Najib’s Sibu Dream

Monday 17th May was a difficult day of soul-searching for me. The Prime Minister (PM) of my country has been blatantly vote-buying, AND 18,447 of my fellow citizens seem to approve of the PM and his party. On Sunday, 18,447 voters in Sibu, Sarawak voted for the Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate, Mr Robert Lau.

I am glad the Democratic Action Party (DAP) candidate Mr Wong Ho Leng won the by-election, albeit by a slim majority of 398 votes. [Some believe Mr Wong's majority may be higher because some votes “appeared” at the last minute for the BN candidate, courtesy of the supposedly neutral Election Commission.]

I like the fact that the majority is slim. This means every vote counts. This means I have a strong basis to encourage many of my friends to register and to vote. This means we have a chance to bring forth justice.

Mr Najib made a speech in Sibu, seven minutes of which the independent news portal Malaysiakini has made available as a video. In the speech, the Prime Minister is blatant about his control over public funds in Malaysia, and his willingness to “make a deal” with the people of Rejang Park, a section of Sibu.

In summary, this is what Mr Najib said: “You help me, I help you. Two of the Datuk’s seated over there whispered to me and asked if I could help solve the flooding problem here. I will do for you in Sibu what I did for the people of Ulu Klang, Selangor [where BN won another by-election last month.] I kept my promise to give them three million Ringgit for a Chinese school if BN won the election. We won on Sunday. The cheque was made out on Monday. I delivered the cheque on Wednesday. I honour my commitments. I can solve your flood problem. How much do you need? Oh! It’s five million now? Okay. Five million. You give me Robert Lau, I give you five million. It doesn’t cost you any money. It will cost me five million. Do we have a deal? I am the people’s Prime Minister. I have visited the market in Sibu three times. I dream about Sibu”

When leaders make speeches, they seek to appeal to the values of their audiences. In leadership training, we often hear Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a dream” speech in which he appealed to his audience’s shared inheritance, values and fears. He referenced founding ideals (declaration of independence, Lincoln), family and freedom. Dr King moved his audience beyond personal and present day needs. Dr King dreamed of a country in which human dignity and justice rule. Dr King energized people to make sacrifices, to stand up and be counted. Dr King called his audience to creative suffering so that others might benefit in the future. Dr King’s five minute speech is used to teach how to appeal to people’s highest instincts: dignity, freedom, justice.

Mr Najib’s seven minute segment can be used to teach how to appeal to people’s lowest instincts: patronage, self-interest, continuity. Mr Najib spoke of visiting the market in Sibu more than once. Mr Najib’s speech shows he found his values in the wet markets of Malaysia. Mr Najib will lend his ear to the whispers of local leaders; he will put Sibu’s needs before the needs of others; he will continue with BN’s money politics, just as he did most recently in Ulu Klang. To the back of Mr Najib was the BN symbol, a pair of scales; from his speech I infer that the scales stand for market politics: BN is the party of the market and their currency is votes. For BN, inducing with money, couched in terms of prosperity and stability has been and will be the norm.

There was some audience participation during Mr Najib’s speech. When Mr Najib asked “boleh tidak?” [can or not?] I heard some voices say “boleh!” This happened several times. Do those who responded represent the 18,447 citizens who voted for BN, Mr Najib’s party? Do they think elections are the time to “get, get, get?” Do they care about the welfare of those who live elsewhere in Malaysia? Do they care about accountability?

Public funds do not belong to the PM or to the governing party. Public funds should be spent after carefully weighing opportunities and costs, not in response to whispers and in order to induce people to vote for a party. Democracy is not just about voting. Democracy is about equality, fairness, justice and transparency. How would you feel if your child’s school used your building fund donations to to provide computers for only one of five classes? Happy if your child is in the chosen class (do 18,447 of our neighbours feel this way)? Otherwise? How would you expect the “cost” to be determined? Three thousand or five thousand ringgit per computer?

In a democracy, you get to choose your representative. Every vote counts. Despite vote-buying and alleged vote-fixing, BN lost by 398 votes. Make your vision, voice and vote count. Whose dream will you choose?

In Mr Najib’s dream Malaysians vote for patronage, self-interest and continuity. Will his dream be fulfilled?

