Malaysia blames quake on naked selfie tourists, some of whom now can't go home

boing
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no. if there was a law against public nudity, and the penalty for breaking such a law was within reason, then i wouldn’t be against them facing a reasonable penalty, but I might speak out against the law and that i disagree with it and work to change it if i felt it was unjust. that is how progress happens. if i felt the reaction is disproportionately unjust i’d speak up more loudly.

a bunch of people getting naked to take a selfie in a graveyard and being rude to the groundskeeper when he asks them to put their clothes back on is grounds to be barred from the cemetery, or a fine, tops one night in jail to think their actions out. being prevented from leaving a country, being accused of causing a natural disaster and causing multiple deaths, being threatened with charges that if convicted of would mean death, those are well beyond the response i think is reasonable. back it out of the realm of being a human rights issue and the situation makes a lot more sense. i’m vocal about my ideas, but i’m not forcing them on anyone, unlike the people in this situation. i’m merely discussing my thoughts and opinions on them.

disagreeing with a religion or superstition, isn’t any different the what the religion or superstition does to anyone who isn’t a part of it or is part of a different one. it is everyones right to disagree. disagreeing polity and using well reasoned discourse is of course preferred to anyone being rude, disagreeing itself isn’t bad it is human nature and the reality of human existence with a myriad of belief systems. i think that anyone imposing their beliefs onto others who do not share them is problematic.

i think that charging anyone for causing an earthquake is ignorant and wrong. laws and views against nudity i see as being something worth working to improve. i do not condone intentionally being disrespectful, i do think that everyone has different ideas of what being respectful is and isn’t and it is again problematic to transpose those onto others.

does that help clarify?

i wasn’t one of the tourists. I am discussing this in my own online community. i do address this in my culture. i have every right to disagree with how other people handle dealing with things though. challenging long held ideas in any culture isn’t a bad thing. the world is a lot more global and a lot less isolated then it used to be. global discussions about human rights, acceptable treatment of other humans, are crucial imho, and should transcend cultural, political, racial, religious, and geographic boundaries. this is partially why we have things like the UN the Geneva Convention, etc. this is a case where an international group of tourists acted in certain way and certainly worthy of an international discussion on the matter, in my opinion.

i do accept these values back home and I have not traveled to their country and imposed these values on them. nor is their culture homogenous and unanimous, same as any culture. I’ve never encountered any race, culture, country, that wasn’t as multifaceted as the people that made it up. We are discussing the reaction of a subset of a large diverse culture. discussion is good.

I’m not on their turf, nor am i fighting any cultural battles.

In this thread? I must have blocked them out, I’ll reread. :slight_smile: thx.

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Sure, but they haven’t been charged with any of that, yet. Acting as if they already have been? That’s the issue. I still don’t see the difference between what’s happened here (and is being blamed on an ENTIRE COUNTRY) and Pat Robertson, yet. When there are actual charges, then the response might be appropriate. And they’re not being allowed to leave because they had committed SOME crime - most people aren’t actually allowed to leave the country after they commit crimes. I’m pretty sure people who are allowed to commit crimes and then flee no problem are the exception.

Luckily, this hasn’t happened yet, then.

This is a complete over-response to a bunch of nothing - and it’s being done in a sweeping style (look at how many people are attacking all members of the religion, or their cultural beliefs over something one or two people said) when there’s no right for it to be. When something concrete happens, then worry about it.

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Then why dedicate a whole post against an attack that doesn’t exist? I’m criticizing them. If you want to defend them, then don’t make this about you and twist that into some irrational defense. If you don’t want to defend them, then don’t.

I am not criticizing the fight for the acceptance of nudity back home, nor anyone arguing that on an internet forum. I am entirely on the side of the people who do that. I am criticizing people who go to some culture they don’t understand in order to impose their values on them and fuck what the locals think.

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except people are discussing the threat by a government official to charge them with these things, not acting like they have already been charged. discussing the situation is a good thing, and a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

no one is blaming the entire country, in either country.

The response at this point is reasoned discussion, which is never inappropriate for any situation.

if there are actual charges of the nature that were publicly threatened then a much greater response would be required of the international community to step in and intervene. if there is a reasonable fine and they are banned from re-entering the country, then i don’t think anyone will make a big deal of it.

how is discussion an over response to discussion? people are responding to the statments of this government official and the assertions by a subset of people, that is a disproportionate reaction. discussing that disproportionate reaction is not an over-response. you are discussing their discussion in a more over reactionary way then they are discussing the initial over reaction.

i wasn’t one of the tourists. i’m not forcing my views onto anyone. i’m not fighting a cultural war. i’m discussing the issue in my own community. every single thing you accuse me of is incorrect and i’m not doing any of them.

i am discussing the situation and expressing my opinions in my community, same as every reasonable poster here.

============================================

I’m really not sure what is up with all the personal attacks against individuals for disagreeing while claiming they are making attacks they are not. i would say it is ironic, but it is worse then that.

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The analogy would be more accurate if a group of kids photographed themselves topless inside a St Peters toilet where no-one else could see them, and the Vatican found the photograph a week later and used it to blame them when a stairway collapsed.

If the Sabah authorities are worried about touristic disrespect to the sacred mountain, the answer is in their hands… Stop. Tourists. Climbing. Sacred. Mountain.

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I’m enjoying your posts as of late, but this keeps cropping up, and it’s like fingernails on a blackboard to my pedantic sensibilities.
Forgive me for calling it out.

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Personally I blame the Kinabalu earthquake on Nestle’s decision to change the Milo recipe.

