Malaysiakini and Malaysian Insider are evoking Islamophobia
The Third Force
Heavy hitters Malaysiakini (Kini) and The Malaysian Insider (Insider) have done it again. Well known for their random collection of half informed thoughts and controvertible stances against establishment, the media portals engaged Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) and the police last week in what seemed to be an attempt to evoke Islamophobia.
The highly insular reports, published on the 14th of December 2015, cranked out headlines that implied religious bigotry on the part of UiTM and authorities. Both portals spared no expense in putting Malacca police Chief Chua Ghee Lye and later, the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar in the line of fire by insinuating male fide on the part of the police against freedom of religion.
But it was Kini that set the ball rolling early Monday last week with prejudice that showed little root in sensibility. The media portal captioned against UiTM and PDRM, hinged solely on a slide that was presented to a Muslim audience at the University’s Lendu campus in Malacca. Controversy was fanned to new heat against authorities when the DAP leaning portal put Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM) chairperson Eu Hong Seng on record as saying that the involvement of the police showed bias.
“It is wholly unacceptable for a public university, utilising public funds, to undertake activities that demonise a religious minority. This is highly offensive,” Mr. Hong Seng was quoted further as having said.
“On the 14th of December 2015, Kini and Insider ran heavily insidious articles, insinuating that the police and UiTM were on a mission to evoke Christianophobia”
But Mr. Hong Seng was talking cock…
Deceptive proselytization tactics by evangelical Christians took missionary zeal in fifties Malaya following a decade long civil war in China. The war, fought on ideological terrain, ended with a communist takeover that drove missionaries assigned to China towards the Malay Archipelago and in particular, Malaya.
Ever since, churches have been dispatching groups of preachers to knock on doors and commit people to the inerrancy of the Bible. But the ‘good news’ almost always flows from selective verses that never quite spell out the essence of Divine retribution (supernatural punishment, or just punishment). Instead, the talk is always of salvation and redemption from all sin and its effects.
“In 1821, a mission house was purchased in Penang by the London Missionary Society (LMS) and used as a Chinese girls’ school. A chapel was opened in the same premise in 1824. In 1826, the Independent Church, Mission Chapel Prince of Wales Island was officially founded as an independent, non-denominational church modelled on the primitive New Testament Church. Based on their own description, their practices resembled those of the early Brethren, which emerged at precisely the same time in Britain.”- source: Wikipedia
Many missionaries worldwide tend towards persuasive elocution. Put simply, they have good talkers who know what it takes to convince you that Christianity is the answer to all of your religion’s ailments. The emphasis is often reprehensive against Prophet Muhammad. Some missionaries propagandize a theological doctrine that censures Islam and depicts the Bible as something of a justification to liberate mankind from anarchism.
Being fanatics, they censure any other that comes after Christ and those opposed to evangelical theology as being disciples of the antichrist and possibly even the devil. They claim it to be a calling – to preach the gospel the way God had intended. Where they depart from scriptures is in the skewed emphasis they place on the antichrist – the belief that all Prophets after Jesus were opposed to Christianity and intended to bring chaos to mankind.
Trust me when I say that I don’t intend to offend the Christians. This isn’t any more a fact than the many encounters I had over the years with missionary groups in various parts of the country. Two such encounters had me gaping with astonishment when I was told how many Muslims had denounced their faith in Islam and embraced Jesus Christ as the son of God and the Saviour of mankind towards the end of time.
Then, sometime in the year 2000, two other groups of evangelists tried desperately to hammer their way into my conscience. These missioners had amongst them forceful and cogent orators who not only impugned the authority of every other religion, they went so far as to denounce Islam as being the work of an anarchist, citing the great many wars the Prophet Muhammad had waged against Christians as evidence of Islamic belligerency.
“Christians have been fanatical against Islam since the Early Middle Ages. Back then, the Christian world largely viewed Muhammad as a false prophet. I’ve heard evangelical missioners in Malaysia say the same thing to me. Over the years, missioners tried desperately to impress upon me that Prophet Muhammad was the antichrist when I told them how I was inspired by his life and times.”
“Islamic wars were barbaric,” said one missionary. But when I reminded him of the many crusades that were called by popes against ‘enemies of Christendom’, he became stridently defensive. He told me that the crusades were mere responses to Islamic aggression against humanity.
Fifteen years on, and the words still ring like a bell. The missionary evoked primordial schoolyard philosophy with rants of how my conscience had been abducted by the devil, who apparently, was working his dark and devious plans in me. According to him, even the Sikhs were devil worshippers, despite the fact that the Sikhs are inclined towards people of scriptures, the same way the Muslims and Christians are. It seems to me that even minority religions such as Sikhism were not spared the missionary’s wrath.
