I am shocked the Home Ministry has ordered the Herald, a Catholic weekly,  to cease publication of its Bahasa Malaysia version until the court decides its move to seek a declaratory relief that it is entitled to use the word “Allah”.

The Home Ministry is greatly unjust, unfair and unreasonable, particularly to the many Christians who only read Bahasa Malaysia. Many of these Christians understand their faith through Bahasa Malaysia and they have been worshipping God in the national language.

To many of these Christians in Malaysia, Bahasa Malaysia has been their mother tongue and they have been calling God the Creator as “Allah” for centuries.

Malaysian Muslims do not have monopoly over the usage of  “Allah” for God. It is an Arabic word to address God and it has been used for many centuries, even before Islam come into place.

Thus, the directive of the Home Ministry to forbid the Herald and the Christian community to use the word “Allah” earlier is unjustified, insensitive and, offensive. The ban on the use of the way Christians call their God is similar to banning a person to address his or her father as “Abba” or “Bapa”.

The Home Ministry suspension order until the court, which no one knows when, makes a decision, is like putting the cart before the horse, as the Ministry has hijacked the verdict from the court!

It is the denial of free speech and expression for the Home Ministry to interfere with the content of a Christian publication which is read by mostly Catholic Christians, and not sold to the public.

I urge the Home Minister, Dato’ Seri Syed Hamid to review the decision made by the the Publications and Quranic Text Control Unit of his ministry. This directive not only contravenes the Federal Constitution, but it creates further resentment in the Christian community against the BN government.

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Malaysia bans paper over use of ‘Allah’

A Catholic newspaper in Malaysia has been ordered by the government to cease its Malay language edition until courts resolve a ban on the paper’s use of the word “Allah”, its editor said.

Herald newspaper editor Father Lawrence Andrew said the move was part of a series of restrictions put in place by the conservative Muslim government when it renewed the paper’s licence on Tuesday.

The Herald, circulated among the country’s 850,000 Catholics, nearly lost its publishing licence last year for using the word “Allah” as a translation for “God”, with authorities saying it should only be used by Muslims.

“The Constitution says Malay is the national language so why can’t we use the national language in Malaysia?” said Andrew.

He called the ban “unacceptable” and said he intended to take action.

Andrew said the ban did not make any sense because a large proportion of Catholics in Malaysia are Bumiputera who mainly speak Malay.

The term “Bumiputera”, or “Son of the soil”, refers to ethnic Muslim Malays and the indigenous inhabitants in peninsular Malaysia and on Borneo island who are mostly Christian.

“More than 50 per cent of our congregation are Bumiputera and two of our bishops are Bumiputera,” he added.

The issue will be decided by the courts next month, while home ministry officials told the New Straits Times newspaper on Thursday they will be monitoring the paper’s actions closely.

Religion and language are sensitive issues in multiracial Malaysia, which experienced deadly race riots in 1969.

About 60 per cent of the nation’s 27 million people are ethnic Malay Muslims, who dominate the government. The rest of the population are mostly ethnic Chinese and Indians – practising Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism.

© 2009 AFP