‘Allah’ ban is politically-motivated, says analyst
(The Malaysian Insider) -The apex court’s decision to dismiss the Catholic Church’s leave application to appeal the ban on the use of Allah in its weekly publication, Herald, is nothing but a politically motivated move, said a Hong Kong-based political scientist.
William Case of Hong Kong’s City University told CNN that the move was to make up for Putrajaya’s failure to win comfortably in the last election, adding that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak may use this to regain support from the country’s ethnic Malay, and mostly Muslim, community.
However, it’s too soon to tell how Putrajaya will implement the ban in practice, he added.
“This is the kind of ambiguity you would expect, because it’s a very complex and tense set of circumstances.
“You might have the judiciary saying one thing, the cabinet saying another, meanwhile pressure is mounting from the many Muslim groups who bring tremendous mass-based support, and on the other side from Christian groups,” Case was quoted as saying by CNN.
“We do know that Malaysia has become more and more polarised in recent years on ethnic, and increasingly religious, grounds, and that’s becoming more and more severe.”
But while the latest court ruling is distressing, Case said verbal threats against religious groups in Malaysia seldom translate into the kind of violence seen in neighbouring countries, like Indonesia.
“We don’t see extrajudicial killings, religious-inspired violence and abductions, and that distinguishes Malaysia in the region.”
