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On Saturday, April 28, many Malaysians will converge at the historic Dataran Merdeka in support of BERSIH’s call for a free and fair electoral system in Malaysia.

Even as I write, the authorities are preparing to lockdown the Dataran in their effort to thwart the plans of the BERSIH 3.0 supporters.

If this standoff continues until 12 pm tomorrow, there will only be one outcome, i.e. a repeat of the violent crackdown on the protestors by the police which happened in July 2011.

Many have asked whether I will participate in the BERSIH sit-in at Dataran Merdeka. Well, many are also aware of my personal conviction as far as BERSIH is concerned.

This message is neither to encourage our pastors and members to join the sit-in nor to discourage their participation. Rather, this is a humble call to you, as members and friends of the Lutheran Church, to say a prayer for our nation comes April 28. Malaysia is in dire need of your prayer support as she faces many uncertainties in the near future.

So, whether you are sitting on the manicured lawn of Dataran Merdeka, or stretched out comfortably in your sofa at home watching the events of the day unfold, I hope you will intercede for our country. Pray that goodness, justice, and peace will always prevail over extremism, racism, discrimination and other forms of evil. Pray for a better Malaysia.

Finally, I urge those who plan to be part of the human wave washing towards Dataran Merdeka tomorrow, please keep safe at all times. Also take care of the wellbeing of those around you.

May the risen Lord grant us the faith to face the challenges and the grace to love others.

Bishop Philip Lok

April 27, 2012

The Kit kids had a lovely Saturday morning cartoon, thanks to Mummy! I cycled to town returned a DVD, and did some necessary grocery shopping. The trip back was a bit of a work out, but I guess that’s the kind of exercise I’m getting these days.

The last couple of weeks has been pretty intense. There were the after work hours Norwegian classes on top of a couple of ‘open’ lectures, and a PhD seminar. All in all, a full schedule. So, I think it’s time to slow down a little for some spaced out thoughts.

* * *

During the last week, my thinking was occupied by ‘Naturalism’ and ‘Humanism’. On one end is the more vague, ‘religious naturalism’, on the other, the more concrete ‘Christian humanism’. What interest me is how one arrives at these positions, and especially the choices someone makes in whichever direction.

A confession at the outset. I must credit my good friend Dion Forster for introducing me to the world of ‘South Africa’. I recall fondly our drive to the seminary during his last first visit to Malaysia, and I appreciate the ongoing friendship that we have. Through Dion, it’s been tremendously rewarding to connect to the theological thinking and reflections coming out of the struggle against Apartheid and all that’s after it’s fall.

So much of the thicker academic discussions I find myself thinking through overwhelms a novice, and and easily drown the uninitiated. No wonder, it’s common to hear that so much of these discussions appear to me ‘arm chair’ or ‘ivory tower’ ramblings unconnected to ground realities. But, to be fair, even for some dense articulations, this is not necessary the case. Perhaps, what makes it harder for the ‘outsider’ to academic dense reflections, is first, the unfamiliarity with the ‘academic language’ and ‘modes of argument’ which is wit in a world of itself. Second. often the the academics tend towards jumping into the discussion proper and not explicitly stating where they are coming from, and their implicit assumptions. The demand for greater transparency in academic discourse is most welcome, and in a way, brings what was perceived as a wide gap much closer. Because, so much hangs on this kind of transparency, which leads to greater accountability, and keeps hierarchical intellectual elitism in check. I suggest all will benefit in the long run.

This doesn’t mean that we’ll spend too much time ‘clearing throats’ and enter an overdose of ‘biographical discloser’, but a few lines of relevant bio-historic content, with an additional few lines of the starting point assumptions usually the kind has ontological and epistemological flavor helps. Some will even add the particular disciplines or few disciplines they operate from and the audiences they wish to speak to. In the light of the ‘situational’ comments on South Africa, where we come from keeps us modest.

All this seems so obvious, that I feel a little stupid highlighting them. Shouldn’t we assume all this? I guess, we should. ‘Should’, ‘ought to’ .. loads of normatively here. But perhaps, we can’t assume too much these days.

However, I do see the danger of people immediately writing someone off prematurely, and then we don’t even ‘listen’ because of ‘party’ lines. The politics is as real as it is even in so called ‘pure intellectual circles’. So, this complicates everything. Life is complex, or life is difficult, we’d like to say. So, the responsibility lies with us, on how we make those adjustments when confronted with ‘transparency’. Admittedly, many of us struggle with responding with a critical openness due to loads of baggage from past experience.

