Finding hope in a royal bulwark

Religious radicals may try to undo our multiracial nation but luckily we have the moderates and our right-thinking Rulers to defend us.

I AM writing this on Christmas Day. It’s late afternoon and due to the rising number of Covid-19 cases again, we haven’t invited anyone over. So it’s been a quiet day and I like it.

The night before, my sister and her husband who came up from Singapore, decided to host dinner at the hotel they were staying at to save me the trouble of cooking and washing up.

It has been ages since our family ate Christmas Eve dinner outside and it was a wonderful change, especially for our mother. The food was good and the newly refurbished hotel provided a very pleasant celebratory atmosphere.

What I also appreciated was how muhibbah the party was. The coffeehouse managers making sure all was going well, the chefs keeping an eagle eye on the food, and the staff serving the guests were Malay, Chinese, and Indian – and the little ensemble of carollers was possibly from Sabah or Sarawak.

With several incidents happening over the years that seemed to shrink the space for multireligious diversity in our nation, I felt much relief that we can still celebrate Christmas safely and peacefully.

This feeling of relief comes after the Berry’s Cake House Merry Christmas greeting on cakes fiasco.

Berry’s instructed its staff to not pipe the traditional greeting on its products because it thought it had to abide by Jakim (Department of Islamic Development Malaysia) rules so as not to jeopardise its halal certification.

It drew flak from the public for being discriminatory but it was the bakery’s internal memo being inadvertently exposed that brought the whole issue to public attention.

Ironically, this was not the first time the issue popped up: In December 2020 an unnamed bakery did not comply with a customer’s request for “Merry Christmas” to be written on a cake he had ordered. Instead, the cake was delivered with the words “Happy Holidays”.

The bakery owner defended the action because he had to abide by Jakim halal certification rules. This was confirmed by a Jakim communications unit officer to the media but it was quickly corrected by then Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Religious Affairs) Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri – it seems that halal-certified shops were only barred from putting festive greetings on products on public display on the premises.

That episode, however, went unnoticed since everyone was preoccupied with the Covid-19 pandemic.

This time it was different. The public reaction was swift and huge and Jakim had to reverse the ban, allowing the display of food with non-Muslim festive greetings.

In retrospect, can we blame Berry’s for wanting to err on the side of caution? The increasingly loud and strident voices of radical and hardline Islamists in PAS and Muslim groups calling for bans on all sorts of things indeed send shivers down the spines of Malaysians who love and want to protect the multiracial fabric of the nation.

Christmas seems to bring out the worst in such people. In 2017, controversial preacher Zamihan Mat Zin, who was barred from giving lectures in Selangor and Johor, said Christmas trees and decorations should be banned, arguing such decorations would offend Muslim sensitivities.

The following year, PAS president Hadi Awang’s son, Muhammad Khalil Abdul Hadi, warned Muslims not to partake in Christmas celebrations, claiming to do so was to acknowledge Christianity and idolatry. For the same reason, he said Muslims were forbidden to wish Christians Merry Christmas.

Time and again, such utterances were rejected by more reasonable and open-minded leaders.

This year’s cake debacle was roundly condemned by my current favourite leader, Sarawak premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg, who called the earlier ban by Jakim “stupid” and urged Sarawakians not to be influenced by such happenings on the peninsula (“Ban on Christmas greetings lifted”, The Star, Dec 19; online at bit.ly/3vfjMA1).

Indeed, the attacks on multiracialism seem very much a peninsula problem where just about anything can be viewed as offensive to a community or religion, be it the name of a home-grown award-winning whiskey, a concert or a hawker selling pork nasi kandar.

The last led to the Malaysian Muslim Restaurant Entrepreneurs Association claiming that putting pork in the dish was “an insult” and expressing concern that it would confuse Muslim customers.

This was yet another Muslim versus non-Muslim interest moment. Yet, if we are talking about confusion, it is non-Muslim Malaysians who get confused about why so many things that are quite innocuous are targeted in the name of defending a religion.

For now, our beloved Malaysia, as envisioned by our founding fathers, still remains intact as a multiracial, multicultural and multireligious nation. We are fortunate to have moderate Muslim leaders, scholars, and activists who are not afraid to counter the radical voices. I would add we have our royal Rulers too who have become not just the protectors of Malays but of all Malaysians.

When many of our politicians were trying to divide us by using race and religion, it was gratifying that our Rulers stepped in and brought sense and sensibility back.

As a Selangorian, I was very proud of my Ruler, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah when he intervened last year and stopped the attempt by then Religious Affairs Minister Idris Ahmad from PAS to discourage Muslims from taking part in the Japanese Bon Odori festival by claiming that it was “influenced by elements of other religions”.

I also appreciated the Sultan’s sardonic sense of humour when he famously purchased an artwork depicting members of Parliament portrayed as apes and frogs in the Dewan Rakyat, sending a not so subtle message to our lawmakers.

Sultan Nazrin Shah of Perak is another royal I admire for his willingness to speak out on important issues like urging Malaysians not to be influenced by hostile voices aimed at provoking the people’s emotions by using race or religion.

And during one of the nation’s most turbulent times, outgoing King Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah kept a steady hand on the tiller of the good ship Malaysia. He is the only King who had four prime ministers during his five-year reign. More importantly, he helped the country navigate an unprecedented hung Parliament after the 15th General Election in November 2022.

And now Malaysians will welcome Sultan Ibrahim Ibni Almarhum Sultan Iskandar as the next Yang di-Pertuan Agong next month.

We know Sultan Ibrahim’s rule will be very interesting and exciting, based on his larger-than-life personality and no nonsense style of leadership as Sultan of Johor.

He has already given us an indication of what to expect in his interview with The Straits Times Singapore. He will not be a “puppet king” and already has strong ideas on judicial appointments and fighting corruption.

We have seen how he has always been very protective and supportive of his subjects, the Johoreans. Now I would like to see him extend that to cover all Malaysians. Like his fellow Rulers, Sultan Ibrahim values national unity and a stable government above all.

He has said thanks for the widespread acceptance of the Bangsa Johor concept which promotes religious and racial diversity, tolerance, unity, and understanding, and religious harmony in the state was not a concern.

That is exactly what the nation as a whole needs desperately. As our King, wouldn’t it be wonderful if His Majesty can help bring that elusive and controversial Bangsa Malaysia concept into reality?

Aunty here will continue to live in hope that it can happen. Happy new year, fellow Malaysians!

The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.