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Wait. Whaaat? I bought regular Milo last week. Going back to the shop to stock up.
Thanks for the heads-up.

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Your analogy is missing two important details: There was a local guide with the group who asked them not to undress & they were not behind the bushes but middle of the sacred place.

The concept might be hard for Western minds to comprehend but some cultures do consider natural sites sacred and I find it reasonable to respect that. Even Italy is full of sacred spaces, where people pilgrimage to and the locals wouldn’t appreciate some kids taking naked unselfies there.

And very finally if I took a bunch of people around my patch of the woods in East London and told them not to undress in front of the East London Mosque or the Wesleyan Chapel and they would do it non the less, I would be pretty pissed off.

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For your comparison to work, the undressing would have to be performed under conditions whereby no-one noticed it until the government decided to notify everyone of the disrespect.

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… the undressing would have to be performed under conditions whereby no-one noticed it …

No, one of the vatican priests was there, noticed it, told them to stop, and was told to STFU

… until the government decided to notify everyone of the disrespect

Well, that and the streakers posting their photos all over social media.

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I am not saying disrespecting religion is racist. I am saying when you don’t disrespect religions or cultures in your own country, but do so in a generally brown skinned country as a white person, I feel perfectly free to say it is racist.

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You what? You think it’s sanctimonious to question the underlying motivation of a bigot who uses their affronted sense of piety as an excuse to marginalise people through bigotry? Seems like, if anything, that’s anti-sanctimony.

And in so questioning the act of being offended as it pertains to a bigot’s supposed prerogative to influence the practice of freedom on those whom that bigot would choose to attempt to impose his vile fascism, you find sanctimony?

Many different things may be sacred to many different people but when someone should use their sense of impugned piety as a method of limiting someone else’s freedom of expression, freedom of behaviour and, in some cases, freedom to posses life and then a question is made as to whether their being offended should in any way afford them the authority to do these dastardly deeds, your response is to call them sanctimonious!

I’m afraid you’ll have to do a lot better than that.

Perhaps you could explain yourself better than merely pointing to someone who is fighting against sanctimony and call them sanctimonious for doing such.

You don’t win by just reflecting the criticism back at them without providing any reasoning.

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Personally, I find the use of the term “sanctimonious” here to be really fucking funny, seeing as Stephen Fry is a very prominent and outspoken atheist. It’s a pretty ironic term to peg on a guy who doesn’t believe anything is sacred or holy when that word literally means “holier than thou”.

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The climbers were detained to assist police investigations under Section 290 of the Penal Code for allegedly causing a public nuisance. Not for somehow causing the earthquake.

See this local news report published the day before the earthquake:

The Borneo Post - High Alert at Exit Points for ‘Mountain Nudists’

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I think the problem most of the people in this thread have, is that they were very publicly accused, by an official of the government, of causing the earthquake which claimed a number of lives.

Further, I don’t believe anyone here has questioned the governments authority to use their being affronted at people disrespecting their culture to charge them with such and meter out a justifiable punishment.

Whether or not I may find people’s beliefs stupid or not, the underlying criticism is using those stupid beliefs as a justification for laying the blame for a natural disaster at the feet of some tourists, who are not able to leave the country, and who are therefore in danger of having reprisals enacted against them by people in the country who do believe the superstitious nonsense that they caused the earthquake, is dangerous and bordering on insanity.

There was a story recently about a young canadian travelling on his own who mas macheted to death, probably because he was accused of making a remark about the president and then refused exit by the authorities. He managed to leave a voicemail to his family explaining this, then when his hacked up body was found, the authorities investigated and concluded he had committed suicide.

The canadian consul has very little sway there and can do next to nothing. The supposed reason for the quick wrap up of the investigation that concluded the authorities and murderers were not at fault? Tourism.

People can be offended all they want, and it may not be a good idea to deliberately offend people’s religiously motivated sense of authority just because you think their beliefs are egregiously stupid.

But to publicly accuse them of causing a natural disaster in a place where those unfounded, deeply held beliefs are, in fact, believed, endangers their lives based on a superstition.

The fact that I would deride people for having stupid beliefs is ancillary to the central point, and is my own, self-motivated criticism of the kind of mind-state that feels motivated to make dangerous statements to dangerous people motivated by dangerous beliefs.

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Also, I find this kind of argument, where absolute adherence to official actions is concentrated on whilst ignoring anything else that has happened is tantamount to sticking one’s head in the sand.

It appears that when people do this, they are motivated to ignore the reality of the situation, focusing only on information they might interpret to prop up their own agenda. Which is also specious and should be argued against.

Deputy Chief Minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan, of the eastern Sabah state, blamed the earthquake on the group that included the Canadians

Whilst it may not be an official position, an official of the government did indeed, publicly accuse them of causing the deaths of many people by creating the earthquake by offending the mountain.

In a place where people who are not part of the government, and perhaps even people who are part of the government may believe such information and act on it, independently or in concert, with or without an official, publicly avowed, government seal of approval.

Unfounded beliefs are dangerous when people who hold them use them dangerously.

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Joseph Pairin Kitingan was speaking in his capacity as Huguan Siou, or “Paramount Leader” of the Kadazan-Dusun people who revere Mount Kinabalu.

And I picked the previous article precisely because it was published before the earthquake, hence there is no “unofficial” position to muddy the waters.

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And yet he inhabits a role as a government official and carries the authority of such a position whatever shoes he happens to be wearing whilst making dangerous accusations.

You just did exactly what I was criticising you for.

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Much appreciated, thanks. The fact that locals were expressing their grumpiness prior to the earthquake is contrary to my earlier expectations.