Religious coalition cautions against altering the Merdeka contract
The congress is the body that voices the religious concerns of 42 percent of Malaysia's population of 23 million who are non-Muslim.
The MCCBCHS statement came amid mounting concern that the Islamic state debate currently roiling the national body politic is set to alter the "social contract" on which the Constitution was based.
In today's statement the MCCBCHS affirmed its opposition to any tinkering with the "social contract".
It asserted: "When Malaya and then Malaysia was founded there was a social contract among the different communities of different races and religions on the type of constitution the country shall be governed by. Such social contract was then enshrined in our Constitution and cannot be changed without consultation and consent of all the communities that make up Malaysia."
Secular state
The contract emerged from a process of consultation that involved the British government, the Malay Rulers and the Alliance Party in 1956 and 1957. The Alliance Party, forerunner of the present ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional, swept the 1955 elections to the provisional legislature that paved the way to independence.
The Federation of Malaya Constitutional Commission Report, also called the Reid Commission Report, referred to this "social contract" on which was based the Federal Constitution, promulgated when Malaya became independent on Aug 31, 1957.
Another consultative process was initiated with the territories of North Borneo (now Sabah) and Sarawak in 1962, prior to their merger in the Federation of Malaysia the following year.
A social contract emerged from this process (contained in the Cobbold Commission Report), similar to the consensus that evolved in 1957.
The core of the contract: the religion of Islam was to be the official religion of the Federation but such a declaration entailed no disability on non-Muslims to freely practise their religions. More importantly, the contract held that though Islam was the official religion, the state was avowedly secular.
Series of meetings
Today's MCCBCHS statement expressed its "grave concern and alarm" over recent developments in the country.
By this it meant the announcement by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed on Sept 29 that Malaysia was already an Islamic state and the riposte this drew from the opposition PAS. It said it would come out with its blueprint of an Islamic state.
In the ensuing months the MCCBCHS has met with political parties in the Barisan Nasional and in the opposition to ascertain their views on the matter before stating its stance.
Component parties of the BN, such as MCA and Gerakan, had pronounced themselves unperturbed by Mahathir's pronouncement of last September, claiming it held no negative consequences for the rights of non-Muslim Malaysians.
These parties have attempted to allay non-Muslim fears that Mahathir's pronouncement heralded a sea change in the character of the Malaysian polity.
No change
Today's MCCBCHS statement is on the face of it, a vigorous dissent from the stances of the component parties of the BN and is more akin to the stand of the opposition DAP which flatly maintains that Malaysia is a secular state and must remain so.
Current MCCBCHS president Catholic Archbishop Soter Fernandez rejected a suggestion that the body's stance, as enunciated today, was similar to the DAP's.
"That's irrelevant," he said. "If you notice our statement today, it's essentially what we have been saying since 1988," he added.
Last week, the MCCBCHS concluded its round of consultations with political parties when it met PAS.
The meeting, said a source who attended it, convinced the body to issue a reaffirmation of a declaration it adopted in 1988 on the freedom of religion in Malaysia.
Basically, the declaration was aimed at airing the body's concern that state legislatures were enacting laws that were not consonant with the secular character of the Federal Constitution and were thus in danger of jeopardising the freedom of religion provision in the Constitution.
