Speaking up for religious tolerance

Differences of religion should not make people fight one another, rather they should cooperate in doing good and warding off evil.

AS a Muslim I am deeply distressed and perplexed at the incendiary view, allegedly emanating from the Saudi Grand Mufti, that all churches in the Arab peninsula be destroyed.
This view, if it were really expressed, is offensive. It violates all canons of decency, international law and the human rights of our Christian brothers.

It contradicts many exquisite passages in the Quran and the practices of Prophet Muhammad. It runs contrary to centuries of Islamic history of peaceful co-existence with other religions. The syariah gives ample guidance on inter-faith relations.

Multiplicity of faiths: In innumerable passages, the Quran recognises religious pluralism. In 2:256, it is stated: “There is no compulsion in religion.” In 109:6, there is the exquisite passage: “Unto you your religion, unto me mine.”

In Surah 11:118, it is declared: “If thy Lord had so willed, He could have made mankind one people: but they will not cease to dispute.”

In Surah 10:99, Allah gave this admonition: “Had your Lord willed, those on Earth would have believed, all of them together. Will you then compel people against their will to believe?”

In 18:29, it is commanded: “Let him who will, believe; and let him who will, disbelieve.”

Common fountain: In the Quran 42:13, it is implied that the divinely-revealed religions all stemmed from the same source. “He has ordained for you the same religion which He ordained for Nooh (Noah) … and which He ordained for Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses) and Esa (Jesus) saying you should establish religion and make no divisions in it.”

“Every nation has its messenger” – 10:47. “Nothing has been said to you save what was said to the messengers before you” – 41:43.

Respect for all prophets: Plurality of prophets and multiplicity of revelations reflect a divine will. The Prophets of all revealed religions are brothers and there is no difference between them with regard to the message. Muslims are obliged to believe in them all.

In Surah 2:136, it is stated: “We believe in Allah and that which has been sent down to us and that which has been sent down to Ibrahim (Abraham), Ismail (Ishmael), Ishaq (Isaac), Yaqoob (Jacob), and to Al-Asbaat (the offspring of the 12 sons of Yaqoob), and that which has been given to Musa (Moses) and Esa (Jesus), and that which has been given to the Prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we are Muslims in submission to Him.”

According to the renowned Malaysia-based Afghani scholar Hashim Kamali, “Islam sees itself as the third of the Abrahamic religions.

“The Hebrew prophets and Christ are deeply respected by Muslims. The Virgin Mary is given the most exalted spiritual position in the Quran: a chapter of the Quran is named after her, and she is the only woman mentioned by name.

“The tombs of the Hebrew prophets, who are also Islamic prophets, are revered by Muslims to this day.”
All Christians and Jews are given the special status of ahle-kitab (believers in a book).

Respect for places of worship: All places of worship are sacred and must be defended. In Surah 22:40, the Quran speaks of monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques “as places in which God is commemorated in abundant measure”.

In Islamic history, the clergy in the churches were given full authority over their flocks with regard to all religious and church matters. Mosques were often built next to churches. When the Muslims conquered Egypt, they gave the Coptic churches back to the Copts and restored their rights.

In the early history of Islam, Muslims and Christians often prayed simultaneously in many churches, e.g. at the Cathedral of Saint John in Damascus. Likewise, Prophet Muhammad allowed the Christians of Najran to pray in Muslim mosques. When Prophet Muhammad migrated to Madinah, there was a large number of Jews in the city. One of the first affairs of state that he dealt with was to establish a treaty with them, according to which their beliefs were to be respected and the state was obliged to ward off harm from them.

Duty of civility: In the book Civilisation of Faith by Mustafa as-Sibaa’ie, it is stated that the Quran obliges the Muslim to believe in all the Prophets and Messengers of Allah, to speak of all of them with respect, not to mistreat their followers, to deal with them all in a good and gentle manner, speaking kindly to them, being a good neighbour to them and accepting their hospitality.

Differences of religion should not make people fight one another or commit aggression, rather they should cooperate in doing good and warding off evil (Quran 5:2, 5:5).

“Allah alone is the One who will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection” – Quran 2:113.
“And do not argue with the People of the Scripture except in a way that is best” – Quran 29: 46. “And insult not those who invoke other than Allah, lest they should insult Allah wrongfully without knowledge” – Quran 6:108.

In the light of the above, it is obvious that any view that exhorts Muslims to destroy Christian places of worship is in serious conflict with the letter and spirit of tolerance in the Quran.

The Malaysian Consti­tution honours this spirit. Article 3 states: “Islam is the religion of the Federation; but other religions may be practised in peace and harmony.”

The alleged view of the Saudi Mufti has been repudiated by the top Muslim cleric in Turkey, Mehmet Gormez, who has stated categorically that the Islamic civilisation is not hostile towards previous religions.

Those whose hearts are filled with hate and whose lips drip the blood of vengeance must remind themselves of the caution administered by Kamali that fanaticism is not part of Islam, as the Prophet confirmed in a hadith: “One who promotes fanaticism (asabiyyah) is not one of us, nor is one who fights for asabiyyah, nor the one who dies for asabiyyah.”

