"Statement saddens Evangelicals," from the Malaysian Star Online, with thanks to Twostellas:
PETALING JAYA: The National Evangelical Christian Fellowship (NECF) has expressed regret over a government minister's remarks that Bibles in Bahasa Malaysia or Bahasa Indonesia were banned.NECF secretary-general Rev Wong Kim Kong said the remarks by Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz Nazri were "inconsistent with the spirit and the letter of our Constitution, which upholds religious freedom for everyone".
Rev Wong added that the policy was unfair to non-English-speaking Christians.
I just read today an article in the Weekend Australian Financial Review titled "Working towards an Islamic Renaissance" by the Malaysian pri-minister Abdullah Ahmad Bandai in which he states....
"In Malaysia, we believe that this compulsion to act because of religion can be directed towards good, towards progress, towards development. We call this Islam Hadhari, literally Civilisational Islam"
Then he mentions the 10 fundamental principles of this Islam Hadhari (a kind of Islamic renaissance) of which some are...
1. A free and independent people.
2. Protection of the rights of minority groups (I believe that includes Christians doesn’t it?) and women.
So I can assume then that Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz Nazri's comments about banning bibles is all a terrible mistake?
Are they allowed to print the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the native languages?
If the people there could read that, the Bible question would answer itself.
Being signatories (at the august body in NYC), the leaders would then have to allow freedom of the press and thought and belief and congregation and all of those other messy things that free people, who belong to a country involved in the U.N., are supposedly permitted to enjoy.
Cut to the root, stop playing with the petals.
When will you Westerners wake and realise that Malaysia is a fundamentalist Islamic nation?
Any East/South Asian could have told you this for the last fifty years, but I am shocked to read in the American press how Malaysia is a model Islamic "democracy".
Then again I once was visiting the US about two years ago and saw Bill O' Reily on FOX News state that Saudi Arabia (along with Malaysia and Pakistan if memory serves) was one of the US's "moderate Islamic allies".
Malaysia is ruled by Islamic Law, I would suggest writing to our President and our Republican congress, but a waste of time, since Malaysia is a source of cheap products, like computer parts, can't have anything that is an impediment to free trade, profits and globalization can we? Have to protect the bottom line and stockholder shares.
Here is a web page from on Hududs and Qisa in Malaysia. Hududs are mandatory punishments, mostly death, for everything from adultery to apostatsy. Oh well, using the "it's Human Rights and thus "leftist" litmus test so evident from posters on this forum, this has to be exaggeration or be automatically discounted.
More at the link.
WELL IT IS A MUSLIM COUNTRY , THIS IS A STEP TORWARD OUTLAWING IT ALL TOGETHER,
BUT IT'S A DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT THERE TO ENSURE THE PEOPLES RIGHT AND THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO NOT BE OPPRESSED
Kali, the liberal media in the USA invented "fundamentalist" Islam in 1979 to suggest that Evangelical Christians were in cahoots with Khomeini and company. As a result, government, media, and academia all use a loaded term to describe ferment in a religion which, as far as I can see, has nothing akin to the Protestant modernism against which the original Christian "fundamentalism" defined itself (unless you see Bahai and Ahmadiyya as a kind of Islamic "modernism"). Hence, every time we speak about Islamicist ferment, we alienate somebody who abstains from pork and faces Makka five times daily, but at the same time thinks OBL is a jerk who needs hanging.
This is not to excuse for a minute the Malaysian government's actions--especially since many ethnic Chinese habitually use Malay rather than Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese, Fuzhou, Teochiu, or Mandarin; and South Asians sometimes prefer it to Tamil, Hindi, Gujerati, or Bengali. I might even write a letter to their Ambassador to the USA myself. Yet perhaps this might also reveal that Islam itself feels threatened in a number of countries; not least Malaysia.
