LET’S PRAY FOR THE FUTURE OF OUR NATION

On 16 May 2017 (Tuesday) a group of seven individuals from Malaysian Islamic Party, well-known as PAS (Party Islam Se-Malaysia), from the Parliament Constituency of BATU led by Ustaz Azhar Bin Yahya came to pay a visit to our parish in the morning. Tuan Azhar is head of finance in Kolej University Zulkifli Muhammad (KUIZM) at Batu Caves, Selangor. Batu is a parliamentary constituency, which includes Sentul on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. The current Member of Parliament of Batu is YB Tian Chua of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR). On 12^th May, Hishamuddin Ghazalli, the PAS secretary of Batu constituency met me with a letter for an appointment with his group in order to have a better understanding and collaboration working together with people particularly in his constituency.

The PAS group shared with me their objective of meeting all the religious leaders in their constituency before the next General Election. Their first meeting was with the Catholic Church and then they will move on to meet all the other religious leaders in Batu constituency. They too have shared of their new concept and vision of their party in building up good values, harmonious, free speech, peaceful nation and unite all races in our country. They have their ambitious goal of winning this parliamentary seat in the 14^th General Election. They are looking forward for more meetings with parishioners in the future. I was so impressed with their sharing and we had a healthy dialogue session.

Ever since I came to Church of St Joseph, I had many opportunities to meet with groups of students from the local Islamic universities and lately with these Islamic religious and political leaders. Through the conversation with these groups I notice that they all express their strong support for democracy and freedom of religion in the country. In reality we have hardly established a harmonious dialogue with one another and till now there is not much freedom in practicing our faith in our nation. One thing I realised is that when political matters influence religious sentiments then we have imbalanced thoughts and extremist groups exist.

The 14^th General Election will be a very essential election for us Malaysians. In his book entitled “Malaysia 14^th General Election”, Dr Kua Kia Soong (an adviser to human rights movement Suara Rakyat Malaysia – Suaram) said, “It will be a hard struggle for Malaysians to take back the country from the hands of corrupt and indifferent politicians.”  We as a Malaysian society should take a drastic action as we learn from the mistakes in the previous General Election. We shall look forward for a more brighter future for all Malaysians with justice, peace and prosperous.

Our Bible always encourages us pray for our governing leaders (2 Timothy 2: 1-4) and to respect in authority (Roman 13: 1-7). When we look at the situation of our country right now we find it hard to respect our indifferent political leaders. However, we should not despair but follow what God has commanded us to do – that is pray for our leaders especially for their wisdom, for their loyalty to people and country and for their hearts to be led by God.