PAS MP visits shah alam church (2)

with reference to my earlier post, here is the write-up from the herald (together with pictures).

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The Herald
6 April 2008
By Jacelyn Johnson

SHAH ALAM: The  Church of the Divine Mercy took 26 years to get governmental approval, but welcomed the new Member of Parliament to its premises soon after the election.

The newly elected Party Islam Se-Malaysia’s YB Khalid Abdul Samad, pic, offered to meet the church members at the parish for a dialogue session on Thursday, March 27. About 350 people, almost all parishioners, gathered to hear for themselves what the new government, or its elected representative would do for them, especially that now Shah Alam has a PAS representative.

YB Khalid walked in to a hall full of supportive parishioners giving him a standing ovation and thunderous applause. “Thank you for having me here,” he begin, “I hope I will be worthy of all the applause. This is my fifth election and this time round it is the people who have changed. The people have decided that there has been too much arrogance and too much misuse of power in the past government. We never expected to win over Selangor. All we wanted was a stronger opposition in Parliament. The result is a victory for the people. It shows a level of maturity I always hoped would exist.”

He went on in his opening address stating that “the BN government, despite their corruption and all their weaknesses, had made us fear and believe that they are the best that Malaysians deserve and I believe that’s an insult to Malaysian society. We deserve a government that is more responsible, more transparent and a government that respects the people.”

“With the current standing of the BN government, with only 86 seats in Peninsular Malaysia as opposed to the 82 seats of the opposition, we can already note that the BN government will not be as strong as it was. We can already see some changes happening. Even the Prime Minister recently has been making statement after statement admitting this and that.

“I haven’t gone to Parliament and he’s already changing his tune, so that’s a very quick sign and we’re hoping to see a lot more positive changes,” he joked. “And we can once and for all dispel with the fear and mistrust that has been so pivotal in maintaining BN in power.

“I am from PAS,” he stated. “The name Party Islam SeMalaysia has conjured a lot of fear and frightening images to non-Muslims. That’s because you hear about PAS from UMNO. It was always, ‘UMNO says PAS says…..’ The PAS government has been in Kelantan for the past 18 years and I believe they have done a reasonable job. All the talk of religious extremism and religious persecution are not proven by word or deed as far as Kelantan is concerned.”

He then assured parishioners that the policies of the coalition government will be worthy of the trust the community has put in them. “I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your support. I achieved a majority of 9314 votes in Shah Alam. On the part of PAS, we will now be a coalition government. Our policies will be based on consensus. There will be no attempts by any member within PAS to impose any form of law on the general public. We will be fair and just. We will do as required by the community and what is good for the community. We will carry out our duties based on good governance, transparency and accountability. I hope you will continue to give us your support and your suggestions and we will try to be worthy of your trust.” 

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Use the word ‘Allah’, have a church not a factory for worship.

SHAH ALAM: The Church of the Divine Mercy parishioners were pleasantly surprised with the friendliness and warmth exuberated by  YB Khalid Abdul Samad.

They candidly raised a few concerns, mostly about local council issues, subtle religious persecution elements that the church is facing and also the strength of the newly-formed coalition government.

One of the Parishioners suggested that open spaces or lands in Shah Alam should be gazetted as there was a lot of misuse of power by the developers and local council members, leaving the community to buy houses at their mercy. To this YB Khalid stated that the local council members in the past have been ‘some people’s cronies.’

MPSA alone has an annual income of RM230 million. When you get people in power who are more interested in making money than fulfilling responsibilities, they start changing policies. People appointed to the local council must understand what they are there for and have a strong sense of responsibility to look after public interest. I can give you my assurance that these open spaces will be protected.”

Another parishioner boldly told the MP that it was disheartening that Shah Alam being a ‘city,’ did not have land allocated for a Christian cemetery. In response, YB Khalid stated that he did not see a reason why there shouldn’t be a cemetery for Christians. “This is and unfortunate situation with our ‘passed’ government,” he stated. “They don’t know where emphasis should be given. They just want to prove that they are staunch Muslims. You don’t become good Muslims by preventing other people from practicing their religion. Even Muslims have been victims of BN trying to restrict the growth of religion especially when they stopped giving the RM60 per student in Islamic schools.”

