Kartika, pardon?

You remember Kartika, the divorcee that had a beer at a hotel in Malaysia?

The sultan of Pahang has commuted her sentence for drinking that beer from caning to public service, one can wonder if this is really what Kartika wanted. When she was sentenced by the Sharia court and convicted of drinking alcohol she stoically said that the caning should be public.

We all know what happens if that caning had been done publically, the outcry from everyone except UMNO officials would have been deafening. While UMNO is trying to portray themselves as a party for everyone they have turned amazingly fundamentalistic when it comes to local islam. The Sultans in Malaysia are usually more sensible, as we could see from the strikedown of the fatwa against yoga.

Of course, the whole system of being born into a religion you can't leave, that has a parallell legal system you can't challenge or change democratically is ludicrous but used extensively to keep the bumis in line. UMNO's lip service to OneMalaysia is of course only a PR stunt to try and regain votes lost to PKR from last election. Not even the second in command believes in the initiative, yes you Muhyiddin!

Anyway, I had hoped that the caning would have been performed on Kartika but I guess I should not want that unless I get caned first. What is really absurd with this whole story is that while the Kartika affair was ongoing three other women got caned, you know what they got caned for?

The three women had sex out of wedlock, one couldn't find her father in time to get married before giving birth, one had a stillborn and the third simply had a baby. They got caned for giving birth to children while not being married, how stupid is this? Where is the crime? Why wasn't the fathers punished?