God as politics in Malaysia
Asia Times
By Fabio Scarpello
Jan 16 2010
DENPASAR, Bali – The escalating Allah controversy that has resulted in the bombing of Christian churches across Malaysia has called into question the country’s moderate Muslim credentials and could have major repercussions for political alliances that underpin the United Malays Nasional Organization (UMNO)-led coalition government.
Both main political blocs – UMNO and the Anwar Ibrahim-led Pakatan Rakyat (PR) opposition coalition – have bid to capitalize on the violence, which has devolved from an obscure freedom of expression issue into a volatile matter of internal security that could potentially determine the government’s political survival.
UMNO has so far come out the worse for wear with its credibility shaken and reputation bruised by perceptions it has tacitly condoned the violence targeting Christians. Political analysts believe those perceptions, fanned by online media and blogs, could alienate UMNO’s moderate Muslim base and perhaps more importantly constituencies in the swing states of Sabah and Sarawak, whose parliamentarians help to maintain UMNO’s parliamentary majority.
Some analysts predict that the violence could coax certain constituencies, particularly Christians in Sabah and Sarawak, away from UMNO and towards the PR opposition, potentially paving the way for the parliamentary defections Anwar has long sought to topple the government. Others believe UMNO’s poor handling of the violence could sway more voters against the party at the next election, which already promised to be hotly contested.
UMNO’s politicization of ethnicity and religion has a long history. Many feel those tactics have paved the way for the recent senseless attacks against at least nine churches in the wake last month’s High Court ruling in favor of Catholic weekly newspaper, the Herald, that allowed the publication to use the word “Allah” in reference to the Christian God.
Lim Teck Ghee, director for the Kuala Lumpur-based Center for Policy Initiatives, said that hot-headed Muslims would not have felt emboldened enough to throw firebombs at churches had former prime minister Mahathir Mohammad not “shifted the political goal posts in 2001 by pronouncing Malaysia as an Islamic state”. Read the rest of this entry »
Home Minister Hishammuddin should explain why he allowed police officers like the Selangor CPO Khalid to play politics with an eye to replace Musa Hassan as next IGP instead of focusing on the core police function of conquering crime in Selangor
Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein should explain why he allowed police officers like the Selangor Police Chief Deputy Comm Khalid Abu Bakar to play politics with an eye to replace Tan Sri Musa Hassan as the next Inspector-General of Police instead of focusing on the core police function of conquering crime in Selangor.
The record and conduct of Khalid as a professional police officer suffered a grave dent when he was more interested in politicking, to the extent of publicly threatening to arrest Penang Chief Minister and DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng on completely baseless grounds, instead of ensuring that the Selangor state is safe from criminals.
In Selangor, guarded and gated communities are mushrooming all over the state, the most potent indicator of the failure of the police to perform its core function to ensure that the people are safe and secure in the streets, public places and the privacy of their homes.
One important measure whether the police are making progress in turning the tide of endemic crime is whether the people are dismantling or erecting guarded/gated communities, where the people have to impose on themselves a new levy of “income tax” to protect themselves from crime which should have been the basic duty of the state through the police force.
Nobody will buy Khalid’s denial in today’s press that he had threatened to arrest Guan Eng for allegedly refusing to give his statement to the police over investigations that Guan Eng had made seditious remarks about the death of Teoh Beng Hock at the Pakatan Rakyat convention on Dec. 19. Read the rest of this entry »
Call on all Ministers from Umno, MCA, Gerakan, MIC and from Sabah and Sarawak to declare their stand on Nazri’s proposal that the word “Allah” is allowed to be used by Christians in Sarawak and Sabah but not in Peninsular Malaysia
The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz has come out with a most illogical and ridiculous solution to the “Allah” controversy – that the word “Allah” is allowed to be used by Christians in Sarawak and Sabah but not in Peninsular Malaysia.
When the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was reported as saying at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCFIS) in the United Kingdom two days ago that the “Allah” controversy arising from the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims would not be allowed to recur in the future, many were asking what he really meant.
Was Muhyiddin implying that no Home Minister would in future be so irresponsible and insensitive like Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein as saying that the government did not prohibit the people from demonstrating over sensitive religious issues, when he should know fully well that it would be regarded as official “green-light” for such demonstrations which could easily get out-of-hand?
Was Muhyiddin implying that no Prime Minister would in future act so irresponsibly and insensitively like Datuk Seri Najib Razak as to endorse any such insensitive and irresponsible statement by a Home Minister as had been made by Hishammuddin, resulting in the spate of arson and vandalism against churches and places of worship which have not stopped after more than a week?
