Pembela blames ‘aggressive Christians’ for Muslim siege mentality
By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal, The Malaysian Insider
Islam is under siege in Malaysia because aggressive Christians are determined to convert Muslims who are nonchalant about their faith, several Islamist groups alleged today.
The Muslim Organisations in Defence of Islam (Pembela) accused Christians of strategising an elaborate plan to ensure that more and more Muslims leave the faith, which is illegal in Malaysia.
Pembela president Dr Yusri Mohamad said the Christian community’s demands over the “Allah” issue as well as the Alkitab row proved that they wanted to convince Muslims to embrace Christianity and abandon Islam.
“We are dealing with aggressive, confrontational groups of Christians.
“Their demands over the Alkitab, kalimah Allah are connected to their attempts to spread Christianity… They are using this strategy to tame Muslims, by using terms that we are familiar with in our own religion,” Yusri said today during a Pembela function here.
The syariah lawyer said these are direct attempts to “compromise the position of Islam” as the country’s official religion.
Muslim convert Ann Wan Seng, who was part of a panel today to discuss whether “Islam was under threat?”, said the problem with Muslims in the country was that they did not feel that they were under siege.
“We need to feel threatened; the problem is our people don’t feel anything, even when we are actually being threatened.
“We cannot just blame the Christians for doing their work, we are not doing ours,” he said.
Ann alleged that Petaling Jaya currently serves as a hub to spread Christianity and Muslim apostasy.
“Christians have been doing it in quiet and also in the open, they have been passing leaflets to our Muslims students.
“I have seen it happen in Universiti Malaya. The girls wear tudung but when you take away the tudung, they are wearing a crucifix,” Ann charged.
He claimed that something similar happens in Johor, where the “Malay Christian Association of Singapore” sends people over to Johor to convert Muslims there to Christianity.
Another panellist, Zaid Kamaruddin from Jemaah Islamiyah Malaysia, said Muslims could not afford to rest on their laurels and expect their rights to be protected by the federal constitution or even political parties.
“We cannot rely on political parties or the federal constitution because this can be amended.
“All Muslim groups, NGOs need to be united on common ground,” he said.
Utusan Malaysia had carried out a front-page article today titled “Malaysia, a Christian country?” (Malaysia, negara Kristian?), based entirely on blog postings by several pro-Umno bloggers.
The bloggers had charged the DAP with sedition for trying to change the country’s laws to enable a Christian to be prime minister, pointing to a grainy photograph showing what they described to be a secret pact between the DAP and pastors at a hotel in Penang on Wednesday.
The federal constitution does not expressly specify race or religious requirements for the position of prime minister. Article 43(2)(a) of the constitution states only that the Yang di-Pertuan Agong shall appoint as PM a member of Parliament who in his judgment is likely to command the confidence of the majority of the Dewan Rakyat.
In a posting headlined “Agong under threat? DAP wants to make Christianity the official religion of Malaysia?” blogger Marahku (marahku.blogspot.com) accused the DAP of trying to amend the federal constitution to allow a Christian to become prime minister.
“The whole point of changing the official religion is to allow a Christian to become prime minister of this country,” the blogger said.
