58] Should we boycott Danish goods?

Should we boycott Danish goods?
ILLUMINATIONS
By Azly Rahman


"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom ofthought which they seldom use." - 19th-century Danish Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard


The Danish philosopher would have protested against the ignorance of those who “tested” the patience of the Muslims through such fatal act of blasphemy. Kiekargaard would have asked his fellow countrymen to be extra careful when making a leap of faith into free speech in toto.

The Danes are now caricaturizing itself into a nation of insensitive and ignorant isolated tribes who need to seriously encourage their children to study who Muhammad the prophet of Islam is – to stop the further rot of intellectualism of such magnitude.
The Danes have indeed showed how Europe continue to “underdevelop” its own thinking about religious tolerance and how poor their understanding of free speech and liberalism is.

In the name of free speech and the freedom to blasphemise and to anger others of different religious faith, the Danish government will not apologize.

We Malaysians on the other hand, are shaming ourselves and telling the world that there will be no major consequence for any nation that disrespected Muhammad, prophet of Islam. We have been bought over by the rhetoric of free speech, making us now a nation without a backbone and a nation with a wimpy voice in the global theatre of increasing globalization of blasphemy; in which even nations such as Denmark are testing the patience of the Muslims.

What brand of foreign policy are we practising? Who are we trying to please? What business do we have with them? http://www.malaysiakini.com/
link/eNrLKCkpsNLXLy8v1ytOTsxLSSzOTNRLzs/
VL8tMLfdLLS/WK8gosM8DMuIzU2yNDE3M1ZLzS/Pik/NTUm1TsgHrdBcR

What a shameful stand made by an equally shameful government that has shamed itself through all the inactions on matters that are corrupting and shameful.

Just a few decades ago, we “Bought British Last” supposedly in protest against British colonialism; colonialism that is engineered by “a private company” that is the East Indian Company. But just a few days ago we rationalized that the cartoons were produced by a private citizen and therefore does not reflect the sentiment of the Danes as a people. I will argue why this administration’s “no-boycott” attitude is base on truncated logic and faint-hearted patriotism.

We wish to be called a “moderate Islamic” nation but do not know what that means in this context of global humiliation that continue to equate Islam with terrorism. Humiliating Muhammad the prophet of Islam was the most fatal of all the humiliations. I do not think Europe will ever understood what Muhammad means to the Muslims.

As a citizen of Malaysia, I write to express my deepest regret on the decision of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s administration’s not to boycott Danish products. I call upon the government to revert the decision in the name of respect and utmost reverie for the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (peace be upon him) -- prophet of peace, tolerance, justice, and social equality. After all, do we need to support the economy of a nation of those who will use the fruits of labor of free enterprise to perhaps propagate more and more ignorance about Islam?

Our revised position, I imagine, will be more honorable, should you call upon such boycott – even for a definite period of five years, minimum. http://www.danishexport.com/


"Understand who Muhammad is."

The prophet of Islam is not to be cartooned, caricaturized, and humiliated, like other prophets such as Abraham, David, Moses, and Jesus (peace be upon them). For Muslims, Muhammad is life and love of the Muslims that permeates Existence entire.

He is the light of the world, of Humanity’s path of peace and prosperity whose life is a symbol of illuminations, inspiration, and the institutionalization of peace within oneself and in the here and now and in the hereafter. He is the Alpha and the Omega.

Why caricaturize this peaceful soul whose life is lived delivering others from the dungeons of oppression. Muhammad would even be gentle in his approach of advising Europe to stop legalizing prostitution or consuming alcohol conspicuously.

Free speech and freedom to humiliate the prophet of Islam does not apply in any epoch of the life of the Muslims. The world saw that since the furor began. Anger, as Europeans and Muslims would agree, is not to be about running amuck burning down embassies. Prophet Muhammad would be the first to defuse the anger.

But He will also call for a boycott of any nation that caricaturize any of the prophets of Allah of which Muhammad is their seal – any prophet including Jesus son of Mary. In short, Muhammad would not let Islam and its prophets – from Adam to Jesus – be humiliated. Muhammad has also taught Muslims that Jesus can never be the son of God. Eve the Danish philosopher Kiekergaard would say that man is man and God is God.

I do not think, as claimed by apologists of the Danish form of free speech, that the global anger of the Muslim is solely the result of the victory of the Hamas, the distraction “created by Syria over the Lebanon crisis”, or the rise of Iran as a voice of assertive Muslims. Such an argument missed the point of the ahistorical nature of Islamic history of iconoclasm.

The cartoons, even if it were to be printed a thousand copies by Johann Gutenberg and his moveable type would have also created an uproar in the Islamic world. Even it were to be “photocopied and distributed” in the 1970s using the emerging technologies of that era, the impact will be similar and quite independent from the political conflicts of the day.

"The real issue is of disrespect"

To Muslims, Prophet Muhammad is not only a “sacred” figure that is historical, ahistorical, and metaphysical but also a conceptual notion of life and the gift of life that permeates into the conscious and subconscious life of the Muslims. He is the symbol of “near-perfection” of Humanity that is constantly evolving and moving from one realm of Love and Peace to another.

Would Europe be able to understand how Muhammad is a concept of peace that lives in the lives of the Muslims becomes the inspiration, inscription, individualization, and institutionalization of those who took Islam in their Kiekergaardian leap of faith?

The masses and the elites, the less educated and the most learned will continue to protest accordingly in the case of the prophet being caricaturized. They protest nonetheless of the ignorance of what can and what cannot be represented in and as Muhammad.

Muhammad connotes “grace and gift to the world” for the Muslims. How might an “ummi” or an “illiterate” left a legacy of an empire of faith --- an empire that even taught Europe how to read, write, and think? How is this possible when the continent, Denmark and all was still in a state of delusion and delirium -- devoid of intellectual sight that will deliver it out of the Dark Ages into the Renaissance and next, the Enlightenment?

I call upon the boycott of Danish goods for a period of time and advocate for European children to learn more about Muhammad, the prophet of peace and love.

What is a nations’ economy such as Denmark’s worth as compared to such a humiliation of a most revered symbol of Humanity – of Muhammad (peace be upon him)?