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If an Inter-Religious Council cannot be formed now to resolve the Allah controversy, then there is no way such a council could be revived under the Barisan Nasional

The failure of the Cabinet yesterday to address the issue of reviving an Inter-Religious Council set up during the premiership of Bapa Malaysia and the first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman in the early decades of nationhood to resolve inter-racial problems and conflicts starting with the “Allah” controversy is a serious and irremediable setback for the 1Malaysia slogan and policy of the new Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Not a single Minister, whether from MCA, Gerakan, MIC, UMNO or the Sabah and Sarawak Barisan Nasional parties was brave, principled or far-sighted enough to table the subject for formal discussion and decision at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting.

In October, Najib was so euphoric about his 1Malaysia slogan that he took it to the world stage to recommend its extension to a “1World” vision!

It was the height of presumption for Malaysia to ask the world to extend the 1Malaysia slogan to a 1World vision when Malaysia and the Barisan Nasional component parties under Najib had never been so disunited in the nation’s 52-year history – even the Makkal Sakthi spawned by Najib to replace MIC caught the disease and quickly split into two factions shortly after its official launch by the Prime Minister.
Continue reading “If an Inter-Religious Council cannot be formed now to resolve the Allah controversy, then there is no way such a council could be revived under the Barisan Nasional”

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Catholic use of Allah is prompted by demand of East Malaysian Christians living in Peninsular Malaysia

By Dr Chen Man Hin, DAP life advisor

MANY EAST MALAYSIAN CHRISTIANS LIVING IN PENINSULAR MALAYSIA PRAY TO ALLAH IN BAHASA MALAYSIA BECAUSE MALAY IS THEIR COMMON LANGUAGE

According to Tan Sri Bernard Dompok, Cabinet Minister, Sabah Christian natives have been praying to Allah in Malays since 1881. Bahasa Malaysia is their common language and they speak in Malay in their daily lives and when they go to church. They pray to Allah all the time.

According to Bernard Dompok, many East Malaysians have gravitated to Peninsular Malaysia to look for work. Many have stayed in the Peninsula for over twenty years or more. They go to church and because their language is Malay, the Christian churches have been conducting masses and services for them in the national language.

Hence there is a demand for Herald, the Catholic weekly, to print church news not only in English but also in Malay, and they have to use the word Allah. The East Malaysian Christians call the Almighty ALLAH.
Continue reading “Catholic use of Allah is prompted by demand of East Malaysian Christians living in Peninsular Malaysia”

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A commentary on Nazri’s offer of a way out

By N.H. Chan
Malaysian Insider
Jan 20 2010

This is what the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said (The Star, Saturday, Jan 16, 2010). Nazri, who was voicing his personal opinion over the “Allah” issue, noted that Sabahans and Sarawakians could still conduct Mass and give sermons in Bahasa Malaysia but should not use the word “Allah” while in the peninsula.

“It is all right to hold Mass in Bahasa Malaysia but do not use the word ‘Allah’. They must use Tuhan as in the national language,” he said in an interview.
Although he agreed that the word “Allah” had been long used in Christianity way before Islam existed, Nazri said: “That’s why I say it is all right in Sabah and Sarawak but culturally, you cannot apply it in a place where Allah has always been Islam’s God.”

But where is it said anywhere – certainly it is not in the Koran – that Christians cannot apply Allah in a place where Allah has always been Islam’s God. Continue reading “A commentary on Nazri’s offer of a way out”

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Malay Provocation

New York Times
January 20, 2010
By PHILIP BOWRING

HONG KONG — One ought to be able to laugh at the absurdity of it. But the message is one of ignorance, religious and racial prejudice and political opportunism.

Last week, the Malaysian government declared that Christians in one part of the country could use “Allah” as the word for God when speaking Malay, but that those in most of the country could not. This is the same government that is currently running a public relations campaign called One Malaysia emphasizing the common identity of the nation’s racial and religious mix.

In reality, a government dominated by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) is using spurious religious/linguistic arguments to shore up its support among a majority Malay electorate, which has been fed for years with preferences and privileges. Meanwhile, non-Malay money and talent exits the country.

The government had earlier tried to stop the use of the word Allah by all Christians. This was successfully challenged in the High Court. But instead of letting the matter rest, the government declined to back down, setting the scene for the fire bombing of churches. While these could not be laid directly at the door of UMNO, hotheads in the party may well have taken their cue from what non-Muslims see as a deliberate attempt to stir up ethnic/religious issues for political gain. Last year it was Hindus who were the target of Malay provocation. Continue reading “Malay Provocation”

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Tsu Koon exposing the hollowness of 1Malaysia …

It is most regrettable that the KPI Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon is leading the Barisan Nasional government backoff from an inter-religious council to resolve inter-religious differences and promote inter-religious amity, goodwill and understanding, starting with the “Allah” controversy.

