Nightclubs and Ramadhan

Every year it is the same old story, the same problems, arguments and confrontation, and yet solutions and logic are ignored. The holy month is for Muslims and their "individual" communion with their God, which has nothing at all to do with nightclubs and recreation and entertainment centers. If these places of entertainment are acting in an illegal offensive way, then it is a matter for the National Police to investigate, no matter what month of the year it is.

A religion has no right above the law of the land, and those that practice the religion in the way it should be practiced, would not want to be involved in such confrontations. The choice of fasting for one month is up to the individual.

Respect for each other is most certainly the wise choice, but in doing so one must accept the other persons' point of view. There is a thing called "root cause analysis" and this is meant to focus the mind on where the real problem exists. In this case the real problem is the inability or reluctance of the National Police to solve a problem that has existed for years. Second, the world is far from perfect, and in its imperfection comes a number of unavoidable tragedies -- one of those being prostitution. The root cause of prostitution is poverty, so why not tackle and solve that problem rather than clobber the nightclub owners, who themselves only feed off the problem?

DAVID WALLS

Medan, North Sumatra