Najib has disappointed the minorities

It is a tragedy that the Barisan Nasional government has chosen to sacrifice the rights of the minorities at the altar of power.

Be it the freedom to lead the life they choose or freedom of religion, the federal government has never failed to meddle in and dictate terms to the minority races.

For one, the hounding the LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals) community became an all-consuming affair for the Najib-government, so much so that Putrajaya decided to ban Comango (Coalition of Malaysian NGOs) the pro-human rights outfit, labelling it as “unIslamic” and promoting ‘free sex’.

That was not enough for Putrajaya. It moved on to intensifying efforts to censor the religious practices of the non-Muslims, coming down hard on them simply because they too address their Creator as ‘Allah’.

In the 1980s, several states and their Muslim fatwa committees passed laws forbidding the use of ‘Allah’ and several Arabic terms by non-Muslims.

This includes the 1988 Selangor enactment and the 1986 decree by the National Fatwa Council.

However, these laws were not widely enforced until 2008 when the Home Ministry banned the Catholic weekly, The Herald from using the term in the Bahasa Malaysia section of the publication.

That was the beginning of a nightmare for the non-Muslims. The attack on them for defending their right to continue to call their god ‘Allah’ revealed the much feared truth – that Malaysia’s ‘unity in diversity’ is nothing more than a sham.

To conveniently raid the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) and confiscate copies of the bibles and later on declare that the non-Muslims are unfit to use certain words including ‘Allah’ for they belong only to the Muslims – how else does one explain the government’s utter disregard for the other faiths?

Then there was former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad who decided he was not about to give the controversy surrounding the word ‘Allah’ a miss. He went on to say that ‘it would not hurt the Christians in the peninsula if they did not use the word Allah’.

The non-Muslims in the country have without a doubt been pushed to a corner and are being intimidated to drop any intention of pursuing ‘Allah’.

Putrajaya’s vendetta

Where is the nation’s premier who swears by his ‘people first’ commitment?

Did it not trouble Najib and fellow ‘defenders’ of ‘Allah’ when Selangor Umno trespassed all semblance of civilisation by torching the effigy of a priest who heads the Herald all because Reverend Lawrence Andrew stood his ground that churches in Selangor would continue to use ‘Allah’ as they had been doing all along?

Putrajaya has been harbouring a vendetta against the non-Muslims for sometime now, after the Herald won a High Court decision in January 2009 that overturned the Home Ministry ban over its use of the word ‘Allah’.

Four years later, the Court of Appeal overturned that decision saying that the word was not integral to Christianity.

It is unbecoming of Najib to dismiss the fact that the term ‘Allah’ is used by Christians who worship in Bahasa Malaysia and Iban, such as those in Sabah and Sarawak. Two thirds of Malaysia’s 2.9 million Christians are from East Malaysia.

And the term ‘Allah’ has been in use for centuries in Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia bibles.

While the Herald’s case was being debated in court, the Home Ministry in 2011 seized two consignments of bibles in Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia that were imported from Indonesia and were meant for distribution in Sabah and Sarawak.

The hue and cry that ensued then prompted the Najib administration to draft a 10-point solution to resolve the problem and the bibles were later released to their respective importers.

Najib gave the assurance that the 10-point solution allowed for the use of ‘Allah’ in bibles is valid for Sabah and Sarawak and any other state that does not forbid its use among non-Muslims.

Why then did the Selangor Islamic Department (Jais) seize copies of the bibless in the Iban language during its raid on BSM on Jan 2?

While the Christians hold Najib accountable for the 10-point solution ‘seeing the light of the day’, reality is revealing otherwise.

Stop counting on Najib

The 10-point solution was a trick employed by Najib. The truth is it means nothing to the BN government whose leaders who have no shame professing bigotry over the well-being of the people.

On Friday, Najib made a Volta-face regarding the 10-point solution and passed the buck on to the respective states, saying they were the final authority as to whether the word ‘Allah’ was permissible to non-Muslims.

There is every reason for the Council of Churches of Malaysia to turn livid at Najib’s refusal to honour the 10-point ‘truce’. The council firmly believes the 10- point solution should supercede state laws.

“Christians in Malaysia are beginning to see Putrajaya’s inconsistencies in living up to the promises made to the community,” CCM general-secretary Dr Hermen Shastri told The Malaysian Insider yesterday.

Ten out of Malaysia’s 13 states have enactments banning non-Muslim usage of “Allah” and other Arabic words. The exceptions are Penang, Sabah and Sarawak, and the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan.

The BN controls eight of those 10 states, while Selangor and Kelantan are administered by the Pakatan Rakyat (PR).

From Jais to Jakim to the state rulers, they are all up in arms against the non-Muslims because the latter refuse to give up on ‘Allah’. The Sultan of Selangor, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah last year went so far as to ban the use of ‘Allah’ by the non-Muslims in the state.

The Sultan of Kedah who is also the current Yang di-Pertuan Agong this month followed suit, declaring that ‘Allah’ belongs exclusively to the Muslims.

The non-Muslims were left speechless, aghast at the government’s hypocrisy, intolerance and arrogance at denying them what is rightfully theirs – freedom of religion as guaranteed under Article 11 of the Federal Constitution.

And now that push has come to shove, Najib is singing a different tune. On Friday, he finally mustered enough courage to address the ‘Allah’ topic – but instead threw all support behind the majority race.

Najib has disappointed the minorities. And the repercussions will be severe – for one, the non-Muslims have now stopped counting on him.

Instead, the minorities are determined they will not go down without a fight. And they certainly do not need Najib, Mahathir, Jakim (Malaysian Islamic Development Department) or any other politician telling them how to pray.