Taoist Temple and engaged in a ceremonial ‘aarti’ at a Hindu temple and joined in zohor prayers at a Mosque”. Isn’t that just amazing, when was the last time any of our national leaders ever made an inter-religious tour of this nature? I could not recall any during my entire life in Malaysia.

It would be unthinkable here in Malaysia for a Malay Muslim leader (that is how they call themselves or is it Muslim first and Malay second, does it make a difference any way ) to even think or worst still to visit a non Muslim place of worship! Dr. Abdul Kalam even said “When I was travelling the Street of Harmony, there is a message for the world hidden in this unique street, the message of human life that has got a fantastic dignity”. That comes from a Muslim and the past President of the largest Democratic country in the world saying that we have what it takes to live in harmony with all our different religious beliefs! I bet this would be totally unacceptable by our local Muslim leaders, more so by our religious leaders. How can a Muslim enter a place of worship that belongs to an infidel more so to participate in their religious ceremony? They would have brandished him or her for doing such an act which is completely unislamic.

These religious leaders would rather call other religious practices with degrading names, snatch bodies of converts even though the new converts never truly practiced Islam or will separate mothers from children in the name of religion rather than to ease fellow human being from sufferings. I suppose these religious bigots assume the role of a gatekeeper thinking that without them their religion would suffer a natural demise. What an irony for man to think that they must protect their religion, I guess that they may be thinking that god would perish without them being his guardian! Talk about ignorance to the highest order.

How many of our Muslim Leaders can emulate Dr.Abdul Kalam, I guess none yet, maybe none forever until and we shred the pretext of ones religion being superior than the other. Until and unless we truly belief that we are all children of the same creator until then we will never have the “ Street of Harmony” a reality.