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I came from a culture where weekend party is compulsory. We (they preferably) would be dancing (with lights off), eating, smoking, got ‘stone’ and even ‘drink’. I know it sounds like a scene taken from the western teen drama series, but yeah it’s the life style the urban teenage brats are adopting. (being a least popular kid –a nerd- I wasn’t invited to such ‘cool’ atmosphere.. and Im not complaining!). lets for a while forget bout the party itself and focus on the drinking issue.

I was marveled reading a news report on Thailand effort to clean their image as a hard-drinking party town and to curb their sex industry (Asean,NST 20/11/06). The Thais military-installed government has made further attempt to sharply limit alcohol advertising and increase the drinking age to 20. the premiere Thaksin Shinawatra had imposed few regulations too, like limit the bars business to 1am and restrict times when alcohol could be sold and they bans alcohol advertising from 5am till 10pm. Ranking fifth in the world on the alcohol consumption of course these actions would affect the Thais economy. The Health Ministry estimates that the ban could result in annual losses of 2.5 billion baht (rm265 million) to the advertising industry. And these had also lead to the beverage, tourism, entertainment and advertising industries to sue the government saying that the ban causes loss of some 30,000 jobs. But even when the figures are rising up, the Thais government is adamant in imposing the new regulations.

Well that’s the story from up north; back here in Malaysia, though the largest alcohol factory in South East Asia is located here, we are still a tame cat compared to the Thais. I haven’t seen any alcohol commercials in television but there were shown in cinema though, and I wonder could it be because of these adverts in cinema that had influenced my friends to take the devil drinks? Besides its not hard to get alcohol here, there are sold in 7-Es at a very-very affordable price. And yesterday, as I was walking back home from college I saw a local newspaper’s lorry, it was giving out the ‘local newpapaer’ free copy to each house in my area. What interest me is the four page of high quality yellow colored adverts. Guess whats its about? Yups.. a new alcohol! Curiously.. I wonder.. why would you give away that expensive adverts to an area where most are muslims? (muslim students to be exact) I don’t really mind if it was distributed in bangsar or damansara… Should I stay ‘husnuzon’ on their intention of giving the news for free or they have some other hidden agenda? and the picture of my friends drinking..dancing..’stone-ing’ floats on air…

p/s the same newspaper also reported that Dr.Azzam Tamimi said that islam will not harm if its believers are leaving. One must understand that (as Dr.Asri said), we should just leave the apostates if that is what they really want, the most important issue here is to not only discuss the issue but to put a stop on its progress, curb it, do something to strengthen the aqidah of the ummah.

[as posted in pmi-daily on nov 30 '06]