“When the chips are down, Rela will be with this government to defend the country. Do not cause havoc in this country because the 2.8 million Rela members will not stand idly by and watch the country descend into chaos,” he thundered to the noisy approval from a crowd of 30,000 Rela members gathered in Kuala Lumpur last Saturday.

Najib seems at variance with his Transformation Minister Idris Jala. The GTP roadmap for combating crime requires Rela to help police keep“omnipresence” in 50 identified crime hot spots in the Kuala Lumur, Selangor, Johor and Penang.

But Najib talks about using Rela as a vanguard or vigilante when Umno or Barisan’s chips are down and he wants Rela to contain demonstrators out to create public disorder.

How do we expect a rag-tag army of volunteers to rein in demonstrators when even the specially trained red-helmeted FRU could not handle the peaceful Bersih 2.0 Rally last year without resorting to brutality? And Bersih 2.0 was not even out to create public disorder at that.

There is hardly any time nor resources to train the volunteer army. According to the GTP roadmap, less than 400 Rela/JPAM personnel were trained and deployed in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor in August and September 2009; about 280 personnel were trained and were deployed in Penang and Johor in October and November 2009. That’s a tiny drop in the ocean of 2.8 million Rela volunteers. If it takes just ten hours to train one Rela, it would take 3,240 man-years to train all of them round the clock! What we likely to get is a largely untrained but a vigilante force sanctioned by Barisan.

The recruitment for volunteers for this auxiliary security force shot up almost five-fold from 600,000 to the current 2.8 million within two years. It is the biggest peace time civilian mobilisation and is 25 times bigger than the country’s standing army as well as that of the police force.

The bulk of the new Rela recruits are from frontline states. Selangor has half a million, Penang (220,328), Kelantan (222,910), Perak (271,396), Sabah (258,162) and Sarawak (199,991) as at 31 July 2011. This works out to be two thirds of Rela’s total membership. Given that in the 2008 elections, some marginal seats were won or lost by less than 50 votes, the extraordinary Rela presence in these states is more than a concern.

This massive build-up seems extraordinarily strange especially when Malaysia already has a better police personnel to population ratio than even industrial countries. For every 100,000 persons, Malaysia has 301 policemen. According to UN criminal justice statistics, this is higher than Denmark (196), Canada (200), South Korea (202), Japan (203), Sweden (206), U.S. (229) and Australia (247).

On top this, the country also has its civil defence force of 67,000 as well as the Police Volunteer Corp, both of which are much more disciplined and experienced than Rela.

RELA has a bad reputation having drawn flak from foreign attention for its human rights abuses of nabbing aliens without valid entry permits for a bounty of RM80 per head captured.

In 2007, Human Rights Watch called for RELA to be disbanded, “The government has set up what’s little more than a vigilante force to target foreigners. Given RELA’s repeated abuses, it should be disbanded right away “said Brad Adams, its Asia director.

In that same year the Malaysian Bar Council passed a resolution at its Annual General Meeting, calling for the repeal of the legislation that established RELA and extended the powers of RELA officers to, amongst other things, enforce immigration law.

Ikatan Relawan Rakyat Malaysia (RELA) or the Peoples’ Volunteer Alliance was established on 11 January 1972 under the (Essential Powers) Emergency Act 1964 – Essential Rules (Ikatan Relawan Rakyat) (Amendment) 2005.

This law presumably will be defunct within six months after the repeal of the emergency declarations by Parliament last September and is to be replaced by what Najib calls a new Rela Act presumably in March. But he gave no details.

Another worrisome sign is that the Home Ministry has recently installed a RM6.65 million high-tech virtual shooting range for Rela youth cadets or teenagers to handle simulation firearms. The centre at the Rakan Muda Complex in Kuala Lumpur can cater to up to 14,400 trainees a year.The virtual firing range will run on South Korea’s Intelligent Marksmanship Training Simulation System (IMTS) for its police force.

