‘Don’t tell us how to pray,’ Borneo states say

By Sheridan Mahavera

KUALA LUMPUR, JAN 12 — The battle might be between the Roman Catholic Church and the government over the right to use “Allah” but the ones most affected are those in Sabah and Sarawak.

As Sabah leader Tan Sri Bernard Dompok pointed out, they worship in Bahasa Malaysia as its the national language and Bibles are in that language because it is not feasible to print or translate it to their various dialects.

More importantly, “Allah” is their word for God, the same as for the Malays, who borrowed it from the Arabs.

Semantics aside, the people in Borneo do not see the fuss or problem over the name of God.

The Muslims in Sarawak, Jack (who asked that only his first name be used) reasoned, were not just tolerant of other faiths. They have accepted non-Muslims as a daily fact of life the same way parents accept that their children have different personalities.

A government servant, he had earlier said he hoped the spate of attacks against churches in the peninsula would not spill over into Sarawak.

Though he was upset over the broken windows of the Anglican Good Shepherd Church in Lutong, Miri, Jack’s faith in Sarawak’s Muslims has not been shaken.

“I hugely believe that this is an isolated case, and most Sarawakian Muslims and also Sarawakians are surprised that such an incident could happen at all in Sarawak,” said Jack. Many of the people interviewed for this article asked that their names be changed due to the volatility of the topic.

It is this renowned bond between the non-Muslims and Muslims of Sarawak and Sabah that has often been held up by peninsula politicians as the ultimate model of race-relations.

Yet while these politicians speak highly of East Malaysia’s ethnic unity, they seldom make any serious attempt to get peninsular Malaysians to emulate it.

Conversely, says Sabahans and Sarawakians interviewed by The Malaysian Insider, the insular race, religion and language politics of the peninsula have often been imported and forced upon East Malaysians for as long as the states have been part of the federation.

And this is what unsettles them when it comes to the turmoil about who gets to use “Allah”: that again, the peninsula-centric Federal government is telling them to change an elemental aspect of their lives that has never before been a problem.

In other words, says a Sabah Government officer, it was never a problem until the “Semenanjung” people made it a problem.


NO FURORE HERE

When his friends greet him with the salaam, Mujahid, 20, is never confused as to whether the person is a Muslim or not. Nor does it matter to him.

Neither does he or the Sarawakian Muslims he knows think to ask why Christians in the state use “Allah” in their prayers or sermons.

“It is very condescending to me when someone tells me that I will be confused when non-Muslims use ‘Allah’ because my faith (in Islam) is not weak … Me and my family are extremely disappointed by the uproar and all these attacks on churches,” says Mujahid, a university student.

Sarawakians and Sabahans are saddened by how an age-old community norm of theirs has suddenly turned into a fractious issue by those who do not understand the history of the practice.

Dayak community leader Dr John Brian Anthony explains how when Christianity was being propagated to the East Malaysian natives roughly 100 years ago, the texts that were used were imported from Indonesia.

These texts used the term Allah and were in Bahasa Indonesia, which was similar to the Melayu Kuno used by the natives.

“My elders and me use the same text till today because that is the language we know. If someone tells me that my language is wrong, then I say ‘Why?’ Is it about Aqidah (faith) or is it about form?”

The Home Ministry banned the use of Allah in The Herald’s Bahasa Malaysia section. Yet it is this version which is widely read by Catholics and other Christians in East Malaysia.

When the High Court overturned the ban in Dec 31 last year, it caused an uproar among peninsula-based Muslim groups.

However, Anthony says, East Malaysian Muslims have never opposed the use of “Allah” by Christians and other non-Muslims.

Political scientist Dr Faisal Syam Hazis of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) puts it another way: “The use of Allah by non-Muslims has already been embedded in East Malaysian society for more than 100 years. It has never been an issue. So why are these peninsular Muslims suddenly jumping up and down over it?”


CONFUSION

For Dr Zaini Othman of Universiti Malaysia Sabah, the “confusion” that is being felt by the Muslims he meets in the state is why the issue is being raised now.

“Based on my daily experience with Sabahans, this is what they are asking. They feel that there is a hidden political agenda behind it.”

Though the Federal government has been at pains to stress that the issue is not about political mileage, Kuching-based blogger Norman Goh doubts that the violence it has spurred is being tackled seriously.

“First you allow the protests (by Muslim groups). Then when the attacks happen, you say [you] ‘might’ use the ISA (Internal Security Act). When Hindraf, Bersih and Bar Council rallies occurred, you did not hesitate to use the ISA,” says Goh, 23.

