Factory Mosque

I was walking back to Building 2 from the Stores warehouse with a box of urgently needed parts. The most direct route through our site complex takes me along a wide hallway at the back end of Building 1. As I passed Shipping, a small group of employees were dashing in and out of a conference room. They had removed all of the conference room's furniture. Tables, chairs, a TV, and an overhead projector were dogpiled just outside the room entrance. Curiosity got the best of me so I stopped and asked one of the busy workers what they were up to. A guy carrying equipment into the hallway said they were clearing this conference room out to make a temporary Mosque for Islamic Malaysians who would be arriving at our factory soon.

I'd been hearing grumbling from some employees about a Mosque being set up on site, but I thought it was all bullshit. Since I don't ever go to meetings around here anymore I guess I missed the announcement a few weeks ago. Management wants to make accomodations for Muslim Malay in every way possible so they offered to give them a private room on site they can use to pray in. I don't know much about the Islamic faith but I've heard they have to pray multiple times a day or something like that. Seems a little much to me, but whatever.

The interesting thing about all this is the amount of anger coming from many of our Christian employees. They're the major source of grumbling concerning this. We don't allow for churches anywhere in our manufacturing sites or office complexes, so why are we suddenly allowing a Mosque? It's a good point. But from what little I know about Muslims they have to pray in a room facing Mecca throuought the day every day. Christians only show up someplace to worship once a week and generally when they're not at work. Big difference there. Personally I think it's a little weird having a Mosque sprout up at work all of a sudden but really I don't care one way or the other. I have more important things to concern myself with.

As usual thanks to Christian wingnuts I'm getting another reminder of how hypocritical they are. Instead of being understanding and accepting of Malaysian religious needs, I sense a rising amount of intolerance and hatred coming from their beady-eyed crew of Bible-thumpers over this Mosque stuff. Reminds me of all the years I had to suffer through their mentally ill teachings as a kid growing up in private Christian schools. What a miserable time of my life those years were. I won't ever forget it. I learned quickly to watch Christians and pay attention to their actions, rather than their words. Words mean little when dealing with these people. They're always talking about what they will do, what they think they do, and what you should do. But their actions seldom if ever match up to all the talk.