Islamic fanatics appear to be tightening their grip on Malaysia. Since the riots of 1969, in which hundreds of Chinese were murdered by 'The Faithful', the Chinese and other minorities have had good reason to feel anxious - a parliamentary decision of 1971 forbad anyone to even question the special privileges of Muslim Malays over Buddhists, Christians and Hindus. Rioting and murder of Chinese also happened in Indonesia.
The Muslim Malays have always been resentful and jealous of the economic domination by ethnic Chinese. Under the British, Malays were peasants or civil servants, Indians worked as plantation laborers or in the professions, and the Chinese ran businesses.
Malaysia also had the misfortune to have the vile Mahathir as president for 22 years - during that time, he encouraged hatred of Jews, and of the West in general, while reaching out to Islamic fanatics and dictators. In 2001 the government of Malaysia was reportedly considering an Act which would result in the detention of Muslim converts to Christianity.
'The 'Islamic Faith Rehabilitation Act' would see Muslims who give up Islam detained in rehabilitation centres where efforts would be made to "restore their faith". Local Islamic muftis have already been consulted and there are said to be plans to send delegates to the Middle East where several countries already have apostasy laws, most of which prescribe the death penalty. Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has in the past resisted calls from extremists to impose the death penalty for apostasy.' (World Evangelical Alliance).
The country certainly seems to be heading that way. I wonder if Australia and New Zealand will see a new generation of Chinese refugees from Malaysia. If this happens, Malaysia will lose its most successful business people and much of its professional class. There are already suggestions of forcing non-Muslim women to 'cover up' - so they dont offend their touchy Muslim fellow citizens.
The bad feeling between the communities was exacerbated when Japan occupied the country during WWII. The Malays supported the Japanese against the British colonial administration while the Chinese chose to join an armed resistance group, the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA). Following Japan's defeat, there was ethnic violence as the MPAJA tried to establish political control in the Malayan peninsula by undertaking violence against suspected Malay collaborators.
Strange, huh - the Muslims nearer to Europe supported the Nazis too.
I agree Kali - there is, and has been for many years, an effort to wash away the notion of islam as it is. It's all connected to the whole religion of political correctness - having seen our own bigoted histories, wer're unwilling to do anything that would even come close to public assertion of the same again.
Regretably, while those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it, those who hold it sacred are doomed, period.
Geoff
Somehow, the same leftist bags of garbage who scream at Israel probably won't find the time to complain about this egregious violation of human rights cause they are too busy honoring some useful fool like St. Pancake!
Seemingly also, most of the commentators here as well as the islamic fanatics apparently have conveniently forgotten that Malaysia comprises not just only of the West Malaysian portion!
The natives (or bumiputeras) of East Malaysia (now officially called 'Sabah and Sarawak') are really overwhelmingly Catholic Christians and Protestants. They use the Malay language Bible much, much more over the English translations.
Even though that narrow minded muslim minister in the PM's department made his 'noises' about the Malay Bible, he was very quickly detracted to by another relatively senior Minister in the Cabinet. Heres the full report:
http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=33936
So, the Evangelicals and the R.Catholics have a united stand on this attack against their religious freedoms. Actually the number of Christians in the Eastern part of Malaysia (Sabah & Sarawak) are in the millions and are very numerous indeed, and thus they cannot afford to be ignored in this matter.
Its truly chauvinism at work for such attitudes to rear its ugly head via that muslim minister.
Rgds, Mukalis.
DianaC:
From what I remember the 'race-riots' in Malaysia occurred in 1968, about 20.000 Chinese were killed and Indians a few thousand, exact numbers never made available, just like in Indonesia, where the Jihad just continues...
Mahatir was a creep and whether or not he sodomized Anwar, his trusted deputy, is his business.
But Anwar himself is a dyed in the wool muzzie and his people are running the show in KL.
The Jihad contiues in Indonesia, in Ambon, in Aceh, in the Molukkas, in Mindanao & where ever you find Muzzies in increasing numbers...