‘Catholics won’t now suddenly change’

(FMT) - LAHAD DATU: A former Sabah chief minister has scoffed at the idea that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican City this week would endear him to the Christian majority in Sabah and Sarawak.

Downplaying Najib’s meeting with the Pope, Yong Teck Lee claimed it was “nothing out of the ordinary” and was purely a diplomatic event.

He dismissed attempts to paint the visit as a fence-mending trip following last year’s religious tension in the country between Muslims and Christians.

He said the visit by Najib would in no way raise his profile among the Christians and Catholics in the country, especially in Sabah and Sarawak where Christians form a sizeable population.

He said Najib’s visit should not be seen as a damage control exercise by the federal government after what was seen as an attempt to curb religious freedom following a series of faux pas by the authorities pandering to demands by certain Islamic leaders.

These were exposed at the time as bearing the hallmark of political manoeuvring.

“The Catholics in this country will continue to do what they have always done.

“Sabahans have always been very tolerant of other religions and they won’t suddenly change,” Yong said.

Yong was responding to FMT on Najib’s visit in the light of the government’s ban on the use of the word “Allah” in the Bahasa Malaysia version of the Bible and the detention of thousands of copies of the holy book in Sarawak and in the peninsula earlier this year.

Planned ahead

Yong, who is Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) president, said that even the reported tension following the ban on the word “Allah” and the arson attacks on churches in the peninsula in January last year were not a true reflection of the feelings of the people in the country.

He believes the whole issue was played up by political activists and was ignored by ordinary Christians in Sabah and Sarawak who continued to practise their faith as they had always done.

“This (visit to the Vatican) was a government head-to-head exercise. People should not read too much into the visit as it was something that would have taken a lot of time to prepare.

“I believe the visit must have been already planned far ahead of the the sudden flare-up of religious tension in Sarawak.

“There would have been government-to-government preparations… what to say, what not to say… you know… the diplomatic needs,” he said.

On Catholic Archbishop Murphy Packiam’s role in aiding Najib in his call on the Pope, he said:

“Some people are saying Archbishop Pakiam should not have accompanied Najib as it would be seen as taking part in politics.