“houston, we have a problem!”

sir, i am a worker in menara petronas, KLCC. today (20 may) i received a copy of the HERALD the catholic weekly dated 21 may which is circulated free, but on the weekly the price of RM1.00 is stated. the weekly has the KDN no. – PP 8460/12/2005, ISSN: 1394-3294.

what i found dissatisfied was that this weekly is being freely circulated. apart from english, there are sections for malay, chinese and tamil. what shocked me was that the article in bahasa melayu which used the name of allah freely. i am worried that the youth would be easily influenced by this propaganda.

together in the weekly of this issue was an article by marina mahathir. she wrote about muslim who would ‘riot’ if there are people trying to run-down islam e.g the book and film ‘da vinci code’ which question christianity.

that, my dears, is my half-past six translation (first 3 paragrahps only) of this article which appears in the harakah (PAS’s voicepiece).

i first get to know of this article via bob’s blog. i was stunned. what? don’t tell me those turbuned goatee guys (most of them anyway) are going to start making noises at how we shouldn’t use the word ‘allah’ or even that we shouldn’t use bahasa malaysia at all in our publication? well at least for now, it was only the writer, abdullah abdul rahman who made the noises… where there were a number of flaws. ok, let’s take the first 3 paragraphs i translated above. (btw, i just quoted the herald in my previous post ‘world cup prayer‘).

sir, i am a worker in menara petronas, KLCC. today (20 may) i received a copy of the HERALD the catholic weekly dated 21 may which is circulated free, but on the weekly the price of RM1.00 is stated. the weekly has the KDN no. – PP 8460/12/2005, ISSN: 1394-3294.

how did he received the herald? through a friend or passing stranger? found it lying beside the tong sampah? that doesn’t mean that the weekly is circulated free…. and in public. of course it is printed RM1.00 on the cover… because the herald all along is NOT free to us. it is sold to us catholics only at RM1.00 each. working for the church, i had some contact with the herald and i know very well, they only shipped the herald to churches in the country. they are sold only in churches. if this A.A.R guy managed to get hold of the herald, it must be, as i stated, someone passed it to him in menara petronas or he found it lying around the spacious floor of menara petronas. after all, he is a worker there, remember.

what i found dissatisfied was that this weekly is being freely circulated. apart from english, there are sections for malay, chinese and tamil. what shocked me was that the article in bahasa melayu which used the name of allah freely. i am worried that the youth would be easily influenced by this propaganda.

oh excuse me, encik rahman… freely circulated? are you sure? well, tell us how you managed to get hold of it, ok.

what? we are not allowed to use the word ‘allah’? what? just mentioning allah in the catholic context will erode the faith of the youth? come on, don’t insult the youth!

what? a simple article with the word allah can be viewed as propaganda? tsk tsk, it doesn’t take much to sway your faith huh, A.A.R.

together in the weekly of this issue was an article by marina mahathir. she wrote about muslim who would ‘riot’ if there are people trying to run-down islam e.g the book and film ‘da vinci code’ which question christianity.

as bob asked, “so what’s the problem?.” this article of marina was published in the star before, and the herald was only lifting her article (which had already been published) to reprint. what’s the problem with that?

oh btw, since harakah so kindly printed the masthead of the herald, in that letter by A.A.R, i am reciprocating to print here harakah’s masthead. 🙂