The Council of Churches of Malaysia (CCM) Youth said the federal government’s proposed solution would split Christians in east Malaysia from those in the peninsula.
“The Malaysian government has unreasonably and unjustly acted in bad faith since the early 1970s to date against the Christian community,” said its secretary Daniel Chai in a statement today.
He said the 10-point proposal did not get to the heart of the matter which is discrimination “against the Christian citizenry for close to 40 years, resulting in the gradual deterioration of basic rights of Christians to freely exercise their faith.”
Faced with an unyielding Christian community days ahead of a crucial state poll in Sarawak, the government offered on Saturday a 10-point solution to the Alkitab impasse which will allow the Bible to be freely distributed across the country in all languages.
The Cabinet offered a new list of suggestions to put an end to the month-long stand-off over 35,000 Alkitab seized by the Home Ministry in a bid to head off a possible backlash against the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) during the April 16 vote by Christians who make up half the population in Sarawak.
However, it insisted that Malay-language bibles in the peninsula be marked with a cross and “Christian Publication” on the front cover.
This was despite a pending appeal by the government over the Kuala Lumpur High Court’s decision to allow non-Muslims to use the term Allah in their printed materials.
Muslims were upset by what they saw as a clear breach of the Control and Restriction of the Propagation of Non-Islamic Religions Enactment that bars non-Muslims from using Allah to refer to God in all states besides Sabah, Sarawak, Penang and the federal territories.
CCM Youth stressed today that the Alkitab issue was not its sole concern, but what it termed as the government’s unjust actions against the Christian community.
It said it “is saddened that Christians today were openly abused, harassed and provoked in the media” by “overzealous religious officers and Islamic-based NGOs” who were “encouraged by the government” to “propagate and sow seeds of hatred towards the Christian community.”
Chai accused the federal government of violating their rights since the ‘70s such as banning or disallowing Christian fellowships from schools and universities, gazetting the Alkitab under the Internal Security Act, denying land to build churches and prohibiting them from calling their god “Allah”.
CCM Youth also lashed out at the federal government for mistakenly linking activities like Valentine’s Day and the poco-poco dance to Christianity without consulting Christians.
“The 10-point proposal served only to promote disunity amongst Christians, playing to the ruling government’s ‘divide-and-rule’ tune,” it said.
The group added that Putrajaya’s 10-point formula reduced Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1 Malaysia concept to mere “political rhetoric”.
“If Christian leaders had agreed to this proposal, the Orang Asal of Sabah and Sarawak would have one rule; while believers in the peninsula, including the Orang Asli, would have another rule.
“Should Christians subject themselves to such confusion and be manipulated to accept such terms?” questioned CCM Youth.
The young Christians further called it “ludicrous” to ban them from using Bahasa Malaysia in exercising their faith.
“On the one hand, non-Malay citizens are often criticised for their purported lack of loyalty when they did not speak Bahasa Malaysia, but when they did, like in this case in order to read the Bible, which they had been doing for generations, they were denied that right,” said CCM Youth.
The group urged the government prove its sincerity in resolving the controversy by dropping its appeal against the High Court’s decision in 2009 to allow Christians to call their god “Allah”.
“This action would immediately lead to the withdrawal of the Allah and the Alkitab from any further restrictions in the country,” it said.
“CCM Youth believes that the 10-point proposal is superfluous as Christian citizens are not asking for anything extra, but for their basic constitutional rights, enshrined in the Federal Constitution, to be respected and honoured,” it added. - Malaysian Insider
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