I’m responding to Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi’s columns in Sin Chew — one published today and an earlier piece which appeared two days ago (Apr 21).
He asked some questions. I’m answering some of them. I hope he reads this.
BELOW: Eyes to see, ears to hear, and most crucially critical thinking to avert DAP indoctrination
‘Non Muslim’ is catch-all phrase not precise enough
Tajuddin said he’s worried about Muslim reaction to “the charity affairs of two DAP non-Muslim personalities”.
For accuracy, they are two C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N personalities. It is important to be precise.
A quick juxtaposition is in order. Some said that under the Harapan government established 2018, the Attorney-General, the Chief Justice and the Law Minister were – unprecedentedly – all “non Muslims”.
Again, precision is paramount.
Ex-AG Tommy Thomas is Christian; former CJ Richard Malanjum is Christian; the late Law Minister Zachary David Liew Vui Keong was Christian. All the three law bigwigs. CHRISTIAN.
About the two DAP Yang Berhormats, Kasthuri Patto is Christian. She is pushy and disrespectful of Chinese spiritual folk beliefs.
Steven Sim fits the bill of an evangelist. Dr Kamarul Zaman Yusoff has already explained why.
BELOW: Steven has been on PAS’s radar for years; flashback 2019
PAS worried about DAP evangelists
Tajuddin said he is waiting for “Islamic-biased political parties to also weigh in whether it is allowed for non-Muslims to give charity to Muslims” but alas, the “silence is deafening”.
Tajuddin has selective hearing. PAS has not been silent. In fact, I’ve heard party president Hadi Awang repeatedly warn about “mereka yang berpura-pura dan tidak ikhlas”, and quoting verses about the People of the Book, i.e. kaum Yahudi dan Nasrani, in this regard.
In his latest sermon yesterday titled ‘Dilema perpaduan’, Hadi Awang said:
“perpaduan bersama bukan Islam yang ekstrem gagal diwujudkan kerana mereka menunjukkan permusuhannya secara sembunyi dan nyata menjadi penghalang kepada agenda perpaduan umat”.
I can make a pretty good guess as to who Hadi Awang is alluding to when he recalled the above perpaduan tie-up failure with the extreme non Muslims.
Also yesterday, Hadi Awang said that “kebertanggungjawaban terhadap masyarakat dengan ikhlas” … “Bukan sekadar dengan ucapan dan berpura-pura dengan lagak lakonannya sahaja”.
Several senior leaders in PAS have even only recently cautioned against DAP evangelists. As have the Islamic religious authorities although MAIS’s warning relating to the “Christian agenda” – see below – omits pinpointing DAP in the specific.
My response to Tajuddin’s article titled ‘Interracial and inter-religious charity perceptions in Malaysia’ will be in two sections — firstly on the subject of bahasa perpaduan, and secondly on why Christianity can be the DAP’s ticket to ride to the pinnacle of power.
BELOW: Cina DAP apparatchiks (seated second row) who are non Muslim and having a fetish for tudung in public
DAP’s Bangsa M’sia is merely Muslim attire cosplay
Prof. Tajuddin sees the “true birth of nationhood” as happening when the DAP members of parliament assist Muslims with their Christian charity.
Allow me to explain why Tajuddin needs corrective spectacles to fix his blind spot, in addition to requiring hearing aid to catch the loud alarm bells being rung by PAS about the evangelists.
Tajuddin has a naively positive perception of the charitable help rendered by DAP Christian politicians. He is wrong.
His fellow local academics, however, say these YBs are cynically showboating. They are right.
Nonetheless Tajuddin’s blind spot prevents him from registering the truth of Muslim criticism on the evangelists.
But before I touch on political Christianity in the DAP, let me first dispute Tajuddin’s claim that the ostensible ‘charity’ by opposition MPs can serve as an underpinning for Malaysian nationhood.
How to talk to each other like this
If I had to pick one pillar for nation-building, it will be every Malaysian citizen sharing a common language. And this tongue that binds must be bahasa Melayu.
Earlier this month, Tajuddin had himself put his name to a joint statement on kalimah Allah whose paragraph four stated:
“Bahasa Melayu had already become the lingua franca for native groups like Iban, Bidayuh, Orang Ulu, Melanau, Kadazan-dusun and Murut even before the arrival of Christianity.”