This is the real meaning of Koh saying that at this time, “teh tarik” sessions for inter-religious dialogues are more appropriate than official and formal ones.

In the first two decades of nationhood, there were more meaningful inter-religious interaction than now as there was a formal Inter-Religious Organisation which was set up by Tunku Abdul Rahman when he was the first Prime Minister which was headed by a Cabinet Minister.

For over three decades, the Inter-Religious Organisation went defunct and a formal inter-religious council should be urgently revived to resolve inter-religious differences and promote inter-religious amity, goodwill and understanding in plural Malaysia.
Continue reading “Tsu Koon exposing the hollowness of 1Malaysia …”

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AG Gani Patail should initiate contempt proceedings against Nazri while MCA, Gerakan, MIC, Sabah/ Sarawak BN and other Umno Ministers should repudiate Nazri’s stand in Cabinet tomorrow that it is too late for inter-religious dialogue to resolve the “Allah” controversy

I was completely astounded and outraged by de factor Law Minister, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz’ statement yesterday that it is too late for dialogue to resolve the “Allah” controversy, which had sparked a spate of arson and vandalism against churches, surau and a Sikh temple since the beginning of the year.

Nazri reiterated that it was not the fault of the government but that of the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church, Kuala Lumpur, Reverend Tan Sri Murphy Pakiam who had brought the matter to court.

If anybody is to be blamed for the Herald litigation, it is the government which had allowed the Home Ministry to violate two decades of religious equilibrium on the issue with its ban in 2007 on the use of the word “Allah” in the Catholic weekly, forcing on the Roman Catholic church the final remedy and recourse of the courts.

But it is what Nazri said about the Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Datuk Lau Bee Lan and her judgment which completely floored rational and reasonable Malaysians, as no Law Minister or a de facto one had done more than Nazri to attack the independence, impartiality, integrity and professionalism of a judge when his first task should be Continue reading “AG Gani Patail should initiate contempt proceedings against Nazri while MCA, Gerakan, MIC, Sabah/ Sarawak BN and other Umno Ministers should repudiate Nazri’s stand in Cabinet tomorrow that it is too late for inter-religious dialogue to resolve the “Allah” controversy”

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Silent majority of Muslims Malaysians must speak up against the ban on use of Allah by Christians to save Malaysia

By Dr Chen Man Hin, DAP life advisor

THE SILENT MAJORITY OF MALAYSIAN MUSLIMS MUST SPEAK UP AGAINST THE RULING TO BAN CHRISTIANS FROM INVOKING THE NAME OF ALLAH

The government ban on the use of ALLAH by Christians does not have the support of the majority of Malaysian Muslims. as a matter of fact, my impression is that the Muslim ummah in Malaysia are by and large solid citizens loyal both to the country and to their religion Islam, and do not buy the argument that the use of Allah by Christians would confuse the ummah.

PAS and PKR leaders like Anwar Ibrahim and Hadi Awang have openly stated that the use of Allah by christians is correct and allowed by Islam.

Anwar has said “With regard to the use of the word ALLAH, it cannot be disputed that Arabic speaking Muslims, Christians and Jews have collectively prayed to God as Allah throughout the last fourteen centuries.”
Continue reading “Silent majority of Muslims Malaysians must speak up against the ban on use of Allah by Christians to save Malaysia”

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All Cabinet Ministers should study the 57-page judgment of KL High Court judge Lau Bee Lan to decide whether Home Ministry should withdraw the appeal on the “Allah” controversy and focus instead on inter-religious dialogue to resolve the issue

The Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin should not be so hasty and even trigger-happy to declare that the government will not withdraw its appeal against the Kuala Lumpur High Court judgment allowing the Catholic Church to use the word “Allah” in the Bahasa Malaysia section of its newspapers, Herald.

By doing so, Muhyiddin is unfairly and undemocratically denying the rights of Cabinet Ministers from considering whether the Home Ministry should withdraw its appeal against the Kuala Lumpur High Court judgment on the “Allah” controversy to demonstrate the government’s seriousness and commitment to resolve the issue through inter-religious dialogue.

