Youths on a global interfaith mission visit Malaysia
By Jennifer Gomez, The Malaysian Insider
Four youths from France have taken interfaith dialogue to a new level by traversing the world the past seven months, and they have made Malaysia one of their stops, mainly due to tension over the “Allah” issue.
The four, aged between 20 and 22, are part of a French youth interfaith movement called Coexist, have spent 10 days in the country, connecting with people who are involved in interfaith initiatives, raising awareness and collecting data for research.
In their meetings with local Catholic priests, Muslim groups and human rights activists during their stay, they found the overriding concern to be tensions over the Allah issue.
They felt the dispute over the word appeared to be more of a political problem than a religious issue.
“What is really sad is that it is creating tensions and disrupting social cohesion,” said Josselin Rieth, 21.
Samuel Grzybowski, also 21, said the debate was adding to the growing prejudice towards the Muslim community.
“This is really sad, because the Muslims we met in Malaysia were all against the law that prohibits Christians from using the word.
The four also said they were impressed by the work of local group Projek Dialog, which promotes interfaith understanding and shared similar ideals in empowering youths in interfaith work.
“When you target the youth, you speak to all society,” said Samuel.
Citing the view of Projek Dialog’s Dr Amir Farid Isahak, who was also against the law, Samuel said: “It is good to see people belonging to the religion of the state who say there should be more inclusiveness.”
He said that while there was passive co-existence in Malaysia where people of different faiths lived side by side, there was a need to transform this into active co-existence.
He also said that the debate over the exclusivity of the “Allah” word was not only occurring in Malaysia, but in some other parts of the world as well, including Palestine and Egypt.
“They are debating the same topic, that certain words, including ‘Bismillah’ and ‘Assalamu’alaikum’ should not be used by Christians, but it is not a legal issue there yet,” he added.
Medjdoub Ismael, 20, said that as a Muslim from a secular country like France, however, he could not understand what the fuss was about.
“This is an impossible demand, trying to stop another faith from using a name,” he said.
Josselin agreed, adding that it was strange especially when Malay-speaking Christians have been using the Arabic word to describe God.
Victor Grezes, 22, explained that the reason they made a longer stop in Malaysia was because of the ongoing “Allah” dispute.
“We heard there are a lot of issues and tensions here now, so we wanted to come and speak to people here.”
He also said the Shia issue in Malaysia was politically motivated.
“These tensions have been created artificially to serve a political purpose.”
He said, however, that they were not here to make conclusions or give solutions, but to promote interfaith initiatives.
“We are here to witness how people organise themselves and how they find ways to get together so that we can take it back and improve what we do in France.”
Victor also said that what he found unique in Malaysia was that its interfaith efforts were politically motivated.
“Here people gather as interfaith groups against the government and the law; it is more of a gathering to fight for rights.
“This is new to us, because in most other places, interfaith is a social initiative, where people gather to help their communities” he said.
Victor said they also found that in Asia, some activists were afraid to talk publicly about what they were doing, citing China as an example.
“This is the same thing we experienced when we spoke to Shia activists in Malaysia, they were willing to speak to us but wanted to remain anonymous.
“They were scared,” he added.
Samuel said there needed to be more acknowledgement of other communities and more open-mindedness.
The Interfaith Tour programme costs 100,000 euros (RM400,000) and for now, the youth have managed to raise 80% of the funds from various donors, including NGOs, Christian and Muslim groups as well as the United States and French governments.
They are hoping to make their year-long tour famous as they travel the world, with the hope to raise the 20% along the way.
For now, however, the four have to use their creativity to find accommodation and to feed themselves, as this is not covered under the cost of the programme.
Victor said that they were lucky that in Malaysia, a French national answered their call for a place to stay, and put them up in a swanky condo in the KLCC enclave.
“In a lot of other places, not only was there no security, there was little comfort. Sometimes we slept in trains as we made overnight journeys.
“Other times, we slept in people’s living room,” he added.
But the four are taking it in their stride – and are tireless in their efforts.
Apart from meeting people from morning to well past 8pm daily, they have to work on the data they collected and work on videos on their interviews and to capture their experiences during the day.
