Borneo Forum Revisits M’sia Agreement Pledges

By Joe Fernandez

Jan 24, 10 (From Malaysiakini)

Borneo Forum (BF), an all-Borneo NGO umbrella body, made the Malaysia Agreement the focus of its deliberations in Kota Kinabalu yesterday.

BF brings together the Borneo Heritage Foundation (BHF), the Sarawak Dayak National Union (SDNU) and observers from Kalimantan.

The ad hoc meeting in KK resolved that the Malaysia Agreement will be raised by a Sabah-Sarawak delegation at a briefing at the House of Commons in London on March 19.

The London meeting was set up by Hindu Rights Action Front (Hindraf) chair P Waythamoorthy (right) who said that Hindraf will also be represented.

“We will prepare a joint memorandum for the London meet,” said BF protem chair Jeffrey Gapari Kitingan. “Two researchers are in London to gather material from the Rhodes Library in Oxford.”

Sarawak environmentalist John Anthony Brian briefed the meet on the progress made by the two Sarawak researchers in London.

BF pro-tem secretary-general Paul Kadang said the memorandum will have to be comprehensive and thorough so as to convince the UK goverment.

“The focus will be on the undertaking and assurances to Sabah and Sarawak under the Malaysia Agreement,” said Paul.

The failure of the federal government to live up to the promises of the Malaysia Agreement was attributed to “the lack of a permanent monitoring and coordinating body“.

The London meet was scheduled to be held earlier this month but was postponed after a simmering crisis in the Sabah chapter of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) threatened to erupt into open warfare.

Kitingan (left) is the PKR national vice-president with overall responsibility for Sabah and Sarawak.

Earlier, BHF delegate and former Tuaran MP Yunof Maringking briefed the meet on the controversy surrounding the use of the term Allah, an attribute of God, by Christians in Malay print.

“This issue would not have arisen if the 1st Point in the 20 Points for Sabah and 18 Points for Sarawak had been honoured,” stressed Yunof, a senior lawyer in private practice.

“It was the promise of the Malaysia Agreement that both Sabah and Sarawak would not have an official religion.”

Yunof saw no reason why Sabah and Sarawak, along with Labuan, Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Malacca, “should be bogged down by the religious history of the Malay sultanates”.

He went on to talk about various state enactments on several terms used in Islam as well and fatwas which referred to non-Muslims.

‘Let the court resolve the matter‘

The meet was unanimous that the state enactments, being inferior laws, were ultra vires the federal constitution and the fatwas non-binding on non-Muslims.

The meet noted that God was rightly explained as Tuhan in the national anthem, Rukun Negara and in Parliamentary usage.

They resolved that this should be maintained and not replaced by the term Allah since the latter was an attribute of God and not the only one.

There are 999 other attributes of God, the meet agreed. “Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohd had wrongly described Tuhan as the Christian God.”

The BHF legal committee which was present cautioned the meet against polemics on the current court case pitting the Herald, the Catholic weekly, against the Home Minister.

“The issue is whether the Home Minister has the power to use the Printing Presses Act to prohibit the Herald from using the term ‘Allah’ in Malay print. Let the court resolve the matter ,” advised the committee. “

Nazri showed disrespect

The meet was not without its prickly moments when de facto Law Minister Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz was rapped on the knuckles for showing disrespect to Judge Lau Bee Lan who presided over a Dec 31 ruling favour of the Herald.

“Nazri should be cited for contempt of court if he doesn’t apologise,” said BHF delegate Evelyn Gobile.

Nazri was also chided for having shown disrespect to Archbishop Murphy Pakiam by blaming him for the court case.

The meet did not touch on Nazri’s (right) announcement that the federal government was agreeable to Christians in Sabah and Sarawak using the term Allah in Malay print.

However, they resolved that the Malay language was the common heritage of all Malaysians and no religious denomination should be restricted from using the language fully for faith-based activities.

BHF delegate Benedict Topin won the meet’s approval for his analysis that Umno, the ruling party, had miscalculated on the Allah issue “and would not in any case back down on their politicisation of the issue”.

“Already, Umno is politicising the Government Transformation Programme as well,” said Benedict. “Those who attended the GRP briefing in KK last Sunday were shocked by the extent of politicisation.”

Among its calender of activities for this year, the BF meet agreed that Sabah and Sarawak representatives should visit Kalimantan Tengah on April 24 for the harvest festival visit.

Kalimantan celebrates the harvest festival a month before Malaysian Borneo. On the cards are an All-Borneo Song and Music Festival and All-Borneo Safari.

The cultural ties between both halves of Borneo – “the world’s best kept secret” – is seen as a prelude to indigenous groups in Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei drawing strength from the well-organised similar movements in Kalimantan.

