For Christianity

The long battle between the Catholic Herald publication and the Home Ministry on the use of the word "Allah" in Christian publications is over, somewhat... Early this year, the Home Minister gazetted a new order stating:

"The printing, publishing, sale, issue, circulation and possession of any document and publication relating to Christianity containing the words 'Allah', 'Kaabah', 'Baitullah' and 'Solat' are prohibited unless on the front cover of the document and publication are written with the words 'FOR CHRISTIANITY'."

And mind you, the words 'FOR CHRISTIANITY' has to be written in Arial type font size 16 in bold. So, if you possess such documents without the words "FOR CHRISTIANITY" on the front cover, you're liable to get arrested under the ISA. The order was issued under Section 22 (1)(c) of the ISA, which allows the minister to restrict publications "calculated or likely to lead to a breach of the peace, or to promote feelings of hostility between different races or classes".

The Home Minister may have allowed Christians to use the word "Allah"; but his order simply reeks of idiocy and paranoia. By splashing a huge label "FOR CHRISTIANITY", does he hope that he will prevent Muslims from touching and perusing such publications? If he did, then he got his grammar all wrong - he should have changed the label to "FOR CHRISTIANS". "FOR CHRISTIANITY" is a phrase that doesn't quite make sense, grammatically. Christianity is a noun referring to a religion. How can a book be for a religion? It can either be for the proponents of that religion, or on that religion. The latter seems more suitable in most cases.

How is having a Malay-language Christian publication a breach of national peace? How can it possibly promote feelings of hostility between different races or classes? Religion is not and should not be equated with race, or ethnicity. There are Chinese Muslims, and there are Malay Christians. How on earth can Muslims be threatened by Christian publications in the Malay language? There is no Bahasa Melayu - there is only Bahasa Malaysia now. It is the national language, which means that it is the language for ALL Malaysians, whether you're an Indian, Chinese or Malay.

The Malays do not hold any special claim to that language. The Muslims do not hold special rights over the word "Allah". Deciding that Christian publications cannot be published in Bahasa Malaysia shows just how scared some quarters that Muslims will fall so easily if they read Malay-language Christian publications. If their faith were the rock-solid truth, why so fearful? Wouldn't it be far more convincing to allow Muslims to read publications of other religions and have their faith strengthened that theirs is indeed the "true" religion?

But, no, the Home Minister apparently doesn't have that much faith. What he has is insecurity, fear and discrimination to other religious groups by violating their freedom to practice religion as they see fit, which is enshrined in Article 11 of the Federal Constitution.