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Earlier, we read about the amount of money spent for mosques and other places of worship in general.

In today’s Star (hard copy) breakdown of the expenses for places of worship is given as below:

RM3.93 million for Hindu temples
RM3.16 million for other temples
RM1.6 million for churches

It is clarified that since 1991, RM1 million for physical development of churches and temples, and another RM1 million for Hindu temples have been allocated since year 2000.

Now, we can see that temples and churches individually receive less money than Hindu temples, but if combined, its more by RM0.83 million (3.16 + 1.6 - 3.93).

I can only assume that there is less allocation for churches since they are located in strategic areas with least disturbance, have good support from the affluent section of community they serve, or the churches have moved into shoplots, thus reducing maintenance cost. However, I wonder if this cost includes assistance to churches located in Sabah and Sarawak, where there are many Christians among the privileged people there.

Other temples most likely refer to Taoist temples, which again usually have an association, foundation or group supporting it.

For Hindu temples, due to the many sects in Hinduism, there is more temples to be maintained. Then, there’s the issue of relocation or compensation when temples make way for development.

For the period between 2005 and 2008, total money received by these places of worship:

RM8.1 million
+ RM8 million (RM2 million x 4)
= RM16.1million.

Mosques and surau got RM428 million in the same period.

As I said earlier, its a major injustice when the total amount given to these temples (RM16.1 million) in the last four years is just 3.6% of the total allocation (RM428 million + RM16.1 million). The mosques and surau are allocated 26.58 times MORE money than combination of all other places of worship.

Whatever happened to “Kepercayaan Kepada Tuhan”?

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In a 60/40 population, 428 million versus 8 million doesn’t look balanced no matter how you cut it. And that is just for the period between 2005 and 2008.

Let’s do the maths:

428/ 42 months (from Jan 2005 until June 2008) = 10.19 million per month.

8/42 months = 190,000 per month.

That means mosques get 53.63 times more than other places of worship month-wise. Over the said period, its 53.5 times more than the allocation for temples and churches.

And bear in mind that this amount is to be shared between temples (Hindus, Buddhists, Taoist?) and churches.

The deputy minister for Internal Security also said that the government has been disbursing RM1 million per year for temples/churches and Hindu temples respectively for physical construction projects.

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Well, the actual statement says:

Abdul Rahman said the memorandum also protested against the unrestricted construction of houses of worship of all races without consideration for racial sensitivities.

The memorandum was given by a coalition of 100 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Selangor today. Some 200 representatives of the NGOs, led by Datuk Abdul Rahman Palil, handed the memorandum to the sultan’s naval aide-de-camp (ADC) Commander Ahmad Ramli Kardi at Istana Bukit Kayangan.

The statement above sounds very vague and not to mention dangerous. What is meant by “unrestricted” and “consideration for racial sensitivities”. In Bolehland, that is usually associated with a one-sided argument for the privileged race.

I think these people should not butt in on issues that is not related to their religion. Its not as if the authorities are planning to demolish a mosque and build a gurdwara on it or using the temple to convert muslims. This is what makes the rest of Malaysians tick and become wary of their religion.

Let each neighborhood have its own set of places of worship so that people don’t have to travel far. We have seen in Penang and Malacca where various institutions basically on the same street without problem for centuries.

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