Melayu........think again

Salam Pak Rahmat…..oops…..lupe siut..he’s a non Muslim…..for the middle eastern Arabs OK la but around here…”Assalamualaikum: Peace be Upon U” is reserved to Muslims…..

I typically have to do a prevalidation to avoid committing the occasional faux-pas in offering my salam to a non-Muslim pribumi looking Indonesian…..man they even go to Sunday mass wearing songkok….

So here we are a nation divided trying to find our identity..in search for the "elusive" Bangsa Malaysia amidst our cultural diversity…..fast forward say…30 years ahead…we all live in harmony after years of total assimilation into becoming the Bangsa Malaysia…all happy and dandy speaking bahasa fluently….the Kamus dewan would have added another 50 page by then…no more borrowing from Bahasa Indonesia…..Our underlying political landscape revolves around a very complex race based game theory…same game for 51 years……what would happen if there is a significant conversion of Malays Muslims into Christianity…..how would the game be then?

Most of the Indonesian Christian pribumis were muslims a generation before…poverty lead them to conversion…..On the ground in Banda Aceh …days after the devastating 2004 tsunami…..people were walking around like zombies searching for loved ones…….the missionaries were extremely quick to set up camp……and before long make-shift mobile churches dots the ravaged landscape…….thousands converted and relocated into other parts of Sumatra…

Article 11 n 12 in our fed consti provide for the right to religious freedom……but are we ready to face it and defend the constitutional rights of our Christian Malays? Will we be ready for Christian Malays walking about town in full view……i bet even now some of you out there would probably know one or two Malay Christian converts…….how do u feel about it? Will they still belong to your definition of “Malay”?