IS THIS HOW MUSLIMS IN MALAYSIA ‘COMMIT SUICIDE’ AND GET AWAY WITH IT? …

AND NO ONE IN MALAYSIA SEEMS TO REALIZE IT OR CARE ABOUT IT, TO WANT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.  

By Mansor Puteh

They drive cars and ride the motorcycles recklessly and kill themselves and some innocent bystanders this way, knowing exactly what they wanted to achieve. …And how to kill someone by accident and get away with it.

Muslims are forbidden from terminating their lives by committing suicide, other than the way the so-called ‘suicide bombers’ in many Arab countries do all the time.

But there is a way that they can do that in Malaysia that can look to be harmless and not so wrong in Islam. How?

They drive their vehicles – cars and especially small motorcycles – recklessly oftentimes without a valid driving license and in stolen vehicles, too.

In Malaysia those who ride their small motorcycles recklessly are called ‘Mat Rempit’ or roughly ‘Speeding Joe’, but instead of it having a negative connotation, it became one that those who do it to feel happy and proud with.

However, when a film producer wanted to use this name as the title of his film, he was rebuked, so he changed it slightly.

(This habit of riding recklessly first appeared in the films that were brought in from Taiwan in the 1960s, where the young Chinese boys and girls do such things and the boys who win the races are offered girls to spend the night with.

In Malaysia the trend first attracted the young Chinese Malaysians followed by the Melayu kids who could afford to get hold of small motorcycles that they were not able to do so earlier, with many of them working as peons, dispatch riders and petty workers who found riding recklessly especially exciting.

However, the Chinese kids later gave up this hobby for other more meaningful pursuits leaving the roads bare for the Melayu kids to dominate the scene.)

But other than that the Malaysians are not able to do much or anything  at all to stop this road menace, with the police and road transport authorities only conducting an operation every now and then, and only then those who are exceptionally unlucky for being at the wrong place at the wrong time are stopped and given traffic summons.

Their motorcycles are sometimes seized but those who are underaged and not having a valid riding license are not given any stiff punishment that could cause them to suffer.

And all this is happening right under the very eyes of the authorities, the police, JPJ or road transport agency, and also religious authorities who do not seem to care.

Even the chatty and often annoying preachers with limited knowledge of Islam whose speeches are oftentimes boring and dragging which are mostly on petty household and family and also sexual issues have never touched on this matter.

And like I have just said their knowledge on Islam is very limited; and they have not been given due recognition as Islamic scholars properly; they only know how to benefit from Islam by using the religion for self-promotion.

So no wonder none of them had ever discussed this matter concerning the many young Muslims who drive or ride their vehicles recklessly all the time and committing crimes by not observing traffic laws which oftentimes too caused unnecessary accidents to happen and injury to many innocent people.

Yet, it is also very easy for them to escape prosecution because the vehicle registration plates have been defaced and the authorities can’t find anyway to nab them.

So in the end, Malaysia has the most number of vehicles on the road that have defaced license plates, which encourages some to go into the world of crimes, because they know they can avoid from being arrested this way.

And the critics of the government and the opposition are not so quick to point this out much less to offer views on how to solve this problem.

The opposition in Malaysia are not serving the community and even in areas or constituencies where they are supposed to be in control they do not care with the well-being of the people; they are hardly ever seen anywhere.

They only appear when there is something dramatic that had happened that had caught the fantasies of the media because of the drama that it had brought about.

These political leaders do not serve the community and even those who had voted for them; they are there for nothing.

No wonder too their areas are unkempt and dirty and filthy.

Do they care about the reckless driving that happens in their own constituencies? No. Why should they care?

In fact the people in their own constituencies too do not seem to care; they like their representatives not to bother them, to allow them to be dirty and unkempt.

And those who care they won’t be voted by them, because this is the very nature of many in Malaysia especially those Chinese and also Indians and some Melayu who like to live in places which are filthy and dirty where they can also park their vehicles everywhere and not observe traffic laws.

The sad truth is that most of those who drive recklessly are the Melayu and Muslims. They usually drive cars which are older models and small motorcycles which are not highly valued.

They know if these machines are cheap, and their lives too are cheap, what is there for them to lose if they lose them and also their lives which are dreary? Nothing or not much!

They can still get the sympathy from the public and government when they are involved in some accidents especially those that did not cause them to die instantly, but those that caused them to be maimed, so they can expect to get alms and other kinds of support.

But they had meant to commit suicide, an attempt that failed. They would try again the next time they are able to drive their cars or ride their small motorcycles hoping that this time they would succeed.

Some may, but some other may not be so lucky; their hopes are dashed.

So no wonder there are a few accidents on the highway and in the streets that result in some of them dying on the spot or of injury. Many are not so lucky because they only managed to maim themselves and become disabled for no reason.

But they are not deterred.

The Muslim elders and clerics cannot do much to condemn their acts or when they finally succumb to their injuries because they are seen to be ‘accidents’ when they are not.

Those Muslims in Malaysia who drive recklessly know what they are doing. They want to terminate their lives in a peaceful way and not be charged for committing suicide.

It is also not strange how the laws in Malaysia are such that if one kills another person by using the gun, he is charged with murder, but if the same person mows down a person and kills him, then it is an accident, with the person who the court will find guilty be given a light fine or even sentence.

So why bother using a gun anyway when driving into the person can still do the same trick?