Amidst all the remarks regarding the use of word “Allah”, one remark stood out the most for me (in bold below):

…

Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said such incidents might have been avoided from the beginning if there had been a culture of understanding, tolerance and moderation.

The Deputy Prime Minister said he had been receiving quite a number of messages from his Christian friends from Sabah and Sarawak over the issue.

“They say the things that had happened would not have happened in the first instance if they, the Christians, had just said, we are not going to use the word Allah,” he said.

Muhyiddin noted that this was because in Malaysia and all Muslim countries, Allah was the only God for Muslims.

…

Source here.

What a load of C.R.A.P.

For one thing, I bet Indonesia Christians don’t get into hot soup for using the word “Allah” (refer here) so was Muhyiddin right in saying that the world’s largest Muslim state is wrong in its legal stand on this word? If so, perhaps he too feels that the Indon government should grant exclusive use of the word to only Muslims. A bit difficult considering that Bahasa Indonesia is spoken by Muslims and Christians alike. In fact, many only speak nothing else but Indonesian.

But wait, I thought Allah in English, Malay, Indon and all referred to the same God – since when did God in the Christian faith morphed into a different diety in Islam?

Perhaps tomorrow he’ll come up saying that he was misquoted. B.A.L.O.N.E.Y!

For people who think that Christians should cave beneath the pressure, think again. This is not a religious matter anymore but one that revolves around freedom of religion and freedom of speech. If one group of people is banned from using one word, what is to stop the government from simply banning people from using a whole lot more words?

This is the kind of thing that gets on people’s nerves. This is the kind of stuff that shows the world how stupid Malaysian leaders and politicians are.

Y’know, my in-laws and every other French who is aware of the Altantuya case or is politically knowledgeable thinks that it’s a laughing joke that a man alleged to be corrupt is now the Prime Minister of a country. Now add this sham of a deputy prime minister who is not just ignorant but religiously prejudicial (and open about it) to the list.

And how did he come to be Deputy Prime Minister? Because Malaysians voted his party in during the last elections. WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU PEOPLE THINKING?

*grrrr*

After sharing this with Nil while we were heading out for our regular grocery shipping at Carrefour, not to mention, stocking up on food stuffs for our little one, something he said hit a note.

I thought the word referred to the same God shared by the Muslims and Christians.

So I went looking around to be doubly sure, not that I don’t trust him. His knowledge of world history and culture is far better than mine.

While Wikipedia cannot be a 100% correct source, it is interesting to note its entry on the word “Allah” as seen here:

While the term is best known in the West for its use by Muslims as a reference to God, it is used by Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, in reference to “God”.

…

Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word “Allah” to mean “God”. The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for ‘God’ than ‘Allah’. (Even the Arabic-descended Maltese language of Malta, whose population is almost entirely Roman Catholic, uses Alla for ‘God’.) Arab Christians for example use terms Allah al-’ab meaning God the father, Allah al-ibn mean God the son, and Allah al-ruh al-quds meaning God the Holy Spirit (See God in Christianity for the Christian concept of God).

So really, outside of Malaysia, no one group has claimed exclusive right to use over this language. Just us silly Malaysians with our draconian concepts of language, ethnicity, religion and society.

It is also interesting to note that PAS – traditionally known to be highly religious AND political – agreed with the court’s ruling (that Christians and Jews may use the word) but “Muslim Youth Movement, Abim, have cast the use of the word Allah as a surreptitious effort on the part of Christians to try to seduce Muslims away from Islam” (source here).

Talk about men of little faith of themselves. If a word is all it takes to seduce a God-fearing Muslim away from Islam, then is he/she really all that God-fearing in the first place? Is it right if a person partook in religious rites like fasting, send out things like first communion invitations but gets all hostile about sharing their God in language with someone else?

It angers me at times to see the things going on back in Malaysia; and yet, I cannot help but feel a certain sense of relief than my daugther will never have to feel what I feel or see what I see. She will have a lifetime of witnessing man’s stupidity; she doesn’t need to start now.

For most of you who don’t know, the hottest issue in Malaysia right now is not the cost of petrol BUT a fight over who owns the right to use the word “Allah” exclusively. In the Malay language, “Allah” means God and many non-English speaking Christians use this word in hymns, songs and so forth. This is especially common among aboriginal Christians who worship in Malay – the national language in Malaysia – AND among East Malaysians.

In a nutshell, Muslims are saying that the word “Allah” should only be used in the Islamic context whereas Malay-speaking Catholics and Christians are saying that it should be free to be used by all (like in the Catholic weekly The Herald).

While everyone is busy squabbling over the exclusive rights to the word, a church got burnt down in the process and someone like me who hasn’t been really following the drama begins to wonder…

Is a religion tied exclusively to a language? Do all Catholics speak Latin? Do all Muslims speak Arabic? Since when did speaking a certain language meant that you were part of a religion as well? More importantly, since when did God belong to one religion? I always thought that we belonged to him and not vice versa.

I guess in Malaysia where we tied the ethnicity with the religion, I supposed people would automatically think that Malays who are deemed to be all Muslims have the exclusive right to use Malay in their worship of God. BUT they fail to realize that a language and ultimately a word can never be exclusive as people of all walks of life can learn a language and utilize it. Is it fair to say that I’m French because I speak French OR that I’m Malay because I speak Malay? Subsequently, if I spoke Latin, would you say that I’m Catholic?

The word “Allah” is just another word in a different language used to describe God, just as how the French use “Dieu”. I find it shocking yet ignorant for some Malay groups to demand exclusive right to the word “Allah”. For a people who profess to be practitioners of a peaceful faith, I find them to be very intolerant.

What’s worse is that some groups feel that it’s necessary to terrorize and scare others into dropping the use of the word “Allah”. Are they any better than the 9/11 terrorists? Hardly. Scare tactics like leaving a cow’s head at a temple doorstep or burning down/bombing churches (even my church got hit by this issue) only makes Muslims look bad and the people of their faith who don’t say anything against it are no better than their bomb-totting peers.

And you wonder why many European governments are having a hard time with extreme Muslim immigrants who want everything done according to their way and rules.

*sigh*

I hope such behaviour doesn’t spread like mesothelioma or any other cancer – it would be such a shame. So much for hoping for a positive start of the year. Bah.