By Ioannis Gatsiounis
NEWSWEEK
Jan 22, 2010
(From the magazine issue dated Feb 1, 2010)

The interethnic chaos Malaysia has long feared moved closer to reality this month when 10 churches were at-tacked around the country. The attacks followed a civil-court ruling on New Year’s Eve declaring that a law prohibiting non-Muslims from using the word “Allah” to describe their God was unconstitutional. Strangely, though, Christians have been using “Allah” for “God” in East Malaysia since the 1920s without much controversy. So why the sudden spate of violence in a nation long viewed as a model of tolerance in the Muslim world?

The answer is that beneath Malaysia’s outward glow of progressive moderation, racial and religious consciousness has risen steadily among Muslim Malays, who make up 60 percent of the population. That creeping conservatism has been fanned by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), seeking to revive support that is slipping amid rampant corruption and other forms of misrule. Rather than trying to quell misgivings among Malays who felt that the use of “Allah” to describe the Christian God would sow confusion, the government appealed the decision, saying that Muslim sensitivities must be respected to protect the fragile ethnic balance. Then UMNO leaders, including Prime Minister Najib Razak, said the government could not stop planned protests against the ruling, though he has often opposed the exercise of free speech in the past. Critics charge the government with institutionalizing racism and emboldening Muslim hardliners. Whatever the case, the church attacks are the clearest sign yet that Malaysia’s racial-religious compact is unraveling. Read the rest of this entry »

New York Times
January 20, 2010
By PHILIP BOWRING

HONG KONG — One ought to be able to laugh at the absurdity of it. But the message is one of ignorance, religious and racial prejudice and political opportunism.

Last week, the Malaysian government declared that Christians in one part of the country could use “Allah” as the word for God when speaking Malay, but that those in most of the country could not. This is the same government that is currently running a public relations campaign called One Malaysia emphasizing the common identity of the nation’s racial and religious mix.

In reality, a government dominated by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) is using spurious religious/linguistic arguments to shore up its support among a majority Malay electorate, which has been fed for years with preferences and privileges. Meanwhile, non-Malay money and talent exits the country.

The government had earlier tried to stop the use of the word Allah by all Christians. This was successfully challenged in the High Court. But instead of letting the matter rest, the government declined to back down, setting the scene for the fire bombing of churches. While these could not be laid directly at the door of UMNO, hotheads in the party may well have taken their cue from what non-Muslims see as a deliberate attempt to stir up ethnic/religious issues for political gain. Last year it was Hindus who were the target of Malay provocation. Read the rest of this entry »

The Nut Graph
15 Jan 10
By Koh Lay Chin
[email protected]

GENERIC term? Noun or pronoun? Conversion conspiracy or copyright? What exactly are Malaysians fighting over with regard to the “Allah” issue? And how is it all being played out in cyberspace?

A check on Facebook, Twitter, some blogs and an assortment of other sites since 8 Jan 2010 when churches started being attacked shows that the issue is far from being a singular one.

The cacophony of voices can be difficult to unravel because they are based on different arguments. So, while people are arguing about who can use “Allah” in Malaysia, what are they really angry about? Read the rest of this entry »

The Wall Street Journal
14th January 2010

The government’s censorship has only compounded Malaysia’s troubles.

By PAUL MARSHALL

Religious violence is rare in Malaysia, and so its people are rightly alarmed at the current spate of attacks on churches, which can conjure up memories of the 1969 race riots. The government has strongly condemned the attacks, but its policy of trying to coddle its Muslim population undermines its stated goal of an open Islam and stokes the very religious tension that it wants desperately to avoid.

The violence is the latest consequence of attempts to ban the use of the word “Allah” by Christians. In 1986, the Interior Security Ministry barred the word from non-Islamic publications on the grounds that it could confuse Muslims, but the ordinance was usually not enforced. However in December 2007, the Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association and the Islamic religious councils of seven states invoked it in a lawsuit against the Malay language weekly, the Catholic Herald. The government sided with the councils, saying that Christians’ use of the term “could increase tension and create confusion among Muslims.” Authorities also asked the Herald to put on its front page the word terhad, “restricted,” meaning solely for distribution to Christians.

Christians and others responded that “Allah” has been used by Christians for centuries to refer to God, including in Malaysia. No other country has such a ban; even the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) says it opposes one. “Allah,” the Arabic word for God, is used by Christians in Egypt and Syria, and, of course, neighboring Indonesia. On Dec. 31, 2009, the High Court ruled that Christians had a constitutional right to use “Allah.” The government called for calm, but quickly said it would appeal and, on January 6, the judge suspended her ruling pending an appeals court decision. Subsequently, nine churches have been attacked, most of them firebombed. There have also been attacks on the Catholic Herald’s legal team, whose offices were vandalized yesterday. Read the rest of this entry »

The AlJazeera programme on the “Allah” controversy: