Some insights on the use of 'Allah' issue

Original article on The Malaysian Insider: A Letter to a Muslim Friend.

It's a letter written to highlight some historical facts relevant to the issue. Based on these, it's clearly obvious what kind of politicians we have running the country, who are trying to split people apart on skewed/twisted religious grounds - those who think more with their chaotic emotions, misplaced gut feelings, baseless presumptions, personal/private interests rather than with reasons, rationality, books, knowledge, history, established facts, valid evaluations, etc.

Here's the article in its entirety:

JAN 19 — Recently, someone whom I consider a very close and trusted friend, and who is a Muslim, wrote an email to me with a very simple question: “What was The Herald asking for exactly?”

As someone who knew what the issue was from the start, having once been a freelance contributor to The Herald, I gathered my thoughts and spoke to a few relevant people and started writing down the facts of the whole issue.

Instead of the creative and open writing style that is normally employed in any article, I decided to keep it strictly to the point with the facts itself, following the style of a former prime minister whose blog name is one letter short of the anagram for the word “CHEATED”, which is rather ironic since many of us still feel that way over events of the past 28 years.

Anyway, this was my letter to that Muslim friend.

Dear brother Malaysian,

I wish all Muslims (and even some non-Muslims) were like you, stopping to ask what the issue was instead of playing straight into the tactics of people (and some media) who have personal and political agendas. Here are the facts of the issue, which I am sure will answer your question easily.

1. The Herald has been around for more than 15 years.
2. The Herald was first published in English only.
3. By the late 1990s, there already was a Bahasa Malaysia edition, which occasionally contained the term “Allah”.
4. Upon request, and to meet growing demand, Tamil and Chinese editions were added simply to allow Catholics who were more familiar with those two languages to have their community news and spiritual guidance explained for their better understanding. These editions covered a few pages respectively.
5. Likewise, the thousands of East Malaysian students in government universities in Peninsula Malaysia, who are active in the Catholic Students Society in their respective universities, had requested to have pages added in Bahasa Malaysia (BM).
6. These East Malaysians students over the past 15 years were naturally those who were educated completely under the Bahasa Malaysia medium and with little exposure to English (for the majority of them).
7. In addition to the students, thousands of East Malaysians have been flocking to the Klang Valley for better prospects and simply to “cari makan”, just like other Malaysians from all over the peninsula. Again, the majority would be BM-educated and more comfortable worshiping in Bahasa Malaysia than in English.
8. Like for the Tamil and Chinese editions, the East Malaysians naturally wanted the Bahasa Malaysia edition to be about their own community news, besides some local and global Catholic church news translated from English to Bahasa Malaysia.
9. Bahasa Malaysia was, after all, their common denominator, i.e. the national language, propagated by the government themselves over all other languages since the late 1970s (hmmm . . . I wonder who was the education minister who started it all).
10. The East Malaysians themselves wrote the original content and translated some of the English pages in The Herald to Bahasa Malaysia. One can easily surmise this from the writers’ by-lines as well as from the “Letters to the Editor” in the Bahasa Malaysia edition since its beginnings, around 12 years ago.
11. If these East Malaysians used “Allah” in their praise and worship all their lives — as did their parents, grandparents and the generations before them — it would only be natural that they would write their articles and reflections, as well as do translations, using the only word they know for the “Lord our God”, the God of Abraham and Moses. The one Almighty God.
12. The word “Allah” was never and will never be used to refer to Jesus in any Bahasa Malaysia translation. That is one blatant piece of misinformation that so many peninsula Malaysian Muslims have been wrongly led to believe.
13. When former Home Minister Datuk Syed Hamid Albar imposed a blanket ban on the use of the word “Allah” in The Herald, as well as on imported Christian Bibles and other literature in both print and multimedia formats from Indonesia, the church appealed.
14. After appeals and all other avenues failed, the Catholic Church had no choice but to go to court because it is a basic deprivation of human rights in not allowing East Malaysian Christians the right to worship God in a manner they have used to worship Him all their lives and for generations past.
15. The Herald just wants the right for their Klang Valley-based East Malaysian readers to practise their faith, and share their community information, while learning about their own faith, in the only language they share, being as they are from various Bumiputera groups, and as how they have been practicing it all these years.
16. The Herald is only sold within church grounds, and has also complied with government requests to have “TERHAD (restricted)” and “FOR NON-MUSLIMS ONLY” on the cover, even if it was never to be sold or distributed outside church grounds in the first place.
17. The greatest lie being repeated over and over again, by ministers, morally-corrupt politicians, some Muslim scholars, some government-controlled media as well as misinformed members of the public is that the church started using the term “Allah” in The Herald since only a few years ago.
18. The other great lie is that the term is also intended for use in the English edition.

Thanks again for asking your very important question, my brother.

Please do enlighten your fellow Muslim brothers and sisters on how it all started and why it was a non-issue, then made into an issue by the government, and now has become the biggest possible threat to Malaysian unity, peace and harmony, after more than 50 years of independence.

Thanks.

Take care and God bless.

Look also at this article by Marina Mahathir to get other rational perspective.

On the isue of using "Allah" in Malaysia...

I found commentaries by Marina Mahathir to be the most apt in what our response should be on this issue.

Excerpt from Marina Mahathir in The Malaysian Insider:

While some idiots are mourning over the “loss” of the word “Allah” and therefore basically telling the world that they are people easily confused by nomenclature, and others are predicting riots over what is basically a “copyright” issue, let me define what I think a confident Muslim should be:

1. A confident Muslim is unfazed by the issue of God's name. God speaks to all of humankind in the Quran and never said that only Muslims could call him by the name Allah.

