East Malaysian Christian In Response To Himpunan Sejuta Umat (HIMPUN)

Kuching
Monday,17th October  2011

Article 11 of the Malaysia Constitution provides that every person has the right to profess and practice his own religion. Every person has the right to propagate his religion, but state law and, in respect of the Federal Territories, federal law may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among Muslims. There is, however, freedom to carry on missionary work among non-Muslims. But lately this article has been abused by the Muslim. If Tun Jugah and those who supported Sarawak to join Malaysia are still alive until today I believed they may want Sarawak to pull out from Malaysia. As far as the Muslims are concerned, there are only two types of population, the Muslim and non-nuslim. There is no such religion as Christian, Buddhist or Hinduism. They are non-believers thus will go to hell!

Today I am going to write about the ill treatment of Christians by government in Malaysia.

Government of Malaysia leads by UMNO will typically tell foreigners that all members of all religions are treated ‘equally’ and get along amicably. That’s the image sold overseas, at any rate. The reality is quite different. Islam is the official state religion, so it enjoys all sorts of official and unofficial privileges, such as lavish state-built mosques, massive taxpayer-funded proselytization programmes for Muslims (but not for other belief systems), sprawling Government-run Islamic universities, a distinct pro-Islamic and pro-jihad tilt in the state-owned and influenced media, and more.

On a more personal level, Muslims in Malaysia have on numerous occasions destroyed churches, sometimes with official backing on the flimsiest of pretexts (like for supposed ‘code violations’). The same has also happened to Hindu and Buddhist temples. Bibles are sometimes seized in carload lots by the (Muslim) authorities on one technicality or another. New church construction is heavily discouraged, and it takes years if not decades for new churches to be approved and built. And they must be built in a ‘low profile’ manner if they are allowed to be built at all.

All of these restrictions and the drip-drip-drip of discrimination, or worse, creates a tense and foreboding atmosphere for Christians. It’s pointless for Christians — who are mostly Indians, Chinese and the natives of sabah and Sarawak — to petition the Malay (Muslim) government for any sort of redress of grievances, because the police, courts and judges here are all owned and operated by Muslims. So increasingly, the ‘infidels’ especially the Indian and Chinese are leaving — permanently but for the natives have to fight on their own. 

The Muslim-controlled government goes to strenuous lengths to make it appear that this country is a ‘harmonious’ mixture of various belief systems. The key word is ‘appear’. Malaysia is indeed a mix of different religions, but it is kept ‘harmonious’ only through Islamic coercion — official and otherwise — and the threat (sometimes actual acts) of violence. ‘Harmonious’ also is a code word in Malaysian political discourse for ‘Islam must remain culturally and politically dominant’. Malaysian Muslims are also never willing to state for the record that a Hindu, Buddhist or Christian is the equal of a Muslim. They cannot — their belief system specifically forbids it, and if a Muslim believes otherwise, he is automatically an apostate — a traitor to Islam.

This country is also becoming more ‘Islamified’ as the years go by — Muslims are become more pious, or at least make more of a show of it more by wearing hijabs, tudongs and other Islamic garb, attending mosque more often, and in other, less obvious but more sinister ways ). 

Additionally, and more importantly, the growing Islamification is increasing the numbers of Muslims in Malaysia through procreation, conversion and immigration, and compelling the non Muslims to leave. The departing non-Muslims — mostly Christians, but also Buddhists and Hindus — tend to be the most educated, entrepreneurial and productive Malaysians. This has the makings of a long term economic catastrophe for Malaysia, if the Muslims and their government could but clear the fog of Islam from their minds and come to honest grips with the problem. This ‘brain drain’ issue is well known inside Malaysia, but the real causes (Islamic-inspired bigotry, persecution, enforcement of sharia) are not discussed, or allowed to be discussed openly.

Why is the world silent? The silence is, as I see it, a combination of many factors: what happened in Malaysia is not as bad as in Indonesia, Egypt etc and why bother  , and a dash of NIMBY-ism (‘not in my back yard’) thrown in for good measure. Who cares about Christians in Malaysia getting their Bibles seized or their churches bulldozed or blocked from construction? 

Malaysian Insider reports this morning that The Himpunan Sejuta Umat (Himpun), or Gathering of a Million Faithful, is going to be held this Saturday, 23rd October 2011 at Dataran Merdeka Kuala Lumpur by  various right-wing groups such as Perkasa with the backing of both Umno and PAS Youth in what appears to be a coming together of conservative Muslims. The gathering is in respond to the Christians "challenging to the soveriegnty of Islam".

When I first looked at the photo (above), I thought they were bunch of Abu Bakar followers "the Muslim Extremists from Indonesia" , but after looking at it carefully only than I realised that they were the members of racist Perkasa.

To all Malaysian Christians, we must react rationally and not to lose our cool. Being followers of the peaceful religion, we must follow what has been thought in the Bible. As bible thought us to "make peace and not war" thus we must forgive them. We should never blame them as they only follow the teaching of their religion.

As a Christian, I am calling all my brothert and sisters in Christ , we must work together in order to defense ourselves from these extremist muslims. We just cannot keeping quiet and let them ransack or plunder our churches. The action of JAKIM raided the church in Selangor merely on suspicious, the action of Muslims spit out our holy communion, churches arson etc should not be allowed unchecked. Luckily what happened in West Malaysia did not happen here but it does not mean that we have to wait until it happen in sarawak. Being the majority we should help our brothers and sisters in Peninsular Malaysia from being unfairly treated by the majority muslim . We must help them, not through war or violent of course but through moral support. We cant just rely on Jabu, Masing and Mawan to fight for our right as enshrined by the constitution. For them their minister-ship is more important.

To all the West Malaysian Christians, We are Behind You.

Mupok Aku