Following the three firebombs that exploded in the Klang Valley yesterday, the nerves of the city dwellers are stretched taut in anticipation of more trouble to come.   

I was taken aback when I first heard the shocking news though I was not entirely unprepared. Living in Malaysia as we do, you can always expect some rare nuts to come loose and cause a stir. I am thinking of that private Adam who started shooting in Chow Kit Street at the height of the racial tension in 1987 just before Operation Lalang.

The next thing left to do is to determine whether these firebombs were indeed the work of a very few maverick agents provocateurs trying to fish in muddy water, or whether this is part of an intricate, well-planned and well-coordinated conspiracy to commit our country to a prolonged and bloody religious conflict.

NONE My guess is that these firebombs are the handiwork of a handful of troublemakers who do not have the high-tech propensity for weaponry, and neither do they seem do have the organisational prowess to mount a sustained religious insurgency.

They appear to be more like thieves in the night, slipping undetected like cowards, and beat a hasty retreat as soon as their dirty work is done, like alley rats in fear of daylight.

We cannot be sure even that they are Muslims. Just because there is so much controversy surrounding the Allah row, we cannot assume immediately that these criminals are motivated by religious fervour. They may not even be Muslim.

In any case, these criminals have committed an offence against all Malaysians of all religious persuasions and denominations. Their crime is all the more heinous because they try to inflame religious tension between followers of different faiths.

In short, they are public enemy number one, to be hounded down by the entire citizenry without mercy. We should mobilise public opinion - including that of our Muslim brothers and sisters - and condemn such dastardly and cowardly acts of violence with one voice and without reservation.

It is here where we have to draw a line between civilisation and barbarity.

NONE We are a plural multi-racial and multi-religious society held together by the rule of civilised law and a system of parliamentary democracy. Whatever disagreement we have in our national life even in contentious areas like race and religion, our bottom line in dealing with one another is to always resort to peaceful means and to avoid violence  by all means.

The minute we desert peaceful dialogues in preference for the nihilistic contest of brute animal force, we sink to the level of wild beasts. Then we lose all semblance and modicum of civilised behaviour.

Our holy social contract  

The members of the various faiths in Malaysia may engage one another in all kinds of religious and political debates until they are blue in the face. But so long as they observe the rules of civilised decorum, including the laws of our land, in peaceful pursuance of the solution to their dispute, then they remain in the civilised framework of a democratic debate.

The firebombers have broken away from this holy social contract and so they are no longer part of the process of our body politics. We do not have to contend with them anymore, because they are plain stupid harmful criminals.

In this respect, prominent Muslim leaders would do well to come out and condemn the firebombs as un-Islamic. The leaders of other faiths would also do well not to jump to conclusion by making sweeping statements about extremist Muslim groups. All Malaysians must stand as one united people, irrespective of race and religion, in these testing times.  

We have never experienced such firebombs before as well as the shocking religious animosity symbolised by the explosions. There is a first for everything. It does mean that in our very sensitive nation, we have to expect the unexpected and keep our head cool when everybody else is losing his.  

malaysians 050905 Fortunately, Malaysians are a practical and down-to-earth lot, not easily given to panic and fear. When I told my neighbour the news from the Internet about the firebombs, he who is neither Muslim nor Christian retorted instinctively that “this is not the Malaysian way”.

Indeed many Malaysians who are not Christians or Muslims do not understand what the big fuss is all about. They do care deeply that their Muslim and Christian friends discuss this issue coolly and rationally in a spirit of goodwill and brotherhood. They care because we live in one country in which all Malaysians share the same faith.

By now, we expect the police to do the work for which they are paid. It is now they have to show they deserve their pay-cheque by apprehending all those perpetrators of inflammatory arson and to step up patrol to protect church properties from these arsonists.  

I would imagine that the church authorities would also want to take precautions to improve the security of their premises immediately. It would be a pity for church properties to go up in smoke at the hands of the arsonists.

While that prime minister who gave us the 1Malaysia slogan has nothing inspiring to impart to the rest of the nation in the wake of the bombings, Malaysians all over the country from all walks of life and from all ethnic communities are remaining calm. This is what will defeat these rogue bomb conspirators.  

This is why I love Malaysia. Let us keep it that way - stoic, down-to-earth, descent, solid, generally honest, and not easily be taken in by rumours of religious fears.

SIM KWANG YANG was member of parliament for Bandar Kuching, Sarawak from 1982 to 1995. He can be reached at kenyalang578@hotmail.com.