herald, allah and the use of BM

read my post ‘mr pm, don’t break my rice bowl’ below first for context.

i mentioned something about the word ‘allah’. i notice a reader from malaysiakini had voiced out regarding the word ‘allah’.

quibbling over god’s name – malaysia style

Rita Camilleri: Malta, a tiny, strategically-placed island in the centre of the Medierranean Sea, boasts a history which has been indelibly touched by many cultures – Arab to its south and European to the north. Not surprisingly, the Maltese language derives from an Arabic base with many other ‘grafted’ influences, in particular Italian.

Many commonly used phrases incorporate words from Arabic and Italian roots, side by side (eg ‘a beautiful day’ is ‘giornata sabiha’). The word for ‘God’ is unambiguously ‘Allah’, used in the Maltese/Catholic spoken and written form. To my knowledge, this has never posed a problem. Communities from both sides of the Mediterranean would be aware of the use of this word as for centuries people from the two worlds have interacted.

As an Australian of Maltese origin with a keen interest in Malaysia, I am somewhat surprised by the reported stance of the Malaysian authorities in objecting to the use of the word ‘Allah’ for ‘God’ in the Catholic newspaper Herald. That two distinct faiths, both belonging to the Abrahamic tradition, should refer to the one ‘God’ by the same term, is hardly cause for scandal.

indeed. the sleeping PM is indeed making himself (and the government) a laughing stock again! only malaysia will quibble over such matter. only malaysia is so arrogant to think allah belongs to them only.

then what about the use of bahasa malaysia (BM)? isn’t BM our national language? aren’t we encourage to use BM? then why shouldn’t the herald have a BM section? why so scared of a christian publication using BM?

i notice from bob’s blog that the bimonthly publication of the council of churches of malaysia  had ceased publication too… well… because of the use of BM. as bob put it, apparently the use of BM is a threat to internal security.

yes… but only if we use it for christian publication (well maybe even buddhism and hinduism). oh gee, so it is not only the use of the word allah exclusively for muslim but also the use of our national language, BM? then why made it the national language?