Added to this is the claim by Perkasa, the extreme Malay right wing group, that a Rela subgroup called Briged Setia Negara had been established by Selangor Perkasa chief, Abdullah Mansor, in December last year. This was later denied by Rela.

Rela is also a strain on the Home Ministry budget as it would cost millions to maintain such a big and superfluous outfit. Najib has also proposed to increase Rela allowance by RM2 per hour. This will effectively double the full time volunteer allowance for non-officers to between RM800 and RM900 a month which is more than what a ketua kampung or longhouse tuai rumah gets.

Don’t be misled, a swallow doth not a summer maketh. We are still deep in the winter of an emasculated judiciary frozen since the Mahathir ice age. We need more evidence of courage and boldness from our judges before we can hope to thaw into a new spring.

But credit must be given to where it’s due. Recent judgments indicate some judges are willing to go into early retirement or be put into the cold storage by going the extra mile in their adjudication. The High Court’s judgment against the government in the Allah case is a case in point. There are a few others that are noteworthy.

The Najib administration must undo what Mahathir has done to the judiciary for the 23 years he was Prime Minister. Najib’s predecessor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, made a feeble attempt by apologising to the former Lord President Tun Salleh Abbas and other judges sacked by Dr Mahathir in the late 1980s when they didn’t deliver the judgment that Mahathir wanted. Abdullah didn’t survive the wrath of Mahathir over this, among other things. In stepped Najib, Dr M’s original choice as successor.

But Najib must stand on his own now. One of Mahathir’s muzzles on the judiciary was the removal of the power of judicial review of executive action. One by one, new legislations were introduced or existing ones amended by taking away the court’s inherent power. From the Internal Security Act to the Industrial Relations Act, this phrase was inserted: The minister’s decision shall be final and shall not be challenged in any court of law. Thus began our slide into a judiciary dictated by the whims and fancies of an increasingly autocratic executive branch of His Majesty’s government.

Najib must restore to the judiciary what is rightly theirs to act as check and balance in a parliamentary democracy by removing all anti-judicial review clauses from the country’s laws soonest possible.

Najib must also bite the bullet by reviewing the controversial amendment to Article 121 of the Federal Constitution curtailing judicial power in that “the (civil) courts shall have no jurisdiction in respect of any matter within the jurisdiction of the Syariah courts.”

The bone of contention is that this amendment impairs the sanctity of the Federal Constitution as in Article 4 (1) in that “This Constitution is the supreme law of the Federation and any law passed after Merdeka Day (31 Aug 1957) which is inconsistent with the Constitution, shall to the extent of the inconsistency, be void.”

This constitutional amendment has posed a serious problem to those seeking conversion and apostasy hearings to the extent that it infringes on their rights regarding fundamental liberties like freedom of religion provided under Article 11.

The Syariah amendment known as Article 121(1a) has served as a convenient escape clause for some judges to avoid hearing such cases and to hide behind the judicial sarong of their cowardice.

An increasingly arrogant and powerful Attorney General adds to the maladministration of justice through selective prosecution and manipulation of due process like delaying or expediting hearings to suit the establishment’s convenience.

Take for instance the Catholic Herald’s Allah case which the High Court ruled against the government that it had no inherent right to prohibit others from using the word “Allah” to refer to God. There are two other similar cases filed much earlier than the Herald case but these have been held in abeyance because the AG has filed an application to the Court of Appeal for a review. But it has been more than two years now since the Herald judgment and yet the AG is in no hurry. This robs plaintiff of their judicial victory. Justice delayed is justice denied.

In the interim, people of other faiths particularly Christians are still prevented from using the word “Allah”. This is a travesty of justice considering that two thirds of the Christians in Malaysia are bumiputras who use the Alkitab or Malay Bible where God is referred to as “Allah”. Mahathir banned the Alkitab in 1981 five months upon coming to power as PM. He claimed that it posed a threat to national security. It is still under a restricted ban through various extra-judicial decrees and even under Najib’s ludicrous 10-point solution to the Alkitab problem. The Alkitab remains a threat to national security.

