The Malaysian Attitudes

Hadith for the mindful…


From Sahih Al-Bukhari ( Ch.12: 449), narrated Abdullah: The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “Who among you considers the wealth of his heirs dearer to him than his own wealth?” They replied, “O Allah’s Apostle! There is none among us but loves his own wealth more.” The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “ So his wealth is whatever he spends ( in Allah’s Cause) during his life (on good deeds) while the wealth of his heirs is whatever he leaves after his death.”



ON THE ROAD

During the eve of the Idul Fitri I travelled back to Seremban to have the final break fast of the Ramadan with my father and brother in Rasah Dalam. My wife who accompanied me was sleeping most of the time during the entire 6 hours journey. We could see many billboards portraying the ‘Pandu Cermat Jiwa Selamat’ (drive carefully- saves live) signs along the way. One, particularly touching ‘Don’t make your homecoming a tragedy’ however as you drive past the billboard the messages seemed to be left behind as well. So how well could you be driving under the Malaysian road? More precisely, driving with the Malaysian drivers? The people are very polite in spite of the multi-racial makeup. However statistics shown that Malaysia has one of the highest incidents of traffic accidents among the ASEAN countries. Why? They seemed to change personalities entirely as new persons as soon as they are behind the wheels. That’s the truth. They become one of the reckless drivers ever on the road. A kind of road maniacs! That explained why there are so many signatories along the way urging every driver to take care.

There was this reckless driver who overtook a car in front of us and almost hitting the car when he edged inward infront of it abruptly, if not for the instant reflex of the other driver who swerved to the side, surely an accident would have happened right in front of our eyes. It was raining lightly but almost drizzling when we reached the final portion of the Bentong highway. Then came an ambulance with screaming siren urging all motorists to give way. This was enough to make me slowed down my car a bit to allow the ambulance to pass. We realized that there might be an accident ahead of us. Sure enough a black Toyota had skidded and crashed unto the highway railing and knocked a car at the other side of the road. For them the spirits of this year’s ‘Hari Raya’ had gone too! The police have just launched the ‘Op Sikap’ ( attitude operations) and ironically to date 17 people have died due to the traffic accidents alone. Well, cheers to Malaysia Boleh!