MCCBCHST 2017 Dinner

Speech By Chief Minister of Penang
At MCCBCHST 2017 Dinner
On 30 September 2017

 

 

The Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST) is a non-profit interfaith organisation formed in 1983. MCCBCHST is composed primarily of officials from the main non-Muslim faith communities in Malaysia and acts as a consultative and liaison body towards more open dialogue and co-operation.

For the past 4 years MCCBCHST Penang Branch has been very actively involving into unity programs and hosted projects to preserve and promote understanding, peace and harmony. The Penang State Government realizes its importance by providing MCCBCHST with an annual grant of RM50,000.

MCCBCHST have now come to another annual project Inter-Faith Dinner with great speeches by Encik Ahmad Fadzal. We are proud of Penang's tradition for tolerance and mutual respect as well as different cultures to live in peace and harmony.

The Penang State Government upholds the Federal Constitution of Islam as the religion of the Federation and other faiths been guaranteed the right of freedom of worship. The Penang State Government has increased allocations for Islam by 84% from 2008 – 2016 as compared to the previous corresponding period. Further RM 30 million has been granted to non-Muslim religion as compared to almost none over the previous period. Both Muslims and non-Muslim religions have also being granted land either free or at subsidized cost. And yet I am still classified as both anti- Malay or anti-Chinese by my political opponents.

Let me stress that I am not anti-Malay, anti-Chinese nor anti-Indian. I am only anti-corruption, anti-ignorance, anti-racism, anti-extremism, anti-discrimination and anti-poverty.

Let Penang maintain our achievement to remain a model of peace, tolerance and harmony which can be an example for other states in Malaysia.