After Perkasa, now Christian group wants PM’s backing on ‘Allah’

ARCHIVES 2013

By admin-s On Jul 14, 2013

(The Malay Mail) – A Christian group has pressed Datuk Seri Najib Razak to state his support for their right to use the word “Allah”, a day after far-right group Perkasa made an opposing call for Muslims.

While the urgings may appear superficial, they expose the schism between two of the country’s main religions that formed in 2009 when the High Court ruled in favour of the Catholic Church and said the Middle Eastern word “Allah” was not the exclusive right of Muslims — and which deepened when the government’s appeal was left to linger.

Yesterday, Perkasa told Najib (picture) to display “some firmness as prime minister of Umno and someone who is a Muslim” following reports that the Vatican’s first ambassador to Malaysia, Archbishop Joseph Marino, had described as “logical and acceptable” the arguments made by the local Catholic Church regarding its legal claim to use the word “Allah”.

“I strongly feel that the PM should make a clear stand that non-Muslims have the right to use Allah,” Council of Churches of Malaysia (CCM) general secretary Rev Dr Hermen Shastri told The Malay Mail Online in a text message yesterday.

“Nowhere in the world are Christians denied this right and, more so, the PM himself has allowed Christians in Sabah and Sarawak to use the word,” added the representative of the umbrella body of Protestant churches.

In 2011 and just ahead of the Sarawak state election, the Najib administration issued a 10-point resolution for east Malaysia to end a Home Ministry blockade against shipments of Malay-language bibles into the country then.

In it, the Cabinet, through Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jala, said the considerable Bumiputera Christian population in Sabah and Sarawak could use their Holy Scriptures in the Malay and indigenous languages.

Despite the resolution, the matter remains a thorny issue in the peninsula, where the dominant Malay-Muslim community is fiercely protective of the word “Allah” that they say was solely theirs to use.

This was again apparent on Friday, when Perkasa chief Datuk Ibrahim Ali told Najib to be “firm when defending the sanctity of Islam”.