Make no mistake about it; the judiciary is still in the winter of emasculation. But my prayer and hope is for a new spring. I remain optimistic it will come – sooner than later.

Bob Teoh is a retired journalist and author of the book “Allah – more than a word.” He now lives in Indonesia but plans to return to vote in the forthcoming general elections.

Jais cannot resort to “lempar batu sembunyi tangan” – being the hidden hand behind a spurious act and allowed to get away with it through flawed reasoning.

Its actions are spurious simply because they are not what it purports to be. Its line of reasoning may be apparently valid but not factually so.

Did Jais know what it did was wrong? If it did, then this alone can be indicted as a criminal offence. Jais has turned the table on itself – the law enforcer becomes the offender.

In what appeared to be a vigilante action, Jais, or the Selangor Islamic Department, descended upon a charity function held at the Damansara Utama Methodist Church without invitation, permission or due authority on 3 August.

While the media described this as a raid, Jais claimed it was a search. The problem is it did not have a search warrant. Conducting a search without a warrant or an order from the court is considered an extra-judicial action. Is Jais, therefore, exempt from due process? And if so, why so?

Having exposed itself as the hidden hand that threw the proverbial stone, Jais resorted to more spurious actions. It hastily assembled a preliminary report to justify its action. That report found its way into Youtube and blogs complete with video streams of twelve Muslims found at the dinner that night together with their full names and identification numbers and photos. How did that report get onto the internet when it is obviously privy to only few top Jais officers?

Following the sinister publication of the report, the twelve have been feathered and tarred as apostates without much hope of redeeming themselves. This is gross travesty of justice as it violates every rule of natural justice and that of a fair trial in the event that they are called to defend themselves later. This is nothing less than a miscarriage of justice.

To compound their predicament further, the twelve are now directed to undergo counseling by Jais to “restore their faith and belief in the religion of Islam”.

What is intriguing is that it now appears that whatever evidence Jais purported it had was not even sufficient to press charges against the alleged offending parties. It now appears that Jais didn’t have prima facie evidence. It was fishing for evidence in that raid but in vain.

Strangely enough the Selangor executive councillor in charge of Islamic affairs, Hasan Ali, was quick to jump to the defence of Jais immediately following the uproar over the raid. But in the first place, as the state minister in charge of Islamic affairs, how come he was not keep informed of the raid?

Things came to a head and the dispute was referred to the palace. On Momday (10 Oct), His Royal Highness, the Sultan of Selangor, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah AlhaJ issued a press release. It stated that “Jais has submitted to Us the full report of the search carried out at the Dream Centre Complex, Section 13, Petaling Jaya as well as the subsequent actions taken by Jais. We have thoroughly read in detail the said report and We are satisfied that the actions of Jais were correct and did not breach any laws enforceable in Selangor”.

The three-page statement concluded by saying: “We command that Majlis Agama Islam Selangor and Jais always conduct thorough observations and to take necessary actions without hesitation in line with the jurisdiction under the law.”

The royal intervention is timely to defuse the situation. But if Jais, Mais or even the exco member in charge of Islamic affairs had been mindful of conducting their affairs “in line with the jurisdiction under the law”, then there would be less need to burden the palace to step in and exonerate their lack of thoroughness.

The central principle governing the Jais raid is about being thorough, about being judicious. It is not about religious policing. Jais and Hassan Ali must know the difference.

It’s timely that Prime Minster Najib Razak has said that although hudud laws are accepted in Islam, the reality is that they cannot be implemented in Malaysia.

PAS vice-president Salahuddin Ayub said just as much that hudud laws are “impossible” to implement so there is no need to discuss such things.

That being the case, both the ruling coalition and the Opposition must immediately pledge they will refrain from allowing the hudud controversy to be manipulated into an electioneering platform. This much they owe Malaysians.

