By C C Pung
Justice of Peace
SLOGANS are an everyday thing.
Though simple language is most of the time enough to convey an idea.
Slogans are often created supposedly to create soundbites, abbreviate the ideas or making it jazzy or catchy.
This seems noble and harmless.
But when slogan seeing is concerned, it is manipulative, deceiving and mostly exaggerated to make the mundane better than it actually is.
Malaysia’s past prime ministers all had some slogans, but there’s hardly one that’s remembered for having created a memorable and lasting characteristic that defined Malaysians or our multi-racial and multi cultural identity.
It would be grossly unfair to say there was zero progress.
But the fact that in our 62nd year of nationhood we are still arguing if we are a secular society is a clear sign that slogans were just that, slogans.
I don’t like slogans, and I’m not impressed with the ‘Madani’ word that the current PM Anwar named his government after.
Casual reading on this subject revealed that ‘Madani’ is rooted in Arabic (Anwar is among those who just love citing words and sayings, including quranic verses in Arabic like an exclamation mark) and is supposed to embody vales from respect, trust, compassion, care to sustainability, innovation, common prosperity and all things good.
But the recent series of actions Anwar took over the fate of a supposedly ‘illegal’ Hindu temple in Kuala Lumpur that’s 130 years old, the man just proved me right in my contempt of slogans, especially those that promised nirvana.
Anwar ignored the Hindu devotees’ sentiments, the temple’s place in the Indian community’s being and that it is located in a place called Jalan Masjid India, and called it a ‘victory’ when it was decided that a mosque, to be called ‘Madani’ will be build over the doomed temple.
A new temple will be built at a site 50 metres away.
Makes me wonder: why can’t the new mosque be built there? Is there some fengshui consideration we aren’t aware of?
I tried to look at this temple issue through a Madani value lens.
I’m not clever enough to discern my compliance.
I hope Anwar can help.
But odds are that he’ll be quiet and emerge after a while to discourse on some new revelation about Madani.
When that happens, I’m unlikely to gain any clarity because I don’t count myself among the estimated 400 million people in the world who spoke Arab.
True values, like those promoted in Madani, transcend language, race and boundaries.
Sloganeering is hollow. We need to uphold it and put it into action.
We need to embody Madani in speech and deeds.
