How Sensitive Are we about others' Feelings?

When a High court ruled that "Allah" can be used in reference to God by non-Muslims, the entertainment licence of five nightclubs was revoked because of playing music too loud into the night, a convoy of Palestinian sympathisers bringing supplies into Gaza was stopped and mishandled by an Egyptian riot squad, and every effort by a racial group in a multiracial community to defend its rights is considered as racist and provocative, we know that something has gone wrong in this world.Nothing is perfect in this world for everything is ruled by human justice and humans are never perfect. They change the law every day. Only God's law is perfect. It never changed since the beginning of tme...

But God gave us human beings the ability to THINK and FEEL. Rationality which underlies all laws, works at the thinking level. If a person is dangerous to the community, get rid of him (or her). The only thing that intervenes in this straight thinking is our feeling, our conscience. The person you want to get rid of, is also God's creation. He was made to exist for a purpose. Try to see things from his point of view and the world may suddenly change. What we see as criminal and cruel, from his perspective may suddenly appear urgent and necessary. Even a hardened and dangerous criminal can be a very sick man, mentally deranged etc. The law can condemn and put him to death. We can kill and in a war we make killing a necessity but we cannot create even one life, except through God's law of procreation.

What we human beings have beside the ability to think is to feel....feel for the others, for each other as fellow human beings.We can either be sensitive to such feelings or just cast them aside and follow the dictate of our throughts, make a rational judgement and come to a decision, without feeling what the consequences of that decision would be on the person afffected. That feeling and senstiveness towards others' feeling, consititutes our sensitivity towards the feelings and problems of others. It is this sensitivitiy which prevents us from blindly doing what we THINK is right, pursuing the action that we THINK is right and justified, without a care for what the others feel. If we as much as try to guest how others might feel, or put ourselves in their shoes, then we might temper our action with the softer hands of our conscience. Some say "we must temper justice with compassion". but that's too legalistic and rational.One must feel to be able to appreciate the meaning of compassion.

If Malaysians today start to feel and be sensitive to the feelings of others, I think many of the issues that are now taken to court
or investigated by Royal Commissions can be averted. You cannot rule on sensitive things like making reference to "Allah", whether to help those in need of help is legal or not, whether a child should be taken care of by the mother or father after a divorce etc. Human feelings cannot be subjected to the rule of law; only his (or her) action can be controlled by law. Thus if a person wants to refer to God as Allah, do so by all means but make sure that Allah means the All Mighty, that He cannot be likened to anything else, that He is not given birth to nor procreates like a human being, that He is the one and only God, ruler of heaven and earth.Anything else cannot be Allah. Similarly, nightclubs can play music as much as they want but not to the point of breaking the eardrums of people living nearby, just as one can turn on the radio or TV as loud as you want but be mindful of the fact that the next door neighbours must have their rest and peace on mind.

If we're sensitive enough to the feelings and needs of our neighbours, and refrain from doing things that will hurt their feelings, undermine their self-respect or upset their peace of mind, I think this country will be a much more peaceful place to live in. You don't have to take everything to the Court. Nor can the Court rule that you must believe or not believe, love or hate something or someone, like or dislike certain things etc. It can only rule on what you can do or not do in terms of explicit action. Your feeling is yours for keep but if you do feel for others then others will feel for you too. That's why God prescribes: do unto others as you would unto yourself.

PS. I'm glad that the Minister for the Fed. Territory and Urban Affairs has asked that the nightclubs whose licences were revoked apply for a new licence on condition that their music don't disturb people living in the vicinity.