KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 27 ― Ever did a double take for fear of offending some Muslims? You are not alone.
If the conversation post-GE12 was dominated by Malay rights groups, things went further after the 2013 polls as hardline Islamic groups quickly gained an audience.
Under the guise of defending the sanctity of Islam and its adherents, groups such as Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) and Muslim Consumers’ Association of Malaysia (PPIM) found themselves offended by even the slightest issues: from innocuous Happy Meals to an annual beer festival which they were not even invited to.
While the groups frequently trained their guns at non-Muslims for allegedly challenging the so-called special position of Islam in the country, fellow Muslims also did not escape their attacks, especially those who do not conform to their brand of religion or those who had the gall to love dogs.
Adding to their prominence was the relative absence of alternative views within the Muslim community itself, in addition to the silence from Putrajaya and ruling coalition Barisan Nasional against the increasingly fiery and controversial rhetorics.
Pakatan Rakyat did not fare much better too, as the hardline faction in its component party PAS continued to adopt the same stance as the Islamic groups to further its Islamist agenda.
Here is a selection of things that Muslim hardliners got mad about in 2014:
What will make them angry in 2015? One can only hope that the list would not be as long.
