You know what I personally think? I think the above account by the Washington Post is pure fabrication and fiction. But if it is true, hey! That alone could be ample reason to ponder upon the rationale behind the judgements regarding the lifting of the ban!
But then, if anything, this Washington Post article that unbeknownstly reveal the true intent and cite the vigor with which certain christian missionaries increase their efforts to meet up with their conversion KPIs border that of laughable insanity. But let us all face it. All religions have conversion agendas. Some more pronounced than others perhaps, but then in the case of the missionary-cum-colonialists that had as their dictum "For Gold, Glory and God", the geopolitics of these agendas is worthy of scrutiny.
To begin with, note that the bulk of these proselytizing efforts have mainly, in the past few hundred years or so, been concentrated solely onto the eastern and southern parts of the globe. The Post reports:-
Ah! Christian Global Dominance. Had Justice Lau's decision resulted in the continued banning, surely such Dominance would be very difficult to materialize.
Why the obsession to baptise the east? Well simple. Because lately in the west many people are
leaving Christianity, mostly towards atheism if they no longer believe in God, or to Islam (mostly) if they still do but feel a need to satisfy the quest and questions that they have been having all this while. A great majority of these converts are personalities of high standing in society---like artistes, public figures, politicians, scientist etc. The ones not in the limelight mostly are made up of intellectuals or have high education levels.
They sent in Yvonne Ridley to infiltrate the Taliban, she converted to Islam instead. They installed a staunch Christian, Captain Cormier Michel, to lead the command of the International Security Assistance Force to kill the Afghans, he converted to Islam instead. They used Michael Jackson, who once declared "I would rather not sing than realize that my songs are listened to by the Arabs", to infiltrate the hearts and minds of middle east youngsters, and HE converted to Islam instead. They sent in St. John Philby to do some colonialist expansionism works in the middle east and HE found Islam. They sent in Disciple of Christ Joseph Estes to Egypt to convert muslims there and HE got converted instead.
In fact highly respectable priests---whose KPI would definitely include the number of fresh new converts they could bring in, THEMSELVES found the light in Allah instead: Bishop of Uramiah Benjamin Keldani, Bologne priest Anselm Tormeeda, Pentecostal church minister Kenneth Jenkins, Sri Lankan Catholic Father George Anthony, Egyptian Coptic strongman Abraham Philobus, United Methodist Deacon Jerald F. Dirks, Lutheran Archbishop Martin Mwaipopo, Jehovah Witness Minister Raphael Narbaez, Russian Orthodox Archpriest Vaicheslav Polosin, German Catholic Doctor of Theology Dr A.R. Lehmann all had converted to Islam when they attempted to "study the religion deeper so they could understand the psyche of the Muslim world for the sole purpose of converting them".
Even the staunch questions of atheism could not bear the brunt of truth when its moment has come: atheists Zhang ChengZhi from Communist China, Kazakhstan president Nazarbayez, British Museum's Professor Martin Lings, even Singapore Chief Minister (former) Lim Yew Hock.
Other interesting converts include Radu Fremos, Dracula's brother (the real one), Cambridge Professor Tim Winter, Italian Ambassador T. Cardilli, notorious assassin Carlos the Jackal, famous KGB operative Alexander Litvinenko, US congressmen Andre Carson and Keith Ellison, American poet Daniel Moore, Ethiopian Emperor Lij Iyasu, Moldavian Prince Illie Rares, Lutheran James Yee, "I gotcha" singer Joe Tex, and many others.
When you have public personalities of repute embracing Islam, you can imagine the impact it has on the lesser stratas of society. Fox News carried a special report that highlights an alarming number of American youths converting to Islam everyday. And contrary to popular notions of causes and effects, the sales of Quran SPIKED in United States immediately following the aftermath of the 9-11 incident despite the west's insistence (helped by christians everywhere else) that Islam has to do with Terrorism. Despite
Lavonising the incident to demonise this pure religion, Islam is---and has been so far---the world's fastest growing religion, come whatever issues.
