MY TAKE ON: Home Ministry reprimands The Star over supplement

Considering Malaysia is one of the Asian countries that have three races embedded within the constitution, sensitivity to religions of each race becomes a vital factor when dealing with editorial pull outs of the nation’s main media – newspaper. The issue pertaining the Ramadhan Delights (on the muslim’s holy month) that included non-halal suggestions (restaurants) raises the contestation of different cultural and religious ideologies perceived between the editor of the pull out and of the home ministry.

Image Source: http://www.malaysiakini.com

From my point of view, the dispute was largely due to the different aspects of cultural understanding between races and was done unintentionally. Narvaez et al.’s, outlook on cultural ideology suggests that the basis for the formation of moral thinking is directly link to the norms, values and standards that exists independently share by groups as part of a mutual culture (1999, p. 478). 

In this case; the home ministry was apprehensive that the insensitivity would cause a stir among Muslims in the country during the holy month and will cause confusion as this might lead them to think that the suggested restaurants are halal, compliant to Muslims’ standards. On another note, the editor’s lack of moral thinking during the write up felt that it wasn’t a sensitive issue to begin with – thus expecting fellow Muslim Malaysians would have prior knowledge and self-evident of differences in the offerings. 

Another concept that is relevant to this article is ethical in publications, however how do we determine what is ethical in publishing on a cultural context? According to Sade, it is important to find mutual grounds while acknowledging the importance of respect (2003) in publication of materials and different considerations must be taken into account. Therefore, a write up that is aware of mutual cultural standards may have less turmoil in the future. 

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REFERENCE LIST

Narvaez, D., Getz, N., Rest, J. R., Thoma, S. J., 1999, “Individual Moral Judgment and Cultural Ideologies”, American Psychological Association, Vol 35, No. 2, (p. 478 – p. 488) Viewed 11th June 2012.

[Available Online]:

http://www.nd.edu/~dnarvaez/documents/Narvaez99ideo.pdf

Sade, R. M., 2003, “Publication of Unethical Research Studies: The Importance of Informed Consent”, Viewed 11th June 2012.

[Available Online]:

http://ats.ctsnetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/75/2/325