Tempted to commit adultery? Indonesian governor says 'Go pray!'

No one condones adultery but to think that prayer is going to prevent it is like singing a song to make it rain.

Mahwash Badar April 18, 2014
Are you afraid that you will be so attracted to the opposite sex that you will forget your vows to your significant other?

Are you afraid that your sexual urges will no longer be in your control and if you’re an employer, you will most definitely sexually harass your employees?

If yes, it may be time for you to move to Indonesia.

A governor in Indonesia has found a cure for adultery – prayer. Apparently, he has never known an adulterer who prays five times a day. Either that or he feels that the longer he keeps men and women on the prayer mat, the longer they can avoid thinking about the ‘birds and the bees’.

What’s more is that the governor seems to be on a serious mission to address the tendency of civil servants to cheat on their wives. Last year, he had insisted that their salaries be sent to their wives’ accounts to prevent them from spending on their mistresses and that male officers not be allowed to hire female secretaries.

My first question is simple. When did prayer become the solution for adultery and all other social misdemeanours?

If that were so, should we all simply leave our day-to-day affairs and head to the church, the mosque or the temple to hum verses and sing hymns?

Does that mean that religion magically changes human beings?

Or does it mean that instead of God expecting human beings to live their lives and be moral at the same time, they’re supposed to sit in places of worship and seek solace in rituals, simply to avoid provocation?

My second question is political. The concept of governments interfering in people’s personal lives is taking a whole new turn with ‘orders’ such as these. If such orders are really meant to bring positive change in people’s social lives, then there are bigger problems that need immediate attention and correction by governments.

Children need food, vaccines and education. Women need post and pre-natal care in Third World countries. Rape and sexual abuse needs to stop and we need to empower women to have a voice against such injustices.

Indonesia has a law that states that the punishment for masturbation is decapitation. I’m not a lawyer but who’s going to bring someone to court for such a thing?
“Yes, Your Honour, I saw Mr XYZ watching a pornographic film and masturbating.”

If I were the judge, my first question would be,
“And you just stood there and watched?”

Let’s hope that this blog doesn’t give the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) the idea to find a punishment or pass a law for the person who reports this heinous crime!

The Muslim world has got to stop featuring in the headlines this way – clerics banning women from seeing or touching bananas and cucumbers and shopping alone. The world is filled with real problems; ones which require money, resources and intelligence. Yet, there is no decree given by any cleric that claims that a man who even so much as attempts to force himself on a woman shall live in the lowest rungs of hell for all eternity.

But when a woman is raped, she’s asked to produce witnesses.

No one condones adultery or any of the social transgressions that occur but to think that a mass prayer is going to solve this issue is like hoping that singing a song will make it rain.
WRITTEN BY:
Mahwash Badar The author is a clinical psychologist, a mum to two boys and permanently in a state of flux. She tweets @mahwashajaz_ (https://twitter.com/mahwashajaz_)
The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necassarily reflect the views and policies of the Express Tribune.

COMMENTS (59)

Waqar | 10 years ago | Reply We have a habit of forcefully finding something bad in everything. This article is a prime example of that. I mean do you want to be sexually harassed? He suggested a solution and whether it works or not is a different thing but why questioning it? Such a strange thing to criticise.
Bharatham Today | 10 years ago | Reply Mahwash Badar thinks that she is 'intelligent' just because she were a 'Doctor'. But reading her foolish anti-Islamic articles, it is apparent that she is a 'Megalomaniac', who thinks her funny 'Pakistani English' used against Islam is the 'cream of English literature'. To begin with her field 'Clinical Psychology' is used to be derided by most 'real Doctors', as an effort to sell a house that is non-existent and is built on a 'Plot' that is nowhere to be found. That is so because, the field of Psychology itself is built on a whole lot of 'theories' and rely very much on 'Sedatives' and 'Anti-depressants' and nothing else. Just like this girl Doctor Mahwash Badar, I have come across so many 'Clinical Psychologists' who used to crow about 'Alpha Male and Beta Female' - all useless and good for nothing 'Sociotype Theories' and would cringe when confronted with requirement for 'solid proofs'. Again the time taken by these so called Psychologists to cure mental illness is almost the lifetime of every 'Psychiatric Patient'. Doctor Mahwash Badar your 'eyewash' profession is far too inferior, for you to fool around this way and hence 'Physician heal thyself first'.
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