It is understandable then, to expect that Christian missionaries turn elsewhere for conversion KPIs. It is understandable too to expect that they do this with vengeance and a hidden rage: rage that resulted from THEIR own adherents leaving the faith in masses.
Now if in the west former christians are attracted to Islam through intellectual ponderings, dogmatic scrutiny or just pure search-for-truth questionings, the situation is different with the converts in the east, mostly towards Christianity. Many are motivated by monetary rewards given by the missionaries themselves. I watched one biblical series regarding missionary activities in Indonesia in the United States one day and in one, they showed a priest reciting the bible in malay and the congregation, made up of some very poor children there, reciting along with him. After the sermon or recital was over, he took out wads of rupiah notes and distributed them to each, saying
"Nah, ini gaji kalian!" The Vatican, perhaps the world's richest corporation, spends untold amount of money for conversion agendas.
Notice too the missionary activities during the Aceh disaster. Humanitarian objectives were not the primary reason for them helping. Setting up chapels and churches, guised under "help centers", malay bibles were also distributed along with blankets and potatoes, albeit knowing the fact that the acehnese had always been strong adherents to Islam so much so that the area has been nicknamed Veranda of Mecca (Serambi Mekah). Converting malays has been an inherent crusade that the christians regard with testosteronal overdrive, almost to the point of vengeance, seeing how the hundreds of years of efforts by Spanish expansionists and European colonists fail to win even a miniscule number of malays to start believing in Three Gods, Original sin and Redemption by death that the locals find so nonsensical and abhorrent about.
Conversion efforts amongst people of lowly educated population or those who are of relatively less advanced culture, like the dayaks, senois, the deep Sarawakian and Sabahan natives, etc are relatively painless. It is easier for the missionaries with condescending personalities, with an air and picture of the advanced-but-kind-hearted Mat Sallehs, to convert these natives because they do not have to debate out with them on zany dogmas like Original Sin, Divinity of Man, Trio of Godhood, Redemption of Humanity's sin by dying on the Cross and other preposterous concepts
which form the main qualms of those very western intellectuals abandoning Christianity in the first place. This ease, coupled with wads of cash, make regions like Africa, South East Asia, South America be fertile conversion grounds for almost all types of Christian denominations. (That itself is quizzical: do not be surprised if you go to any orang asli place and you find more than one type of church and the inhabitants themselves start to be divided on which church they go to: how can they if the RSV version of the bible in one senoi camp are not accepted as the word of God by another senoi camp using the King James edition!)
Preachers, having almost given up in trying to preach and defend the concepts I mentioned above to western christians who suddenly find themselves freed from the constraints of dogma and need to have more sensible explanations about them, therefore turn to the relatively easier and less-sophisticated natives to hone their missionary skills.
The case with the Chinese in Malaysia is a bit different: This target group, who are far from poor and therefore do not need any financial motives, conversion tactics are done using bootstrap principles: namely that of dissent towards anything Malay. To the chinese, anything that sounds malay-ish and associated to them is hateful. This has been a main weapon of the missionaries. Thus they would readily welcome any faiths which to them is reminiscent of and symptomatic to the idea of inherent rebellion. Christianity is an outlet for them to show dissent.
Even so, many among the Chinese would find the teachings and dogmas of this new faith to be quite irrational and absurd, but to them, being subservient to and agreeing with the malays would be much more unacceptable, and therefore changing faiths suddenly become an attractive lure. The Chinese is one people whose "fear of losing out or being left out" (commonly termed as
Kiasu) dictates their every move, every trait of behavior. Do not be surprised to find three or more different faiths residing in some Chinese individual: Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism etc … to ascertain that "if this one does not hit the mark, then this other one will" --- as if to obtain a quadruple insurance that their well being in the hereafter will more likely be guaranteed by bringing as many possible permutations of truths as possible. Now I surely applaud this fail-safe method of celestial trial-and-error, but would like to suggest them to expand the coverage a bit more, cos they really do not hit the mark as yet with those lists.
