When I asked Tian Chua last Saturday in a SIHRG workshop with Anwar and etc. in London on the issue of religious freedom and what PKR was doing about it, his answer was basically, “Pakatan Rakyat has a balanced coalition between the three religions (DAP, Keadilan, PAS) which allows us to discuss among ourselves these issues. At least we can debate about this and to publish our consensus/discussions to the public to ensure this conflict is not escalated.”
This was what Barisan had at the beginning, ain’t it? This coalition..and as we all know and have seen, the areas of negotiation was increasingly reduced over time by the other increasingly marginalised parties-MCA and MIC until there is not much true debates left among the parties in BN. Let’s hope that the opposition coalition does not lose sight of what is truly important in their “consensus” discussions among themselves, which is to maintain the delicate balance of power between the different religious groups for purposes of harmonious living and multiculturalism in Malaysia, rather than to use it for politicking and garnering votes only.
On another note, I know that the answer he gave me had to be short (because it was at the end of the workshop) and in fact it’s quite politician-gimmick-like, but it gave me the impression that the opposition has yet to delve deep into the icky muddy area of religious issues yet. Besides advocating for liberal tolerant views on the Allah issue, (PAS supporting the use of Allah by Christians) and other issues I’m not aware of-will the opposition be able to go beyond that, and address the more core-shaking issues of giving freedom for religious conversions for Malays, advocating the ban of ISA for religious converts, and other issues?
In my senior thesis, I wrote that religious monopoly by the government occurred because BN wanted to keep a hold of their Malay-Muslim electorate population, but can Pakatan avoid that route to keep their power in the country and have true debate among themselves?
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