Daily Lessons from Life 24-25 January 2014 - Religious leaders confident tudung issue will be given appropriate attention

Was at a long time friend's place for a function - a gathering of MORE long time friends - and was too tired to write as I came home at around 2 a.m. It was a very good catch up session as well as to listen the friend's plan for her new start up company in the Cloud Consulting arena.

"Religious leaders confident tudung issue will be given appropriate attention - CNA 25 January 2014

SINGAPORE: Singapore's highest Islamic authority Mufti said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong understands that the tudung is an important issue for Muslims.

The Prime Minister held his first dialogue session on Saturday with the Malay-Muslim community on the issue.

During the dialogue session, Singapore's Mufti Dr Mohamed Fatris Bakaram said the Prime Minister understood the natural desire and aspiration of a Muslim, which is to be allowed to practice his or her religious obligations as much as possible.

The Mufti also apologised for abusive language by netizens on the wearing of the Muslim headscarf in the public service.

“I sincerely apologise on behalf of some of the Malay community who might get carried away by their emotions in expressing their thoughts. They might not understand how difficult it is to solve the issue. I regret that their usage of language is inappropriate,” said Dr Mohamed.
Some religious leaders said they hope to see change and are confident the Prime Minister will give this issue the most appropriate attention.
"PM Lee shared examples when some participants picture us as ‘sparring partners’, but PM Lee in all honesty said we are not a sparring partner but a dancing partner," said Haji Mohamad Hasbi Hassan, president of Pergas.
The dialogue session gave Malay-Muslim leaders and those in the community the opportunity to have a frank exchange about the tudung issue.
Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Dr Yaacob Ibrahim said: "This is a larger issue that concerns the type of society that you want to become. While we can pretend that we can remove any vestiges of race, language and religion, it is still below the surface.”
“I think that is something that we cannot ignore. And I think people recognise that because when you look at it from a single perspective, you think it's about your rights, but when you look at it in a wider context, where other people have other rights also, it becomes a battle of who is right and who is wrong."
The closed-door dialogue session saw some 100 leaders and representatives from the Malay-Muslim community."

Good that the PM and the minister are having a conversation with the Muslim and Malay community leaders on this issue.

Lessons for me are:

1. any religion is free to advocate the dress code that it believes is appropriate for its believers. This is especially so in the place of worship of that religion and going about the matters of that religion;

2. when a nation is multi-religious, those in public services can, if they so wished, wear the appropriate dress code advocated by their religion with a caveat: that the dress code MUST NOT hinder the identification and the performance of the public servants. In addition, it MUST NOT provoke a sense of discomfort to the public that the public servants are serving due to lack of contact or understanding of the dress code. This can be from the  'customers' feedback of the public services organization that the public servants belonged to;

3. it is for the believers to exercise his or her judgement to wear whatever the dress code that is endorsed, unless it is mandatory, by his or her religion, makes sense for his or her discharge of the public services duties. If his or her performance will be affected, it will make sense not to wear the dress code endorsed by the religion. If it is mandatory by the religion, it is a different discussion altogether. It will be whose 'right' is more important or, more performance centric, that the other! I guessed we will cross the bridge when we come to it? With some 'parameters' already agreed upon and uphold?