I had in Ipoh yesterday made the proposal that the government withdraw the appeal and to focus on resolving the controversy through inter-religious dialogue, as certain Umno Ministers and leaders had given the impression that when they speak about inter-religious dialogue, they were not talking about an open, full and free discussion and inter-reaction among the different religions to reach a lasting and satisfactory solution but using the inter-religious dialogue to achieve a pre-determined outcome – in the case of the “Allah” controversy, to achieve the same objective as the 2007 Home Ministry ban on the Catholic weekly Herald from using the word “Allah”.
Continue reading “All Cabinet Ministers should study the 57-page judgment of KL High Court judge Lau Bee Lan to decide whether Home Ministry should withdraw the appeal on the “Allah” controversy and focus instead on inter-religious dialogue to resolve the issue”

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Early Skirmishes Of A Malay Civil War

by M. Bakri Musa

Recent attacks on churches are not a sign of an impending religious war in Malaysia. There is no doubting that in a plural society like ours those incendiary incidents could easily explode out of control. That notwithstanding, these recent ugly acts are merely sub-plots of a much larger and more dangerous drama that is now unfolding, one that is far more consequential and destructive. These are the early skirmishes of an explosive, protracted and very ugly civil war among Malays.

There is a definite pattern between these recent events and earlier ones involving only Malays, specifically the whipping of a young mother for consuming beer and the call for apostasy to be a capital offense. Connect the dots and you have a Malay community in deep conflict.

What struck me most with the recent spate of church attacks were the relatively muted responses from the victims. This reflected not merely a charitable “turning the other cheek” reaction, rather an intuitive realization by non-Muslims that they were not the target but merely innocent victims of a much larger conflict raging under the surface: a vicious Malay civil war. Those poor Christians were caught in a cross-fire in a conflict they did not realize was going on around them. Continue reading “Early Skirmishes Of A Malay Civil War”

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Four reasons for controversial ‘Allah’ ruling

Malaysian Insider
January 17, 2010
By Debra Chong

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 17 — High Court judge Datuk Lau Bee Lan’s controversial ‘Allah’ ruling that rocked the nation over who had rights to the term cited that the Home Minister and government’s actions had been illegal, unconstitutional, irrational and had failed to satisfy that it was a threat to national security.

She also wrote about the apparent conflict in the matter between the Federal Constitution and the various state enactments apart from claims by Muslim groups that the matter cannot be taken to a civil court.

The judge released the written grounds of her Dec 31 judgment late on Friday while the increasingly acrimonious public debate over who has the right to use the word “Allah” continues to rage on.

The Malaysian Insider obtained a copy of her 57-page judgment where the judge lays out the reasons and the laws behind her oral pronouncement.

In laying out her judgment, Justice Lau ruled that the Home Minister and the Government of Malaysia, who were named as 1st and 2nd Respondents respectively, has the discretion under Section 12 of the Printing Presses and Publications Act to issue or revoke a permit to the Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur Reverend Tan Sri Murphy Pakiam (the Applicant) to publish the Church’s newspaper, Herald — The Catholic Weekly.

But, she stressed, the respondents had made decisions that were illegal, unconstitutional and irrational when they barred the Catholic newspaper from publishing the word “Allah” in its Bahasa Malaysia section. Continue reading “Four reasons for controversial ‘Allah’ ruling”

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Home Ministry should withdraw appeal against KL High Court judgment on “Allah” controversy

The Home Ministry should withdraw its appeal against the Kuala Lumpur High Court judgment on the “Allah” controversy to demonstrate the government’s seriousness and commitment to resolve the issue through inter-religious dialogue.

Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said yesterday that it is time to set up an inter-faith council to reach a mutual understanding on religious matters, with the Star report giving the headline : “’Time for interfaith council’ – Muhyiddin: Mutual understanding needed among all religions.”

Barisan Nasional leaders, from the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak downwards have said that the “Allah” controversy must be resolved through inter-religious dialogue and not through the court process.

However, certain Umno Ministers and leaders have given the impression that when they speak about inter-religious dialogue, they are not talking about an open, full and free discussion and interaction but using the inter-religious dialogue to achieve a pre-determined outcome, in the case of the “Allah” controversy, to achieve the same objective as the Home Ministry ban on the Catholic weekly Herald from using the word “Allah”.

