Two days ago, the news broke that Muslim nurses have to abide by certain regulations if they want to wear the tudung at work. One of them, was the need to have their arms free of any type of clothing and jewelry.
The reason for that is sound.
It’s to prevent infection from spreading around. A nurse deals with numerous patients during their rounds and a long sleeve gets dirty much easily. Be it from bodily discharges, or even from diseases.
Unfortunately, that little requirement has stirred up a huge controversy.
Not among nurses themselves, not among other races and religions but among triggered Muslims.
MUIS, already a regular target for most of the Muslim community, of course took the brunt of the criticism.
There is a lot of this.
Mostly from people who think that MUIS is just a puppet of the government. They think MUIS kow tows to every whim that the authorities issue.
Hate comes not from other races or religions, but from the Muslim community itself. These Netizens are like rabid dogs, frothing and raging at anybody who don’t share their view.
As a fellow Muslim, I’m ashamed at the actions of people like this.
Voice one piece of dissent and they rip into you. We’ve heard of keyboard warriors before. Well, this time we have keyboard zealots who think they know more about Islam than the Islamic scholars at MUIS.
One Netizen voiced my thoughts exactly.
This time around, the racists aren’t from the Chinese majority or even other minority groups. This time it’s the Muslims who are taking things waaaaaaay out of hand.
MUIS does have its defenders though they pale in comparison to the hordes of anti-MUIS netizens.
Those standing with MUIS use logic and reason as their debating instruments.
In a perfect world, that’d be enough for a civil discourse. We don’t live in a perfect world.
The pro-MUIS Netizens’ reasonings and posts are almost always drowned out by the swarm of zealots out to show off their indignation at something that has no effect on most of them.
I’ve read a ton of posts on the subject, but I’ve yet to find one from a Muslim nurse. Could it be that the issue is blown out of proportion by the vocal minority?
A very likely possibility.
There are also elements among the Netizens that were expecting something like this.
Nothing in life is free.
Getting the tudung ban lifted was just one shoe. This, they claim, is the other shoe dropping. It might be a cynical way of looking at things, but I can understand the reason from their point of view.
The Government giveth and the Government taketh something in return. Quid pro quo.
A couple of Netizens wondered though, perhaps the whole issue could’ve been entirely avoided.
If the powers that be had given more thought to this and announced the regulation at the outset, maybe the outcry wouldn’t be as bad?
Surely there was research done, with an eye towards how other countries handled nurses wearing the tudung?
I’m sure this issue was discussed and settled upon long before this.
With all the sessions that the Muslim leaders, MUIS and the Government had about the tudung issue, surely somebody thought of this back then. If they did, why didn’t they just let us all know? If they didn’t, why the hell not?
There are also voices here and there offering suggestions on what can be done.
However, those suggestions are pretty much illogical. Like the one above.
That also highlights some of the issues other races have with nurses wearing tudung. There’s not enough information put out by the authorities to show them what to expect.
It might be plain for some to see that no way will nurses be wearing ONLY a hijab in the operating theatre (they’ll still definitely need to suit up in PPE and surgical scrubs) but some might think otherwise.
Other common issues?
Why are doctors allowed to wear their medical coats but nurses aren’t? Why aren’t we copying other countries and what they’ve done?
All issues with logical answers.
Doctors don’t interact with patients, nurses do. Why should we follow other countries on their procedures? What works for them, might not necessarily work for us.
Unfortunately, it’s much easier to be angry and rage at the machine instead of sitting down and thinking things through. These Netizens don’t see that there’s already been a fundamental change.
While I do agree that the news regarding bare arms should’ve been told right off the bat, those up in arms and dead set against it seem to want to have their cake and eat it too.
Whether MUIS or the authorities will respond to the uproar is anybody’s guess. If it was up to me, I’d just ignore it and it’ll die down in a couple of news cycles.
Why waste the time and energy right?
I think Valerie here has got the right idea. Everybody should just take a step back and relax.