Saying ‘I love U’ to Ibrahim Ali

No! No! No!  This Penumpang Kristian hated Ibrahim Ali, and what Perkasa stood for.  I We have all the rights to make Ibrahim Ali my our public enemy.

This Penumpang remembered how he thought he was a mere passer-by the day he got his ticket to cross the ocean.  This Penumpang was even glad when DSAI was being sacked, and was thrilled when learn about the possibility of DSAI being jailed.

This Penumpang wanted to say, “Repent, you Melayu who had put yourself into a state of dilemma, as you departed from your God”  Islam is beyond race, and the prudent economic policy for a pluralistic small nation tugged between India and China, would certainly spell out a policy that does not discriminate against the Indians and Chinese who helped form the nation.   Yet, this Penumpang dare not say “Repent” as he find himself hating the Perkasa so much that he has no other dream, other than his haunting memory of longing to put a bullet into Tun Mahathir’s head, the day he came to realize how personal greed and hatred of the then new Melayus orchestrated the order that led  the police and the army killing hundreds of Pendatang Cina.

This Penumpang has lived through his years away from the country filled with hatred for a nation, he thought, that has robbed his life and identity.  When news that the nation was declared that it would go bankrupt by Pemandu, this Penumpang said this ‘Tanah Melayu deserved it’.

No! No! No!  No Sayang to the Perkasa who clearly does not deserve to repent, as what Jonah would say

‘I’m so angry I wish I were dead’

Apparently, this Penumpang Kristian has forgotten the first commandment, as per the sermon from Tim Keller, that

‘the salvation is from the Lord’, and that even Jonah  is an idolator filled with anger and hatred towards a people the Lord loved dearly.

This Penumpang used to think he could righteously hate the sons of Ishmael because even the Angel has said they are the donkeys fighting everyone.

“But your son will live far from his relatives; he will be like a wild donkey,fighting everyone, and everyone fighting him.”

But, this Penumpang was pointed out the error that he forgot the earlier verse that God love the sons of Ishmael so much that the angel has proclaimed Ishmael would be given many descendants, and that they too would become a great nation.

“I will give you a son, who will be called Ishmael,
because I have heard your cry for help. And later I will give you so many descendants that no one will be able to count them all.”

This Penumpang also came to learn from a PLO Fatah hero, who currently operates a school in Palestine, that the Arabs actually do love a type of wild donkeys, named ‘Onager‘, just like how we Malaysians love our ‘OrangUtan‘.   These onagers run swiftly and freely across the desert of Arabia, just like the horses that roam freely in the rugged Malboro country.

This Penumpang learnt that, as Christians, we are merely people living in a world past Good Friday, awaiting the dawn of the ultimate Easter with our Lord, no matter how we theologically read our millennium revelation.

“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,

and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.”

If, before the millennium, the wolf would become the lamb, or if the goat would become the leopard, the picture of the ultimate Easter would not hold true.  A calf is a calf, and a goat is a goat till the end of this age.

This Penumpang would not know how this picture could come about, nor would he know if he is the actual big bad wolf today.  But, this Penumpang knows, that even if Ibrahim Ali looks like a big bad wolf, he, as a Muslim, too must have long for Jesus’s return, with or without the presence of Mahdi.

Our Perkasa Muslim rakan-rakan would probably only forgive as kings and princes.  But, we, the Penumpang Kristian, have the honor to forgive as servants, just as how our sweet Jesus taught us that

forgiveness is the place where justice and love meets.

DSAI had quoted T.S Eliot in a speech on living in a divided word to urge us to go beyond our bird brained reality,

“Go, go, go, said the bird: Human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.”

This migrating bird only hope to find rest in Paul’s word ‘to die is to gain, to live is for Christ‘ as he looks forward to the Bersih2.0 meetup this June 9 below the Golden Gate, remembering his love for the nation across the ocean.

Yes! Yes! Yes!  This Penumpang would say ‘I love U too, Ibrahim Ali’ because I too was once full of hate.  Ibrahim, forgive this Penumpang, who loves dearly this Tanah Melayu also?

My dear fellow Penumpang Kristian,

I don’t know if you would be standing side-by-side wearing the same color as our PAS rakan-rakan, or if you would be wearing yellow, or merely praying at home, but I pray we could have the courage to stand steadfast in this season of divided world,  to muster that little mustard seed of faith and hope to love even those whom we have little reason to love, just as how we come to know that we are being forgiven by our Lord.  We may not be able to change the world, but, we could do at least this much today to discard our reasons to hate Ibrahim Ali in this only country that our Lord has given us.

siuyea, a Khek penumpang , awaiting July 9 from San Francisco Bay Area, recalling these words from St. Augustine.

And thus it is that in the same affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good pray and praise. So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odor.