Recipe for disunity – Darell Leiking

The recent development relating to the growing inter-racial and religious conflicts in the Sabah and Sarawak is certainly throwing many people from different races into the pits of despair and dissatisfaction despite all the portrayal by the Barisan Nasional government of the so-called 1Malaysia unity cliché in the national media and television.

The spillover did, unfortunately, in some way affect the partners of the federation of Malaysia – the Sabah and Sarawak folk, who have for decades accepted that racial and religious differences are the norm and have always had mutual respect for each other as a unified people of Borneo.   

However the peninsula’s bigotry and intolerance have recently tested the principles of mutual understanding, respect and sensitivity towards other religion under the BN government’s rule.

There was a Christian-bashing seminar in UiTM organised by the Selangor Islamic Religious Council (Mais) whereby several anti-Christian subjects were discussed and where more than 1,000 copies of the controversial book known as “Pendedahan Agenda Kristian” were distributed to the participants.

As a citizen of the federation of Malaysia who believes that mutual respect and sensitivity are of prime importance in this multi-religious country, I have asked the education minister (who is also the deputy prime minister) in the recent parliamentary sitting as to what action will be taken against UiTM for organising such seminar which could create a major misunderstanding between Muslims and non-Muslims in Malaysia.

It is shockingly unbelievable that the deputy prime ministry confirmed in his reply that such seminar were held for “academic purposes & for intellectual discussions”, hence no action would be taken against the institution (UiTM).

It is my opinion, as am sure of many sane people, that UiTM had certainly created a dangerous precedence which will be replicated by not only other Muslim-dominated organisations or institutions but also by the non-Muslim dominated organisations or institutions, all under the guises of “academic discussion & intellectual discussions”.

The inability by the BN government to act on this incident is truly regrettable.

They could have ordered that any such future “academic discussion, forum or seminar” involving sensitive religious issues in any public organisation or institution should be first sanctioned by the National Unity Ministry and that proper and fair panellists representing all views should be invited.

It is as if they are encouraging this bigotry and hatred.

After all, this is exactly the reason the National Unity Ministry is being created in the first place.

Further, in that same reply, the deputy prime minister stated that at the start of the seminar, it was emphasised that no religious bashing was encouraged.

However, this was a paradox when the subjects discussed included “Ancaman Kristianisasi” (Threats by Christians) and “10 sebab mengapa orang Kristian harus memeluk Islam” (10 reasons Christians must embrace Islam).

It shows their arrogance and we in Sabah and Sarawak cannot be part of this bigotry and arrogance.

All this is surely Christian bashing and I urge that UiTM, which should be the centre of learning, must be reprimanded for conducting such a seminar as doing nothing and defending the religion-bashing seminar is shaping UiTM into an extremist religious institution.

This has gone beyond the intention of any fair academic learning institution unless of course by the same definition in the deputy prime minister’s reply, all other “intellectual discussions”, such as a forum in retaliation conducted by non-Muslims is allowed, too.

Lest they forgot that there are many Bumiputeras who are non-Muslims seeking academic excellence in UiTM and having anti-Christian seminars like this would surely be extremely uncomfortable and yes, divert away from the true nature of any centre for academic excellence.

But again, there would seem to be no mutual understanding, respect and tolerance between different races and religions in Malaysia under the Barisan Nasional and this is shown by the way of another religion imposing its whims and fancies over others and the nonchalant reply from the Education Ministry (which is headed by the deputy prime minister) only proves that.

* Darell Leiking is the member of parliament for Penampang.