The recent church demolition in Gua Musang in Malaysia is a bit of a wreck in terms of government protection of the minority. It is another piece of evidence that the Malaysian government does not care about its minority rights, including (or especially?) religious rights. I would not be the least bit surprised if there was even tacit approval and connivance. A properly constructed building for religious purposes was recklessly wrecked by local government running amok and what did the government do, despite advanced warning by a national para-church organisation which has a relatively consistent, cogent and strong voice? Zilch. Maybe the head of government was busy preparing for his wedding and the religious rights of a few church goers, and orang asli at that, were of the least consequence. After all, the signal was already sent by way of the Federal Court decision in Lina Joy. The last I checked, Christians number 2% in Malaysia. What’s the population of Malaysia now – 26 million? That makes Christians what – 520,000? Hindus are another group with similarly affected, with numerous places of worship summarily demolished. What’s the population of Hindus in Malaysia? Approximating Hindu population to that of Indians, on a very rough estimate Hindu and Christian population in Malaysia total just under 2 million. What if the religious sentiments of this very considerable group rises and borders on the dangerous, given the Muslim majority government’s attitudes towards wanton destruction of churches and temples? Can the Malaysian government risk an uprising of 2 million people? Christians and Hindus are peace loving people and unlike Muslims, they have a far less tendency to resort to emotional and violent reaction. That does not mean however, that they would continue to do nothing if these acts of bullying and persecution continue. Witness what happened in Indonesia and northern and western India – it shows no matter how peace loving someone is, push him around hard enough and he’d react. The Malaysian government should think clearly and understand where this line is before it is crossed. It’d be stupid of them to ignore this. But then again, that would not be something new.
Careful now, Malaysia
Published
Ante 
your nick sounds familiar…
anyway… i am pretty sure the gomen will do nothing… unfortunately. of cos,in the press, they will say otherwise.
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This is strange, because this blogpost echoes a thought I had a few weeks’ ago.
Surely, good politics demands that you be nice to, or at least, do not put up the backs of people with power. And indeed, non-Muslims do have that sort of power in numbers to rise up, unless the Government is counting on having divided all of us well-enough along racial lines to not have to worry.
And, when most of the wealth is in the hands of the Chinese, surely it is in the government’s best interest to be nice to them, rather than frustrating them all you want. Sure, “rayu the rakyat to be patriotic” all you want, but should all the non-Malays decide we’re sick of it, and just up & go, they’re sunk!
(Then again, there is the matter of not having the money to up & go, since NEP doesn’t exactly favour the poor POOR, anyway :P)
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“Christians and Hindus are peace loving people and unlike Muslims, they have a far less tendency to resort to emotional and violent reaction”
which christians and which muslims do you mean here? I can give you a lot of proofs how christian is not that nice, dude. No offence, but that is history. If you don’t have any idea what i’m talking about than, you really don’t read history alot…..I think blogger like you should be caught by police for making such statement
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“as”, thanks for dropping by and leaving the above comment.
It would of course be trite to say no one is perfect, but I’ll say it anyway. No one is perfect. However, if you look at recent events you’d have to agree Muslims are way more inclined to violence and such violence is almost always carried out in the name of their religion.
You’re right, I don’t read a lot of history. I don’t intend to, because I’m really that interested in what happened in the past, especially the distant past. The present day events, like I said, show Muslims to be more inclined towards violence.
Why do you think I should be arrested for asking the Muslims to be more moderate and measured in their treatment of believers of other religions? Do you think the minority would stay docile and submissive if the majority trample on their religious rights? Is it wrong to say cool it, because you are trampling on things which are important and central to lives of many? Don’t you think the police should instead, direct their attention towards those who demolished the places of worship instead?
I’d appreciate exchanging views with you on the above or other matters. To do that however, it’d be great if I could know a little more about you.
Many thanks.
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