Read the rest of this entry »
Call on Najib to initiate a series of annual International Malaysian Diaspora Conference to coincide with the launch of Tenth Malaysia Plan in June
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak on Saturday, 16 January 2010, 11:25 am
The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak is making his first five-day official visit to India next week from 19th to 23rd January.
There are many things Najib can learn from the Indian experience in government reform and transformation, one of which is the just-concluded ninth Pravasi Bharatiya Diswas (BPD-2010) in New Delhi – the annual jamboree of the Indian diaspora organized by the Indian Government to rope in the expertise, money and experience of the 25 million Indians abroad (or non-resident Indians).
Najib had said in Singapore in November that his government would make Malaysia a better place to live and work in to lure back its citizens residing abroad as well as attract global talents to the country.
He told a dinner he hosted for the Malaysian community in Singapore: “We will create more opportunities, more excitement and more buzz in Malaysia to attract the Malaysian diaspora and expatriates to the country.”
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“Allah” in cyberspace
Posted by Kit in nation building, Religion on Saturday, 16 January 2010, 3:44 am
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 »
‘Allah’ By Any Other Name
Posted by Kit in nation building, Religion on Saturday, 16 January 2010, 2:16 am
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 »
Malaysia’s Disastrous Capital Flight
Asia Sentinel
by Our Correspondent
11 JANUARY 2010
Money leaves the country on an unprecedented scale
Churches are not the only thing to have been going up in flames in Malaysia. Take a look at the nation’s foreign exchange reserves. They fell by close to 25 percent during 2009 according to investment bank UBS even though the country continued to run a huge surplus on the current account of its balance of payments.
Says UBS: “Question: which Asian country had the biggest FX losses in 2009?” The answer is Malaysia and by a very large margin; we estimate that official reserves fell by well more than one quarter on a valuation-adjusted basis”. It describes the situation as “bizarre” and contrasts Malaysia with other countries with large current account surpluses – Thailand, China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong – which have seen their reserves increase – as should be expected.
In short there has been an exodus of money from Malaysia on a scale which surpasses that which occurred during the Asian crisis. Nor is this just a mirage. The decline is also reflected in a sudden decline in base money supply – even while, thanks to Bank Negara, broader M2 has continued to grow modestly. Read the rest of this entry »
‘Allah’ allowed in East M’sia
by Phyllis Wong and Francis Chan | Borneo Post
January 15, 2010, Friday
Nazri says govt recognises two states’ traditional usage of word
KUALA LUMPUR: The word ‘Allah’ is allowed to be used by Christians in Sarawak and Sabah because the government accepts that the natives in these two states have traditionally been using it in their prayers and religious services and the Muslims there are accustomed to this practice.
This was stated by Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, in an exclusive interview with the KTS stable of dailies The Borneo Post, Oriental Daily and Utusan Borneo at his office here yesterday.
“Christians in Sarawak and Sabah need not worry over this issue because it is a common tradition there. I have been to an Iban church service and I heard the word ‘Allah’ used there,” he said.
Read the rest of this entry »
Pornthip did not leak info
Posted by Kit in Court, Teoh Beng Hock, Twitter on Friday, 15 January 2010, 11:42 am
Inquest adjourned 4half hour 4karpal 2submit precedents on law of contempt
01/15/2010 11:23 AM
Razak apologised but Karpal said apology only go to mitigation n court must commit Razak 4contempt Karpal said Razak’s apology insincere
01/15/2010 10:58 AM
Karpal said in insulting another counsel n all Malaysians in wheelchair Razak had committed contempt in the face of the court
01/15/2010 10:49 AM
Blowup in ct over Macc counsel Razak’s offensive insult agnst Karpal when saying: I can sit down but Karpal cannot stand up.
01/15/2010 10:46 AM
Read the rest of this entry »
Why Muhyiddin go to UK to urge the return of the “best brains” while completely blind, unconcerned and insensitive to the loss of “best brains” to neighbouring Singapore or the 300,000 Malaysians who emigrated since last general election?
Posted by Kit in Education, Muhyiddin Yassin on Friday, 15 January 2010, 8:52 am
Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin went to London to urge the “best brains” working abroad to return home and drive the country’s new economic model, but he had been thunderously silent in the past five days at the news from across the causeway that two Malaysians topped the 2009 Singapore-Cambridge General Certificate of Education (Ordinary Level) Examination.
