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I read with great interest your article in Religious freedom: Still no common ground .

I couldn't have agreed more with the point made by the panelists, especially Zaid Ibrahim's view on apostates and Dr Mazeni Alwi's view on the mixing of the different ethnic groups (notice the word is 'mixing, not 'mixture'. We should be able come together and yet retain our own ethnic uniqueness).

I was born in the early 1970s, and so, luckily or unluckily, did not experience first hand the 'peristiwa pahit' of May 13,1969 . Nevertheless, I must congratulate the education system during my primary and secondary school years that successfully instilled in me the love for my country Malaysia and respect for other races and religions.

If you ask me, as a non-Muslim (a Christian, to be specific), what matters most is the heart conversion. I may share, or even force the Christian gospel down to the throat of someone who is not a Christian. I may even force someone to physically profess to be a Christian. But unless, he or she truly is convinced in the heart that he or she wants to be a Christian, that conversion may just remains as it is - an empty, artificial conversion. In other words, the willing conversion of the heart is the essence.

It sometimes perplexes, and even frightens me, when I read stories like the case of Lina Joy, the struggle of the widow of the deceased M Moorthy, the lucrative rewards to Muslim preachers in converting Orang Asli through marriages, etc. I fail to understand, as a non-Muslim, the importance of adding yet another figure to the statistics despite the fact that no human can be sure of whether there are honest, heart conversions of the people involved.

I must say that I was more open to learn about the teachings of Islam through my interactions with my primary and secondary Muslim school friends, where we could play together, laugh together and study together. But now that I am in my early 30s, things seem to be so different for me. Reading stories like I the ones mentioned above somehow keeps me away from knowing more about Islam. Seeing things from the lens of a non-Muslim, I must say that I dare not learn more about Islam if we can't even celebrate Kongsi-Raya around about the same time!

You may say, aren't there a lot of Islamic teaching programmes in the media? Of course, there are lots of programmes on the television, the radio, the newspapers, etc. But these are unilateral programmes. How many of them are interfaith discourses and discussions that may draw people from different religious backgrounds to sit down together and watch, listen, read and understand?

I somewhat believe that despite the fact that we have achieved Merdeka since 1957 (almost reaching 50 years, wow!), our so-called understanding of tolerance has not been deep enough to allow ourselves to be transparent and to allow interfaith discussions to be more frequent.

Why would some quarters be so worried about the setting up of the interfaith commission? From the point of view of a non-Muslim, it seems to me that there is no open discussion at all. The communication line is shut. Is it because of some kind of insecurity or even some kind of tribal mentality as mentioned in The great Islamic debate that has shut the door to open discussion?

Perhaps films like Yasmin Ahmad's 'Sepet' should be produced more to compensate for the lack of formal interfaith programmes. It was a truly beautiful film, where people from different religious backgrounds could talk and laugh at our weaknesses. Why should some people feel offended or threatened by certain lines spoken in the film?

Let me state things succinctly. Please create a friendly and non-hostile environment for the non-Muslims (or at least for one non-Muslim, and that is me) to learn more about Islam. Diversity is our strength; we learn to compensate for what is lacking in one another. We have such a rich heritage that we would be fools if we don't recognise it.

Finally, someone once said this: 'True tolerance is to accept the other, not by ignoring the distance between us, but by measuring the distance accurately and by recognising that whoever wants to cross over has the right and the freedom to do so. Only love can create the necessary conditions for the truth to emerge.'

We recognise that we are different and we should allow one another the space to cross over to learn more about these differences.

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