The way forward, at least to me, or more precisely for me thus far, has been learning keep the ‘dialogues’ alive in my mind often after a conversation, or formal lecture. A certain guardedness is not a bad idea. Because at times we might detect, an ‘evangelistic’ element in thinkers, especially when we’re making promises which sound like the solutions to many impasses (I know some might not like the analogy but then this is random). The fact is we all do make promises, and learning to keep them is an ongoing challenge. In the context of research, some promises will be grand, others more modest, both are welcome as long as we are clear in what we’re promising.

Sure, how many of us have been surprised by under promised promotions? One can cite from the examples of movies to guest speakers whether for religious meetings or academic settings. The value of what we get is often distracted by an initial promotion when what we originally were aiming for was the ‘actual’ content of a movie or a presentation itself. So, the link between the ‘promise’ and the ‘product’ requires some attention. But taking a step back, and tying it back to where we started earlier on assumptions, or some might prefer to say ‘presuppositions’, it’s good to lay these out clearly, then we’re making ‘progress’. Ah … nice. ‘Presuppositions’-'promises’-'process’-'product’-'progress’ … may ‘promotion’ is there somewhere LOL.

As usual these random thoughts are random ramblings, but perhaps there’s something in there which my ‘open reader’ might find useful. For me, it’s good to unload a little. I think after that, it’s not a bad idea to write some ‘refined thoughts’ from these ‘random thoughts’.

The burger is calling now. Yes, back to more concrete matters.

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One key notion struck me in this conversation, that is the idea of “alternative modernities”. If we can say there is a “USA model”, and now since being in Norway I’m more alerted to a “Norwegian model”, I wonder what a “Malaysian model” looks like.  How do we imagine it to look like today and possibly in the future?

Take the relationship between Religion and State for example, institutionally we might say in USA it’s a clear separation even though one might argue the influence of Religion in Politics is not. In Norway, their constitution is similar to Malaysia in that religion is not separate from the state.

Compare what is in the Constitution of Norway,

A. FORM OF GOVERNMENT AND RELIGION

Article 1
The Kingdom of Norway is a free, independent, indivisible and inalienable Realm. Its form of government is a limited and hereditary monarchy.

Article 2
All inhabitants of the Realm shall have the right to free exercise of their religion.
The Evangelical-Lutheran religion shall remain the official religion of the State. The inhabitants professing it are bound to bring up their children in the same.

with wordier the Constitution of Malaysia,

Article number: 1
1.
• (1) The Federation shall be known, in Malay and in English, by the name Malaysia.
• (2) The States of the Federation shall be Johore, Kedah, Kelantan, Malacca, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang, Penang, Perak, Perlis, Sabah, Sarawak, Selangor and Trengganu.
(3) Subject to Clause (4), the territories of each of the States mentioned in Clause (2) are the territories comprised therein immediately before Malaysia Day.
• (4) The territory of the State of Selangor shall exclude the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur established under the Constitution (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1973 and the territory of the State of Sabah shall exclude the Federal Territory of Labuan established under the Constitution (Amendment) (no. 2) Act 1984, and both the said Federal Territories shall be territories of the Federation.

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Article number: 2
2. Parliament may by law –
• (a) admit other States to the Federation;
• (b) alter the boundaries of any State, but a law altering the boundaries of a State shall not be passed without the consent of that State (expressed by a law made by the Legislature of that State) and of the Conference of Rulers.

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Article number: 3
3.
• (1) Islam is the religion of the Federation; but other religions may be practised in peace and harmony in any part of the Federation.
• (2) In every State other than States not having a Ruler the position of the Ruler as the Head of the religion of Islam in his State in the manner and to the extent acknowledged and declared by the Constitution, all rights, privileges, prerogatives and powers enjoyed by him as Head of that religion, are unaffected and unimpaired; but in any acts, observance or ceremonies with respect to which the Conference of Rulers has agreed that they should extend to the Federation as a whole each of the other Rulers shall in his capacity of Head of the religion of Islam authorize the Yang di-pertuan Agong to represent him.
• (3). The Constitution of the States of Malacca, Penang, Sabah and Sarawak shall each make provision for conferring on the Yang di-Pertuan Agong shall be Head of the religion of Islam in that State.
• (4) Nothing in this Article derogates from any other provision of this Constitution.
• (5) Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution the Yang di-Pertuan Agong shall be the Head of the religion of Islam in the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur and Labuan; and for this purpose Parliament may by law make provisions for regulating Islamic religious affairs and for constituting a Council to advise the Yang di-Pertuan Agong in matters relating to the religion of Islam.

There’s more on the role of the Norwegian King in relation to the state Church, but my interest here is how does one treat their religious minorities in practice to show the kind of “modern” nation one aspires to be within the constitutional frameworks as our common starting point. Both have to find ways to negotiate the majority religion namely  Evangelical Lutheran Christianity for Norway, and Sunni Islam for Malaysia.

One TV advertisement kept popping up which had Norwegian Muslims speaking in Norwegian describing their life in Norway, and the ad ends with an invitation for neighbors to have tea with them. In fact, my new friends in Norway shared how they tried it out to be connect with the immigrant community. There are indeed challenges no doubt but it seems to me that the “Norwegian Model” gives us of an example of the state not interfering, but rather creating space for people to relate to each other better as citizens. In the recent horrific terrorist-like attack in Oslo and massacre in Utøya Island, one thing I noticed was how cautious the Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in his public statement and the ministers interviewed was in a disciplined refusal to speculate on who was behind the attacks (unlike the so called “specialist analysts” who were quick to make possible links to so called “Islamic militants” on the news). It was hard not to think back on how politicians speak in my homeland Malaysia.

The recent events and especially statements by politicians and especially a government minister in Malaysia on making it a crime to convert muslims after a raid on event in a church is troubling. Less this is portrayed as THE Muslim position, a Statement by Muslim NGO on proposed Faith Crime Act strongly condemned this kind of thinking arguing from an Islamic perspective.

We, from the Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF) read the news regarding the proposed Faith Crime Act by the Deputy Education Minister yesterday with trepidation.
The proposal came about as a response to JAIS’s unwarranted raid of Damansara Utama Methodist Church last week.
The raid conducted by JAIS was purely based on suspicion that the Methodist Church was involved in an act of proselytisation. The Malaysian Aids Council however reiterated that the dinner was actually a fund-raiser for HIV/AIDS support programs.

The whole issue boils down to one main issue. The so-called defenders of the faith believed that their action was espoused by the religion of Islam in preventing the believers from apostasy.

This uncivilized act of storming into a sacred place accompanied by the Mafia-like Malaysian police was endorsed by none others than the insular and xenophobic NGOs like Perkasa and Pembela.

We believe that such an act of storming into a church without any warrant and based on mere suspicion was a travesty of justice and democratic principles. Freedom of assembly is enshrined in Article 10 of our constitution. Any act that violates this freedom is reprehensible.

We realize that this conflict stems from the static and stagnant approach to understanding Islamic law. The codified law in Islamic jurisprudence derived through the exercise of juristic reasoning of the latter years was considered sacred and beyond reproach. Hence the most rigid and literalist interpretations tend to prevail.

The defenders of faith failed to look at ample evidence in the Qur’an that gives the liberty to the people to freely follow their conviction.

Any individuals are given the right to accept or reject a particular faith based on his personal conviction.

So the story will continue to unfold, there are now more voices that must be heard but the broader question remains, What kind of “modern Malaysia” do we envision?

~ First posted in Friends In Conversation

“… if we can no longer live the great symbolisms of the sacred in accordance with original belief in them, we can … aim at a second naïveté in and through criticism.  In short, it is by interpreting that we can hear again.” – Paul Ricoeur

“The language of faith is constituted by metaphora, metaphors are expressed discoveries.” – Eberhard Jüngel

“Commitment in faith and assent by the mind constrained by the imagination are one and the same.” – Hans Frei

”Whatever picture of things we may carry about in our heads we are bound to regard as a map of reality.” – George Santayana

“The absolutely greatest thing that can be done for a being, greater than anything one could make it into, is to make it free.” – Søren Kierkergaard

”God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross, he is weak and powerless in the world, and this is precisely, the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"It is quite possible to imagine and postulate a unified truth that requires a plurality of consciousnesses, one that cannot… be fitted into the bounds of a single consciousness, one that is, so to speak, by its very nature full of event potential and is born at a point of contact among various consciousnesses…."
— Mikhail  Bakhtin

"…Truth is not born nor is it to be found inside the head of an individual person, it is born between people collectively searching for truth, in the process of their dialogic interaction."
— Mikhail Bakhtin

"In rhetoric there are the unconditionally right and the unconditionally guilty; there is total victory and the annihilation of the opponent. In dialogue, annihilation of the opponent also annihilates the very dialogic sphere in which discourse lives… This sphere is very fragile and is easily destroyed…"
— Mikhail Bakhtin

“Religion gives to culture its ultimate content, culture gives to religion its language” – Raimon Panikkar

“The end of the human phenomenon is the religious act”– Raimon Panikkar

“The objects of thought are a cultural invariant. All humankind thinks, and to think is to think something. This something is the objectum of thinking, that thing which the thinking activity projects, throws out in front of itself by virtue of the stimulus it has received. The concept, on the other hand, is no such universal invariant” – ”– Raimon Panikkar