The question Muhyiddin must answer is why go all the way to the United Kingdom to urge the return of the “best brains” while he is completely blind, unconcerned and insensitive to the loss of the “best brains” to neighbouring Singapore or the 300,000 Malaysians who emigrated since last general election?
On Monday, it was reported in Singapore that Lai Kai Rou, 16, from Selangor, emerged tops in the island republic, scoring 10A1s. She studied at CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls’ School (SNGS) which also topped Singapore schools with 14 of the 42 island-republic’s best scorers being its students, scoring 9 A1s.
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AlJazeera programme on “Allah” controversy
Posted by Kit in nation building, Religion on Thursday, 14 January 2010, 11:18 am
The AlJazeera programme on the “Allah” controversy:
Abu Kassim cannot have a more disastrous start as second MACC Chief Commissioner if his first priority is to restore public confidence in the MACC and the national anti-corruption campaign
Posted by Kit in Corruption on Thursday, 14 January 2010, 10:43 am
Datuk Abu Kassim Mohamed cannot have a more disastrous start as the second Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Chief Commissioner if his first priority is to restore public confidence in the MACC and the national anti-corruption campaign which had plunged 33 rankings in 15 years from No. 23 in 1995 to No. 56 in 2009 in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index.
The MACC had ended its first year with lower public confidence than when it started, fulfilling the worst fears of former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Abdullah had warned at the belated launching of MACC on 24th February last year that the MACC should not end up as just pretty window-dressing of its predecessor the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA).
The then Prime Minister had admitted the public perception of the ACA as “not being independent, of being a toothless tiger, of practicing selective enforcement, being late in taking action and not being professional in its investigations has damaged its image and credibility”.
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Newsy.com on the “Allah” controversy
Newsy.com video, which analyzes and synthesizes news coverage from multiple sources, has produced the following video summarizing different media coverage of the Allah controversy:
http://www.newsy.com/videos/war-of-words-in-malaysian-allah-dispute
Newsy.com says:
“The video summarizes this ongoing tension and the more recent controversies, showing a few different opinions on what the Malaysian government should do. There are those who view the term as a purely Muslim word and other who see this as a merely a language difference. Many just want to stop further disagreements and see the country unified/”
Hishammuddin is too truculent and controversial an Umno leader to be a good and professional Home Minister to inspire confidence of all Malaysians that he will not use his ministerial powers for party political ends
Posted by Kit in Law & Order, UMNO on Wednesday, 13 January 2010, 1:55 pm
“KDN akan ambil tindakan ke atas Anwar – Jika sengaja guna isu agama perkauman berhubung insiden serangan gereja” is the Utusan Malaysia headline today, whose real casualty is public confidence in Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein as a good and effective Home Minister who could resolve the crisis caused by attacks on places of worship and church arson tarnishing Malaysia’s international reputation as an international example of inter-religious harmony, peace and goodwill.
Hishammuddin is too truculent and controversial an Umno leader to be a good and professional Home Minister to inspire confidence of all Malaysians that he will not use his ministerial powers for party political ends.
Why is Hishammuddin talking about action against Anwar when he has not been able to take any action in the past five days against anyone for the spate of attacks on places of worship, whether church, surau or Sikh temple which have placed at risk billions of ringgit which might otherwise benefit Malaysia in the form of foreign investment, tourism and educational opportunities?
Read the rest of this entry »
Is Lagu Johor Illegal and Promoting Racial Hatred?
Letter by Karamchan Naidu
I am a Johor boy. Studied there all my life. Every week for the past 12 years of my primary and secondary schooling I used to sing the Lagu Johor at the school assembly.
The song is as follows;
Allah peliharakan Sultan
‘Nugrahkan dia segala kehormatan
Sihat dan ria, kekal dan makmur
Luaskan kuasa, menaungkan kami
Rakyat dipimpini berzaman lagi
Dengan Merdeka bersatu hati
Allah berkati Johor
Allah selamatkan Sultan.
Praying for peace is not enough!
Posted by Kit in Azly Rahman, Religion on Wednesday, 13 January 2010, 10:59 am
By Azly Rahman
There is a Buddhist lesson in how we ought to perceive Malaysia’s emerging style of terrorism.
When one is bleeding after being shot by an arrow, the first step is not to look for the culprit that shot the arrow and pondering why was it shot but to pull out the arrow from the victim’s body and to quickly put a stop to the bleeding. This is what Siddharta Gautama would teach as crisis intervention.