Shad Saleem Faruqi is Emeritus Pro-fessor of Law at UiTM and a consultant to USM.

China FDI at record pace: overseas uptick, policy steady

Q1 inflow leaves country on course to surpass 2011 record of US$116bil

* FDI momentum is slowing though and trade outlook difficult

* Suggests policy will be biased towards supporting economy

BEIJING  - Reuters:  China bagged foreign direct investment (FDI) at a record-setting pace in the first three months of 2012 but an easing in its monthly momentum and a difficult trade outlook will keep monetary policy poised to compensate for any dip in capital inflows.

The first quarter inflow of US$29.8bil leaves China on course to surpass 2011's US$116bil record, even though inflows compared with a year earlier have fallen for five successive months, Commerce Ministry data showed.

A 53% leap in inflows to US$11.8bil in March from February typical after the Lunar New Year was a fresh sign that capital flow is firming enough to underpin money supply growth, following a US$124bil first-quarter jump in foreign exchange reserves, providing policy stays on its current pro-growth bias.

“I don't think this changes anything for monetary policy,” Alistair Thornton, economist at IHS Global Insight in Beijing, told Reuters.

Steady growth: Workers assemble automobile parts at Changan Ford Mazda Automobile plant in Chongqing. A 53% leap in inflows to US$ 11.8bil in March from February is a fresh sign that China’s capital flow is firming enough to underpin money supply growth— AP

 

China's government has been fine-tuning economic policy settings since the autumn of last year as the outlook for the global economy darkened, export growth sank and capital inflows a core component of money supply stalled.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) has cut by 100 basis points (bps) the ratio of deposits banks are required to keep as reserves (RRR) to keep credit and money supply growth steady. The two moves added an estimated 800 billion yuan (US$127bil) of lending capacity to the economy.

The PBOC said last week that broad money supply rose 13.4% in March from a year earlier, stronger than market expectations for 12.9% and ahead of the previous month's 13% pace.

Economists forecast another 150 bps, or 1.2 trillion yuan in RRR cuts, for the rest of 2012 to help cushion China's worst slowdown since the global financial crisis of 2008-09.

“There are signs that the economy has reached a bottom, but there's nothing to suggest in recent data that equity investors should be positioning for a strong rebound or anything like a V-shaped recovery,” Thornton said.

EXTERNAL DEMAND

China's economic growth has slowed for five straight quarters. The annual growth rate in the first quarter eased to 8.1% from 8.9% in the previous three months, below an 8.3% consensus forecast in a Reuters poll.

Reasonably strong FDI and a return to an overall trade surplus of US$5.35bil in March heralds the prospect that a revival in global growth is lifting overseas demand just in time to compensate for a slowdown in the pace of domestic activity.

FDI is an important gauge of the health of the external economy, to which China's vast factory sector is orientated, but is a small contributor to overall capital flows compared to exports, which were worth about US$1.9 trillion in 2011.

Ministry of Commerce spokesman, Shen Danyang, told a news conference on the FDI data that the government was confident of achieving its target for trade growth in 2012 despite a difficult international economic backdrop.


China targets 10 percent growth for exports and imports in 2012, but both goals were missed in March when imports rose 5.3 percent and exports increased 8.9 percent over a year earlier.

Beijing has pledged to bring its current account into balance as it refocuses the economy more towards domestic consumption and away from volatile foreign demand for manufactured goods.

China's two biggest export markets faltered through 2011. Demand from the European Union was dogged by the sovereign debt crisis, while a U.S. recovery was slow to take hold, especially among consumers.

For the first quarter as a whole, Customs Administration data from China shows the value of total exports was $430.02 billion, while imports were $429.35 billion - bringing the trade account roughly into the balance targeted by the government.

"If we want export growth to be stable, we must ensure that policies are stable," Shen said. "If there are any policy adjustments, these adjustments will be more towards pro-exports rather than limiting exports."

CURRENCY RISKS

But he said some exporters were nervous about the outlook for their business, particularly after China loosened its tightly controlled currency regime by doubling to 1 percent the daily trading band for the yuan against the dollar.

"Some exporters are a little bit worried, so they are not so sure about taking long-term orders, but only took short-term orders, mainly because they are not confident in managing exchange rate fluctuations," Shen said.

The change, a crucial one as China further liberalises its nascent financial markets, underlines Beijing's belief that the yuan is near its equilibrium level, and that China's economy is sturdy enough to handle important, long-promised, structural reforms despite its cooling growth trajectory.

Slower growth is cautiously welcomed by China's leadership as it allows them to make reforms, particularly to prices the government sets, with a reduced risk of igniting inflation that the ruling Communist Party fears could trigger social unrest.

The widening of the yuan's trading band is the most significant adjustment made to China's currency regime since a landmark decision in 2005 to de-peg the yuan from the dollar, which set the Chinese unit on an appreciating path that has seen it gain about 30 percent against the dollar.

In tandem, China has encouraged direct settlement of international trade in yuan, amounting to 2.08 trillion yuan ($333 billion) in 2011, more than triple that in 2010, central bank data shows.