On a final note, the BF meet resolved to accept the offer from the Chief Justice of the US Indian Nations Native Supreme Court to help develop the native court system in Malaysia.

The offer was made through John during a recent visit to the US. BF expects to co-ordinate on the matter with the state attorney-generals in Sabah and Sarawak and their respective bar council

Now We Are "FAMOUS" the World Over For The Wrong Reason! Truly Amazing Asia Indeed!

Malaysia's war of words over God

Taken From Malaysia-Today, Thursday, 21 January 2010

(Guardian, UK) In countless tourism adverts, Malaysia asks the world to see it as "Truly Asia". In the past days and weeks, its government's bid to portray the nation as a harmonious multicultural society has gone up in flames.

Since its high court lifted a three-year embargo that prevents non-Muslims from using the Arabic word Allah in their prayers and literature on 31 December, detractors firebombed several churches and vandalised others across the nation. While there were no casualties, several churches have thus far been hit, with one so severely damaged that its members had to conduct their service elsewhere. Eight of the attackers have now been arrested.

Despite these attacks, Malaysia's Christians, who make up about nine percent of the 27 million-strong Southeast Asian nation, are insisting that the use of Allah is not exclusive to Muslims, who account for some 60% of the population.

Last February, Malaysia's Catholic archbishop, Murphy Pakiam, publisher of the Herald newspaper, filed for a judicial review against the ban that was first enforced in 2007 by the then home affairs minister, Syed Hamid Albar, against the Catholic weekly for using Allah to refer to God in its Malay language version.

The rationale behind the Catholic church's appeal was that Allah is a generic word for God that preceded the spread of Islam. After all, the word Allah, when translated from Arabic, comprises the definite article al, and the noun ilah which means God – connoting a singular deity, a belief common to adherents of the Abrahamic faiths.

Indeed, Biblical scholar Kenneth J Thomas outlined evidence in a 2001 research paper (pdf) suggesting that Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Arab world have used Allah when citing and translating the Bible since the first centuries of Islam.

In Malaysia, its use by Christians developed along similar lines. Since Christianity became widespread there in the 19th century, primarily through the missionary efforts of English colonisers, Allah has been used extensively by Malay-speaking Christian indigenous peoples of the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak.

When juxtaposed against the fact that Malay-speaking Christians in neighbouring Indonesia have long used Allah in their worship to no complaint, it is understandable that Malaysia's church attacks have been viewed with much chagrin.

Observers have rightly argued that the rumpus is tied to Malaysia's ethnic-based political landscape. To be more precise, it arises from the form of Islam nurtured by a segment of the nation's Malay political elites.

The country's constitution not only makes Islam the official state religion but also specifies that a "Malay" must be a "Muslim". With ethnicity tied so closely to religion, defending the purity of Islam against corruption by foreigners has become both a religious duty and a matter of national pride.

This dogma has been fostered by the nation's ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), whose popularity is partly derived from its status as a defender of Malay rights.

This would explain Umno's ambivalent stance on the issue. Even as prime minister Najib Razak decried the church attacks as heinous, his Umno colleagues in government had filed an appeal against the high court decision to overturn the Allah ban. Home affairs minister Hishamuddin Hussein even went as far as to allow demonstrations against the Allah ruling in mosques across Malaysia after Friday prayers on 8 January.

Christians were not the only group targeted by adherents of exclusivist Islam following the fallout from the ruling. On 13 January, the country's Sikhs became the latest to suffer attacks when vandals threw stones at a temple in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. The Sikhs, who number approximately 120,000, also use Allah to refer to God in their worship.

Even the Hindus are not exempt from this kind of discrimination. Last September, a group of Muslim protestors stamped on a cow's severed head to protest at the building of a Hindu temple in a Muslim-majority neighbourhood.

Yet there is some encouragement to be had in the fact that not all Malays subscribe to this form of exclusivist Islam. Respected Muslim scholar Asri Zainul Abidin, a former state mufti, backs the use of Allah by non-Muslims. Surprisingly, this is the same stance taken by the opposition Islamic party, Parti Islam SeMalaysia, which had advocated the full-blown implementation of Sharia laws in past campaigns.

There are even voices of dissent coming from within Umno itself. Veteran politician Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who has always been something of a maverick, condemned his party's reactions following the ruling. For Malaysians to stop warring in God's name, this emerging inclusive Malay-Muslim voice must drown out the rallying cries of the divisive vandals. Insha'Allah.

WHY EAST CAN, WHY WEST CAN"T?

The Torching of Najib's 1Malaysia!

