The World Around Us

A large population of this planet is very engrossed with the upcoming World Cup. Everyday and in almost every newspaper it is football, football, football in almost all the sports pages! Football fever could be classified as an epidemic in its own class. The numbers affected by this fever run into millions! Everyone involved seem very overjoyed and can't wait for the actual event. But there is a dark side which is slowly emerging in Germany. The racial factor. There are people still living in the dark ages who think 'white' is supreme. Black and Asian football players are getting the brunt of these thugs who throw racial insults and death threats at them during the game. If the organizers of these football matches do not take the necessary precautions, we might have a tragedy in our hands by the end of this month.

Talking about tragedy, the Indonesians living in central Java are going through one right now. The earthquake has killed thousands of people and left many thousands homeless and in need of food, shelter and medical aid. This catastrophe taking place just after the tsunami! Foreign rescue teams and international aid workers have gone to the quake zone to distribute food, water and tents.

One thing I notice when something like this happens to any country, the people who offer help are usually from the west. Lately, Malaysians and Singaporeans have learned to send their medical team to help also. Maybe I don't have the latest news but I rarely hear of any team from Iran or from Arabia or from Pakistan coming to the aid of victims of natural disasters. We only hear of death threats from these people who claim to be very holy! Look at Iraq. Two tennis players were shot dead for wearing shorts when playing! I guess one can't expect much from people like that. Maybe I am wrong.

Over in Timor Leste, there is more killing. Army against army, police against police, south against north. What is going on down there? The Australian, New Zealand and Malaysian armed forces have been sent there to help solve the problem. Hope peace will return to that land and people won't fear for their lives when they go out to buy daily provisions.

Over in Malaysia, there is a sort of religious tolerence at the moment. It is slowly being eroded by religious extremist who are gaining inroads into the government. The recent incident in Penang(one of the northern states in Malaysia) where a group of people (about 500) stormed and disrupted a forum on religious rights which was being held with permission from the relevant authorities. The police advised the organizers of the forum to stop in order to avoid trouble! Who is the tolerant party here? We shall wait and see what action the government takes on these thugs who stopped the forum. Then we will know if the Prime Minister walks his walk and talks his talk as he has gone around the world telling of how the government is tolerant to other religions in this country.