APRIL 25 — Should Christians support Bersih 3.0? I say yes, without
any hesitation. The Bible bids us to stand up and make a difference in
times like this. It’s our Christian Mandate. Read, for example, St
Paul’s epistle to the Christians in Rome living under Imperial Caesar.
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there
is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been
instituted by God. (Romans 13:1 ESV).
Yet many Roman Christians chose to defy the governing authorities of
the day by not worshiping Caesar and were thrown to the lions for the
Emperor’s amusement. The Roman Empire imploded subsequently.
Two things come to mind about this verse. The first is the symbiotic
relationship between the government and the governed. The other is the
fact that it is God who puts or allows governments to be in power
regardless of the form they take. However, the choice of governments is
obviously left to the people unless we expect God to descend from heaven
and impose His will in the forthcoming general election, or GE 13.
The next thing to note is that the people must be subject (or submit
as in some translations like the NIV) to the government of the day.
The word picture used here in its original Greek form means nothing
less than total obedience like that of the Roman soldier to his officer
in Paul’s time. When translated into English, the word seems to denote a
submissive person who is thought of as docile, inferior, meek, weak,
quiet, numb, without authority, in need of guidance, like a child or as
someone who has given up in despair.
The biblical context is far from this. Submission is of a mutual and
reciprocal respect as evident in the various epistles or letters of Paul
in the New Testament. Submission in the Bible is about subjecting
oneself to governing authorities based on justice and righteousness in
the sight of a holy God. (Amos 5:24, Micah 6:8).
Does the Bible allow us to oppose unjust and unrighteous governing
authorities? Yes, in certain circumstances even as far back as the Old
Testament.
For instance in Exodus 1:17: But the midwives feared God and did not
do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.
The narrative refers to Pharaoh’s orders to the two Hebrew midwives
to kill any Hebrew baby boy they deliver. Because of their refusal to
obey the royal order, among other things, the baby Moses was saved only
to grow up and confront Pharaoh to “let my people go.”
Then there is Daniel who refused to obey the Persian law not to pray
to his God and was thrown into the lions’ den only to be saved
mysteriously by Divine intervention.
In the Books of Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament, Peter and
John defied the high priests’ orders not to preach about Jesus and the
ruling authorities of the day were powerless to act against them.
Should Christians support Bersih 3.0?
First, be clear about Bersih (Clean). It is an election reform
movement co-chaired by former Bar Council president Datuk Ambiga
Sreenevasan and Datuk A. Samad Said. Ambiga is one of the eight
recipients for the 2009 Secretary of State’s Award for International
Women of Courage Awards. Pak Samad is a poet laureate in his 70s. These
two luminaries, together with other like-minded reformists were
courageous enough to be fired upon by tear gas at last year’s Bersih 2.0
in their quest for fair, free and clean elections.
Bersih has only three demands:
1. The Election Commission must resign, as it has failed in its responsibility and has lost the confidence of
the public.
2. The electoral process must be cleaned before the 13th General Election.
3. Invite international observers to observe the 13th General Election.
According to Ong Kian Ming, the director of the independent Malaysian
Electoral Roll Analysis Project (Merap), in addition to the few hundred
thousands of dubious voters registered with various irregularities
reported by Merap earlier, there are 3.1 million potential non-resident
voters out of an electoral roll of only 12 million.
In Sabah, the situation is insane. The 2000 census gave the total
population of Sabah and Labuan as 2,468,246. The biggest single group
was non Malaysian citizens at 552,967 (22 per cent) followed by
Kadazan/Dusun 458,768 (18 per cent).
Now look at the 2010 census. The total population was 3,206,742, a 30
per cent increase. Non Malaysian citizens shot up by 61 per cent to
889,779 while Kadazan/Dusun only grew by 2.8 per cent to 568,575.
It’s the non Malaysians (presumably Filipinos and Indonesians) who
determine the outcome of elections there. How did the Elections
Commission allow so many foreigners to be voters overnight?
In the face of all this, EC chief Tan Sri Aziz Yusof, made the
audacious boast that he has the cleanest electoral roll in the world! He
and the whole EC was appointed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to ensure
elections are fair and free. They should all resign or be sacked for
gross negligence and insult to this royal appointment.
To make matters worse, the government squandered it last chance to
make amends when it rushed through amendments to the elections law in
the wee hours of the morning last Friday like a thief in the night. The
amendments now make independent monitoring of elections even more
difficult, thus increasing the probability of another Stolen Mandate by
the ruling coalition.
This is the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back yet some
Christians are asking, shouldn’t we pray instead of going out into the
streets?
Make no mistakes about it: When electoral fraud happens something
also happens in the spiritual realms. St. Paul reminds us: “For we do
not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the
authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness,
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
The Bersih 3.0 Duduk Bantah (sit-in protest) is on this Saturday,
April 28 at Dataran Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur and at various other cities
through the country. Simultaneous protests are planned by Malaysians in
more than 40 cities around the world.
Exercise your Christian Mandate. Go there, duduk bantah, get down on
your knees and pray. Then expect a miracle — the end of a Stolen
Mandate.
* Bob Teoh reads The Malaysian Insider.
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