Can't touch this
You can't talk about a man building churches. Well, you can, if he was building them in any country but a Muslim one.
When I was an intern at a now defunct newspaper (not my current employment) I did a weekly obituary, about local people, who are otherwise unnewsworthy, but managed to die while I needed to fill the page and managed to be the least uninteresting of all the deceased.
Wasn't always easy filling that damned page.
I called up an Indian family, who had put up an interesting looking death notice (I forget what I was intrigued by - it's been four years) and found out that the late patriach had been a zealous churchbuilder across the Straits Of Johor. I remember his family proudly recounting how he would often go to Malaysia and overseeing the building of new churches in a heathen land. He built so many, they told me. What a great man.
As a secularist, I don't actually agree that building lots of churches makes one great. But at least it is an accomplishment. And hey, I had done a story about a street painter who saved up money to build temples back in India. Same same, yeah?
Went back to editor. No go. Granted, part of it was that the story wasn't that strong in the first place - not that the obituary page I was doing was particularly newsy - but a reason was that it was sensitive. People might take offence. Who these people were was left unsaid. I couldn't see why at that time. It's just a guy building churches. Yeah, he also mentioned about converting Muslims, but big deal. I was quite dumb and had no idea of the laws that restricted evangelising to Muslims, which is bullshit if you ask me. At least according to the principles on which I believe a nation should be founded. Laws should restrict evangelising to everyone!
Sadly it's not utopia. A country's got to have freedom of belief, or it's Saudi Arabia. You have the right to annoy me and I have the right to tell you to fuck off. I can understand the restrictions against evangelising Muslims to ensure stability, which says more than I think most people care to admit. I do wish such rules wasn't necessary.
It all goes back to Malaysia.
If you have been following reports, Indian Hindu and Malay Muslim tensions have been running high. Mostly due to the Government being pretty unfair. They held several Hindraf (a Hindu-rights group) leaders under the Internal Security Act. They have been tearing down historical Indian temples. Remember the rage in Iraq over the destruction of mosques (usually by factional Muslims) before blowing up mosques in Iraq was cool? Well, the government in Malaysia have been doing it willynilly, exploiting the fact that many of them were built years ago and had no documents. It also insultingly deflected the quite reasonable claims of discriminatory treatment by downtrodden Indians who have not seen the benefits of progress. Years of fattening Bumiputera. Grabbing a husband's corpse from a grieving wife and forcibly giving the body a Muslim burial. They do that to Chinese Christians too. Mixing civil courts with Syariah rule. Etc, etc.
Recently, they restricted visas for incoming priests and people complained. Then now, boom. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7176323.stm. Malaysia bans Indian recruitment.
Every time I think about how shitty Singapore is, I think of Malaysia's woes and I feel much better that I live in a secular state where the reach of mosque, church or temple does not extend into my constitution.