Sadly, some are quick to offer a quick-fix that hudud laws should be applied to Muslims only while sparing the non-Muslims. This is offensive simply because under our Federal Constitution, all citizens are equal before the law. No one is above the law nor out of it.

In such a dualistic legal system, in a crime like zina (fornication), the Muslim so accused is subject to the harshness of hudud while a non-Muslim party who may be equally culpable, escapes its severe punishment. How can that be fair? It takes two hands to clap after all.

Even if it is restricted to Muslims, the law is equally obnoxious, particularly to Muslim women. For instance, Hajjah Nik Noriani bte Dato Nik Badli Shah in her paper, “Hudud Laws and its Implications on Women (1994)”, points out that according to the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code (II) Enactment 1993, in the case of zina, pregnancy or delivery of a baby by an unmarried woman shall constitute evidence on which to find her guilty of zina unless she can prove to the contrary. The gender bias is also heightened by the fact that only men can be witnesses in such trials.

The Terengganu Syariah Offences (Hudud and Qisas) Bill, or the Hudud Bill, was introduced by Pas in 2002 when it was in power there but was never implemented as is in the case of Kelantan.

Let’s be clear. No one is against Muslims wanting to introduce Islamic jurisprudence but unless we can resolve the cruel an-eye-for-an-eye retaliatory nature of qisas with compassion, we will all end up blind.

The Qur’an demands justice to be tempered with compassion. That much is clear. That is why all the 114 Surahs except for Surah Al Tawbah, begins with invoking the Bismillah, a God who is compassionate and merciful. We cannot turn a blind eye to this doxology.

Hudud in Arabic means “limit” or “restriction” and usually refers to certain crimes like theft, fornication, consumption of alcohol, and apostasy. Hudud is one of four categories of punishment in Syariah that includes qisas following the Biblical principle of an-eye- for-an-eye (Surah Al-Ma’idah verse 45).

Islam has been said by Muslims to be part of the Abrahamic faith, thus it is not surprising the retributive justice principle – the punishment must match the injury, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth – is indeed derived from both the Jewish Torah (Old Testament in Exodus 21:22-25 and Deuteronomy 19:16-21) and the Christian Gospel (New Testament in Matthew 5:38-42).

However, the Jewish religious establishment over the ages were able to reinterpret and humanise such strict codes in the Torah by adapting to the changing environment. For instance, a person who has injured the eye of another is instructed to pay compensation instead. It defined and restricted the extent of retribution in the laws of the Torah.

The Gospel of Jesus involves a paradigm shift – from revenge to forgiveness:

Matthew 5:38-39 – (Jesus said) “You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also.”

The severity of the Torah is given a touch of compassion by the teaching of the Christ that empowers the one seeking revenge to become a channel of God’s grace. This is only because the heart of the Gospel is forgiveness.

The issue of qisas gained attention only recently when Ameneh Bahrami, an Iranian woman blinded in an acid attack, demanded that her attacker, Majid Movahedi, be blinded as well. A court had backed her demand. He attacked Ameneh in 2004 after she had refused his offer of marriage, leaving her severely disfigured.

Ameneh made a last minute retraction of this demand, requesting on the day on which the punishment was due to be carried out that her attacker be pardoned.

”I did it for my country, since all other countries were looking to see what we would do,” she was reported as saying.

”I never wanted to have revenge on him. I just wanted the sentence to be issued for retribution. But I would not have carried it out. I had no intention of taking his eyes from him.”

Her mother was quoted as saying: “I am proud of my daughter… Ameneh had the strength to forgive Majid. This forgiveness will calm Ameneh and our family.”

Regardless of whether we are Muslims or non-Muslims, we don’t need another personal tragedy like this to tell us the world we live in is not ready for hudud or qisa.

The NGOs met behind closed doors to discuss the raid by the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (Jais) on 4 August of a fundraising dinner for welfare work held at the Damansara Utama Methodist Church. Twelve Muslims were present at the dinner and were questioned by Jais. The NGOs called on Jais to charge those found proselytising to Muslims, if evidence is found.