So there you have it, Mr. Hong Seng. I have been told not once, but on many other occasions that the Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists were devil worshippers by missioners I did not even know. Apparently, these missioners undertake activities that tend to demonize religious minorities, which is exactly what you accused UiTM and the authorities of doing.
The point is this; many missioners habitually fulminate against articles of faith that aren’t Biblical. They don’t just stop at minorities. Some groups seem to be fomenting anti-Islamic dogma among practising Muslims, which constitutes a crime, a priori, in terms of provisions under Article 11 (4) of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia.
Proselytization by Christians
This article is academic. And academically, what I have stated and am about to state are mere facts, contentious as they may seem.
Christians hold Jesus Christ to be the son of God and the Gospels as the true word of God. Beyond that, shifty missionary activities the world over have caused some Muslims to cast terror in the hearts of their fold against Christianity when really, it is the missioners who have turned Christianity into a ‘conspiracy of evangelism and deceit’.
“I’ve heard evangelical fanatics decrying Sikhism as being a deviationist religion by the antichrist. Like the Christians and Muslims, Sikhs believe in people of scriptures, while the religion, founded by Guru Nanak Dev Ji, is closely intertwined with Islam. Apparently, some evangelical missionaries are against anyone who disbelieves Christianity, including those who believe in people of scriptures”
Deviationist missionaries derive their ideas mainly from the use of the term ‘antichrist’ in the Epistles of John, which do not assign the term as an attribute to a single individual. Following are two verses which reflect on the antichrist as being someone or a group of persons opposed to Christ or the fact that Jesus is the son of God:
“Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.”
John 2:18
“Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; any such person is the deceiver and the anarchist!”
John 1:7
But for decades, missionaries have been reaching out to everyday Malaysians with cryptic messages that fall short of being biblical and accurate. The prose is usually selective, thick and ornate with talks of salvation and how one would be redeemed from sin and its effects by virtue of the Christ.
To put it simply, these missionaries tell their audiences that they would be redeemed from their past sins only if they were to accept Jesus Christ as their saviour. But they seldom talk of punishments and what it means to sin once you’re already a Christian.
For instance, I’ve heard missioners say that “Christianity does not forbid you from consuming alcohol like Islam does.” Or, “Be a Muslim and you’d have to give your dog away for adoption,” although, this is highly inaccurate.
And my all time favourite is this: “If you’re being oppressed, accept Jesus as your saviour. He’ll lead you to the path of eternal glory and happiness.” This message was conveyed to me when I was merely 14 years of age by a group of Christian missioners despite the fact that my parents were nowhere near me.
Over the years, I’ve heard missioners speak ill of the Prophet Muhammad and demonize Islam. In some of these encounters, I was told that my admiration for the Prophet Muhammad, his life and times, would bring me eternal damnation for that he preached not the true word of God.
“The universal message of the Prophet Muhammad, to me, was the message of love and peace. If certain Christian missionaries have a problem with this, then, they have a problem with national unity, and most of all, with me”
On other occasions, I witnessed Christian missioners paying homage to the sick and elderly. Patients were told to submit unto Jesus for that he was the healer and had raised even the dead. “Let the power of Christ flow through you, and you shall be cured of your disease.” One teary eyed patient who was visited by a Padre and got cured some days later related to me how he had been ‘touched’ by Christ, and that he would never look the other way again.
But the sick were not the only targets.
Missionary schools had rolls that were not limited to practising Christians. Vestige of a bygone evangelical conquest to westernize locals, these schools persisted with a heavily sectarian approach before many were nationalized in 1971.
Back in the sixties, Christian nuns and brothers won recruits with cajolery. Pupils whose parents registered in the lower digits of the income bracket and those orphaned were sometimes ‘tickled’ in terms of reciprocity. A scholarship was always the catalyst for a student’s devotion to the cause of Christianity, I was told.
And then, you have the indigenous people.
From highland Senois to jungle Negritos, evangelists have been illuminating their gospel to Orang Asli communities in very deceptive ways. Missions almost always begin with random acts of kindness that lure these communities into lasting friendships. Once a bond is established, Islam is decried as being oppressive, harsh and punitive.
The strategy is proving successful. Evangelists are subverting bureaucratic efforts to assimilate the Orang Asli into Malay culture. Muslim missionaries are often detained at the lower recruitment indices by talk of punishment in Islam. But Islam is in itself fundamentalist, in that it evokes punitive measures as a form of safeguard to its sanctity. The Muslims are just being honest. But that honesty is earning them lower ratings with the Orang Asli.
“The Orang Asli are being targeted by evangelical missionaries. They’re on a mission against bureaucrats who are striving to assimilate the Orang Asli into Malay culture”
Yet, I hear non-Muslims complain that the Federal Constitution is biased, in that it allows the control or restriction “of the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the religion of Islam.” According to dissenters, the constitution is blind to the fact that Muslims are given authority to proselytize at will.
