Ambiga, Surendran demand PM withdraw 'clean up' temples remark

Malaysiakini : Lawyers Ambiga Sreenevasan and N Surendran are demanding that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim withdraw his remarks ordering local councils to "clean up" unauthorised temples. They said the directive was unprecedented and had serious consequences. "For starters, only a court can declare with finality that a temple is occupying land illegally, and a court order is required before it can be demolished.

“In no circumstances can temple management be labelled trespassers, and police action taken against them. "Neither does the argument hold water, that if it's on private land, vigilantism or self-help is allowed," they said in a joint statement today. 

Anwar gave the "clean up" directive on Tuesday, saying that the government could not allow unauthorised temples to keep being built. Two days later, vigilantes damaged a temple in Rawang.

A temple damaged in Rawang last week

Anwar had repeatedly spoken out against vigilante behaviour and stressed that no one can take the law into their own hands.

Selangor Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari had also said that for places of worship built on private land, the process requires the landowner to appoint a lawyer and obtain a court order before any eviction or demolition can take place.

Against Madani values

Veteran 1972: The first religion of Malaya was Hinduism, the rest came later. Bujang Valley was buried, along with Gangga Nagara and Kota Gelangai to keep the narrative that Islam was here first by the bureaucrats.

Remember Naipaul. V.S. Naipaul argued that for non-Arab nations, conversion to Islam requires a negation of their own history, culture, and identity, forcing them to become part of an "Arab story". He contended that this process leads to a "destructive disengagement" from the past, where indigenous traditions are often replaced by a focus on Arab history. 

In his books Among the Believers and Beyond Belief, include: Destruction of Personal History: Naipaul believed that becoming a Muslim for a non-Arab meant converting to an "Arab religion" and having to destroy one's own past and history. 

Selective History in Education: In Among the Believers, he noted that school textbooks in Pakistan, for example, often begin history with Arabia and Islam, treating the pre-Islamic past as a "blackness" or a time of ignorance (Jahiliya). 

Cultural Erasure: He observed that in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, this shift sometimes resulted in the marginalization or destruction of Hindu, Buddhist, and animist remnants of the past, which were viewed as impure. 

"Wounded" Civilizations: Regarding India, Naipaul argued that the Islamic conquests and subsequent conversions caused immense damage to the existing civilization, creating a "wound" and a form of "historical amnesia". Imperial Demand of Faith: He claimed that Islam makes "imperial demands" that compel converts to reject their ancestral culture. That sums up Islam's negation of history to be relevant.

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