Buddhist leaders should speak up louder

It has been a common situation till today that leaders of Buddhist association and societies often discourage its members from being politically active or being sympathetic to any political ideologies or its cause.

This is because Buddhists as the whole has been ingrained for decades that they should not address any issues or raise matters that show signs of political connotations or support of any political organizations.

In any Buddhist association or societies normally, if there are any of its committee members or leaders show any signs of interest in politics or being part of a political party or comments in political development of our nation, they will be often treated with suspicion and frowned.

I personally agreed with Loka Ng, a former leader of the Buddhist Missionary Society of Malaysia (BMSM) and Young Buddhist Association of Malaysia (YBAM). Such thought and perception are completely inaccurate, wronged and should be corrected as quickly as possible.

By encouraging leaders of Buddhist associations and societies to be politically active and be aware of the current political development does not mean that a Buddhist leader will bring his organization into the political mainstream.

By encouraging Buddhist leaders to be actively aware of our country’s political scenario would mean helping and educating all our fellow Buddhist members and devotees are also part of the nation building in Malaysia.

We must also remember, as Malaysians we also have every rights like any other citizens to co-exist in this country, to enjoy our rights, freedom, democracy, justice and equality. These are our basic rights which had been enshrined in the federal constitution.

Yes, as leaders and members of Buddhist associations and societies, we must strive hard to put the knowledge of Buddhism into practice, to understand the value of the Buddha’s education and to seek the noble path towards enlightenment but it does not mean we must leave the political segment of our country to others to manage.

Therefore, if our Buddhist leaders are active like NGOs speaking up loudly and to seek audience with various government leaders and agencies, we are certain that a lots of issues pertaining to the constructions of our temples, viharas, places of worships, meditation centers and land acquisitions could be resolve quickly.

Just take for example, the YBAM’s initiated Puzhao Buddhist Vihara which had been left stagnant for so many years in Johor because of various bureaucratic procedures, coditions and blockades imposed by the Johor state government which caused YBAM to incurred a loss in millions of Ringgit due to the continuous stop work order and compensation to a number of builders and contractors assigned to the construction of the Puzhao Buddhist Vihara.

And we are certain that besides, the Puzhao Buddhist Vihara, there are many more of such cases around the country which had not been reported to the mainstream Buddhist organizations for assistance or further actions.

From the Puzhao Buddhist Vihara’s problem, we could see that even MCA and Gerakan as Barisan Nasional component parties within the federal government could not do much to assist in getting things resolve for YBAM because of the extensive politicking in the respective parties.

So when the Chinese based political parties within the federal government are not being able to assist our Buddhist associations and societies to meet our needs, request and applications, we are left just like that to fend for ourselves.

Just look at the Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM), Council of Churches in Malaysia (CCM) and Hindu Rights Action Front (Hindraf), where all of them are actively advocating and championing the rights of their members and devotees. The CFM and Hindraf especially had recently came out to protest against discriminations and unjust treatment of their fellow members and they even criticized the federal government for their unbecoming policies of discriminations and issues related to conversions.

As such, the leaders of our Buddhist associations and societies ought to come up to actively involve in issues that are related to our everyday lives, issues that are related to our nation building, the political development, human rights and democracy as well.

As leaders of Buddhist associations and societies in this country, aren’t we supposed to play our roles actively by ensuring the rights of our Buddhist communities are preserved and protected?

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