thou shalt publish in BM but don’t use my god’s name

.. so ordered our dearest malaysian home ministry. allah is their god. allah belongs to them exclusively so nobody can use it.

the home ministry flip flop. first it banned herald from publsihing in bahasa. ‘perplexed’ (as the archbishop put it), herald decided to take court action if the ministry refused to let them publish in bahasa. then, obviously, wanting to avoid a court action, and i think also from the many reaction at how silly the ban was, including an interesting  letter from a PAS MP, they reversed their ban to say ok lah, you guys can use bahasa…. BUT…  don’t   use the ‘allah’ word.

yes i first read about that news in the malaysian insider –  ‘herald gets nod for bahasa but not for ‘allah’ . later i saw the news in malaysiakini – ‘gov’t withdrawn bans on herald newspaper’. a

from the malaysian insider:

The ministry had ordered the Herald last week to stop printing its Malay edition for violating a 2007 ban on the use of the word "Allah," except to refer to the Muslim God. The government says using the word could confuse Muslims, even though the newspaper is read almost exclusively by Christians.

‘could confuse muslims’. haha. hahaha. hahahahahaha. please en syed hamid and en che din yusof, don’t insult my muslim friends.

i made a comment at the malaysian insider but i don’t see it publish. it could be because i use a four-letter word? haha. yeah lah i’m not the goody goody catholic girl you think i am. anyway, that word is nothing lah… don’t really look to it as four-letter word (foul letter word!). it was just the word HELL. ok let’s see if i can remember what i wrote.

"what the hell is wrong with the home ministry? who the hell are they to speak for ALL muslims? how do they know the word ‘allah’ will confuse the muslims? btw, shouldn’t the herald be allowed to use the word ‘allah’ until the court hearing in feb… if the judge rule against them, then only they should stop using allah. it looks like the home ministry is working terbalik!!"

that was more or less what i wrote. now i add "well well well, if the home ministry said so thus, shame on it for openly admitting to the world that the faith of malaysian muslim are weak.

please read another report from the malaysian insider –  ‘by god, the herald will continue to use ‘allah’  it says herald will mark it’s return of the bahasa edition with a bumper issue next week (18 jan) and come up with a bumper issue. good. i had sent lots of articles to herald during end of dec. and hope to see them publish. uh oh but i only wrote in english. gee, maybe next time i should write in bahasa… of course using the word allah.

fr. lawrence, the editor of the herald explained:

"…that the Catholic Church had been using the word in the manner prescribed because it was contained in the Bahasa Malaysia version of the Scriptures, which had been approved by the church’s authorities "a long time ago".

"I can’t change the Scriptures. If the word ‘Allah’ is in there, we will use it," he said.

"The government cannot tell us we cannot use it if it is in the Scriptures. This is against the Federal Constitution," he added.

The Herald’s insistence is almost certain to shake the already fragile religious ties in Malaysia.

But Fr Lawrence begs to differ.

"We are not terrorists. We are not enemies. We’re all brothers and sisters who worship God," he said soothingly, adding he did not know why the word is controversial.

The word "Allah" is the perfect description of the "One God" of monotheism for Jews, Christians and Muslims! Is "Allah" only for Islam and Muslims? [No! It is for All Three Abrahamic Faiths.]  "Allah" is the same word used by Christian Arabs and Jewish Arabs in their Bible, centuries before Islam came.
(taken from the godallah website)

well, we have the sikh in our own country, saying they too use the word allah. and i mentioned once before i found out the christians in afica use allah too (i personally met them and they taught us to sing a praise song to god, with the word allah in it!).

saying all this though is like a broken record going on and on because not only i but here, there and everywhere, we already read about the argument of allah can be used by others, not only muslim… er…. not only malaysian muslim. thus the point here is not that the gov’t didn’t know those facts (that allah belongs to everyone!) but sadly the point is the govt’ doesn’t trust their own muslim brethren. sad. 🙁

btw, i got hold of next week’s (11 jan) herald yesterday and on the front page in big bold BLACK headline is ‘gov’t says ‘no’ to national language’. why black, when the headline is usually red? because it is something for us to weep at when we are not allowed to use the national language! of course that was printed before herald received the news that the gov’t had flipped-flopped its decision to ban them from publishing in bahasa. i can’t post a picture of the herald with its headline yet as it is not online yet. it will be online only on monday i guess. well, what i will do is to, tomororw publish one of herald’s article in bahasa with extensive use of the word allah and let’s see what happen… will muslim who read it be swayed?