A Letter to Each of the Four Churches in Sibu?

“Sibu churches given federal cash ahead of vote” heralded the headline of a 16th May article in the free online newspaper The Malaysian Insider. The first sentence was: “Four Sibu Methodist churches were given special grants totalling RM1.75 million from the federal government yesterday in the final hours of the by-election campaign.” The award is said to have been presented by a representative of the Deputy Prime Minister.

The article indicated the money is to be used for upgrading and extension works of church buildings in Sibu which has 54,695 voters and of whom 53 per cent are said to be Christians. A Barisan National (BN) spokesman, Mr Daniel Ngieng apparently said the churches have about 5,000 members and had “applied for the special grants for quite some time.”

In the online community, numerous people from varied backgrounds rapidly condemned the churches for accepting the “gifts.” This indicates that many still think the churches represent Christians and also that they expect churches to lead in public morality. Perhaps I have just not been watching, but I am not aware of similar gifts-response discussions involving public funds and other religious groups. So, the outbursts against Christians is music in my ears.

I once said in an article on Christian giving that my (Hindu) father trained me to pay taxes. I will admit that I struggle with my tax returns every year – it annoys me that much of what I pay is misused by the government. Yet I recognize it is my duty as a citizen to pay taxes, and that without my taxes my nation and my world would be worse than it already is. I believe God expects me to put the interests of others before my own. I also subscribe to the belief that every Christian must give away at least (yes, at least) ten percent of his or her income in addition to the amount paid in taxes.

As a Christian, I struggled with the idea that we should invite non-Christians to contribute to Christian projects until I realized the Malaysian government fully or partially funds architecturally stunning (and therefore very expensive) buildings for other religions. I also learned that God actually instructed the descendants of Abraham to receive gifts from their oppressors when they left Egypt. Another surprise: in some countries governments provide public funds to various groups on the basis of Key Performance Indicators (KPI), e.g. if your drug or prisoner rehabilitation activity has good KPI’s, you can receive public funds. [In Malaysia, my wife and I have been supporting a drug rehabilitation centre which has stellar KPI's and has never received any public funds; my gifts to them are not even tax-exempt.]

I am a taxpayer. I expect fairness in distribution of public funds. I give gifts to those who do good works. In my understanding of Christian teaching, public funds are not “haram” (like the 30 silver coins of Judas, see Matthew 26:15) and may be received gladly – although sometimes I am troubled that tax on gambling is one of the sources of public funds.

I also know the church is always being watched. Worldwide, there are many who are in prison or are being tortured simply for being Christians. The Christ and His apostles told us to expect this. We claim to follow the Christ, the preacher of The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 – 7), the highest-ever ethical teaching. We seek to honour Him by promoting His Kingdom: we pray the Lord’s prayer (Matthew 6: 9-13) which includes “honoured be your name” and “your Kingdom come.” If our commitment to God’s honour does not result in good works and buildings to serve him, we are hypocrites. If our commitment to God’s rule (Kingdom) does not results in our active promotion of fairness and justice, we are hypocrites.

So, leaders and members of each of the four churches in Sibu, the world is watching and waiting for your response. Here are some questions to help you think this through and frame your response:

1. What is the purpose and total cost of the project for which you requested public funds?
2. When and to whom did you first submit the request for funds?
3. What responses did you get? When and from whom?
4. How many times did you follow-up? Who was present and what actions were agreed?
5. What did you actually receive “from a representative of the DPM” last week?
6. How much notice did you receive before meeting the “representative of the DPM”?
7. What conditions are attached to the funds you received?
8. If you had declined to receive the funds last week, what do you think would have been the result?
9. Have you previously received public funds for church projects? When and how much?
10. What representations/protests have you ever made about the local/state or federal governments?
11. How much does your congregation give (just) to your church every year?
12. How have you been praying for your projects and what do you think has been God’s response?

Brethren, I too have been involved in church building projects. I know the holy aspirations, the humbling rebuffs and the hurtful questions. I write not to criticize or to condemn but to promote Christian virtue and offer Christian sympathy.

If the Lord writes us a letter as He did to the seven churches in the book of Revelation (1:4 – 3:22), what would He say?

From http://write2rest.blogspot.com/

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,

about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed.