The Christians MUST be challenged, now!
To all those who are involved with the Allah polemics, please read what I write below … slowly and carefully. It is important that you understand.
Another reason you should read is because there are some hackers out there who are seriously disrupting my blog connectivity to prevent me from providing you information.
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“64% BM” — betul kah?
Patricia Martinez, in her The Malaysia Insider article today titled ‘Let Christians get back to basics’ has made some { interesting } claims.
The two sentences by Patricia Martinez that I seek her clarification are reproduced below:
- “What we are simply asking is to continue the peaceful status quo of centuries for 64% of Christians who speak only BM and who have no choice but to use ‘Allah’.”.
- “Go back to basics: the peaceful use of “Allah” for centuries only for 64% of BM-speaking Christians.”
The entire TMI article is screenshot – see bottom of page – with the two relevant sentences highlighted in yellow.
In her article, Patricia Martinez did not tell readers from where (i.e. the SOURCE of the info) she got that her “64% Malay-speaking ONLY” statistic from.
Secondly, I’m sure many Muslims concerned with the Allah row would like to know who are these 1.56 million Christians purportedly only conversant in Malay. Meaning, we’d like to know what are their ethnic sub-groups and where (the districts) in Sabah and Sarawak they live.
In her article, Patricia Martinez writes that the “Bumiputeras, especially from Sabah and Sarawak, have many dialects: they are Kadazan Dusun, Melanau, Murut, Dayaks and others”.
Side note: Since she separates the Murut from the Kadazandusun, I shall adopt Dr Martinez’s format and use the term Kadazandusun, and not KDM (Kadazandusun-murut).
Number of Christians in Sabah and Sarawak
Pay attention now.
SARAWAK
(A)
The 2010 national census puts the country’s population at 28.3 million, out which “9.2 percent only” are Christians. This makes it 2,603,600 or 2.6 million Christian Malaysians.
Therefore 64 percent – the percentage cited by Patricia Martinez – will make it 1.56 million Christians in the country who speak Malay only (64% of 2.6 million is 1,562,160).
(B)
The census also says the Bumiputera are altogether 67.4 percent in Malaysia, out of which the Ibans are 30.3 percent of the total citizens in Sarawak and Kadazan/Dusun 24.5 percent in Sabah.
– Sarawak has a population of 2,471,140
– Ibans are 30.3 percent of the Sarawakians
- So there are 748,755 Ibans in Sarawak
The majority of Ibans are Christian. However the Ibans have their Iban bible called the Bup Kudus.
(C)
We might toss a ballpark figure saying that there are some 303,951 Sarawak Christians who are not Iban. This is presuming that ALL Ibans are Christians. Of course they’re not but we’re just saying for convenience, and we’ll adjust our calculations later.
– Christians make up 42.6 percent of the Sarawak population
- So there are 1,052,706 Christians in Sarawak
Roughly (rounded figures), there are one million Christians in Sarawak; and there are three-quarters million Ibans in the state.
Subtracting the three-quarters million Ibans (presuming all Ibans to be Christians) from the state Christian population leaves us with 303,951 Sarawak Christians who are non-Iban.
This number of 303,951 Sarawakian Christians might be those Christians who have adopted Malay as their lingua franca even though they belong to the smaller dialect groups such as Kelabit (Idris Jala’s tribe), Kayan, Kenyah, etc.
(D)
Question 1: Are these assumed 303,951 non-Iban Sarawak Christians all necessarily Malay speakers?
Answer: Not necessarily. Among these Sarawak Christians who are not Iban could be Chinese living in the towns. They do not need to use the Malay bible. They can use Chinese or English bibles.
Okay now to modify. Assuming that not all Iban are Christians, the non-Iban Sarawak Christian population could well be more than 303,951. We don’t know. But anyway, let’s now generously raise the figure from 303,951 up to 500,000 (estimate).
So we have possibly half a million Sarawakian Christians who might need to use the Alkitab because they speak Malay. (This is on the assumption that the Ibans do not need the Alkitab because they have Bup Kudus, the Iban bible.)
Question 2: Are the (possibly) half a million non-Iban Christians in Sarawak all Malay speakers?
Answer: Not necessarily. These Sarawak Christians could be Chinese or they could be other tribes who are able to speak English. Do remember that Sarawak was still using English in school when the peninsula had already switched to BM, so their English is better than the peninsulans.
Hence after taking away the Chinese-speaking Christians we might want to readjust the modified figure of 500,000 a bit down to perhaps 350,000 (possibly) Malay-speaking Sarawak Christians.
Incumbent on Patricia Martinez reveal her data source
I apologize for the sliding up and down the scale as my numbers are merely guesstimates. As I’ve confessed from the beginning, I’m only working from the 2010 national census figures which are not specific in this regard.
Given this uncertainty, it is imperative for Patricia Martinez to share with us the source of the data that she has cited.
To recall for you, she claims that 64 percent of Malaysian Christians are ONLY conversant in Malay and thus require use of the Alkitab since they’re unable to read English. Or for that matter, read Iban.
SABAH
(E)
The Kadazandusun bible does not use the ‘Allah’ word.
– Sabah has a population of 3,206,742
– Kadazandusuns are 24.5 percent of the Sabahans
- So there are 785,652 Kadazandusuns in Sabah
The majority of Kadazandusuns are Christian. However like the Ibans, the Kadazandusuns too have got the bible in their own language. Unlike the Ibans, they do not use the ‘Allah’ word.
(F)
We might throw a ballpark figure saying that there are some 303,951 Sabah Christians who are not Kadazansusun.
– Christians make up 26.6 percent of the Sabah population
- So there are 852,993 Christians in Sabah
Roughly (rounded figures), there are 850,000 Christians in Sabah; and there are 785,000 Kadazansusun in the state.
Subtracting the Kadazansusuns (presuming all Kadazansusuns to be Christians) from the state Christian population leaves us with (852,993-785,652=) 67,341 non-Kadazandusun Christians in Sabah.
The 67,341 (the figure may be higher) are those Christians in Sabah who will presumably not be using the Kadazandusun bible since they do not speak Kadazandusun. These Christians, who could be Malay speakers, may require the Alkitab.
(G)
Question 1: Are these assumed 67,341 non-Kadazandusun Sabah Christians all necessarily Malay speakers?
Answer: Not necessarily. These Sabah Christians who are not Kadazandusun could be Chinese living in the towns. They do not need to use the Malay bible. They can use Chinese or English bibles.
Assuming that not all Kadazandusun are Christians, the non-Kadazandusun Sabah Christian population could be more than 67,341. We don’t know. But let’s generously triple the figure up to 150,000.
So we have possibly150,000 Sabahan Christians who might need to use the Alkitab because they speak Malay. (This is on the assumption that the Kadazandusuns do not need the Alkitab because they have the Kadazandusun bible.)
Question 2: Are the (possibly) 150,000 non-Kadazandusun Christians in Sabah all Malay speakers?
Answer: Not necessarily. These Sabah Christians could be Chinese or they could be tribes who are able to speak English. Hence after taking away the Chinese-speaking Chinese Christians, we might want to adjust the figure of 150, 000 down to perhaps 75,000 (possibly) Malay-speaking Sabah Christians.
REPEAT: Patricia Martinez should reveal her data source
Dr Martinez is very specific in asserting that 64 percent of the Christians in Malaysia can only speak Malay and must be provided with the Alkitab.
Thus she must reveal her source of information for our benefit and in order to strengthen her case. Without particularized data, the best we can do is extrapolate the census figures and then do guesswork, as I have done here.
Since Patricia Martinez claims that “64 percent” Malaysian Christians only speak Malay, she’s actually talking about 1,562,160 people (64% out of the 9.2% Christians in the 28.3 million Malaysian population).
My generous guesstimate puts it at perhaps 350,000 Christians in Sarawak and 75,000 Christians in Sabah who truly have no other language choice except BM.
There’s a huge gap between my estimate of less than half million with Patricia Martinez’s stated more than 1.5 million solely Malay-speaking Christians. This is the reason I’m asking – and you should be requesting too – for her to reveal the source of her data.
How many Christians are BM-speaking only?
To reiterate: The Alkitab is the Malay language bible. The Ibans possess their own Iban language bible and the Kadazandusuns also have the bible in their own Kadazan language.
Idris Jala’s 10-point solution – before Guan Eng and the evangelistas menjolok sarang tebuan – would have permitted Malay-speaking native Christians to peacefully use the Alkitab in East Malaysia where they live.
The block is in the peninsula.
To get to the bottom of the Allah issue we need accurate numbers. If Patricia Martinez doesn’t wish to divulge how she got hers, then it is incumbent upon the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to release these numbers to the public.
(i) Excluding the Ibans and the Kadazandusuns, how many natives of Sabah and Sarawak are Christians who depend solely on BM?
(ii) How many from the above group (the Kelabits, Kayans, etc) are working in the peninsula so that they require the Alkitab to be used in the Klang Valley and a few other of the west coast towns and cities?
If we were to see the actual numbers, we might find that the Christians have been greatly exaggerating! Is there really a need to make such a big brouhaha as the Jerusubang evangelistas are doing?
(1,545 words)
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