Mazu Case: Datuk Chong Kah Kiat Loses

The Federal Court in Kuala Lumpur has rejected the appeal by Datuk Chong Kah Kiat against the Sabah government's decision to reverse the approval for the 108-foot high Mazu* statue.

The Kudat Town Board had in February 2006 approved the construction of the Mazu statue. Just as the Mazu construction was in progress, the state government cancelled its approval in November 2007. The reason given was that the Mazu statue would be too close to a mosque. In actual fact, the said mosque was 600 metres away from the site of the statue.

In fact the only voices against the construction of the statue were from several branches and divisions of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO). This therefore cannot be translated as a Muslim opposition against the statue.

The Chief Minister Datuk Musa Aman by the way had said that the government is offering an alternative site for the sake of upholding peace and harmony in Sabah. This is ironic, since if the government really wanted to uphold peace and harmony in Sabah, it would not have reversed its approval of the Mazu project in the first place.

Now, the state government has made an issue out of a non-issue. Sabahans are generally peace-loving and having mosques, churches and temples next to each other has never been a problem. However, things are slowly changing perhaps because UMNO which rules Sabah is not a Sabah-based party.

UMNO is slowly changing the way Sabahans think and interact with each other. First, they will say religious statues should not be built less than a thousand metres from a mosque. What guarantee is there then that they will not say non-Muslims should not worship less than a thousand metres from where Muslims live?

After all just 15 years ago, conversions from Islam to other religions were a non-issue in Sabah. But now it has become a very sensitive subject.

The sad thing is that the Sabah-based parties that are in alliance with UMNO prefer to keep quiet. Chong Kah Kiat is now seeing where his loyalty to the UMNO-led coalition has landed him. The rest will also will feel the pain when it bites them.

UMNO can be good for Sabah if it embraces the Sabahan qualities of harmony, tolerance and acceptance. But if it is importing Malayan standards of racial and religious division, then it will destroy the very fabric of Sabahan society.

*Mazu or Matsu is a Sea Goddess worshipped by Taoists and Chinese Buddhists