LETTER | It is ridiculous, to say the least, for the Education Ministry (above) to have issued a stern warning to a missionary school in Penang for reciting the Christian doa selamat before the start of a function at the school premises in response to a police report lodged by a political activist.

Politicians are out for publicity and will create smoke even where there is no fire. So one should not jump into action immediately as if a big crime had been committed and the criminal is escaping. The first thing to think about is what the crime or cause is.

This is a Christian missionary school and it is their age-old practice to start lessons for the day, or functions, with a doa selamat just like the Muslims do. This practice is also common to other faiths. So what is the agenda of the political activist in this case and the police and the Ministry of Education, in jumping into action and issuing a stern warning to the school?

Did the person who led the doa selamat request the Muslims present to join in? If not, how is reciting the doa selamat by the Christians turned into an attempt to proselytise to the Muslims present?

Mission schools have existed for a long time, and they have provided an excellent education to the children who attended them. Pre-war and post war and up to the 1970's, hundreds of thousands of Malay children attended these schools. They went through the regime of daily morning prayers, i.e. the "Lord's Prayer" and the "Hail Mary". 

They would stand respectfully with their non-Muslim colleagues for the prayers. Not one parent complained. Not one politician complained. Not one child was swayed by the prayers, day after day, month after month, year after year, to discard Islam and convert to Christianity.

So why today all this hullabaloo about Christians saying their doa selamat on their own school premises?

By the way, can the police, the Education Minister or the de facto Islamic affairs minister openly state where is it forbidden for non-Muslims to say their prayers within earshot of Muslims? 

Otherwise, stop all the bigotry and "giving face" to the bigots by jumping into action at the drop of such reports. Entertaining such reports and even acting on them gives the impressions that there is a joint, concerted agenda to harass the non-Muslims through frivolous, artificial "sensitivities" for some political reason.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.