So, Tajuddin said above that the Iban, the Bidayuh, the Orang Ulu, the Melanau, the Kadazan-dusun and the Murut all speak BM as their lingua franca.
Over in the peninsula, the Orang Asal also speak BM with others not belonging to their tribes.
Indians can communicate effectively in BM too. The only group unable to speak our national language decently are the Bangsa Malaysians aka Cina DAP.
The thing about Bangsa Malaysians is they’re champions at deliberately misframing the issue.
Bangsa M’sians should speak bahasa M’sia
These Bangsa Malaysians are merely being told off that if they insist on portraying themselves as “Malaysians First”, then please lah — show you’re able to speak bahasa kebangsaan with a minimal level of competency, at the very least.
But like I said, the Bangsa Malaysians deliberately misdirect the issue by disingenuously counter arguing:
(1) They say: The Federal Constitution does not disallow us from learning our mother tongues.
(Helen sighs. Nobody is stopping you from conversing in Cantonese. But how is your learning of Malay coming along?)
(2) They say: English is the universal language.
(Helen: Fine. Is anybody dissuading you from speaking Queen’s English? No, right? But can you speak the sole language stipulated in Article 152 of our FedCon?)
(3) They say: Mandarin is the world’s most spoken language and very useful.
(Helen: Great. Go ahead and speak Mandarin and English all you want. But are you able to speak BM as well?)
(4) They say: Malaysia discourages diversity (multilingualism) because Malays are mostly monolingual.
(Helen: Be my guest and show off your talent as a polyglot. The more the merrier; impress us with your French or Korean or better yet Tamil. But is BM in your language repertoire?)
(5) They say: We already know enough Malay to get by, and beyond that BM is of no further use to us.
(Helen: Meaning, the Bangsa Malaysians know how to order Nasi Lemak dan Teh Tarik “kurang manis” … takat tu jer.
(But they will not themselves be able to translate Mariam Mokhtar’s Malaysiakini English articles into BM — a task they’re always begging somebody else to do.)
BELOW: Ariana Miyamoto seorang bangsa Jepun berkulit hitam yang mampu bertutur bahasa Jepun dengan lancar
“Hang Tuah is said to have been fluent in 12 languages. So, learning more than one language is a good thing,” Tajuddin informs us.
Bravo! Hang Tuah is proof positive then that a Chinese is adept in languages. So are the Malaysian Chinese today unable to master BM or is it that they refuse to try?
Now, I challenge Prof. Tajuddin to ask any of his Malay relatives whether (a) they believe that the Chinese truly respect our bahasa kebangsaan or (b) if they think that the Chinese have only contempt for the utility of BM and/or disdain for BM speakers?
I also dare Tajuddin to ask his relatives whether they believe the DAP Christian politicians camping out in the mosques to be an iota sincere in their niat?
Playing race and religion victim card
We are by now quite used to Bangsa Malaysians complaining how Chinese are made the “scapegoat” and Christians cast as the “bogeyman”.
At the beginning of this blog post, I said Prof. Tajuddin has a blind spot. I’ll elaborate.
In a recent Sin Chew column, the professor snarked at one unnamed “academic from a public university in the northernmost part of Malaysia”.
Here – i.e. the Steven Sim kerfuffle – is where Tajuddin and I converge in our discussions although we approach the topic from opposite directions.
I contend that it is Dr Kamarul Zaman Yusoff, really, who is being scapegoated (for alerting the public to DAP evangelists) and who is made the easy target bogeyman in the eyes of DAP fanboys.
There were more than five hundred Malaysiakini reader comments contained in three articles published on Monday and Tuesday this week pertaining to the Steven vs Kamarul contestation.
A vast majority of those comments reflected the DAP groupthink. The stampede of anti-Kamarul comments was driven by their Bangsa Malaysia herd mentality.
Their sheer volume constituted an online mob, and this mob was collectively attacking one lone individual. The Bangsa Malaysians are not being bullied; they ARE the bullies.
Apart from race politics which is par for the course, the Bangsa Malaysians upped the ante on religion politics.
Malaysiakini subscribers made the following comments below about Dr Kamarul:
QUOTE
• “Kamarul is not a true Muslim when he cannot see the good that is being done by Sim”.