If this is the case, then the whole idea of an inter-religious dialogue would be discredited and would not be able to produce a lasting solution to the problem. Continue reading “Home Ministry should withdraw appeal against KL High Court judgment on “Allah” controversy”

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God as politics in Malaysia

Asia Times
By Fabio Scarpello
Jan 16 2010

DENPASAR, Bali – The escalating Allah controversy that has resulted in the bombing of Christian churches across Malaysia has called into question the country’s moderate Muslim credentials and could have major repercussions for political alliances that underpin the United Malays Nasional Organization (UMNO)-led coalition government.

Both main political blocs – UMNO and the Anwar Ibrahim-led Pakatan Rakyat (PR) opposition coalition – have bid to capitalize on the violence, which has devolved from an obscure freedom of expression issue into a volatile matter of internal security that could potentially determine the government’s political survival.

UMNO has so far come out the worse for wear with its credibility shaken and reputation bruised by perceptions it has tacitly condoned the violence targeting Christians. Political analysts believe those perceptions, fanned by online media and blogs, could alienate UMNO’s moderate Muslim base and perhaps more importantly constituencies in the swing states of Sabah and Sarawak, whose parliamentarians help to maintain UMNO’s parliamentary majority.

Some analysts predict that the violence could coax certain constituencies, particularly Christians in Sabah and Sarawak, away from UMNO and towards the PR opposition, potentially paving the way for the parliamentary defections Anwar has long sought to topple the government. Others believe UMNO’s poor handling of the violence could sway more voters against the party at the next election, which already promised to be hotly contested.

UMNO’s politicization of ethnicity and religion has a long history. Many feel those tactics have paved the way for the recent senseless attacks against at least nine churches in the wake last month’s High Court ruling in favor of Catholic weekly newspaper, the Herald, that allowed the publication to use the word “Allah” in reference to the Christian God.

Lim Teck Ghee, director for the Kuala Lumpur-based Center for Policy Initiatives, said that hot-headed Muslims would not have felt emboldened enough to throw firebombs at churches had former prime minister Mahathir Mohammad not “shifted the political goal posts in 2001 by pronouncing Malaysia as an Islamic state”. Continue reading “God as politics in Malaysia”

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Call on all Ministers from Umno, MCA, Gerakan, MIC and from Sabah and Sarawak to declare their stand on Nazri’s proposal that the word “Allah” is allowed to be used by Christians in Sarawak and Sabah but not in Peninsular Malaysia

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz has come out with a most illogical and ridiculous solution to the “Allah” controversy – that the word “Allah” is allowed to be used by Christians in Sarawak and Sabah but not in Peninsular Malaysia.

When the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was reported as saying at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCFIS) in the United Kingdom two days ago that the “Allah” controversy arising from the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims would not be allowed to recur in the future, many were asking what he really meant.

Was Muhyiddin implying that no Home Minister would in future be so irresponsible and insensitive like Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein as saying that the government did not prohibit the people from demonstrating over sensitive religious issues, when he should know fully well that it would be regarded as official “green-light” for such demonstrations which could easily get out-of-hand?

Was Muhyiddin implying that no Prime Minister would in future act so irresponsibly and insensitively like Datuk Seri Najib Razak as to endorse any such insensitive and irresponsible statement by a Home Minister as had been made by Hishammuddin, resulting in the spate of arson and vandalism against churches and places of worship which have not stopped after more than a week?
Continue reading “Call on all Ministers from Umno, MCA, Gerakan, MIC and from Sabah and Sarawak to declare their stand on Nazri’s proposal that the word “Allah” is allowed to be used by Christians in Sarawak and Sabah but not in Peninsular Malaysia”

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“Allah” in cyberspace

The Nut Graph
15 Jan 10
By Koh Lay Chin
[email protected]

GENERIC term? Noun or pronoun? Conversion conspiracy or copyright? What exactly are Malaysians fighting over with regard to the “Allah” issue? And how is it all being played out in cyberspace?

A check on Facebook, Twitter, some blogs and an assortment of other sites since 8 Jan 2010 when churches started being attacked shows that the issue is far from being a singular one.

The cacophony of voices can be difficult to unravel because they are based on different arguments. So, while people are arguing about who can use “Allah” in Malaysia, what are they really angry about? Continue reading ““Allah” in cyberspace”

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‘Allah’ By Any Other Name

The Wall Street Journal
14th January 2010

The government’s censorship has only compounded Malaysia’s troubles.

By PAUL MARSHALL

Religious violence is rare in Malaysia, and so its people are rightly alarmed at the current spate of attacks on churches, which can conjure up memories of the 1969 race riots. The government has strongly condemned the attacks, but its policy of trying to coddle its Muslim population undermines its stated goal of an open Islam and stokes the very religious tension that it wants desperately to avoid.

