DEC 9 — It is stupid trying to legislate and license religion.
Wasting public funds aside, we are talking about personal choices.
How can you monitor who watches and reads what on the Internet? How are you going to stop people from preaching their faith?
Keeping tabs on your citizens, trying to work out their faith, then persecuting and prosecuting them is unlawful and unconstitutional.
It is better for the government to remove religion from public spheres.
There is this worrying Arabisation trend in Malaysia. People want to talk, dress and behave like Arabs. Schools, for instance, have become places where students are indoctrinated with what is Arabic and what is not. Worse is when they associate Arabic culture with Islam which cannot be further away from the truth.
Putrajaya’s attempt at making Sunni the legal sect in Malaysia is therefore a bad move. The state has no business trying to dictate a citizen’s beliefs and faith.
It is enough that Islam is Malaysia’s official religion without having to specify which sect. We should not try to become another Arab state and choose sides.
At the end of the day, we should not judge people by the religion they follow. Be it Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, there will be those who are good and those who are not. We must judge them by their deeds and not their skin colour, certainly not what they believe in.
It is time our leaders get back to work instead of coming up with ridiculous and fund wasting ideas like these.
This “us” versus “them” attitude must stop if we want to continue down the path of moderation.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