But it was reported they also acknowledged that apostasy occurs because Muslim agencies and NGOs are not doing enough to help those in need to the extent that they are forced to seek help from other religious bodies.

“We cannot be angry at others preaching to Muslims – lawful or not, for they are doing their job. We must (also) do ours,” said Ikatan Ilmuan Malaysia president Mohd Fuad Mohd Salleh, who chaired the meeting.

Some suspect an ulterior motive while others see Christian charity as fundamental to their faith perhaps best illustrated by a story told by Jesus Christ himself known as the Good Samaritan. This is recorded in chapter 10 of Luke’s Gospel.

Jesus was using this story-telling device to challenge the religious orthodoxy of his day. So these ecclesiastical experts or teachers of the law as they were known looked for every opportunity to test Jesus’ competence on things religious.

Challenged by one of these bearded ones, Jesus narrowed down Jewish orthodoxy into just one commandment– the Shema, which is the Jewish central prayer: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Then for good measure Jesus added one more: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” To Jesus, everything about one’s faith hangs on just these two commandments.

With his hypocrisy exposed by Jesus, the teacher of the law could only say he would love his neighbour if he knew who that might be. It was then Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The parable highlights some of our blind spots. Like the priest and the temple assistant in the story, we may be more concerned about looking religious than loving our neighbour. The reason why both the religious guys did not want to help the victim even though he comes from the same religion is that he may have already been dead. Under Jewish tradition, touching a dead man would be to defile oneself which would require ritual cleansing. That’s too much bother. To them the form was more important than the substance of their religion. Good neighbourliness counts for nothing.

More than that, both of them quickly crossed over to the other side of the road to make sure they are not contaminated by any odour from the man presumed to be dead that the wind may blow in their direction and defile them.

It took a Samaritan, a man from another religion and from a despised race to show compassion for the victim. He went to extraordinary lengths and expense to render help to the victim.

Notice Jesus ended the story without telling us whether the victim became a Christian. Or an apostate.

The story Jesus told is now 2,000 years old but context remains the same. Many of our neighbours have fallen victim to rape, incest, abuse, addiction, HIV/AIDS, dysfunctional relationships, mental illness and much more. Are we going to be like the two religious guys in the story and walk away from them and continue to look religious in appearance?

The point Jesus wants to make is just this: “Yes, now go and do the same.” Just love your neighbour as yourself.

It doesn’t matter which side of the religious divide we are on. We all need Good Samaritans; a second chance to make life worth living again. Surely this is not proselytisation or apostasy.

The Industrial Relations Department must immediately step in and take Utusan Malaysia to task for unashamedly intimidating the newly elected NUJ president, Hata Wahari, with baseless allegations of misconduct against him which has nothing to do with his employment as a senior journalist of the newspaper.

Utusan’s highly irregular action of resorting to a so-called domestic inquiry, which may result in Hata’s sacking, is bad labour practice. It is a wilful violation of Hata’s human right to reasonable security of his employment and his right to have a professional opinion and to express such an opinion without threats from his employers.

In an unprecedented display of arrogance, Utusan had also decided to be law unto itself by imposing restrictions on the physical movement of Hata during the period of the inquiry as if he was a restricted Internal Security Act detainee.

In another display of unreasonableness, Utusan has also denied Hata representation by his own union at the domestic inquiry. Utusan has also insisted on videotaping the inquiry proceedings but at the same time denying Hata the right to do likewise.

Utusan’s insanity can only lead to one conclusion; it wants to find any excuse to sack Hata at any cost. This Hata himself and the NUJ are well aware of and they are prepared to fight the ugly bully that Utusan has shown itself to be.

Utusan is known for its serial anti-union bashing tendencies, having previously arbitrary sacked a NUJ president, who was also an Utusan journalist, as well as the former chairman of the NUJ Utusan branch committee. It lost the former upon appeal to the courts by NUJ and the latter is under appeal.

