KUALA LUMPUR, July 5 ― Plans mooted by a minister to build common venues for believers of non-Islamic faiths were not discussed at the inaugural meeting of a key committee on non-Muslim houses of worship this week, members of the board said.
Responding to Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor remark that the government may consider the policy for new property developments, the Council of Churches Malaysia said the topics was not even broached when the advisory committee met for the first time on Monday.
“These were all his (the minister’s) ideas. It was not discussed by the committee at the meeting, but I guess now they will have to discuss it,” CCM general secretary Rev Dr Hermen Shastri told The Malay Mail Online when contacted.
“Whether it’s workable or not, we will have to look into it,” Hermen said.
But Hermen said the CCM welcomes Tenku Adnan’s statement on land title conversion for churches operating out of shoplots, but added the details must be worked out before any approval is given.
The minister said the government may give religious land titles to shoplots used by churches as houses of worship, converting them from the commercial titles.
Malaysian Hindu Sangam President Datuk RS Mohan Shan shot down both proposals, arguing that it will only add to the many problems already faced by religious minorities in the country.
He said a common house of worship for non-Muslims of different faiths would likely lead to conflict given the wide range of practices involved.
“Even if there is the same belief of one God, the worship is totally different. How can you use a common place of worship for all these different religious groups?
“He (Tengku Adnan) is talking about all other religions. How about Islam? Can they have a common place of worship (with other religions)? Definitely not. So how can we have one for everyone else?” Mohan said.
He urged the government to engage non-Muslim religious groups in order to find common ground for amicable solutions to long-standing disputes over the legal status of their respective houses of worship.
He claimed that Putrajaya has not paid any attention to guidelines on the issue proposed by the Malaysian Consultative Council for Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST), opting instead to push through its own set of regulations that religious groups with limited resources are hard-pressed to follow.
“They said we cannot build temples near mosques and that there must be a certain population size of followers before we can build... if that is the case, there is nowhere in Malaysia where we can build our temples.
“Our guidelines for temples and burial grounds are already there (with the relevant ministries). They have to sit and discuss with us and see what we can accept and put through, and make standard guidelines for all in the country and implement that.
“I don’t know why they don’t want to look into this matter... there are a lot of ways to solve the problem,” Mohan said.
Tan Hoe Chieow, the president of the Federation of Taoists Associations Malaysia, said that he believed Tengku Adnan had meant a “common area” for non-Muslim religions instead of a single building where all religious bodies would have to fit in and share together.
“Because we are all (having) different religions and different cultures, we cannot be housed in one single building,” he told The Malay Mail Online, saying that a common house of worship would be “simply impossible.”
Tan said the common zone concept had already been put in place in Putrajaya ― where Tengku Adnan is the MP.
The bodies representing six different religions were allocated 25,000 square feet each and granted individual land titles for religious purposes in a plot of land in Putrajaya, he said.
But pointing to potential traffic congestion, Tan said all religious bodies should be allocated individual plots of land that are spread out over the neighbourhood instead of making them group their house of worships together in a zone.
Illegal houses of worship are mainly caused by property developers who fail to allocate land for non-Muslims and the relevant authorities do not enforce existing guidelines, he said.
Tan, who was appointed to represent the Taoists in the Federal Territories Ministry’s inaugural advisory committee, said that the panel would be happy to work together with the government to help “solve the problems faced by the religious communities”.
Disputes over the location of houses of recur often, particularly in the Klang Valley where there is rapid commercial development and land is expensive as well as scarce.
Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad said last April that the Federal Territories ministry had informed lawmakers that it was planning to set up a precise regulatory system that will manage the entire process of setting up houses of worship, including the application, registration and the gazetting of land.
Rev Dr Eu Hong Seng, chairman of the Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM), said the proposal for a common houses of worship is not likely to work.
“Common houses for worship may not be practical as most faiths would consider their house of worship as sacred,” he told The Malay Mail Online in a text message.
He said the minister’s proposals are still at an initial stage.
“But I think the development is positive in that the government is open to ideas. We look forward to more meaningful discussions” he added.
