NAME: NOOR FADILLAH BINTI JAAFAR

MATRIC NUMBER: PSM0071/12

1/ WHAT I THOUGHT BEFORE CLASS?

I didnt come to class last Thursday due to a headache. Fortunately I did some reading on
the topic that Dr. will be discussing a liberalism. Liberalism can be focuses on 2 parts which is
first parts is the economic part whereby government should enforce the open competition to
citizens but in the same time, there should be a little bit of intervention especially in order to
create an equilibrium of demand and supply in the market. It is somehow differs from Lassez
Faire as it allows government intervention that could led to the benefits of the majority citizens.
This mechanism is good to control monopolies and public good distribution. Economic
liberalism, in general, favors redistribution of income through taxes and welfare payments.
On the second part of liberalism, which is a political part, it emphasizes on the individual
liberty and stress on the importance of freedom of choice preservation. It held high the principle
of all individuals should stand equal before law. It defends freedom of speech and press, freedom
of artistic and intellectual expression, freedom of worship, private property, and use of
state resources for the welfare of the individual.

2/ WHAT I LEARNED IN CLASS?

As I didnt attend the class last week, I am borrowing a note from my classmate.
Liberalism in the last week discussion consisted of 6 points which are freedom, democracy,
equity, human rights, liberal democracy and free market. The first point is freedom. How free are
we all? Can it all be measured? We have our own individual freedom. We are free to move
anywhere and we have a choice to buy whatever we wanted. That is our own individual freedom.
Freedom of speech is also part of individual freedom. We are free to voice out our own opinion,
ideas and critics. However in Malaysia we have a very limited access of freedom of speech. We
are refrained to talk about the malay rights, islam religion and other things that could touch
sensitivity of certain races and sparked the intense racial feelings. For community freedom, we
are free to practice our own religion, celebrate our own festive and there is no forbidden upon
such practices as long as it didnt invade others privacy and rights. We also has a freedom of
assembly as the major examples could be given is the series of biggest rally ever which is
Bersih 2.0 and 3.0. The second point for liberalism is democracy itself whereby everybody is
entitled to their rights and opinion and individuality rights is being held in such a high value. We
are free to choose our leader and entitled to do so. The third point is equity where it would be
judge from the aspect of education, equal opportunity, property and employment.

The fourth point is human rights. The way we practiced human rights are different with
American citizens as we have faith and we believe in our religion. They( the American) did not
believe in the religion and somehow held their constitution that embrace the human right
principles which is much higher than the bible itself. For them, their constitution is their
direction manual. They embrace human rights for the source of calmness and happiness. The
fifth point which is pretty much the same with democracy only at this point it stress more on
liberalism. Last but not least is the free market whereby the competition in the market is open
and free to enter by all but liberalism welcomed a little bit intervention by government to do
check and balance in the free market.

3/WHAT I UNDERSTOOD?
As liberalism emphasizes on democracy, the democracy should not be adopted without
limitation. Islam stated that democracy should be enforced with a control mechanism. Giving a
full freedom without any restraint would do more harm than good. For example, the freedom
without control such a fully permissible of freedom of speech will led to hate remarks and even
bigotry. It created chaotic situation and the harmony disruption among races. On the part of
human rights, we are receiving and adopting to it as long as it did not go against our religion
boundary. In the Islamic perspective, we are embracing the humanity. It is viewed as a good
deed. We are against oppression, slavery and superiority over each other. It is the basis part of
islam. On that part we are accepting human rights as good practices. However, for marriage
equality that fighting for the cause of LGBT which is also part of human rights, Malaysia are
condemning this because it against Islam religion. To sum it up, there are some of aspect of
human rights we can accept and there are some of it we should reject.