Faisal’s colleague, Dr Andrew Aeria, was unequivocal in his reading of the debacle.

“The view here is that Umno has fanned all of this. They seek to impose their racist imaginings on the rest of Malaysia without realising that Malaysia also contains Sarawak and Sabah.”

What Aeria is referring to is the fluid, non-communal approach to ethnic relations in East Malaysia, where groups do not seek to impose their norms or beliefs onto others.

It is helped by the fact that in the historical memory and the demographics of these two states, no group has been dominant.

The ethnic demarcations are also not enforced by politics, says Aeria, where political parties are not formed just to serve one group.

“Some parties have many members of one group but they are intrinsically multi-racial. This is where you see parties like SUPP (Sarawak United People’s Party) that looks like a Chinese party but it fields Bumiputera candidates.”


PENINSULA ‘RACIST’?

Unimas’ Aeria and Faisal also dispute the views of a Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) race-relations expert who contended that for Sarawak Muslims, religion was not as important as tribal identity.

In a previous The Malaysian Insider article, Prof Dr Mansor Mohd Noor of UKM Inter-ethnic Studies Institute gave an opinion that peninsular Muslims were less tolerant when it came to questions on Islam than their Sarawak and Sabah brethren.

“For Muslims in East Malaysia, the use of ‘Allah’ by non-Muslims is not a problem because their identity is tied to a tribe rather than to a religion,” Mansor has said in the article titled “Allah unites some and divides others”.

“Saying that is almost like saying we Sarawak Muslims are less Islamic than the ones in the peninsula just because we can tolerate Christians using ‘Allah’,” says Faisal.

East Malaysians of all creeds are passionate about their faith and identity but they were more accepting of each other, says Aeria.

“If you are saying that peninsular Muslims cannot be as tolerant as the ones in East Malaysia, are you saying that peninsular Muslims want to remain racist? What is wrong with emulating East Malaysian tolerance?”

Conversely, since the debate over whether to allow non-Muslims to use “Allah” is currently being determined in the peninsula, it seems that West Malaysians have no problems imposing their beliefs on East Malaysians.

And that, says those interviewed, would be very unfortunate for Sarawak and Sabah.

First published Jan 12, 2010 The Malaysian Insider http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/49330-dont-tell-us-how-to-pray-borneo-states-say-

‘Allah’ unites some, divides others

By Sheridan Mahavera

Kuala Lumpur, Jan 11 — While the despair Christians feel over the events on Friday and later over the weekend is palpable, so is the bitterness by Muslims that things have come to such a head on something they never imagined would be contested.

The official line is that the government is going after the arsonists in the attacks on churches that began Jan 8. That Barisan Nasional (BN), especially Umno, did not direct, plan or had any knowledge of the attacks.

Most importantly, Umno leaders stress that they did not incite Muslims organisations to hold demonstrations against the use of Allah by non-Muslims.

The popular and not entirely unsubstantiated view among non-Muslims and some Muslims varies between Umno creating the issue in the first place (an Umno minister had banned the Herald from using Allah in its Bahasa Malaysia section), to inciting the protests, to the party not doing enough to calm things down and thus preventing the church attacks.

It is not that absurd a view if one studies the background of the groups who protested and the events leading up to it.

This is what had BN leaders such as Ministers in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Idris Jala and Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon visiting Christian groups and meeting pastors.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has also visited and pledged RM500,000 in aid for the partially gutted Metro Tabernacle church in Desa Melawati, Kuala Lumpur.


Najib and other ministers visit the Metro Tabernacle in Desa Melawati which was the target of arsonists.
But in the perception-rules reality of Malaysian politics, BN still stands to lose much support from the urban electorate, say non-Muslims interviewed.

Yet what has not been considered is how far this issue has rankled ordinary Muslims — the thousands who did not join the protests but who put their names on petitions and joined web groups fighting for the same thing as the demonstrators.

Or the fact that the demonstrations included groups that do not traditionally support Umno.

In other words, if Umno and BN lose the support of Christians and non-Muslims, can parties who allow Allah to be used by non-Muslims, such as Parti Keadilan Rakyat and PAS, lose the support of Muslims?

Beyond these questions of political gain and loss, however, is how this issue, according to an academic, has cut deep to the elemental foundations of Malaysian society.

Church volunteer R. Williams (not his real name) started fearing the worst when he read on Thursday Najib saying that the government did not have the power to stop demonstrations against the use of Allah by non-Muslims.

