Prime Minister Najib meeting the Pope – is it politics?

Written by: Dr. John Brian Anthony

Malaysia is the 179th country that established diplomatic ties with the Holy See (Vatican). Najib is the second Malaysian Prime Minister to meet a Pope and the official media make it clearly known that Najib visit is on his personal capacity for whatever it means. It became clear that Najib visit to the Vatican is not front page in Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian.

If Najib intention is to mend or assure the Holy See that Malaysia is not an extremist State then he has failed to do so in the mind of many Catholic and Christian in Malaysia.

What are events that needed to be corrected?

1. The use of the word “Allah”

2. The banning of Bahasa Indonesia Bible because it contained the word Allah and also the need to inventorize the Bible and affix it with a Government approval stamp.

3. The burning of the Church

4. The act of belittling the Catholic church by two journalist by partaking in the sacrament of holy communion and without consequences from the authorities

5. No pork in Christian schools

6. Taking down crucifixes in Christian schools

7. No Christian student club allowed in schools and campuses

8. Difficulty in getting approval for building churches

9. assigning Ustaz to rural schools where the population of Muslim is less then 5%

10. the issuance of PR status to Muslim foreign workers mostly working in plantation etc

11. accusing Christian of wanting to change the official religion of Malaysia.

Fortunately christian and the christian churches held on to a high level of maturity in facing these many challenges posted by the BN government of Malaysia. The silent “war” of converting Christian into Muslim and rewarding those who did handsomely as in the orang asli case in Malaya and punishing those who refused to convert.

But I sincerely believed that Najib visit to the Vatican and meeting the holy father is done in good faith without ulterior motive. Nevertheless, such a visit would not sway most of the christian because it is seen as a function of the PM to do so.

In the last Parliamentary by-election in Sibu BN candidate lost to PR-DAP despite wooing the churches with large monetary allocation for repair and maintenance work. Most probably, the help came too late to allow the christian to appreciate what BN is doing or simply the christian saw the effort as vote buying and therefor has no interest to be involved in such sinful act of bribery.

Conclusion

The government could always improve their policies towards the other faith by being less abrasive. The policy should be more inclusive and sensitive to the practices of other religion. For example out of the RM$450 million spent on the expansion of islam the government only spent about Rm$8 million for other religion.

We all pray that our country leaders will be blessed with wisdom and fairness in governing Malaysia. We must also remember that God’s wisdom is beyond our comprehension and is powerful. God’s word can bring down his enemy easily and protect those who hold on to his words. We seek forgiveness and pray for his love.

In order to succeed we Dayak must make the necessary change and Change WE Must.