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”?
My my ... Am I lucky this morning? Do I strike gold here? Better mark this territory with some gland secretion or something . Come back later with changkuls to stake my claim like I did with 'area' JDM and DM.
ReplyDeletehiya Tam
ReplyDeleteTks for droppin by.....
satD
Possibly some light can be gleaned from http://anotherbrickinwall.blogspot.com/2008/11/ucaptama-rais-yatim-di-majlis-perkasa.html
ReplyDeleteTam
ReplyDeleterais merely pluck the standard constitutional definition of "Malay" under article 160...this itself would technically put a Non Muslim Malay convert under an undefined race category.....
Perhaps UMNO should add an "I" to become UIMNO for the sake of clarity...
Same concept goes for all the huha about masuk "Melayu" thingy...technically all the Non-malays could become Malays by fulfilling the 3 criteria
Tks for the link....
just to echo JMD....on ur blog name??
How a human being wants to define himself is solely his business, not the duty of religious demagogues or the State. If he wants to consider himself a transvestite Satan worshipping Malay who has AIDS and whose mum is a Bangladeshi, then so be it.
ReplyDeleteThe Constitutional definition of a Malay under Art 160 is a mistake to begin with; Ethnicity and Religion are two different things.
This country can only really achieve freedom if we stop breathing down each other's neck on whose race was here first and whose God is more powerful.
bro
ReplyDeleteconversion either way, is a free choice right? so, how do we define "Malay"? Pure malay, half malay, quarter malay or ...?
i guess in 20 years time, you will find a lot of mixed race ....
Joseph....how r u doin mate?
ReplyDeleteYes and we as a nation must prepare for the scenario....how I don't know.
As for definition does it matter? unless your applying for benefits under NEP.....
we don't need NEP if we have equitable and fair treatment to everyone based on need.
ReplyDeleteNeed based, so that we could really take care of the welfare of the rakyat.
don't think i can apply NEP benefits. maybe squatting in Kamunting sounds more possible.