Who Let The Dogs Out?

This ‘touch a dog event’ thingy has turned into such a big issue.

And so, the organizer of the event has formally apologized for causing unease among Muslims and stressed that the event was not intended to deviate Muslims from the faith, distort Islamic teachings, ridicule Islamic scholars or promote liberalism. He insisted that it was held merely to help the public overcome their fear of dogs and how people may treat the animal in the context of Islam.

Soon after reading the statement, he left the press conference abruptly and did not take any questions from the floor. His lawyer said he had to leave for his own safety as he was getting “severe death threats” since the event. Many Malays, including clerics, took offence at photos of Muslims petting and holding the dogs and even circulated his mobile number online. On social media platform Facebook and WhatsApp, messages claiming he is a Christian in disguise have also been widely circulated.

Meanwhile, the co-organizer said the gesture by some Muslim participants to hug and peck the dogs happened outside of the organizers’ control as the number of the crowd grew to nearly 1,000 from an anticipated 500. “I admit we had no control over the crowd and what they did to the dogs. There could also be those who came late and did not hear our explanation from the Islamic perspectives,” and said that the backlash on the event was contributed by the “bad publicity” from the press who were not at the event.

In the aftermath of the “touch a dog” event, online media erupted, with lotsa ‘religion talk’ taking centrestage.

I have no real comment on this, other than the fact that I believe the organizers should try to do a survey, poll or feedback before the event to see how was the response, esp when dealing with a sensitive subject such as this, esp in a country like Malaysia.

But I notice something eerily familiar to come out of this. If you are a Malay and you listened to its children songs from young, you must have heard of this song titled Bangau oh Bangau” (Please click here for the English lyrics). It may be a children song but if you read closely it is of how each character blamed each other as the song progress…till there is no one else to blame. In this case the snake was the last in line and took the entire blame. If you ask me, it is in fact a song of mockery and sarcasm for our malay people in general.

And just like the song, the co-organizer blamed bad publicity, the latecomers etc. The organizer says his intention was not wrong and that the masses misunderstood him. The online media euphoria of hatred blamed his lack of religious knowledge & ignorance that led him to organize such events. Some supported the organizers and blamed their countrymen for being ignorant and blind to what the real true motive of this event. And so clerics, scholars, average worker, housewives, politicians all joined the bandwagon and play the blame game. Some even questioned the organizer’s and each other’s knowledge of haram or halal.

If you decide to blame others as a way to de-shackle yourselves from the burden of the weight of blame as an easy way out, then do it, that’s your problem. But to question oneself of his religious knowledge and that you know better? Who are you to do that?

Well for one, riba’ (interest) is haram. But our banks & government have that system in place for ages. And we are a recipient of that system. So is it halal or haram? And so many of our youths engage in vices week in week out, vices that are haram in religion. Why no death threats against them? Even slander is haram. And so many others that i don’t bother to list down. For what?

There are a lot of things wrong with our society & people at hand, but the most ridiculous mistake was, instead of questioning others, we didn’t question ourselves and in turn, have no self solutions to make our wrongs right. Instead we see others’ wrongs and we get agitated by it. Look at this short story that i found online. Yup, its about dogs.