• “If his faith so weak, it (sic) his problem.”
• “I take that you [Dr Kamarul] are not a Muslim.”
• “Kamarul has shallow or no knowledge of Islam. Kamarul please refer to Surah Al Kafirun. […] Be a good Muslim and NOT a Muslim in name only!”
• “KZ, you failed as a Muslim!”
• “Which Allah will forgive him, send him to Hell and expedite his transfer.”
• “Surely what he [Dr Kamarul] claim to know I dare say is not Islam”.
• “Are you speaking for all Muslims. You don’t so shaddup. You don’t speak for me.” (Helen’s note: This particular commenter identifies as Muslim.)
UNQUOTE
All the above remarks by Malaysiakini subscribers have been screenshot showing their timestamp, coupled with embed linking to the relevant url in the Malaysiakini readers’ comment section — refer details HERE.
Pandering to his Chinese readership, Tajuddin takes to task “people who live in the silos of their own race, religion and social status”. And hence these silo-ed prople (i..e. Malays) are suspicious of evangelists, according to him.
Bangsa Malaysians, in my observation, hardly feel confined to their own religious silos but are willing to venture across faith boundaries.
Some of the Bangsa Malaysians take it upon themselves to judge whether a Malay person is a true Muslim or not, whether the Malay person’s iman is weak or strong, whether the Malay person has sound Islamic knowledge or not, whether the Malay person passes or fails as a Muslim, whether the Malay person will go to heaven or hell, and whether the Malay person qualifies to be called a real Muslim.
Not only is the Bangsa Malaysian self righteous, he is judgmental too. Look at how they judged Dr Kamarul.
Since mind reading is not in my skill set, I don’t know Tajuddin’s views on this but personally, I see the Malaysiakini ‘Bangsa’ reader (quoted above) who remarked to Dr Kamarul – “I take that you are not a Muslim” – as highly insulting.
Who is telling the truth?
A Malaysiakini reader going by the initials ‘BR’ commented: “Nasib baik she [Kasthuri Patto] is not a Christian, if not what will happen” — see above.
‘BR’ together with ‘Vijay47‘ (see below) and ‘Cogito Ergo Sum’ are all three of them wrong to assume or imply that Kasthuri is Hindu.
Instead, it is Dr Kamarul who’s correct when he said Kasthuri is Christian.
See below Kasthuri’s comment posted from her blue check marked-Facebook account acknowledging “saya seorang Kristian”.
The DAP Batu Kawan MP was responding to Dr Kamarul who had highlighted the cross necklace she (Kasthuri) was pictured wearing in a photograph.
BELOW: Screenshot of Kasthuri’s reply captured from a long comment thread in Dr Kamarul’s FB which begun late night on April 20
The pro-opposition public are often wrong in their over-confidently expressed beliefs about the DAP evangelist YBs. For example, they mistakenly believe Kasthuri to be Hindu.
They also erroneously believe that DAP elected reps who do not use Western names must not be Christian then. Wrong again.
YB Yeo Bee Yin (DAP Bakri), YB Ong Kian Ming (DAP Bangi) and YB Teo Nie Ching, for example, are not known to have any names lifted from the Bible but they are nonetheless Christian. Others – too many to count – from the party are Christian but their Christian names are kept private … such as the famous James-and-David cousins.
YB Rajiv Rishyakaran (Adun, DAP Bukit Gasing) is Christian too despite his name sounding Indian unlike, say, YB Charles Santiago (DAP Klang) whose name has a Catholic ring to it.
The public are unaware too that Punjabis need not necessarily be Sikh but can be Christian. YB Mary Josephine Pritam Singh (Adun, DAP Rahang) is Christian.
Many of the DAP elected reps in Sabah and Sarawak are Christian. These YBs include the pribumi.
Christianity has status stemming from its Borneo adherents being indigenous to Nusantara. Buddhism and Hinduism, on the other hand, are embraced by Chinese and Indians who are not bangsa induk (core nations) of the Malay archipelago.
Thus Christianity enjoys a more elevated status than Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Taoism, etc because native Christians are bumiputera, including descendents of the Malacca Portuguese apparently.
And therefore the DAP’s political Christianity can be an instrument to further empower the party.
