mr PM, don’t break my rice bowl

ok ok i admit i exaggerate with the heading. it should be ‘mr pm don’t stop me from earning money part-time", which also include, "mr pm, don’t  prevent me from doing what i love – writing/reporting".

what made me said this was what i came across in malaysiakini, the news ‘catholic weekly in quandry over permit’ (full article below).

The organ of the Catholic Church, Herald is facing problems in renewing its yearly publishing permit  allegedly over the use of the word ‘Allah’ in the weekly’s Bahasa Malaysia section.

you see, i write for the herald and of course i get paid for my articles. all my church’s happenings/events and some of the penang level happenings/events i will be the one who report about the events and write to the herald. i had mentioned before a number of times about some of my articles appearing in herald here, here, here and here.

last sunday, our society of st vincent de paul  (SSVP) had a christmas party for our ‘adoptees’ (the poor families we adopted to help them regularly) and i had written about it and am going to send the article tomorrow. usually it takes 2 weeks to get published after sending… this means it will be out in jan. next year. if herald does not get the permit, i wouldn’t be able to see my article in print!! people wouldn’t know about the good work we members of SSVP are doing!

now, if the government refused to give herald permit – no herald, what happened if i have so many reports to make/write in? what happened to my side-income of earning some money from my writings? what happened to all our church news from around the country?

of all the reason the government gave – *sigh* again this thing about the use of the word ‘allah’. oh boy, apart from this heading i have up there, i was thinking of the heading ‘does the word ‘allah’ belongs exclusively to the muslim’??

methink long long ago i had blog about the use of ‘allah’ before, and if not mistaken, either wits0 or xpyre or someone else had came up with some long (and true!) comments on the use of the word ‘allah’, that it does not belongs soley, exclusively, entirely to the muslim!!

well, even if it does, what does it matter if the herald is using it? the herald wants to mean it as the ‘catholic god’ when they use ‘allah’. people who read it will know it is the catholic god, not the muslim god. oh excuse me… the people excluding the government.  the government think that people who on reading the word ‘allah’ in a catholic weekly, will think, the weekly meant, the ‘muslim god’. er… sounds very stupid… er.. funny…. er… illogical…oh,  so like the UMNO controlled government!!  *SIGH*

Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang in a statement yesterday said the Home Ministry has imposed a new  condition for the renewal of the Herald’s publication permit – that the BM section of the weekly be  removed altogether.

that is rather harsh, don’t you think so? why shouldn’t a non muslim publication have a BM section? isn’t BM the official language of the country? isn’t the government encouraging us to use BM? young people nowadays are very familiar with BM (more so then english), so in wanting to reach out to young people (or the catholics in sabah and sarawak), the weekly need to have a section in BM. SO IT AIN’T FAIR AT ALL TO ASK HERALD TO REMOVE THE BM SECTION, MR PM!!

ahhh! now i got it! the word allah, BM section…. the government is thinking that herald by using the word allah will be prostlyetising to the muslim!!  aha! then what does it tell? the government’s lack of confidence towards their own muslim brethren!!

NOTE: i hope many bloggers will blog about this and spread this news. perhaps we could write to the government (the home ministry dept, right?) to voice our concern – that the herald should be given permit WITHOUT condition of removing its BM section.

blogs on this issue (will update periodically)
ronnie liu: UMNO-led BN is a racist political entitiy
bob:  is it really just about terminology?
jeff ooi:  (catholic) herald’s KDN under threat?
zorro:  there they go again
the malaysian
haris ibrahim:  why forbid that which god has enjoined?
kenny law:  allah, god, yahweh. what’s in a name?
ktemoc:  what in god’s name…

——————————————————
 
Malaysiakini
Catholic weekly in quandary over permit
Dec 20, 07 12: 52pm

The organ of the Catholic Church, Herald is facing problems in renewing its yearly publishing permit  allegedly over the use of the word ‘Allah’ in the weekly’s Bahasa Malaysia section.

According to Church sources, the government is not happy with the use of the word ‘Allah’ by the weekly  when referring to ‘God’ in Bahasa Malaysia.

The use of ‘Allah’ outside of Islam has previously stirred controversies in Malaysia. Four years ago, the  Bible in Iban language was banned because it translated the word ‘God’ as Allah Taala, which  resembles Islam’s name for God, ‘Allah’.

The ban was however lifted after protests from the Christian community.

The Herald, which is published in four languages – English, Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil – has a  circulation of 12, 000. The weekly’s permit is due to expire in two weeks.

The Herald – which publishes news and information for Catholics in Malaysia – have previously received  written warnings pertaining to the content of their articles primarily those which touch on religious and  political issues.

Most recently, the Herald frontpaged both the Bersih and Hindraf rally which saw tens of thousands  protesters hitting the streets of Kuala Lumpur.

Remove BM section

Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang in a statement yesterday said the Home Ministry has imposed a new  condition for the renewal of the Herald’s publication permit – that the BM section of the weekly be  removed altogether.

This is confirmed by sources close to the Catholic weekly.

Lim has described Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s administration as one which has promoted  religious polarisation the most as compared to four previous prime ministers.

Examples that the DAP veteran included are the demolition of the Sri Maha Mariaman Temple in  Kampung Rimba Jaya in Shah Alam one week before Deepavali.

“This was followed by the disrespect and insensitivity when the Umno General Assembly was held on  Deepavali – imagine the protest and outrage if the MCA or MIC had held their general assemblies during  the Hari Raya holidays, ” he said.

In addition, during the party assembly, Umno Youth deputy chief and prime minister’s son-in-law, Khairy  Jamaluddin blamed the Indian news vendors for taking a holiday during Deepavali which resulted in  Abdullah’s speech as Umno president not being prominently reported by the media.

Lim also noted the incident when two Umno parliamentarians – Syed Hood Syed Edros (BN-Parit  Sulong) and Mohamad Aziz (BN-Sri Gading) demanded the removal of the cross and demolition of  Christian statues in mission schools.

“The PM must take urgent measures to arrest the worsening of inter-religious relations in the country and  halt the growing number of incidents of disrespect and insensitivity felt by non-Muslim Malaysian, ” he  added.

No need for non-Muslim affairs dept

Meanwhile, Abdullah yesterday said it was not necessary to set up a non-muslim affairs department  because an effective special committee is already in place.

He said this after Indian non-governmental organisations requested the government to set up the  department to handle the affairs of non-Muslims in the country.

The premier explained that the existing committee in the PM’s Department comprised of Minister in the PM’s Department Bernard Dompok (handling Christian matters), Works Minister S Samy  Vellu (Hindu) and Housing and Local Government Minister Ong Ka Ting (Buddhism).

Abdullah also said that the National Unity Department has a similar committee with a minister (Dr  Maximus Ongkili) entrusted with matters pertaining to solidarity, religions and beliefs.