Malaysians might never know who carried out the series of church bombings, nor what organisations are behind them, and if there is a higher order involved in the long-term planning of terror.
Postmodern debates will be a tedious exercise on whether this or that name of a Universal God can be copyrighted or whether a pastor or an archbishop can be pushed to the ground or physically attacked for using the forbidden name of the Universal God during their sermons.
Read the rest of this entry »
“Allah” issue: Who started it?
By Jacqueline Ann Surin
12 Jan 10 | The Nut Graph
LEST we forget, the source of the Allah controversy that resulted in churches, and a Catholic school, being torched and threatened did not begin on the streets. It did not begin with narrow-minded and ignorant Muslim pressure groups threatening to spill blood to assert their sole right to use “Allah”.
Lest we forget, it began with the 1986 government ban on the use by non-Muslims of the word “Allah”, and three others — “solat”, “Kaabah” and “Baitullah”. That’s the Barisan Nasional (BN) government we are talking about, the one that Umno leads.
Hence, lest we forget, the issue of non-Muslims using the word “Allah” would not be an issue at all in Malaysia if the Umno-led government had, to begin with, respected the legitimate rights of other faith communities. The “Allah” issue would not have spiraled into, to quote a friend, suburban terrorism — and it is terrorism when violence and intimidation are used towards achieving one’s goals — if the Home Ministry had not acted to deny the rights of non-Muslim citizens in the first place.
Read the rest of this entry »
Use of ‘Allah’ could cause confusion among Malay Muslims and encourage religious conversion, which is illegal in Malaysia is a political gimmick by UMNO
Posted by Kit in Dr. Chen Man Hin, Religion, UMNO on Wednesday, 13 January 2010, 9:25 am
By Dr Chen Man Hin, DAP life adviser
THE CLAIM BY THE HOME MINISTRY SECRETARY GENERAL MAHMOOD ADAM TO FOREIGN DIGNITARIES THAT THE USE OF ALLAH BY CHRISTIANS COULD CAUSE CONFUSION AMONG MUSLIMS IN MALAYSIA AND ENCOURAGE RELIGIOUS CONVERSIONS, WHICH IS ILLEGAL IN MALAYSIA, HAS DAMAGED THE REPUTATION, INTEGRITY AND SINCERITY OF MALAYSIAN MUSLIMS.
Most Malaysian muslims, including Anwar Ibrahim and Hadi Awang will not share the sentiments of the Home Ministry official. Malaysian muslims and christians have been living together for several centuries, in relative peace and harmony, and have progressed and prospered.
In a plural religious society, minor frictions may exist, but these were kept to a minimum by inter-faith dialogues. However,there exist underlying fears that the muslims might want to islamise the country and suspicion that christians might want to convert muslims to their faith.
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Hishammuddin, don’t gloat as damage is not just door of a church, but the priceless religious harmony and national unity and billions of ringgit in lost investment, tourism and Malaysia as an international educational hub
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak, nation building, Religion on Tuesday, 12 January 2010, 2:38 pm
The Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein should not gloat that “the situation is under control” when he said yesterday that “since last night there had been no serious incidents” and that “the only damage I was informed of is to the door of the church (Sidang Injil Borneo church in Seremban)”.
Hishammuddin should know that the damage to the country from the spate of church attacks and arsons in the past few days cannot be dismissed and reduced to just the door of a church, when the casualty is the priceless religious harmony and national unity in the country and the billions of ringgit in lost investments, tourism and Malaysia as an international educational hub with the country losing its place of distinction as a multi-religious country which had been able to maintain an incident-free record in inter-religious conflict.
In the past five days, Malaysia had been in the international news for all the wrong reasons.
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Najib should do what Bapa Malaysia Tunku Abdul Rahman would have done instinctively in such a situation – to convene and preside over an inter-religious roundtable to end the religious dispute over the “Allah” controversy
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak, Religion on Monday, 11 January 2010, 12:36 pm
At 9.43 am I received the following SMS from DAP MP for Rasah and Negri Sembilan State Assembly Opposition Leader Anthony Loke:
“Another church attack in Seremban. SIB Seremban church. Door was damaged. I am at the scene now.”
This was followed by other SMS from him on the latest dastardly and cowardly sacrilege, viz:
“The name of the church – Siding Injil Borneo. They have BM service. This is the church mentioned by Wong Chun Wai, the fastest growing church in Malaysia.”
“Idris Jala belongs to this church.”
“The church is located less than 1km from the Seremban IPD”
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