Malaysia Insider (http://www.malaysiainsider.com)
More to squabble than meets the eye, 10 February 2009
by Cheong Suk-Wai
If you want to know how far apart East and West Malaysia still are, just consider the Herald, a weekly newspaper. Published for the country’s 850,000 Roman Catholics, the mainly
English-language paper has been heavily criticised by the country’s Home Ministry for publishing an eight-page Bahasa Malaysia section that refers to God as “Allah”. It also has Chinese and Tamil sections.
“Christians cannot use the name Allah. It is applicable only to Muslims. Allah is only for the Muslim God,” said Che Din Yusoh of the ministry’s Publications Control and Al-Quran Texts Division.
The Herald's use of“Allah” was meant to “confuse the Muslim people”, he alleged.
Ah, but that assumes that Muslims read the Herald, which would be a curious thing for them to do, and a difficult one, too. Only 14,000 or so copies of the paper are sold weekly, and only in churches. It would be even more difficult now for a Muslim to get a copy of the paper since the word “Restricted” – that is, for limited circulation only – has been printed on its front page in the past month. (The Herald has a subscription-only website but it is not working too well.)
Still, the Malay ground and intelligentsia alike insist that the Herald’s use of “Allah” in its Malay-language section is a thinly veiled attempt to proselytise Muslims. By the ministry’s reckoning, the proper translation of God for Malaysian Christians is “Tuhan”.
The Christians who do read the Herald’s Bahasa Malaysia pullout and call God “Allah” and Jesus Christ “Tuhan” in their worship, are East Malaysians – mainly the Kadazan, the Dusun and the Dayaks of Sabah and Sarawak – who speak mainly Malay. They made up 65 per cent of Malaysia’s two million or so Christians in the 2000 census.
Like the Malays, they are also bumiputeras, but bumiputera Christians, not Muslims.
And therein lies the rub because they, and not the Malays, form the majority in East Malaysia. In recent years, East Malaysians have begun moving to West Malaysia in droves in search of jobs.
Malaysia’s Muslims are not riled over the Herald’s use of “Allah” simply because they feel the right to call God by that name is theirs and theirs alone. They argue that the God they know as Allah has no children, while Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.
Also, they contend that Allah to them is the special name of a Supreme Being, and not a synonym for God.
Christians in Indonesia and the Middle East, however, would find such a stance perplexing since they have called God Allah for centuries.
But there is perhaps more to this squabble than meets the eye. The Herald has run editorials headlined “Comedy Of Errors” (about the ruling coalition’s losses in last year’s general election) and articles on the rising food and fuel prices.
It has also run an article about an Egyptian Catholic who converted to Islam, only to revert to Catholicism. Its July 2008 editorial exhorted believers to pray for a just and fair Permatang Pauh by-election, which was eventually won by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy prime minister turned opposition leader.
After three earlier warnings, the ministry sent the church a show-cause letter as to why it was commenting on politics, when it should be commenting only on matters of agama (religion).
In December last year, however, the ministry renewed the Herald’s publication permit on condition that it did not use four words of Arabic origin – Allah, solat (prayers), Kaabah (the place of Muslim worship in Mecca) and Baitula (the house of Allah).
The Roman Catholic Church has since asked the High Court to review whether the Home Minister’s directive was fair, reasonable and rational. Its lawyer S. Selvarajah told The Straits Times: “From 2007, the tone of the ministry’s letters was quite serious and after so many years of receiving warnings, reprimands and admonitions, the Church felt the best way was to have its position declared in court.”
Meanwhile, he said the Herald, in its Feb 1, 2009 issue, dropped the name “Allah” from its Malay-language section.
There is, perhaps, something to be said for the Church staying away from battles it need not win. After all, the government is not against the use of “Allah” for mass in Bahasa Malaysia or in the Alkitab, which is the Malay-language version of the Bible. It has also never banned or suspended the 15-year-old Herald.
Surely, in the end, it is the spirit of worship, and not any printed letter, that counts. – The Straits Times
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