Is UMNO acting in bad faith?

The renewed act of Bible confiscation is happening all over again. Christians in this country can only feel a sense of hopelessness, anger and disillusion and are wondering what is next on the UMNO agenda. After confiscating the Bibles, will they make it a law to say it is illegal for churches to have crosses or crucifixes. The Christmas party hosted by the Archbishop last year was a sign of things to come, when the church was "requested" not to display crosses, crucifixes nor the singing of hymns when the prime minister arrives. With the latest episode on the Bible confiscation, I can only surmise that UMNO is a no-brainer especially when the Sarawak state election is around the corner and where majority of people in the State are Christians. So by confiscating the Bibles, is UMNO acting in good faith? Allow me to apply two analogies here.

Everyone knows that there is a law prohibiting motor bike speeding on a busy street a'la mat rempit. Sensing that this is insufficient, the authorities decide to confiscate all the motor bikes in town, including those sold in shops, to ensure such an act does not take place. Thus two questions arise. Firstly, if the youths are caught breaking the law by engaging in motor bike racing, why not just book them? Secondly, by confiscating the bikes, would not the authorities be acting in bad faith when nothing has happened yet. The "reason" given was - for the sake of public safety.

Another interesting analogy is - it is an offence to drive without a proper licence. Every citizen understood this. But what the authorities will do is - they will impound your car before you even thought of driving the car around without a licence. So, the same principle applies. Since there is already a law, why not charge the culprit for committing such an unlawful act. Secondly by impounding the vehicle, does that not constitute an act of bad faith, when it is merely an assumption that the person would drive a car without a valid driving licence? The reason, public safety.

So coming back to the confiscation of the Bibles. By law, it is illegal for non-Muslim to propagate their faith to a Muslim. So anyone caught doing it, legal actions can be taken against him. But what UMNO has done is they decided to act in bad faith by confiscating the Bibles when no unlawful act has been committed yet. Reason? National Security. So is the rakyat safe when UMNO acts on whims and fancies without adhering to the law itself?

Finally, I believe strongly that no devout Muslim will ever want to read a Bible, unless UMNO is insulting the intelligence of my Malay Muslim friends and acting in bad faith believing that Muslims in this country are weak in their faith.