///“For example, there is no law in the country that states stepping on a severed cow head is wrong but when a group of Malays did that in their protests against the building of a Hindu temple we hauled them up and charged them because that act was disrespectful to the Hindus,” he said.

He added that on the same score, the government would have to act if Muslims felt hurt by Christians using “Allah” in reference to God, even if the courts deemed it legal.///– Nazri Abdul Aziz

Cow is treated as sacred animal by Hindus. Stepping on the severed head of a cow shows disrespect of the animal considered sacred by Hindu, and is indirectly insulting the feelings of Hindus.

Allah is worshipped by Christians. So, Christians do not show disrespect of Allah. Why should Muslims feel hurt when Allah whom Muslims worshipped is similarly worshipped but Christians?

Nazri should know that it is not right to compared apple with oranges, or for that matter human with monkey.

The Muslim who was interviewed in Aljazeera TV quoted the saying “there is no God but Allah’ commented that Allah is mightier than God’. He would imply therefore that Christians should have access to Allah, which to him is the mightier God than God is known to Christians. And to him what he believes count, no matter whether the belief was nonsensical. That is jealousy.

It should be noted that Islam is not only practised in Malaysia, and so Malays have to share Allah with Muslims around the world. The word ‘Allah’ is used by Christians around the world and of the 1.2 billion Muslims around the world, only 15 million Muslims are in Malaysia. So Muslims in Malaysia has only around 1% share of the power of Allah. There were perhaps less that 15 most probably Muslims who were involved in the recent attacks against churches. Other Muslims offered their opinion one way or another. Should 900,000 Christians in the country bow to the wishes of 15 persons who perpetrated vandalism? If 1.985 billion Muslims outside Malaysia are not jealous of non-Muslims using the term Allah as their God, why should the objection by 15 Muslims have their say. Has Malaysian government bowed to terrorism/vandalism?

Praying to Allah gives those who said their prayer hope. Malaysian government won’t even allow non-Muslims to have that hope. The government implements the so-called affirmative action to ensure that Malays have their share of ownership of tangible properties. The NEP was for materialistic consideration. It is just too much of UMNO to now limit ownership of Allah to Muslims in Malaysia, and to deny Christians their hope of blessing from Allah.

It has been argued that the use of Allah by Christians might confuse Muslims into leaving Islamic faith. Are Muslims that easily fooled? Kairul (? the Muslim who was interviewed by the Aljazeera TV) said that only some Muslims would be confused. Isn’t it a better policy to help enlighten those susceptible to be fooled on the Islamic religion than harbouring the fear that with exposure they would be easily fooled? It is not a just policy to legislate for the ‘benefit’ of a small number of persons who could be fooled at the expense of disallowing close to a million Christians to use the term Allah freely, in Peninsular as well. The government should realise that the term Allah has been adopted to refer to God even before Islam came into being. Christians in Peninsular Malaysia have the term Allah handed down as long as Christians anywhere in the world. It makes no sense to allow late comers to use the term exclusively at the expense of original ‘owners’ of the term.

Malaysia practices democracy where the minority follows the majority. The number of Muslims who might be confused is clearly far smaller in number than the number of Christians who would be affected by the ban. Is it not obvious that the minority interest cannot outweigh that of the majority?

///Judge Lau Mee Lan, in ruling against the ban on the usage of ‘Allah’ by Christians, had said that there was no evidence to show that the use of ‘Allah’ could incite violence.

To this, Nazri said such incidents had not happened when the hearing was on and the government could not produce such evidence.///–Nazri Abdul Aziz

So, were the recent incidences orchestrated to provide the evidence? Ironically Nazri said that now the government has proof that by the ‘good work’ of the arsonists that the government was correct in banning the use of the word ‘Allah’ in the Herald publication.

tenaciousB :soon maybe hopefully they will allow only from 8am to 5pm to use the word in peninsular malaysia, it’s like off peak/low peak offers like in telekom.

Ya! May be alternate day.