Dariusz Kowalczyk, senior economist and strategist at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong, said 11.7 percent of March FDI flows were settled in yuan, up from 9.5 percent in February, 8.5 percent in January and 3.2 percent for all of 2011.

"Direct investment has become a new frontier for Chinese yuan internationalisation," he wrote in a note to clients.

Beijing targets $120 billion in FDI inflows for each of the next four years, drawing up new rules to encourage foreign investment in strategic emerging industries, particularly those that bring new technology and know-how to China.

The Q1 numbers are on course to achieve that.

"For foreign investors, China remains attractive compared to other countries," Zhao Hao, economist at ANZ Bank in Shanghai, said.

China's efforts to expand its own direct investments in foreign countries are surging. Outbound FDI rose 94.5 percent in the first quarter versus a year earlier to $16.55 billion.

"In the future, the trend is that FDI inflows will pick up while outbound FDI will rise even faster, so the net inflows will fall," Zhao said.

By Zhou Xin and Nick Edwards

Asia from an Asian perspective

Singapore’s Channel News Asia plans to penetrate the US and European pay TV markets, but faces challenges posed by surging social media.

SINGAPORE television, which helped Lee Kuan Yew defeat his left-wing foes and stay in power for 50 years, plans to go worldwide 24 hours a day from next year.

The global push by the state-owned Channel News Asia (CNA) to extend its reach from Asia to cover the United States and Europe is an ambitious project, given the adverse cable news market.

Last week, America’s CNN (Cable News Network), despite its vast resources and experience, reported a ratings drop of up to 50% in the first quarter.

All three global networks suffered declines, having lost audiences to the new digital media.

The declines are not deterring CNA, whose predecessor had played a historic role in the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) elimination of the powerful left-wing Barisan Sosialis in the 60s.

Despite its near-monopoly, circulation of Singapore’s main Straits Times broadsheet has stagnated.

“For us to be a true global player in the news channel space we need to broadcast 24 hours, every hour on the hour, with live news,” said a CNA spokesman.

“This will eventually allow us to penetrate the US and European pay TV markets, so that people there can get Asian news with Asian perspectives whenever they want.”

Having their state TV moving into the world arena has raised a little sense of pride among some Singaporeans.

Informed citizens, however, are questioning its chances of success considering that it is considered to be a government mouthpiece. And taxpayers are worried about footing the bill for potential losses.

A small-time businessman commented: “I wish it well, but if powerful global networks like CNN are losing out, what chance has the state-owned Singapore TV to succeed?”

Not everyone agrees. A polytechnic lecturer said Singapore has become an economic international player and a provider of jobs for professionals.

So TV has a small part, but, he added, if it is thinking of taking on the big players in providing global news, “I would say forget it”.

The vast majority of Americans and Europeans don’t really care for Singapore’s idea of “Asian coverage of Asian news”.

The biggest handicap is its ties to the government.

Most people I talked to doubted if many Westerners would be well disposed to news from a government news channel (BBC is different because of its long history of objective reporting).

Even among Singaporeans, one in every two believes that the Singapore media is biased, according to a survey last year.

On average, in a normal day, however, newspapers and television are the top sources of news here, with the Internet coming in a close third.

But in last year’s election, some 48% turned to Yahoo! for quick news, with CNA in second place at 23.8%. Newspapers, however, were the people’s main source of news.

Television was launched in 1963, the year Singapore joined Malaysia, and when it left two years later, the telecast of Lee Kuan Yew weeping caught the imagination of the world.

At the launch, only 2,400 Singaporean homes had TV sets, but tens of thousands of people, young and old, would sit on wooden benches in community centres to watch the magic box.

As a 23-year old then, I joined enthusiastic friends to meet outside a department store TV display window and watched celluloid scenes of the PAP developing Jurong or building public flats at a rate of one unit every 45 minutes.

It was a powerful message for a poor squatter country.

Eventually the leftwing hold among the vast Chinese-educated was broken. To the viewers, moving pictures could not lie.

The hard-working Barisan Sosialis representatives resorted to knocking on doors to get to the people, but they could not match the power of moving pictures.

Since then, the government has kept 100% ownership of television. Despite much talk of going public, TV news remain in official hands. About half of Singaporeans polled last year felt that “there is too much government control of newspapers and television”, according to an analysis by the Institute of Policy Studies.

With 3.37 million Internet users out of a 5.18 million population, the expectation is that while mainstream newspapers and TV remain on top of the pole for news, erosion among young readers is likely to continue.

This is because CNA is widely perceived as the voice of the government. An advisory committee said in 2009 that this factor could hamper its credibility as a news conduit.

The circulation of the Straits Times has been dismal over the decades despite a big population jump.
Not exactly good news for the ruling PAP.

An authoritative source once told me that for the PAP to remain in power, it must have control over three things – security forces, finance and the media.

The first two remain more or less in place, but control of the third – the media – is being challenged by the day by the surging social media where every citizen can be both a reporter and a reader.

INSIGHT DOWN SOUTH By SEAH CHIANG NEE

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