The cat was let out of the bag!Sabah CM Musa Aman was the reason why Chong Kah Kiat resigned as Deputy CM and State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister.
Not many politicians would have sacrifice a position of power but Chong did and it was a matter of principle.
The principle?
As Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister, he could not face the rakyat of Sabah as he could not defend the rights of the rakyat which are enshrined in the Federal Constitution: that is to uphold their individual religious freedom.
It was regarding the Ma Tzu Goddess of the Sea statue which was approved by the State government and was under construction. Musa got the State Secretary, K.Y. Mustapha to issue a stop-work order on the project and the reason given was that United Sabah Islamic Association and UMNO Kudat were unhappy with the project because the statue was built "too close" to the district mosque.
Was this an acceptable excuse? In a multi-racial society, should one race or religion dominate and suppress others to serve ones own objective? Wasn't religious freedom enshrined in the Constitution?
How would the Muslim feel if the United States government or British or Australian government would not allow mosque to be built not too far from the Church? Would we see the same scenario similar to the Danish caricature crisis?
What more when Sabah is a state where the Kadazans and the non-Muslims are the majority?
I would certainly accept with reservation if the statue was built at Kampung Melayu or near to Masjid Negara or at Muslim-populated areas; but Kudat, most of them are non-Muslims.
In a multi-racial society, the people and the government must show respect for each person's ability to make their own decision as well as the responsibility they had for those decisions. Rights are laid down in the legal rules and rights must only consist of those rights stipulated in the constitution, that, no one has any right except those given by law.
Rights are political trumps held by the rakyat and they arise when a collective goal is not sufficient justification for denying them what they desire as individuals. Where one has a right to moral independence, it means that it is for some reason wrong for officials to act in violation of that right, even if they correctly believed that the community would be better off if they did.
The most basic right is the right to be treated as an equal. Individuals should be treated with the same degree of concern and respect as anyone else. Of course the right to treatment as equals does not entail that each should get half of the limited supply of resources.
A right can be described as the legally guaranteed power to realize an interest. Existence of the power is recognized under the law and its exercise is based on a guarantee by the law as the acceptability of consequences.
Of course there should be no absolute rights. Rights can be overridden if it is necessary to protect another person from being harmed or to protect national interest to ensure peace and safety of the community as a whole. But beyond this, there can be no justification to interfere with rights such as liberty and equality.
There is just no inherent logic to the subjugation of such religious freedom to arbitrary rules based on the power of domination, which if ignored, would lead to a clash of civilization in the near term.
Come the next state election in Sabah and I observed the BN would face an uphill task to retain power. History in Sabah had proven that the people of the state could overthrow the incumbent.
4 comments:
And Aman Musa would not help either. As long as he gets to continue with his present activities, everyone and everything else can be sacrificed.
It is the culture doc.
UMNO think their own monoculture will win. But in fact, I notice Malay cultural roles are actually rotting in this country. What UMNO practice are exact replication of British colonization age explotation mindset : anything can go for the name of administration.
Alas, even British realize importance of different cultures.
as a fellow sabahan, it is sad and disappointing to note and hear these sort of things happening in my home state, as usual our elected idiots talk the talk but don't walk the walk as far as most things go. Our much heralded multiculturalism and religious tolerance is merely a sham where even applications for building places of worship of the official creed are disallowed if the applicants speak the wrong language. i used to be proud of being able to say that everyone in Sabah could sit at same the table in a kopitiam unlike our peninsular compatriots. now i am unsure anymore. about the self appointed guardians of the national creed to complain about proposed statue smacks of insecurity and intolerance which flies in the face of the nature of the religion that preaches justice and tolerance for all. shame on sabah!
For once, PAS did something right by approving the building of a Buddhist temple with a hugh statue of Lord Buddha situated next to a mosque in Tumpat, Kota Bahru. And know something? Strangely, none of the locals made a hugh and cry about it. However, on the other hand, Mahathir was upset and branded PAS as a traitors to the Malay race for giving that piece of land to the Chinese to build the temple and statue of Buddha. UMNO paranoia????
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