Balik Susah, Lari pun Susah

Malaysian Bar Council drama continued on until this week, and I believe for more weeks to come. Mind you, the issue will stick on for generations to come. Because Malaysian ministers had called upon a stop to any open forum that touches on religion. Prime Minister himself had urged everyone to stop from discussing the issue.

In other word, the conversion "to" Islam issue will always be kept bottled, swept under the carpet to maintain racial and religious harmony in Malaysia. But I personally think it is a grave mistake to stop the discussions, because religion and racial issues can only be resolved through open discourse and public understanding. God willing, through open forum, we will thrive and cherish our diversity instead of eternally mired in religous disputes.

If it is to be kept bottled, I think that there will be a time when all the issues will explode into crisis proportions. When the downtrodden and the oppressed had had enough, when any attempt to subdue the shits from coming out from the shithole will fail. And we will be doomed, drowned in the sea of shits that we've been covering for a long long time.

As what Datuk Zahid Hamidi puts it, discussions can be done behind closed door. The complainants, the government and the courts will have to settle any conversion issues amicably hidden from the media, solid curtain to block the discussions from the ever anxious public. I wonder what kind of clandestine settlements would satisfy all the parties involved?

I think the so-called "settlement" behind closed-door is to keep the angry public from knowing, and to maybe, remember "just maybe" to bend a few religious rules, to cut corner here and there to suit our multicultural and multi-ethnic backgrounds and sensitivities, or perhaps compensations also on the card.

At this juncture, I am wondering whether this or that religion actually allows such covert discussions and of course also the bending of rules to be done. Do they?

Because if the religion do permit bending of rules, then it wouldn't be that divine anymore isn't it? What written in the books are sacred and believed to be uttered directly from God. Be it the holy book of the christians, hindus, muslims, etc. God didn't say that you can make exception here and there, that this case is special because the accused or accuser is a king.

No, it's not like that. If you believe in God, what is written must be fully followed, and blindly at times. Whatever the closed door settlements may be, even if it is meant to assuage the families involved, and also to keep the radical public from knowing. It is probably religiously or conscientiously wrong. Most probably a gravely wrong sin as well.

As Sabahan, I think majority of the Non-Muslims in Sabah backed the open forum as a viable route to settle conversion issues once and for all. Because in Sabah, the religious composition is much more baffling, sometimes you will find members of a family professing different religions.

Go and ask any of your Sabahan friends, they will tell you "O ya my aunt is a muslim, her son is a catholic though, and her ex-husband now is a protestant". For example my friend who is from Ranau, he is professing SIB Christian, his mom is a muslim, because she was married to an imam. She separated from the imam and married a catholic, and now she considered herself a non-muslim. She has five children in her first marriage with the imam, and the eldest is now a SIB church leader in one of the village.

Confusing isn't it? Well, it's not uncommon in Sabah, thanks to the previous leaders mass conversion policies in the 80's. They successfully make Sabah as one hell of a religions melting pot. And yes, conversion issues are prominent in Sabah.

There's no denying that cases such as Subashini's are happening in Sabah, and Sabahans must have felt equally threatened too when the Bar Council forum was abruptly ended, when some so-called defender of a religion barged in.

There were calls for certain 'Pig to Return to China' or 'Babi Balik Cina'. Now it doesn't take a rocket scientist to think that what they meant was to urge the forum organizers, and panelists to go back to their own country for good. And Not to stir the religious sentiment of the majority.

For Sabahans who support such an open forum, me included, it's a bit bewildering. Because that calls to Return to China should take effect on us as well. The thing is we came from Sabah, therefore we cannot Balik Cina. We have nothing there. We can go back to where we originated from, to Sabah. But we are already in Sabah, then where to "Balik"?

If we could not balik, then we should "Jalan", but where to "Jalan"? We cannot run away from Sabah either. Actually the actions of about 300 demonstrators during the forum had successfuly put us in a quandary. Perhaps we should "Lari" or "Keluar".

What we want is to find solution acceptable to everybody, and please not to suppress. PAS calls that Muzakarah or Muqabalah, to talk, not to flex muscle. Tell me, Is barging into one's forum is in the spirit of muqabalah or muzakarah?