The employers’ federation of which Utusan is associated with, must forcibly persuade Utusan to desist from further provocative actions and to drop its so-called domestic inquiry in the interest of industrial harmony.

Hata was elected NUJ president in September last year and is outspoken about free and responsible journalism. In his first policy statement as president he said, “The union (NUJ) is asking all mainstream journalists, especially of Utusan Malaysia, New Straits Times, Berita Harian and the Star to return to their true function as deliverers of objective information to the public, and not as tools of propaganda for the government of any political party or individual, for their personal gain.”

He had also singled out Utusan for unethical journalism by playing up the race and religion card. This riled Utusan’s editors and Hata was immediately hauled up to face a domestic inquiry for allegedly tarnishing the newspaper’s image. The NUJ exco decided unanimously to fully back its president and said Utusan’s action is ludicrous.

At the core of the controversy is Hata’s action as NUJ president and not as an Utusan employee. Hence, Utusan has no right whatsoever to try to sack Hata for his opinion. If it has the courage, Utusan should sue both Hata and the NUJ for defamation to protect its image.

As NUJ president, Hata was expressing his opinion of the impact of bad journalism on working journalists and their welfare. It is his constitutional and human right as a union leader to form such an opinion and to express it. If Utusan’s internal auditor says that there’s something fishy about its account, we don’t sack him or her, do we? So when Hata said Utusan is bad surely, we don’t expect Utusan to sack him.

Utusan is also entitled to its right of reply. But Utusan chose to victimise both the NUJ and Hata instead of entering its defence in the court of public opinion. Utusan is both a lousy newspaper and a bad loser. A bully in short.

Utusan has lost all pretense to be a responsible and professional newspaper. It has litttle reputation to speak of. What Hata and the NUJ have to say about it is already public knowledge. The very fact that Hata and NUJ had said it shows the extent ot Utusan’s rot.

The once respectable Malay daily has in recent years been resorting to gutter journalism, religious bigotry, racist, sexist, and seditious speech calculated clearly to incite one segment of society against another to the detriment of peace and harmony in the nation.

Far from trying to shore up its dropping sales by such irresponsible reporting, Utusan’s circulation has plummeted so much that its very commercial feasibility is now in question. It is no secret that it is generously endowed with advertising revenue from the government and government-linked corporations to keep it afloat.

Utusan is directly controlled by Umno, the dominant partner in the ruling coalition. That it enjoys the patronage of Umno is obvious. But patronage must have its limit. Utusan has exceeded this limit and must be taken to task.

Bob Teoh is a freelance writer and was NUJ general secretary (1984-86).

No one could have missed his presence. He was loud. Even at that young age, he was already a boisterous champion of Malay rights. Ibrahim Ali was indeed an angry young man. We non-Malay students were more than annoyed with all the noise he was making. That was in the immediate aftermath of May 13 and that’s the way things were then. Everyone just tolerated unreasonableness.

Ibrahim Ali is still an angry man, even if he has grown older by 40 years or so. He has just launched a pribumi NGO called Perkasa, meaning “mighty“ in English. He’s still berating others over Malay rights and is as loud as ever. And still unreasonable.

He is not alone. Other racists too wanted to hold a May 13 rally. Thank goodness for fear of losing Chinese votes in the Sibu by-elections, the government scrambled to call it off.

But Ibrahim Ali or Perkasa are no racists, so they tell us.

“I am not a racist. We are only asking what is due to the Malays under Article 153 of the Constitution. We are not saying, don’t give this or that to the non-Bumiputra. Nowhere in my speeches do I say take this from the Chinese, don’t give that to the Indians,” the Perkasa chief who is also the independent MP for Pasir Mas was quoted as saying.

Racism is a sociological phenomenon. One dictionary defines racism as:

1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

But that does not tell us what makes a person racist.

I have a family friend. She and her husband are Chinese to the core but they are very friendly to everyone they meet. Even to strangers.

