‘Allah’: Secrets & Loss
Alwyn Lau
I dreamt I was at a TED talk. This morphed into a nightmare when the first speaker looked and sounded like a Perkasa spokesperson. I wouldn’t have given him 18 mili-seconds of airtime but somehow he was allowed the normal 18 minutes (so maybe it was his dream after all). His speech went something like:
“We, Perkasa, believe in racial and religious harmony and unity for all Malaysians. This is why it’s very important that only Muslims can use the word ‘Allah’ in their worship. I know Christians have been using it for centuries in Malaysia and other countries but the truth is they have no right because how can, it is our God not their God. This kind of thing cannot share. That’s why – and please hold your applause till the end – last year I said we must burn all Malay bibles with the word ‘Allah’ because you know how violent some people can get, right? Better we burn some sacred books first before anything sensitive or serious happens. I know it could make the Christians upset but never mind, at least no violence.
“This is why we also support the JAIS raid on the Bible Society of Malaysia recently. How can they keep books with ‘Allah’ in their store-room, what if some Muslims find and they read and then convert, then how? I know Internet already got Alkitab but that’s online, and this is real paper. But hmm ya maybe we’ll pressure JAIS to raid JARING to block all non-Muslim websites with the word also? Anyway, BSM was breaking the law so better confiscate first. This kind of action is necessary for unity. Malaysia’s National Unity Council with their talks and Marina Mahathir with her flowers are all nonsense and we strongly condemn. They are not building unity with peace and solutions; we are working for true unity with raids and Bible-burning. Marina says we are talking rubbish – but you decide. I know it’s hard to understand but this is life, not easy to understand. Oh, my 18 minutes is up? That was fast. Thank –”
And then I woke up in a sweat. Told myself I’ll never consume junk food or The Star after 10pm again.
It’s heart-breaking, isn’t it? At one time, Muslims and Christians were worshipping and using the same name for God with little fuss. Now, one group resents the other for using that particular name and sees (not commonality and bonding but) injustice and treachery whenever the other uses it. And Malaysia’s finest – who go by ‘TEGAS, ADIL & BERHEMAH’ – threaten to go after a priest because he decides to conduct Bahasa worship services using the same word for God used on such occasions since before the Titanic sank.
In some circles, this is known as paranoia. The paranoid always believes that someone has stolen something of his, his little thing of enjoyment. He needs to retrieve this object and thus will constantly harass this Other to give it up. What he cannot accept is that this ‘treasure’ was never really lost. Why? Because it never existed.
Groups like Jati, Perkasa, Pembela, etc. seek the serenity and accord that they think the exclusivity of ‘Allah’ to Muslims will provide. But nobody needs to be a genius – least of all a genius in Malaysia – to realize that people who object to Christians using ‘Allah’ will never be satisfied even if Christians agree and desist. Once the ‘lost object’ is attained, it ceases to be the desired object…and thus another object must be found.
The situation resembles Victoria’s Secret. What is the secret which, uh, belongs to Victoria? It’s the secret that there is no secret – but heck it’s worth believing there is. It’s the secret that people long to convince themselves there’s something more. It’s the secret that something mysterious resides in deep places and the mere appearance of a veil spurs a passion to discover and possess. Bulls are infatuated with the color red. People are infatuated with infatuation itself. Likewise, religious bigots are fascinated with bigotry for bigotry’s sake. “Can I make the name of God only mine to use?” is the same kind of question as, “What is Victoria hiding?” The answer is less enigmatic than the challenge of the question itself.
Victoria’s secret, in a word, is the secret of desire. And desire is produced by loss. To keep enjoying desire, one must keep producing loss. This is the problem with fundamentalist Islam in our country – its members long to enjoy their desires (or suffer their enjoyment, which is about the same thing) but they have to keep telling themselves they have lost something. So others need to pay – and keep on paying – until they realize that they had nothing to lose at all; that the only party which should lose everything is neither Islam nor Christianity, but a corrupt government producing smoke-screens for the losses it’s inflicted on the country.
That’s the open secret, isn’t it?
