Hate at first sight~

                To know is to love. Or so said a friend of mine who is allergic to people. To love is to accept and understand each other in health , sickness, mental breakdown and every form of psychotic retardation. My friend, with such power of love , we can go through every nook and cranny of this world together, overpowering every obstacle and tribulations. But before we can reach that we need to know each other  , every detail of our acts and choices; for example; there might be a reason that a punk decides to skip exams like he's the school's principal-yes, in order to love , we need to understand each other, embrace each other's weaknesses and weirdness. Ah, this is ridiculous, yet true. Love at first sight is a heinous crime and cannot be acceptable as love, but pure lust.

          No, I'm not writing about love. Screw that Shakespeare thingy and go real, my friend. I suppose that , if to know is to love, then to know is also to hate. In other words, we need to understand someone before we decide to hate them.  Some would say that it is wrong to hate, but man, this is part of human nature. Try to put that aside. The topic tonight that I wish to explicate is in regard of hate at the first sight.

        Hate at the first sight is an inexplicable phenomenon, yet it  happens almost too commonly. Some people does not have any particular reason  to hate, but they just happen to bear such ill-feeling, either through unconscious informal teaching or indirect internal transgression. Yeah.  Allow me to explain. Unconscious informal teaching means that the hate towards others is unconsciously taught , usually by a parent to his/her children, teacher-student or from the elders to youngsters.

          An example for this kind of hate at the first sight is senior folks who experienced the May 13 tragedy, which results in an unrequited hate in their minds towards other races. Stories that they convey to the younger generation bring them to hate -which explains the term 'hate is taught' . These kind of people exist in abundance-such as the infamous Ibrahim Ali.  The level of interaction between races are kept at minimum, separated by geography and occupational differences, and thus this young generation knew naught  of each other. They studied at separate vernacular schools, live in different atmospheres, and are  practically separated through the ever-existing divide and rule effect. They know not of each other, yet they hate each other unconditionally.   This is the glorious hate at the first sight. As for the hate bearers such as the PERKASA, it is not weird that such group can exist, but the fact that there are people who listen to their blunders is plainly unacceptable.

                Indirect internal transgression-sorry for the fancy name- happens  due to rampant labeling and the act of blaming others.  When an Indonesian maid performed acrobatic acts with a 4 month old baby , the society reacts by cursing Indonesians. Perhaps cursing the maid herself is acceptable-I know it's not- but what do Indonesians have to do with her crime? From the few Indonesians I have met in my life, I learnt that they are among the most productive and hardworking people, at least ten times more than I am. They had contributed to this country more than I did in all these years. So why do we hate?  The mainstream media has a habit of labeling people- which I don't know whether it's intentional or not. Suppose that there was a robbery in my village, and the police caught the villains. Shouldn't it be enough for the media to report that " Three robbers caught red handed" instead of " Three Indians detained for robbery" ? What is the logic behind putting the label of race behind their names? The society ended hating not only the robbers , but also their family, their children and the innocent majority.

               This form of logically flawed hate at first sight caused numerous wars hundreds of years ago, and a supposedly civilized generation should be able to dismiss this irrational way of thinking. Altercation between only two men could result in a war between tribes, when things could have been settled fair and square. I suppose that the reason behind this hate at the first sight is that  human instinct actually yearns for war and conflict, and some people have a longing to put bullets in some people's head, but they are born in a wrong generation and a wrong time.

             And the same goes  to some Jews in Palestine, the fact that the Zionists invaded Palestine does not mean that all of them condone such violent and inhumane acts upon the civilians. They themselves never asked to be born  Jews, did they?

            For my fellow ISMA brothers,   just because we are born as Malays and Muslims, that does not permit the act of hating others. The act of prioritizing Malays just because they are Muslims means that we are arrogant with the nikmat of Iman and Islam, and to refuse and reject the reconciliation between muslims and non-muslims  means that we declare that Islam is exclusively ours. What if Allah decided that the Chinese people are the ones to be blessed with Islam, and we remained under the shadows of Hinduism, all those hundreds of years ago? What then? Do we have the right to brag again?  Just because the idea of liberalism comes from the West, that does not mean that fellow liberal muslims condone homosexuality and hedonism. The fact that we are different does not mean that you can hate.

"They regard as favour upon you (O Muhammad ) that they have embraced Islam. Say: "Count not your Islam as a favour upon me. Nay, but Allah has conferred a favour upon you, that He has guided you to the Faith, if you indeed are true."
(AL-Hujurat; 17)

Don't hate me, my friend. Let us love.