Obviously, those complaining are out of touch with realities on the ground – you do not find Muslim missionaries going door to door, throwing it in your face that Jesus Christ was the embodiment of the devil or the anarchist.
Yet, Kini and the Insider seem to be evoking Islamophobia
Today, readers are being offered increasingly toxic editorials by a media that seems to be propped on partisan stances. In spite of this, Kini and the Insider went on to crank the controversy-dial a notch further and turned the UiTM presentation into a flash point by evoking religious bigotry.
But that is the entire strategy – Kini says something shocking and evokes islamophobia while the Insider picks it up. It’s an advertising bonanza, with cyber spheres rushing to the scene, giving both Kini and the Insider a truckload in coverage.
On the 17th of December 2015, Mr. Hong Seng spoke of the need for discussions to be open. Kini cited the CFM chairperson by saying that “any discussion about the threats of ‘Christianization’ should take place openly, with participation from the Christian community.”
But who is Kini kidding? Did it not occur to the portal – funded primarily by the Jewish bent Soros foundation – that it had failed to balance the opinion-scale by seeking a statement from an authority apart from CFM – say, the Perak or Perlis mufti? Wasn’t that that the gist of Mr. Hong Seng’s stance on ‘open discussions’? Or perhaps, it is true that Kini does have a Jewish bent and is biased against Islam. Who is to say?
Kini now has the crippling honour of doing justice to the Muslim and Christian communities by coming out to rebuke this article. And while they’re at it, let us take a look at yet another of Mr. Hong Seng’s many bird-like statements, as reported by Kini:
“Academic freedom requires objectivity and balance, not a one-sided partisan rant and rave […].”
“Academic freedom, among others, involves the search for truth in a manner that is systematic and scientific. The approach may be specific to the researcher, and largely depends on the scope of the truth appurtenant to the goals and objectives of the researcher”
It is yet unclear if Mr. Hong Seng was referring to a bipartisan exchange of ideas. Silently, he may have been inferring that UiTM and the police were on a crusade against Christianity. But let’s not be pessimistic or judgmental. After all, Mr. Hong Seng could have also been implying that the presentation ought to have been well represented by talent from all walks. We really don’t know.
Assuming that he was speaking of a bipartisan representation, to which two parties was he referring to? Could he have meant the Christians and the Muslims? Or was he referring to the public vs the authorities and the University? Perhaps, he meant ‘opposition leaning universities’ vs ‘government leaning ones’.
But here is the thing – must an academic presentation necessarily involve a particular number of groups to justify objectivity? If it does, then, who gets to decide who participates? Mr. Hong Seng?
Take it from me; Mr. Hong Seng was talking cock, yet again.
Academic freedom most certainly isn’t without limit. Yet, the constraints to this freedom may just as well rest on the so called partisan rants and raves Mr. Hong Seng was insinuating at. Let us set the record straight; where it concerns an academic research institution, there isn’t a burden of proof on the organizers or authorities to explain representation in any event. And neither is there a need for one.
A constraint in academic research activity is always at the discretion of the academician or researcher who carries out the activity, which in this case, may or may not be the organizers of the UiTM event. Academicians may genuinely need to sharpen the scope of their research in ways which may be specific to their goals and objectives. It is the problem statement and how they choose to address that statement, for whatever reason, that matters.
For instance, if I were to conduct a study on the behaviour of earthworms in a pot filled with soil, I may choose to eliminate all other forms of macro-organisms from that pot, so as not to present the earthworms stress factors that may affect the way in which they behave. The kind of behaviour that may interest me would depend largely on my research objectives as they would be hinged on my problem statement.
Think of the earthworms as the audience at UiTM, and me as the authority. You’ll get the picture. Perhaps, the organizers and researchers were genuinely on a mission to extrapolate a Muslim cognizance on the issue being discussed, or to assess a Muslim response to the issue in ways which were unrestrained and with no holds barred. And that is not wrong. The presence of non-Muslims would most certainly have posed a stress factor which may have been detrimental to the organizer’s objectives.
Who is to say that the drive wasn’t meant to assist authorities in containing hatred or to negotiate misconceptions among the Muslims? Do we really know the objectives? No. Are we entitled to an explanation? No.
Academic freedom isn’t limited to the question of racial or religious tolerance. On the contrary, it has also much to do with a researcher’s free will to define the scope of an academic activity in ways that are appurtenant to specific goals and objectives. But that most certainly does not circumvent the need for diplomacy, courteousness or tact when dealing with the public.
And as far as I am concerned, the University and the IGP have dealt with the public on the UiTM controversy in ways that were courteous, diplomatic and tactful.
Merry Christmas everyone.
