Has Centhra violated own objectives?
THE firestorm of backlashes over the proposal by Azril Mohd Amin, the CEO of the Centre for Human Rights Research and Advocacy (Centhra), to have “evangelicalism” banned in Malaysia is still burning. But a positive side of the backlashes is that many political leaders, including Muslims, have condemned his proposal, and for good reasons.
But it’s also interesting to note that many of those who objected to, or even strongly protested against Azril, have failed to notice at least two very important matters. The most obvious one is the irony of Azril’s stance as a CEO of a centre for a human rights and advocacy research organization. This begs the obvious question: In all of Centhra’s research, what has Azril and Centhra learned about human rights?
At first look we would be naturally quick to conclude that Centhra is “antiChristian” in its policy. But this is definitely not the case because, Centhra’s website (centhra.org) states clearly that “Themes that support the core focus [of Centhra] are as follows: (1) Empowerment of institutional ecosystems in accordance with Malaysian Chapter of Human Rights (e.g. government, judiciary, civil society, academia, business, security, parliament); (2) Obligation to International Treaties (e.g. conventions on OKU, racial discrimination, child, etc); (3) Situation of society’s main sector (e.g. rights to political, economic, civil, social, cultural, educational, religion, etc); (4) Situation of special groups (e.g. rights of women, child, refugees, workers, native, poor, old, youth, etc); and (5) Specific issues of Malaysian human rights.(e.g. freedom of religion, Sedition Act, anti-terrorism, position of Islam, etc)”.
So clearly one of the themes that supports the core focus of Centhra is its obligation (commitment to adhere) to international treaties on racial discrimination (which almost always related to religion), and its focus on “rights to religion” as well as focus on “situation of native” (which is sharply pertinent to the Sabah and Sarawak situation, more than the situation in the Peninsula where “native” means the Orang Asli and so has a very different connotation).
It is also shocking that Centhra, while claiming to commit to “Empowerment of institutional ecosystems in accordance with Malaysian chapter of Human Rights,” Azril has violated two of the tenets of the Malaysian Chapter of Human Rights (www. hurights.or.jp), which states in its preamble that “2. Human rights are the foundation of the holistic well-being of all humans in all spiritual, moral, mental, physical and social aspects. With these rights come the responsibility to protect and respect the well-being of other individuals and communities in society, as well as to ensure a harmonious relationship between humankind and the natural environment; and (3) In a developing country like Malaysia, recognition and respect of the right to political, social, cultural and economic self-determination of all peoples are fundamental to the protection of dignity and equality; and justice, peace andbfreedon in our country [or Malaysia].”
By violating all these assurances, is Centhra now a quasiprofessional organization which may, from time to time, not perform in accordance with its own aims and objectives? Or is Azril’s action and attitude symptomatic of some Malaysian politicians’ thinking in Malaysia today that paper-stated objectives are only for window dressing and can be conveniently ‘forgotten’ as the political situation requires? Or was Azril acting on his own with no regard to his professional and academic standing as the CEO of Centhra?
Whatever it is, Azril’s anti-evangelicalism statement cannot be easily dismissed as one of our cranky political overzealousness (as in the case with Perkasa’s antagonistic outbursts) simply because he is the CEO of an international-class think tank which is supposed to be stringently objective (unbiased) and scholarly. Azril should have considered the risk of compromising his investigative and analytic integrity before making such an earth-shaking statement against what he called ‘evangelicalism.’
The other point which people have overlooked is the serious error Azril made in his use of the term “evangelicalism” which, again, gets in the way of his grasp of religious lingo. What he meant wasn’t evangelicalism but “evangelism.” “Evangelicals” is the name of one of Christian denominational identities. Hence, “evangelicalism” is a movement of the Evangelicals, which is distinct group from Catholics, Adventists, Anglicans, Jesuits and so on. Wikipedia defines evangelicalism, thus: “Evangelical Christianity, or Evangelical Protestantism is a worldwide, transdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity which maintains the belief that the essence of the gospel consists of the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ…”
Surely, Azril wasn’t calling for the banning of the movement of evangelicals but of evangelistic movement, or evangelism, or Christian proselytization. If a banning of evangelicals can ever be successfully achieved, there would still be evangelism (towards non-Muslims) by the other Christian denominations.
Obviously the top leaders of Centhra need to veer off from its research routine and spend a bit of time on researching to acquire a deeper understanding of Christianity and other religions to give itself a more accurate analyses of matters involving numerous beliefs we now have in the world. It also needs to remind itself of its own stated role and functions, which are for the promotion of human rights in Malaysia – to achieve its noble slogan “On Building National Human Rights Ecosystems – for our common progress and harmony as a whole.