Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Of Interfering In Other Religions

Mohd Hisamudin Yahaya, a representative of the United Malays National Organization's (UMNO) youth wing from its Putrajaya* division has lodged a police report against Lim Kit Siang, the advisor of the Democratic Action Party (DAP) for supposedly labelling UMNO members as infidels. This was reported by Bernama.

Lim Kit Siang has since denied the allegations, and has many credible alibis and witnesses to prove that he was not at the place where such words were uttered.

However what is interesting here is what Mohd Hisamudin said to the press regarding his police report against Lim Kit Siang according to Bernama. He said "It was clearly an act of provocation and against the constitution, which states that people of other religions cannot interfere with a community's religious faith".

In that case this Mohd Hisamudin should ask, why then did the Home Ministry interfered in the affairs of the Christian faith when it decided to ban the usage of "Allah" by The Herald, a Catholic weekly which is circulated only among Catholics? And why did the Home Ministry confiscate Christian books containing that same word, which were intended for use within the church?

Now, where was Mohd Hisamudin when all these interferences took place? There are also some states which issued decrees against usage of many terms by non-Islamic religions. One of the word which was prohibited in these decrees was "iman" which means faith. It is rather strange to ban that word from religious usage. It is as though as non-Muslims have no faith in their religion.

Why did Mohd Hisamudin not speak against those decrees? This blog is not asking him to speak against those decrees, but should we not be wondering where is his principle of being against interference of other religions? More so, when those interfering belong to the same faith as him.

It is hoped that Mohd Hisamudin will do unto others what he expects others to do unto him and his community.

*Malaysia's administrative capital located in Malaya

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is when religion being used as a tool for some political purpose, interfering from the dominant group will eliminates the minority without considering the consiquences. For example the Roman's Emperor Neru exicuting Christians by ploting a fire in Rome and accusing Christians... The Turks ploting the Armenian genocide... Now the Iraq Muslims killing its Catholics neighbour by accusig the Egypt Coptic Christian hidding some muslim convert.... all kind of false allegations which against the god's 10 commandmets.