The “ALLAH” CONTROVERSY: Why I Wrote It

Azly Rahman

Drawn mainly from my column “Illuminations” in Malaysiakini, this is to be the first compilation in a series of essays on Malaysia in the age of change, complexity, competition, and chaos. 
This first volume is called “The Allah Controversy and other essays on Malaysian hypermodernity.” It contains products of my latest period of reflections on the society, framed from a world view I have lived in and familiar with.

The topics touched on issues such as the ongoing linguistic controversy surrounding the use of the term “Allah” in the Bahasa Melayu version of the Bible, the state of affairs as Malaysia approaches a most exciting general elections, the fate of the ruling party and UMNO, education of the children of the “stateless Malaysians of Tamil origin,”, Biro Tata Negara as a master indoctrinator and promoter of divisive politics, politics and philosophy of science in our development plan, on the issue of mother-tongue language, cognition and educational progress, the notion of a “successful failure” in our schooling system such as in the MARA schools, and a range of other topics framed from a “hybridic, heteroglossic, and hypertextualized” perspective with a good dose of contemporary cultural, political-economic, and informational theories alluded to.

These pieces of writing represent my commitment to looking at society in newer ways and to offer novel perspectives that policy-makers and opinion leaders can use. They are mildly academic in nature but accessible as well to anyone who wish to read about Malaysian issues written in “newer language”; from a hybrid view drawn from the fields of anthropology, philosophy, political science, education, history, literature, and cybernetics. In short this volume manifests itself kaleidoscopically.