Door to any house of worship open
by Azly Rahman
“I sincerely and genuinely reiterate that my visit to the Surau Al-Huda was not politically motivated, and had no motive to put into question the sanctity of suraus and mosques,” Serdang Mp Teo Nie Ching said on Saturday…
Teo explained that she had visited the Kajang surau on Sunday, Aug 22, as their MP, in order to hand over to them the state government’s monetary contribution for repairs to the surau fence… She had timed her visit in order to break fast with the surau’s committee members and congregation…
“Since I was invited to say a few words, I in all sincerity gave a brief explanation of the state’s education programmes that benefit the people of Selangor,” she said, adding that she welcomed advice from all parties on better execution of her duties… (Malaysiakini report, Aug 28, 2010)
The Perkasa panic over Teo’s visit to a surau in Kajang intrigues me. The latter had gone there in humility to present a state donation to repair the fence. She is now a sensation and forced to mend fences. She may be meeting with the biggest religious head of the state – the Sultan. There will be repercussions. There has already been.
To be equating what she did with the fate of the American modern revolutionary leader Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabbaz) – that ‘Brother Malcolm’ was supposedly assassinated because he was preaching to Christians – is to be totally ignorant of what happened in the history of the American Civil Rights movements.
It signifies that one does not have any clue at all to the close relationship between Malcolm X and the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr, a Southern Baptist minister in the Christian and Nation of Islam struggle for equality and equally opportunity. But then again, perhaps some Malay ultra-fascist nationalist groups do not read much of anything to exist as anything.
At a time when Malaysia is celebrating its “Merdeka”, or whatever one may call this nationalistic ritual, we are seeing the continuation of the absurdity of arguments over religion, by way of crises manufactured so that attention can be taken away from the larger issue of the present regime in the process of being dismantled.
Malaysia’s “Merdeka … Merdeka …” cry will be greeted elsewhere – buried in the psyche of the nation – with chants of “diperhamba … diperhamba…” or “enslaved .. enslaved…”, referring to the closing of the captive mind and the notion of Hang Nadim (who saved Singapore from the swordfish) in chains.
Because the manufacturing of crises and the bogeyman called race and ethnicity is no longer a working tool of structural violence to be deployed as a reason to create havoc and chaos come the 13th general election, religion becomes the next available sharp object to pry open the mind of Malaysians so that fear of another riot can be filter-funneled into them.
I hope Malaysians will in no way buy into this script a la Friday the 13th, The Texas Chainsaw Massace, or even Pontianak Gua Musang, written by those who wish to deface Islam by way of associating visiting its house of worship as a “blasphemous” act. Only simple-minded people masked as sophisticated racists, handsomely paid and in need of cheap publicity, will resort to such orchestrations.
