Marina Mahathir Reflects

Muslim leaders in Malaysia have been aping the Arabs although they don't as they do since our so-called independence.

Look at how long some of our Prime/Chief ministers have been serving and how corrupted most of them are. Look at how they repress the people of other Faiths while holding up to the world that religious freedom is enshrined in the Malaysian constitution.Look at how even now with the tsunami-changing events in the Middle East they are still so petty minded that they have to stamp the Bible, which is the holy book of Christians, with their officious, senseless "chops". How would they react if we ask the authorities to stamp the Koran to the effect that it's meant only for Muslims?

How foreigners must be laughing at our asinine authorities and our so-called democratic Malaysia. Never in the history of the world has such blatantly foolish and repressive actions being taken by a regime that professes to be a democracy and which recently became a signatory of the Rome Statute of ICC. Muslims must ask themselves why the government is so fearful that they might read the Bible.

I, and many others I know, had classmates who were Muslims. Many, if not most of them, took Bible Knowledge as one of the subjects that they sat for in what was then known as the Oversea Cambridge School Certificate examination or more popularly known simply as Senior Cambridge. Not even one of my Muslim classmates has been converted to Catholicism.

Recently, I met one of these classmates and while talking about the "good old days" he mentioned, without any prodding on my part that he scored distinction 1 in Bible Knowledge in the Senior Cambridge exam. He went on to say that he's so proud of this achievement that he still keeps and treasures a copy of the Knox version of the Gospel of St. Mathew, a slim volume to those of us who studied it. Is he now a Christian? Hardly. He's now a venerable Haji who abstains from alchohol and even cigarettes, although he smilingly acknowledged that he used to indulge in these "vices" in his younger days.

So, I ask again the question, "Why is the government so frightened that Muslims might read the Bible"?