How 'Kolot' My Community Can Be

A few days back an article in Berita Harian ran a story about this kurma, or date. A series chain of email, with its origin unknown, has been making its round and causing discomfit for quite a many netizens. When I first read that email I couldn't help but feel sorry for the person who wrote it.

Look at the date on your right. This product is from Iran. What does it tell you? What do you feel? Do you think the image looks like the Virgin Mary? Did that association cross your mind? And if it did, were you bother by it?

The trouble with some folks out there, and I mean the Malay Muslim community here, and [this taleban, rigid-like paranoia isn't exclusive in this country]; is that they tend to take, interpret, read, things too literally. These rabid ultra Islamists, [oklah let's not use that word] - let's refer them -- believers, for they too, worship the same God that I worship, just love to stir shit. So what if the image looks like Virgin Mary? You're not worshipping her, right? Some shaken netizens went so far as to claim that the dates are cleansed in Holy water. Seriously, if there was a conspiracy to convert millions of Muslims out there, you'd stand a better chance of doing so by -- eating dates? Whatever happens to your conviction in the faith?

You know how the community reacts when they're faced with unknown entity and this is a perfect example of misplaced text and context here. They get angry, they get mad and they want everybody to stay away, and boycott the product. I'm not sure if this 'kolot' reaction was because the image was associated to Virgin Mary and that she is a venerated figure in the Quran or it's because the 'kolot' mentality in them freaks out each time they see a biblical, iconic association in their face. In either case, I pity them more than the importer of these dates.