Christians expressed anger and disappointment with the way Prime Minister Najib Razak handled the latest attack against their community, sparked by a false report published by Utusan, a Malay-language newspaper owned by his Umno party.
Many felt that instead of conciliation and making amends, Najib used a luncheon meeting with select Christian leaders to gain publicity for himself as a Malay and Muslim leader at their expense.
“In the end, it comes out as though the Christians had been guilty and he had managed to get us to change our stance. It is really rubbing salt to the wound,” Christopher Isaac, who frequents the SFX Church in Petaling Jaya told Malaysia Chronicle.
At the end of a 45-minute meeting held a day ago, Najib announced that Christian leaders had pledged to respect the position of Islam as Malaysia's official religion and that they had no intention of challenging the provision enshrined in the Federal.
"There is nothing new in that statement. No one has disputed the position of Islam or the provision in the Federal Constitution, so there is no need for anyone to say it on our behalf," Ramon Navaratnam, a prominent Christian lay-leader, had told Malaysia Chronicle.
“What is lacking is that there wasn’t a joint statement with the Church leaders and this in itself is telling.”
Lack of joint statement bodes ill for future ties
Indeed, Najib’s statement was immediately condemned as being skewed and unbalanced. He did not once mention the role of the Umno bloggers who had helped Utusan stir up the trouble or to chastise them.
Some followers of the inter-faith problems dogging Malaysia said Najib’s refusal to issue a joint statement boded ill for the future. They pointed to the mountain of problems still sitting in the in-tray at the PM’s office under National Unity minister Koh Tsu Koon.
“Najib has purposely avoided a joint statement because he wants to show the Muslim and Malay communities that he will perpetuate the Ketuanan or supremacy policies that other religions are not equal to Islam and other races below the Malays,” said Christopher, who is also a regular contributor to a Christian magazine.
“His aides can try to defuse anger by whispering that it is because the elections are nearby and he has no choice. But these are long-standing principles and if a man cannot make a stand on this, then he is not a man worthy to be a prime minister of a country.”
The Christian leaders who attended the Thursday meeting, including Bishop Ng Moon Hing of the Christian Federation of Malaysia, were left to make their own statements to the press.
"We only said we are very disturbed and unhappy. The irresponsible, potential riot-type seditious words shouldn’t be published in mainstream media or any media for the matter,” said Ng, the CFM chief.
Rubbing salt into the wound created by Umno
A separate statement from the Home Ministry issued later in the evening stating that Utusan had been reprimanded - and not even warned - added salt to the wound.
Serdang MP Teo Nie Ching took Najib to task by questioning why he treated Utusan with such leniency, when in 2008, the government arrested Sin Chew journalist Tan Hoon Cheng under the Internal Security Act. This depite the fact than Tan had correctly reported in her 4-paragraph article a speech made by a Penang Umno leader that called Malaysian Chinese 'penumpang' or passengers.
"While everyone knows that Utusan Malaysia is the mouthpiece and the ‘real son’ of Umno, Najib should not practise double standards with regard to his stand on the rest of the mainstream media in such a blatant manner, and treat the Chinese-language media in particular like ‘stepsons’," Nie Ching said in a statement out on Friday.
"All media outlets and journalists should be subjected to the same standards of scrutiny, overview as well as defence when the need arises."
The ruckus flared up last Saturday after Utusan front-paged an article entitled Christianity, the official religion? The article was based on unsubstantiated postings on two pro-Umno blogs that accused the DAP and a group of Christian pastors of colluding to replace Islam with Christianity as the official religion for the purpose of installing a Christian prime minister.
The motivation for the story appears to be an attempt by the Umno elite to shore up Malay support as the country gears up for general elections widely expected to be called before the end of this year. Malays form 60 per cent of the population and their support is key for the BN to retain control of the federal government.
Speculation is also rife that the move arose as a result of infighting amongst the Umno elite, with former premier Mahathir Mohamad alleged to have triggered the blog postings so as to force Najib to put the brakes on any plans to hold the GE earlier than 2012.
No comments:
Post a Comment