One day the wife surprised us by saying that she has told he daughter who was then studying in Sydney in no uncertain terms that she is not to marry an Australian. Not even an ABC or Australian-born Chinese.

Is she a racist? Why, she wouldn’t even hurt a mouse. It’s just that she wanted her daughter to marry only a Malaysian Chinese. By no stretch of imagination would she ever consider herself a racist.

The Chinese in Malaysia call themselves Malaysian Chinese, Malaysians first. Both my paternal and maternal sides are Peranakan, or Straits-born Chinese. We speak a kind of Hokkien that is not spoken in China or for that matter anywhere else. It’s uniquely Penang-Hokkien with Malay incorporated words like sabun, tuala, sendok to mean soap, towel and ladle respectively. Our food has a dash of this and a garnish of that, so it’s called nyonya culinary; neither Chinese nor Malay but a blend in between. Very nice; hot and savoury at the same time. So we are equally at home being both Malaysian and Chinese at the same time. We are the original 1Malaysia before someone else plagiarised that idea.

When we were living in Australia, all the fair dinkums considered themselves Aussies regardless of whether they are Brits, Vietnamese, Italians, Chinese, Germans and so on. There are 142 ethnic groups in Australia and all of them consider themselves nothing other than Australians. Except for permanent residents or foreigners. So we identified ourselves by our nationality as Malaysians rather than Chinese. But that didn’t make us any less Chinese. We were glad no one called us pendatang or penumpang the six years we were there. That’s being civilised. That doesn’t mean that there are no racists in Australia. Sure there are, Pauline Hanson being a notorious example. And she was even an MP at one time.

We would become less parochial if we think of a Malaysia that has 182 ethnic groups. According to language mapping specialists, an Orang Asli language group in Pahang known as Mintil may have no remaining speakers. It is reckoned as one of the 473 languages in the world that are endangered or nearly extinct.

In Sarawak there are 46 living languages; of these 44 are living languages and two have no known speakers left or have become extinct. Among the endangered languages in that state are Punan Batu 1 that is spoken by an estimated 30 people in west of Long Geng, in Belaga. The other is Sian or Sihan with 50 speakers still alive; also in the Belaga region.

Sabah is said to have 52 living languages and none extinct but some like the Serudung Murut in the Tawau district may have only 350 speakers left, thus close to extinction.

I hope the next time before Datuk Ibrahim Ali draws his keris and brandish it in defence of Malay rights as he did at Perkasa’s recent launching, he will also consider the rights of all others including the Sians, the Serudung Muruts and the Mintils, especially when they are also primbumis like him. They too enjoy a special position under Article 153 of the Federal Constitution. In the face of extinction, there’s urgency to tend to their plight in merely having to survive as a people.

There are 15.47 million people who are eligible to vote. Of this, nearly one third or 4.39 million have not yet registered as voters. This potential new 4.39 million voters will make a significant difference in how the country is governed. Among them are Christians who have also not registered.

The Christian block of voters is the largest after Malay and Chinese votes. It is even higher than what MIC can deliver.

Yes, the Christian vote makes a real difference. It does not matter who or how you vote but vote you must. If you have not registered, do so now. If you know someone in your church who has not registered yet, get them to do so. Better still get your church to start a registration campaign.

Romans 13 talks about governments being ordained by God. You can ensure that the next government is a just and righteous one. Register now unless you choose to be remain an unbiblical Christian.

It is no coincidence that God has made it out that every one out of ten persons in Malaysia is a Christian. Don’t be a merely a statistic. Be a Christian voter. There are Christian lawmakers on both sides of the political divide. Make sure you vote the godly ones. That’s not only your right but your responsibility. Say yes to voter registration now.

As a strategy do not register in the Klang valley even if you work and live here. Register to vote in your hometowns to spread out the voters nationwide. My wife and I are registered to vote in Taiping. In the last general elections we drove back there to cast our votes. Our two votes were among the many that made the difference. It was worth driving all the way back to Taiping.

