A church in a remote village in Pitas where Sabah Christians have claimed that ‘dubious conversions’ were carried out and they are critical of their leaders for remaining silent on the matter.
Sabah Christians launched a scathing attack on their elected leaders who are of the same faith for remaining silent in the face of “extremist elements of political Islam who are targeting the hardcore poor districts of Sabah and carrying out dubious conversions”.
Catholic Bishop Datuk Cornelius Piong in his address at the latest mamangkis gathering in Nabawan in the southern part of the state today, said the silence of the leaders who are Christians was similar to that when the then chief minister Tun Mustapha Harun had announced his unity policy of “one language, one culture, one religion” on August 1, 1972.
“Our elected political leaders, even though ‘anak negeri’ and Christians themselves, have so far been silent as if nothing is amiss,” Piong said in this largely ethnic Murut town of slightly over 24,000.
Pressing further, the bishop said the leaders had also remained silent when Mustapha in September the following year amended the state constitution to make Islam the religion of the state which was in violation of the 20-point agreement that Sabah had insisted on before consenting to join Malaya, Sarawak and Singapore to form Malaysia.
As if to jolt the memory of these elected political leaders of the terms of the Malaysia Agreement, Piong said the very first point of the agreement was that there should be complete freedom of religion in Sabah.
“We only agreed to Islam being the religion of the federation and not Sabah and that Malaysia is to be a secular country.”
He said as a result of the silence, “today, after 42 years of the one language, one culture, one religion policy, the ‘anak negeri’ have become restless wanderers and aliens worse than second-class citizens in our own land”.
“This is our history, a history of a betrayed people.
“If we forget our history, we forfeit our destiny,” he said.
Piong, a Kadazan and Malaysia’s first Bumiputera bishop, also warned Christians in the state from being dulled into complacency.
He said: “The enemy is not only at our door, it has even entered into our midst.”
Piong, however, made it clear that the “enemy” was not a reference “to our Muslim brothers and sisters who we have been living side by side in good neighbourliness for generations”.
It was a clear reference to peninsula-based Islamic missionary groups that have been accused of being behind some of the questionable conversions in the state in recent months.
On New Year’s day, about 64 people including children from three villages in Pitas in northern Sabah, were allegedly converted through deception and inducement.
Piong added that “right here (in Nabawan) in the Pensiangan parliamentary constituency, again we recently received news that Christians in several villages are being systematically converted by dubious means”.
“It is obvious the extremist elements of political Islam are targeting the hardcore poor districts of Sabah for their dubious conversions.”
The extremism of political Islam, Piong added, is threatening to poison the respect Christians and native Sabah Muslims have for one another.
The mamangkis is an old Kadazan Dusun Murut war cry used by their pagan ancestors to rally warrior troops for battle. Now it has been adopted as a Christian clarion call for revival.
Spearheaded by Perpaduan Anak Negeri (PAN) Sabah, or the Native Solidarity of Sabah, which is less than four months old, there have been three such gatherings to date – the inaugural gathering in Penampang immediately after last Christmas, in Ranau last month and today in Nabawan.
Piong said the mamangkis was “to face the challenges confronting the church brought about by the extremism of political Islam” and was not to incite hatred or disaffection against the government nor against Islam.
“We are here to raise the mamangkis cry to rally our people to defend ourselves against encroachment of our faith.
“We are not making new demands. We are just asking others to respect what is already our constitutional and human rights to practise our faith in peace and without interference from the state.
“The mamangkis is part of our cultural heritage, our identity as the definitive people of Sabah,” Piong added.
Source - MalaysiaKini
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