The burning of the churches is no problem to us Christians in Sabah. We can always rebuild a bigger and better Church to replace what has been burnt. After all what is important to us is the “Church” in the heart of Christians and not the building. I take this opportunity to thank the BN govt and the people concerned for persecuting and oppressing us. Thank you very much and we forgive you.

What I fail to understands is WHY a group of people after performing their Friday prayers to a God Almighty can still be so full of hatred in their hearts? WHY? Something is wrong here.

The issue of the kalimah “Allah” is with us the East Malaysian and not the West Malaysians Christians. Both the Catholic and Protestant Churches here uses the kalimah “Allah” in their BM worship and services. We have been using it for ages now, even way before the formation of Malaysia. Now the BN government want us to stop us using the word because of objections from some ignorant and misguided muslims. We are told that we have to be sensitive to them? Is it reasonable, fair and just for the govt to force us to do so? By doing so, is the govt sensitive to us? I believe that sensitivity is a two way street, and not a one way one as esposed by the mob.

By the way, for your information we are still using the kalimah “Allah” in our Bahasa Malaysia Church service. Its use will be continued no matter what the government, the court or the King says. As a consequence of this unjust law, all Christians attending any BM church services and worships are made into criminals. In this case I don't mind breaking the law. My stand is that no man, government or King have the right to tell/force/compel us on how to call our God! Do these mere mortals think they are God?

Where will this stop? Will the BN govt also prohibit us from using other BM/arabic words like Amin, Nabi, Rasul, Kitab, malaikat, names of prophets (Isa, Mariam, Daud, Musa etc.) in order to appease the sensitivities of some muslims?

Are the Iban’s also going to be stopped from using their Iban bible which also uses the word “Allah”? How about the Sikhs who also uses “Allah” in their holy book? Unbeknown to most of us, the Sabah State Govt (UMNO) without any whimper from the “dan lain-lain” state ministers through the Mufti of Sabah have issued a fatwah on this since 2003 (Sabah Govt Gazzette 2003).

The BN/UMNO govt have already stolen everything from us East Malaysian - our land, our natural resources, our rights; and now they even want to “ROB” us of our rights on how to call our God!

So much for Najib’s 1Malaysia, just hollow slogans. For whom 1Malaysia? Only for the Malays? I’ve lost my hope on Malaysia. Maybe it’s time for us to move on ……

Salam to all.

Suggestion to Compromise on the Allah Issue By Datuk Clarence Bongkos Malakun and Others

With due respect, I totally disagree with the suggestion by Datuk CBM that the Christians compromise by substituting the word "Allah" with a "suitable" word.

First of all, I would like to ask whether it is wrong according to the Al Quran for Christians to use the word "Allah"? If not, then why should we have to compromise and accede to the unreasonable and ludicrous demand? If we do, will it just stop at the word "Allah" only? Or will the Christians next be prohibited from using other arabic words such as Amin, Kitab, Puasa, Malaikat, Rasul, Esa, Nabi or the name of the prophets (Musa, Mariam, Daud, Noh, Ibrahim etc.)?. By doing this, it will render our BM bible banned! Unbeknown to most of us, the Sabah State Mufti have issued a fatwah banning the use of several arabic words used in the BM Al Kitab in 2003 (refer to Sabah Govt Gazette 2003). What next after this? Banning of religious symbols and statues as proposed by the UMNO MP from Johore?

Will the Iban Bible which also uses the word "Allah" be banned to? Are the Sikhs also going to be prohibited from using the word "Allah" in their holy book?

By compromising, in order to appease some ignorant, misguided, arrogant and extremely selfish Malays, are we not surrendering our rights to freedom of worship as enshrined in the constitution and as agreed upon in the real "social contract"- the Malaysia Agreement and the 18 and 20 points?

What more do this people want from us? They have already robbed us of so many of our rights, our natural resources and inundated our state with "illegal immigrants", and now they want to rob us of our rights to use the word "Allah"?

This has nothing to do with Islam as stated by several ulamas/Islamic scholars, PAS, PKR and in several blogs, but has everything to do with "Ketuanan Melayu" and the perpetuation of UMNO rule. The issue has been politicised by UMNO to distract the public attention from several scandals affecting the BN govt. (PKFZ, Altantuya, missing jet engines, the Teoh Boon Hock murder etc.) and as a pretext to defend Malay rights from being confused by malintention of the Christians! The intention is to create chaos in the country, to divide and rule us.

What a bloody mess the bigot AMUNO has got us into? The line is already drawn in the sand. Now we ride the tiger.

To me PEACE without JUSTICE is oppression and will not last. JUSTICE for all is a pre-requisite for lasting PEACE.


Cheers, GONDUBOY.