Yes, the tyranny of an iron-grip of a taken-for-granted two-thirds majority in Parliament can be broken. It must remain broken. Please register now as a voter. Every precious vote counts for your own future, that of the your children and their children and the future of the church in Malaysia. To God be the glory.

Some Christians who have emigrated made it a point to fly back just to vote at the last general elections. That cost them a lot in airfares. You need only to register and go to the nearest polling station at the next general elections. It costs you virtually nothing to exercise your right. If you can’t do even that, then I am afraid, there’s not much left.

We get the kind of government we deserve. If you are not a voter, you have chosen the worst form of government by default. We deserve a righteous government. Vote for one. God will do the rest.

By Bob Teoh

(Proud to be a voter since 1969)

Hebrew 10:11-16

at the old altar

much offerings the priest made

yet my sins remain

our High Priest offered

just one sacrifice to God

yet good for all time

that one act alone

has set me free forever

no more guilt and shame

a new covenant

in their hearts and minds inscribe

will I, says the LORD

My daughter was really pleased when she chanced upon her six-year-old praying: “Dear Lord, please let mummy buy a house with a swimming pool for us. Amen.”

“Oh, no! Not a swimming pool please Lord,” my daughter pleaded. Swimming pools cost a fortune to maintain even if it’s not used in autumn, winter and early spring as it’s too cold.

The little one has a knack for praying and soon her mummy begins to have second thoughts about not having a swimming pool. She talked it over with her husband and both thought maybe it’s not a bad idea to buy a house with a swimming pool. After all there are five in the family. The girl is already swimming like a fish and her younger brother has started swimming lessons. It would not be long before the seven-month- old takes to the water. Yes, it makes sense to buy a house with a pool after all.

They live in Sydney and property prices are sky-high. They can’t get anything less than a quarter of a million (Aussie dollars that is) if God decides to answer their daughter’s prayer for a swimming pool. Since my daughter is staying home to look after her three mites, her husband would have to bear the mortgage alone, possibly for the next 30 years. And that’s a life time.

Having a roof over heads is a basic human right. But we spend our entirely life fixated on owning our dream house instead of just a plain roof. I remember, once upon time, my wife and I were toying with the idea of having a dream home. It began without much drama. Since there were only three of us, we just needed a nice little cozy place. Of course, it would be nice if our dream home could be in quiet a cul-de-sac. It didn’t take very long for our little dream home to come with a little brook running through it and a long and winding garden path looping the quaint-looking house.

That was our dream home. The real one we are living in now is a little 850 sq.ft flat. Yes, there’s a common swimming pool so I guess that’s why the developers call it an apartment. My wife and I have moved house 24 times from the time we were born so we are contend to not to pursue our dream home. By the way, we are in the midst of packing up and ready to make our twenty-fifth move; this time to Thailand. Six weeks thereafter, we are scheduled to relocate to Indonesia for another three years or so.

Houses affect our lives more than anything else. We spend a life-time chalking up mortgages just to have a roof over our heads. And we are always on the lookout for a second and a retirement home as well while we are at it.

Even on our way to our graves we are still planning to buy some choice real estate in the world beyond. Some, by choice or by circumstances, may buy a columbarium to live in an urn in a pigeon hole. Others may opt to live in a rose garden of a memorial park and yet others still may make a grand statement by living in opulent graves complete with statues and expensive headstones.

It was just a few days ago that I helped conduct a funeral service for my wife’s relative who passed away in an old folks’ home, or a destitute home as what these public homes truly are. Her husband died a while ago and they have no children and that’s how she landed up in his home.

She came from a fairly well to do family and had lived in all sorts of houses from bangalows to shop houses and ordinary house. She was even living in London at one time.

In my short funeral message, I reminded those present that it does not matter now what sort of homes the deceased had been living in the past as she had gone to a better home. A dream one not made by human hands. Therein lies our hope.