DAP’s ordinary followers – those outside the party inner circle and corridors of power – are unaware of many things. Their support of the evangelical leaders is like unthinking lemmings.
Tajuddin, as professor, has surely got better brains than a lemming but still, he unfathomably joined the pro-DAP hive mind that ganged up to stampede on Dr Kamarul.
His continually complimentary articles on the DAP Christians is doing a disservice to the Sin Chew readership who look to him to get an idea on the genuine Malay outlook.
Helen Ang 
muslim n christian believe in the same god, muslim salvation include christian, its just a little spat in a family, no big deal at all, however me n u are to them a kafir, a non believer, one that can be taken advantage of when they r weak, n become a foe when they r strong, this happened throughout history. so whats is our options? to support one that tell we are all one bangsa or one that call us a kafir or pendatang?
Tony Pua mocked the God of Prosperity. Kasthuri Patto had no reapect for Phor Thor.
They called Ronnie Liu a “Chinese chauvinist” and “toxic”. They attack Teng Chang Khim, Boo Cheng Hau.
They’re judgmental. They think Dr Kamarul, you and I are destined for hell.
They’ll gang up with whichever Malay power structure next and too bad if you’re in Camp Ronnie … you’re “racist”, “bigoted”, “extremist” (remember, Mahathir sided with Camp Hannah) and enemy to them.
In Pakatan Rakyat, DAP pakat with PAS and told Chinese that hudud is okay, what. If we don’t steal, there is nothing for us to fear, they cajoled Chinese voters.
In Pakatan Harapan, DAP pakat with Bersatu and swiftly threw all their “equality” promises in the trash.
In their next Pakatan iteration, they will tell their Malay partners “both of us are People of the Book”. “Your Allah is my Allah, we call our God ‘Allah’ too”.
They will say to their next Malay partner: “Look there, them — pointing their finger at you and me — the Ronnie types. They’re the racists, chauvinists and kafir.”
It is high time that all Malaysian Chinese declare their dialects in all Government Administrative forms like the British. Why the British did it ? This is because the British discovered that different Chinese clans behaved differently. Their behaviour varied from subservient, law abiding or absolutely crazy. Indeed the British knew much about all these Chinese clans. Hence, they placed all these immigrant Chinese (up to World War 2) in designated areas of Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak. The Hokkiens, Cantonese, Teochews and Hakkas in the towns. Foochows in Sarawak and Sitiawan. Hainanese to serve the British in the plantations, mines and British homes and clubs. Sabah has the Hakkas. Malaya had the most variety of the Chinese clans outside of China. This identification by clans saved the British a lot of problems in meting out good governance. To pursue their policy, the British sent their Police cadres from the Straits Settlements to Swatow, Xiamen and Canton for 6 months to study the behaviour of these majority clansmen in the Straits Settlements, in their original homes They returned to be posted in the Offices of the Protector of the Chinese in Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. All these offices were established next to chinatowns.The Kuala Lumpur Chinese Protector’s Building still stands opposite to the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall today. The term ‘Protector of the Chinese’ was a euphemism ! In fact, he was just a spy on the going-ons of the Chinese. If we extrapolate our findings of the different Chinese clans today, we will find only one particular clan which behaviour is different from the rest of the Chinese clans. Why ? These clansmen are not HAN Chinese but LAO Chinese who drifted into an island in China from the highlands of Indo-china and Yunnan. They practised incest with their own kind to produce crazy genes.. In Malaysia and Singapore, this lot is involved in all sorts of political and business felonies. Some of my Malay friends with some knowledge of the local Chinese employ these clanswomen as secretaries because they found them to be efficient, obedient and could keep their mouths shut. Others used them for other purposes. Such are the attributes of this peculiar clan. Nowadays, these fellows are all sound and fury in the Malaysian Political arena as the ‘Onward Christians’ evangelists unlike all those conventional churches of old. In time, this lot of Chinese looking home grown evangelists would be a spent force because their primary existence today is based entirely on MONEY and AGE. Like our self-appointed World’s best LKY, it is only a matter of time before the whole motley fancy dress and exotic curries show fizzles out like a balloon or punctured tyre without being truly motivated by political or religious beliefs which have been around for hundreds of years. FAKERY is a dime a dozen in our beloved Malaysia these days !