‘Umno does not represent all Malays or Islam’
By Stephanie Sta Maria, Free Malaysia Today
KUCHING: PAS Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad today told the Christian community in Sarawak that Umno does not represent all Malays or even Islam.
He said this during a joint session with the DAP to address the concerns of the community over the controversial Al-Kitab issue at a hotel here.
“Umno is trying to make Islam look more Malay,” he said to shouts of agreement from the floor. “And this is when you get funny rules like the stamping of the BM bible.”
“They are going about the ‘Allah’ issue as though Malay is an Islamic language. Umno is creating the impression that Islam and Malay are synonymous and that Malay is even more Islamic than Islam.”
“They say non-Muslims should be banned from using the word ‘Allah’ so as not to create confusion. Don’t tell me that God only understands one language. But these are the idiocyncracies in BN.”
Khalid also underlined the collaboration between DAP and PAS by pointing out that despite having no candidate in Kuching or Sibu, PAS representatives still visited the areas to show support for DAP.
“Yes, we have our differences,” he said, smiling. “But we stand together in our vision of a just government. When it comes to taking the country forward, we have more similarities than differences.”
Christians kingmakers
Also present at the event were three DAP candidates – Pending’s Violet Yong, Batu Kawah’s Christina Chiew and Padungan’s Wong King Wei – and Seputeh MP Teresa Kok.
The separation between state and religion momentarily dissolved as the three candidates spoke of the importance of voting on Saturday in order to prevent issues like Al-Kitab from recurring.
Kok, meanwhile, told the crowd that Catholic Church lawyers had produced documentation stating that the word “Allah” was already being used when the Dutch ruled Malacca.