The location that was given to build the church was also questioned. The church being a place of worship deserved an area where a community lived and not in an industrial area amidst factories, and not even a cross was  allowed to be erected atop of the building. YB Khalid said that “churches like mosques or temples should be where Christians are living in a community. BN has built a crystal mosque claiming it to cost 300 million ringgit, all alone on an island in Terengganu. Nobody seems to know the rationale behind these actions. As for the cross, I see no reason why there cannot be one. It’s probably back to basics with the BN government trying to show they are religious but not knowing what being religious is all about.”

He then assured the parishioners that “as a general rule, I see no problem with a cross being erected, after all it is a church. But if there are other reasons, I will find out and see what I can do.”

Similarly, on the issue of processions, he said there is no reason why permits should be denied and if the issue is brought up in Parliament, he assured that the Barisan Rakyat will support the request of such processions.

Another concerned parishioner put forward the question on the use of the word ‘Allah’ being an offence. As a PAS delegate, YB Khalid was the best to share his take on this issue. According to YB Khalid “in Arabic, ‘Allah’ means God. ‘Allah’ comes from the word ‘Al Illah’. ‘Illah’ means something that you worship. ‘Al’ means ‘the’. Therefore ‘Al Illah’ (or ‘Allah’ for short) simply means ‘the item of worship.’ Even before the coming of Prophet Mohammad, the word ‘Allah’ was used, simply because it means God. So if you ask me whether you can use the word ‘Allah’, I would say Yes. It is even not a problem for non-Muslims to use the word ‘Assalamualaikum’ because it simply means ‘Peace’. When I was in Jordan, I heard a Christian priest speaking Arabic on TV, and he used the word ‘Allah’ to refer to God. The problem here again is the ignorance within the Muslim community itself, thanks to BN. You have to give us some time to educate the Muslims. We have 50 years of ignorance to repair,” he said.   

There were also questions on the Barisan Rakyat’s DAP-PKR-PAS coalition government working together, to which the YB said that the three parties are now working together and will put their differences aside as the people have given them the responsibility of governing the state. “We are now a government by consensus. It is new, but I think all of us come with many years of the wealth of knowledge, and we realise that it is a very good opportunity for us to show the people that Malaysians deserve a good, righteous and clean government. We have started on a basis of a lot of compromise and we will find a common ground that will keep us together.”

On the issue of exposing all the rumours of corruption, especially Terengganu’s 5 per cent oil royalty and the 300 million spent on the Monsoon Cup, YB Khalid stated that “it won’t be too much problem to expose the corruption, but hopefully we won’t get too bogged down going after them as we have to do our jobs as well.”

On doing away with the segregation of race and religion, YB Khalid stressed that “one of our policies will be that there should be no attempts to discriminate against any community or individual because they are of a particular race or community.”

Then there was also the issue of public morality. One parishioner said that it was “plain wrong for anyone to profess their moral values on other religions,” referring to being summoned for public display of affection. YB Khalid simply said, “there must be a level of public morality that needs to be upheld. If couples say that it is their right how they want to display their affections, then the public also has the right not to see how you display it.” Very aptly put indeed. He said this issue will be further discussed as a fine line needs to be drawn.

On the economy, he assured that there will be no problems as Selangor is a rich state. He also said that the people will see the difference in the next few months. On media, he said that “we need an official media which is accurate, reliable and responsible. The internet is not the solution as it lacks accountability.” On the issue of discrimination in universities and job opportunities, he said that this is due to “mismanagement and political interference.” He also promised to look into the facilities in vernacular schools that seem to be lacking behind.

YB Khalid ended his dialogue session saying “we need a new vision for the country. Maybe, in Selangor we can show the way. We must show that the variety that exists in Malaysia is a blessing. We have to ‘walk the talk.’ This is the challenge for us… to achieve a multi-racial, multi-religious united nation.”

— By Jacelyn Johnson 

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a reminder, in case you missed it from my earlier post:

this news also appeared in the malaysian insider.
tony yew, active member of bangsa malaysia and whom i had met before, is from the shah alam church. he had blog on this too.
anil netto has put up the video.