Certain people have asked the governments of the states of Penang, Sabah and Sarawak to enact laws in tandem with Article 11(4) of the constitution. It is disheartening to note that such a call had come just before the nation celebrated its anniversary of independence recently.

According to Article 11(4), state law - and in respect of the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur and Labuan, federal law - may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the religion of Islam.

In case there are those who have forgotten about the foundations of the Federation of Malaysia, let me remind them of the Malaysia Agreement which was signed by the representatives of Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak way back in 1963.

According to the agreement, Sabah would form Malaysia only if the 20 points raised by it was adhered to. Sarawak had a similar arrangement in the form of 18 points. Malaya agreed to this and it was to form the basis for the Federal Constitution of Malaysia. Though largely based on the Malayan Federal Constitution of 1957, the new constitution would take into account the 20 points raised by Sabah and the 18 points raised by Sarawak.

One of the most important condition imposed by Sabah in the 20 points was that there would be no state religion in Sabah and that there would be absolute freedom to profess and propagate any religion. This includes the freedom to propagate any religion to any person in the state. This was agreed to.

Therefore, I do not see why Article 11(4) should be enforced in Sabah. This would be a clear violation of the Malaysia Agreement, without which the Federation of Malaysia as we know today would not have come into existence.

Since the Federal Constitution could not have existed without the Malaysia Agreement, then I do not see why the agreement should be violated to accommodate an article in the constitution. In fact, it is the Federal Constitution that should be made to accommodate the Malaysia Agreement. We should reinstate Article 161(C) which explicitly states the absolute freedom to profess and propagate any religion in Sabah and Sarawak.

Please do not destroy the Malaysia that was envisioned by our founding fathers, namely Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Fuad Stephens, Tun Datu Mustapha Datu Harun and Datuk Stephen Kalong Ningkan. In destroying it, we are only accommodating a small minority of religious fanatics who have no regard whatsoever for the general well-being of Malaysians at large.