The violence is the latest consequence of attempts to ban the use of the word “Allah” by Christians. In 1986, the Interior Security Ministry barred the word from non-Islamic publications on the grounds that it could confuse Muslims, but the ordinance was usually not enforced. However in December 2007, the Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association and the Islamic religious councils of seven states invoked it in a lawsuit against the Malay language weekly, the Catholic Herald. The government sided with the councils, saying that Christians’ use of the term “could increase tension and create confusion among Muslims.” Authorities also asked the Herald to put on its front page the word terhad, “restricted,” meaning solely for distribution to Christians.

Christians and others responded that “Allah” has been used by Christians for centuries to refer to God, including in Malaysia. No other country has such a ban; even the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) says it opposes one. “Allah,” the Arabic word for God, is used by Christians in Egypt and Syria, and, of course, neighboring Indonesia. On Dec. 31, 2009, the High Court ruled that Christians had a constitutional right to use “Allah.” The government called for calm, but quickly said it would appeal and, on January 6, the judge suspended her ruling pending an appeals court decision. Subsequently, nine churches have been attacked, most of them firebombed. There have also been attacks on the Catholic Herald’s legal team, whose offices were vandalized yesterday. Continue reading “‘Allah’ By Any Other Name”

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‘Allah’ allowed in East M’sia

by Phyllis Wong and Francis Chan | Borneo Post
January 15, 2010, Friday

Nazri says govt recognises two states’ traditional usage of word

KUALA LUMPUR: The word ‘Allah’ is allowed to be used by Christians in Sarawak and Sabah because the government accepts that the natives in these two states have traditionally been using it in their prayers and religious services and the Muslims there are accustomed to this practice.

This was stated by Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, in an exclusive interview with the KTS stable of dailies The Borneo Post, Oriental Daily and Utusan Borneo at his office here yesterday.

“Christians in Sarawak and Sabah need not worry over this issue because it is a common tradition there. I have been to an Iban church service and I heard the word ‘Allah’ used there,” he said.
Continue reading “‘Allah’ allowed in East M’sia”

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Newsy.com on the “Allah” controversy

Newsy.com video, which analyzes and synthesizes news coverage from multiple sources, has produced the following video summarizing different media coverage of the Allah controversy:

http://www.newsy.com/videos/war-of-words-in-malaysian-allah-dispute

Newsy.com says:

“The video summarizes this ongoing tension and the more recent controversies, showing a few different opinions on what the Malaysian government should do. There are those who view the term as a purely Muslim word and other who see this as a merely a language difference. Many just want to stop further disagreements and see the country unified/”

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Praying for peace is not enough!

By Azly Rahman

There is a Buddhist lesson in how we ought to perceive Malaysia’s emerging style of terrorism.

When one is bleeding after being shot by an arrow, the first step is not to look for the culprit that shot the arrow and pondering why was it shot but to pull out the arrow from the victim’s body and to quickly put a stop to the bleeding. This is what Siddharta Gautama would teach as crisis intervention.

Malaysians might never know who carried out the series of church bombings, nor what organisations are behind them, and if there is a higher order involved in the long-term planning of terror.

Postmodern debates will be a tedious exercise on whether this or that name of a Universal God can be copyrighted or whether a pastor or an archbishop can be pushed to the ground or physically attacked for using the forbidden name of the Universal God during their sermons.
Continue reading “Praying for peace is not enough!”

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“Allah” issue: Who started it?

By Jacqueline Ann Surin
12 Jan 10 | The Nut Graph

LEST we forget, the source of the Allah controversy that resulted in churches, and a Catholic school, being torched and threatened did not begin on the streets. It did not begin with narrow-minded and ignorant Muslim pressure groups threatening to spill blood to assert their sole right to use “Allah”.

Lest we forget, it began with the 1986 government ban on the use by non-Muslims of the word “Allah”, and three others — “solat”, “Kaabah” and “Baitullah”. That’s the Barisan Nasional (BN) government we are talking about, the one that Umno leads.

Hence, lest we forget, the issue of non-Muslims using the word “Allah” would not be an issue at all in Malaysia if the Umno-led government had, to begin with, respected the legitimate rights of other faith communities. The “Allah” issue would not have spiraled into, to quote a friend, suburban terrorism — and it is terrorism when violence and intimidation are used towards achieving one’s goals — if the Home Ministry had not acted to deny the rights of non-Muslim citizens in the first place.
Continue reading ““Allah” issue: Who started it?”