“This was like a green light,” he says, adding that the next day, he almost came to tears when the three churches were torched.

“Then the next day he goes and says he will catch the culprits. What am I supposed to believe?”

Williams is not suggesting that Najib gave his approval for the protests, which took place at several mosques after Friday prayers, or that the Umno president condoned the church attacks.

What he and a Barisan Nasional Indian activist meant was that many believe the BN federal administration practised double standards when it came to the demonstrations.

"When it was Hindraf (in 2007), the government said ‘protests are not our culture.’ When people protested against the fall of the Perak government in early 2009, they said the same thing.

"But when it came to these (the Friday) demos, ‘Government has no power to stop...’ Why play different music?” says the BN activist who declined to reveal his name for fear of reprisal.

Almost all non-Muslims and some Muslims interviewed requested anonymity or a change of name for fear of their personal security.

The Indian activist claims that among non-Muslim BN supporters, the feeling is that the coalition will be punished at the ballot box.

“BN’s survival rests on Sabah and Sarawak, and now we are going to lose in those two states,” says the activist.

A Malay-Muslim government officer described the violence and anger by his fellow Muslims as “stupid and ridiculous.”

“Nik Aziz (Kelantan Menteri Besar Datuk Nik Abdul Nik Mat) himself explained that Allah is not exclusive to Islam. This issue has been played up for political mileage.”

Other non-Muslim BN activists, however, disagree, saying that it should be seen for what it is, a religious issue that cuts at the heart of Muslims.

“The term should just have been reserved for Muslims and Islam. Everyone knows that it’s sacred to them so why challenge it?” asks Kota Baru MCA division chief Tan Ken Ten.


St Francis Xavier parish priest Father Simon Yong (left) welcomes PAS spiritual adviser Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat when he visited the Petaling Jaya church yesterday.
Johor Baru MCA division official Michael Tay also does not buy the argument that Umno should be blamed for all that happened.

“If Umno spent so much time building up unity through 1 Malaysia and convincing people about it, do you think they would just destroy all of that work?

“Fanatics are hard to deal with for anyone. You can’t just tell them not to demonstrate because they get pent up and explode,” says Tay, who is deputy chairman of the division’s complaints bureau.

“At the end of it, we must respect Islam because this is the religion of the majority.”

Professor Dr Mansor Mohd Noor of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia says that Peninsular Malaysia’s Malay-Muslim majority and the centrality of religion in the community is largely why the debate is so explosive.

His research for UKM’s Inter-ethnic Studies Institute shows that different Malaysian ethnic groups have different “ethnic parameters” that form the crux of their identity. And when these parameters are crossed, it sets these groups off and emotions usually trump rationality.

For Chinese Malaysians, the parameter is Mandarin. For the Indians and Malays, it is always religion. For the indigenes of Sarawak and Sabah, it is tribal identity, says Mansor.

“For Muslims in East Malaysia, the use of Allah by non-Muslims is not a problem because their identity is tied to a tribe rather than to a religion.”

In the peninsula, a Muslim is almost always automatically marked as Malay while in East Malaysia, explains Mansor, a Muslim can either be an Iban, a Kadazandusun, a Melanau or from another tribe.

“So you cannot expect a peninsula Muslim to be as tolerant as an East Malaysian Muslim when it comes to questioning aspects of Islam.

“This is why the use of Allah in Christian sermons and activities in East Malaysia is tolerated all this while by local Muslims. But when the issue comes to the peninsula, peninsula Muslims explode.”

Mansor believes for the peninsula Muslims, the political party that is seen as supposedly defending this core identity is the one that will gain their support.

Shah Alam Pas MP Khalid Samad is aware of the political risks in the party’s stand to allow non-Muslims to use Allah.

At a protest at the Selangor State mosque in his own constituency, a group of men walked all over his picture and urged him to change his stand over the issue.

The mosque committee had even set up tables at four places where Muslims could sign a petition against non-Muslims using Allah. There were constant queues at all the tables before and after prayers.

“There is a difference in understanding among Muslims. We are interested in the textual proof in the Quran and the traditions of the Prophet. It is quite clear. Unfortunately many Muslims in Malaysia are still ignorant and kept that way by the government.

“So it is for PAS to explain this. At the same time, you cannot judge a whole community just by the actions of a few.

“Yes, they seemed many (at the demonstrations) but realise also that there are many Muslims in PAS and PKR who agree with us.” said Khalid

First published: The Malaysian Insider Jan 11, 2010