Today is a public holiday, declared by the government. The public holiday honors Dawali the yearly Hindu festival of lights with variations celebrated in other Hindu religions. It symbolizes the the spiritual victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. As I mentioned in a previous blog, it is going to get crowded in this Lexis Suites Penang. The droves are descending.
This government declared holiday is totally impressive when you learn, this taken again from tested, tried, and true Wikipedia. : T
The constitution grants freedom of religion, while establishing Islam as the “religion of the Federation”.[252][253] According to the Population and Housing Census 2020 figures, ethnicity and religious beliefs correlate highly. Approximately 63.5% of the population practise Islam, 18.7% practise Buddhism, 9.1% Christianity, 6.1% Hinduism and 1.3% practise Confucianism, Taoism and other traditional Chinese religions. 2.7% declared no religion or practised other religions or did not provide any information.[234] The states of Sarawak, Penang and the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur have non-Muslim majorities
Focus on this – only 6.1% of the population are Hindus. Not only is freedom of religion guaranteed by the government then the government practices what it preaches by establishing a yearly public holiday celebrating a Hindu festival. Can you imagine the USA government declaring a Mormon or Jehovah Witness public holiday? Absolutely unheard of and inconceivable. Freedom of religion is also promised in the Constitution of the USA. Incredibly ionic that I am in Malaysia because I was discriminated against because I was a Muslim. Contact this also with the UK – once Christian holidays were named , like Easter etc/. Then to be politically correct the Brits got rid of the Christian holiday names r(but not the time off). Instead everything is called a bank holiday. It is SO confusing, never know if you are coming and going. Imagine in the UK having a Ramadan Day or an Eid Day. It is laughable. Hahaha
There are stated clean and defined prerequisites to be a Malaysian citizen. They do not hand out citizenship to children born in the country like they do in the USA (then wonder why their parents want to live with their children.) Trump is apparently considering deporting the parents, his newest campaign strategy. To be a Malaysian this is who you must be and what you must do.
‘Sunni Islam of Shafi’i school of jurisprudence is the dominant branch of Islam in Malaysia,[256][257] while 18% are nondenominational Muslims.[258] The Malaysian constitution strictly defines what makes a “Malay”, considering Malays those who are Muslim, speak Malay regularly, practise Malay customs, and lived in or have ancestors from Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore.[164] Statistics from the 2010 Census indicate that 83.6% of the Chinese population identify as Buddhist, with significant numbers of adherents following Taoism (3.4%) and Christianity (11.1%), along with small Muslim populations in areas like Penang. The majority of the Indian population follow Hinduism (86.2%), with a significant minority identifying as Christians (6.0%) or Muslims (4.1%). Christianity is the predominant religion of the non-Malay bumiputera community (46.5%) with an additional 40.4% identifying as Muslim.
Within the past few weeks it has become apparent that my destiny is not to consider immigration to a perhaps practical Australia but instead make Malaysia my second home.