The Malaysian Indians, however, have a nobler purpose for conversion. After being in the social quagmire of the caste system for so long, conversion allows some Indians to taste being a notch up in society's rung of acceptance ladder. In the Abrahamic faiths, one do not need to distinguish one human being from another based on the nature of their births in society. If I were an Indian born in a low caste family, I surely would be inspired by my fellow indians like Father Lawrence Andrew and how high a standing and fully respected he is in society. My twice-tanned skin would turn white with envy! And the name, Look at the name! With this kind of name now instead of some Puthucheary or Tanabalan, tell me if I am not in the same league as Norah Jones, Charles Xavier or James Cameron.
Which brings me to this: that cultural and racial glorification could be another factor. (Racial glorification is the inverse of racism: always getting awed at those races you regard superior than yours) . Christianity is associated with pictures of Richard Branson, of Bill Gates, of Angelina Jolie. Oh never mind none of these believe in Christianity, but at least they are now in the same name pool, anyway, much like
Rudolf does. That is, "Richard Hong" is much more cooler than, say, "Abdullah Wong" anytime. This is, of course, a peculiarity only of south east asian chinese. The mainland inhabitants have about 40 million Christians and they do not suffer from this predicament. That is, they do not have Peters or Michaels or Janettes attached to their names to affirm that they are christians. By contrasts, the Jets and Hackens and Brackens and Kersons might have appellations more adornful than the western christians themselves by faithwise it doubtful that they are equally so (In contrast, there are 20 million mainland chinese muslims, much more than the malays themselves ).
Thus it can safely be said that conversion to Islam for the western people are motivated by their intellectual desire to find meaning and answers to an otherwise perplexing set of dogmas that they had been taught since early childhood, while conversion to Christianity are almost always driven by economics, the need to be dissentful, as well as the need to be associated with anything western.
But will conversion efforts be successful purely on the grounds of dogma change among the malays? Not as it stands. In order to attract malay youths, some "proselytizers" introduce a very unlikely carrot: the kinds of western lifestyles a potential renegade muslim can be accorded once the shackles of Islamic constraints are unbounded. Conundrically, these lifestyles are anti-thestical to the kind ministry that Jesus Christ represented: freewheeling booze, free sex, homosexuality and hedonism in general. But their contention is this: isn't Jesus all about Love, Love, Love? Why should you constraint your life to a set of rules and regulations and religious restrictions that Islam promotes? What is the meaning of living life to the fullest if you cant do that, cant drink this, cant eat that, can't sleep things out?
Booze: well see now there is no prohibition in christianity at all? And the sexual revolution: this has succesfully replaced the norm of the sanctity of marriage and the preservation of family life in western christian countries so don't you want to move a notch ahead in terms of progress and modernism? And homosexuality: yes I know that the bible condemns it but it's all interpretations, you see. And see how we have even wedded same sex couples in many christian countries and even downplay the roles that priests play in the abuse and sodomization of boys under their care? And all this from a religion that preaches those exact iniquities to be abominations by all God's messengers from Adam to moses to Jesus to Muhammad.
Folks. Islam is the last bastion of the purity of God's teachings as laid down by the Torah, Bible and Qur'an. It now stands alone and unaided in disallowing the tamperings of the original scriptures that seek to replace God's true teachings with ever-changing priestly ones.
And because of this purity, the efforts to discredit Islam, to sway its adherents away from its
straight path (pun intended) and INTO other religions including Christianity, cannot be blamed on the Christian Priests with KPI pressures alone.
The blame lies beyond, on a much more sinister, diabolical, Luciferan origin. The dirtying of the name Allah by associating blasphemies is only one of the means, albeit a first step ...
Apocryphalist"Pak Sedaro wish to acknowledge the work done by the researcher into deliberating such issues for the becoming Nation State called Bumi Melayu - Malaysia."
Andai benarlah 'rumors' yang berlaku ini, pada hemat saya maka tidaklah layak mangkuk hayun sekor ni menjadi pemimpin bagi parti keramat Melayu terutamanya di negeri yang ditadbir oleh pembangkang. Ini kerana:-