2. A confident Muslim has 99 names to choose from to describe that One God. My favourites are Ar-Rahman (The All-Compassionate) and Ar-Rahim (The All-Merciful).

3. A confident Muslim never gets confused over which is his/her religion and which is other people's. For instance, a confident Muslim knows exactly what the first chapter of the Quran is. And it's not the Lord's Prayer.

4. A confident Muslim will not walk into a church, hear a liturgy in Malay or Arabic where they use the word “Allah” and then think that he or she is in a mosque. A confident Muslim knows the difference.

5. A confident Muslim is generous, inclusive and doesn't think that his or her brethren is made exclusive through the use of a single language. The confident Muslim is well aware that in the Middle East, all services of ANY religion are in Arabic because that's what they all speak.

6. A confident Muslim knows the basis of his/her faith are the five pillars of Islam and will not be shaken just because other people call God by the same name.

7. A Muslim believes in only One God. Therefore it makes sense that other people should call God by the same name because there is no other God.

ART THOU NOT aware that it is God whose limitless glory all [creatures] that are in the heavens and on earth extol, even the birds as they spread out their wings? Each [of them] knows indeed how to pray unto Him and to glorify Him; and God has full knowledge of all that they do: (Surah Nour, Verse 41) (Asad).

So I would ask those people demonstrating against the court decision, have you no pride? Are you saying you're easily confused?

One of the biggest idiot refererred to in her article must obviously be Khir Toyo per his comment in The Malaysian Insider. Touche...

More young Malays are quitting M'sia

(Original article: Malaysiakini)

Last week, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister A Kohilan Pillay told Parliament that the number of Malaysians who have given up citizenship this year has almost doubled that in 2008.

This does not come as a surprise to many - the shock lies in just who is leaving the country now and for what reason.

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng (right) had previously brought up the brain-drain issue with the federal government, citing this as evidence that the New Economic Policy (NEP) has failed.

Even in 2007, Guan Eng had argued that the NEP has failed to address hardcore poverty. He said it only benefits a select group of people to the detriment of non-bumiputeras who then take their expertise elsewhere.

The NEP is no longer cited by non-bumiputera emigrants alone - increasingly, young Malays are contributing to the brain-drain because of the 'backlash' of the affirmative action policy.

“It is very depressing to be Malay now. Everything about the Malay identity is disappointing, because other races view us as helpless and incompetent... a sort of backlash from the NEP,” said potential emigrant Natasha Adnan.

The 25-year-old engineer, a top scorer throughout her student years, said that she is “50-50” about moving abroad. That will depend, she said, on whether she or her partner can secure a job abroad in the immediate future.

Natasha is part of what registered migration agent Robert Chelliah sees as a slight but rising trend of young Malays migrating.

The agent, who has 30 years of experience, said this is in stark contrast to the situation five years ago, when it would have been very surprising if a Malay person walked into his office.

Chelliah is quick to add that this is not necessarily because they are unhappy with conditions at home. Rather, he said it is a growing trend arising from increased mobility and the globalisation of labour markets.

“Young people today plan their lives wholesomely, and will move to places where they feel award them more life opportunities,” he said.

Indeed higher salary packages and job satisfaction are the reasons cited by Chelliah's younger clients, regardless of ethnicity.

He said they tell him of a sense of “hopelessness and stagnation” and the existence of a “glass ceiling”.

Natasha agreed, saying that capable younger employees are bypassed due to emphasis on seniority and “saving face”.

An employee in a multinational company, she said a higher salary is a big pull factor, not so much for the money but for the feeling of being paid her worth.

This is a view shared by Malaysian Employers Federation executive director Shamsuddin Bardan, who told a Singapore daily last month that the key issue in the Malaysian brain drain conundrum remains the salary differential.

'Conservatism and instability'

Centre for Policy Initiatives director Lim Teck Ghee said, however, the quantum of salary is just one of many factors for the exodus from Malaysia.

“Amongst these push factors are likely to be concern for their children's education and future, disillusionment with the country's main social and economic policies and a lack of faith in the institutions running the country like the police and the judiciary,” he said.

This is true in the case of younger families with whom Chelliah works, who tell him they are anxious about the education system, which they see as “constantly chopping and changing”.

Many also do not think that the Malaysian education system can secure their children's future in an increasingly competitive global labour market. There's an easy way to plan for retirement. Find out how.

Natasha conceded that her desire to move is more complex than just economics, as she is packing up partly because she no longer feels in control of her life.

“People don't expressly curb freedom, no one says it, but I am constantly aware of what I can or cannot do… I can't hang out with a friend who happens to be male without inviting negative perceptions,” she said.

Interestingly, this is a push factor not only for Malay and Muslim emigrants. Even young non-Malays like Karen Tee, 28, attribute their decision to prevalent conservatism.

With a master's degree in human resources, she has chosen to move to Australia mainly because it will provide her with more security, in terms of the low-crime rate.

“I like the fact that I can hail a cab at midnight and not worry about being raped or kidnapped,” said Tee, who has applied for permanent residency.

More than that, she said she appreciates “not feeling threatened” as her rights will always be secured, despite she will be part of a small minority in Australia.

Her parents too feel the lack of security, and are also growing anxious over what they perceive to be “increasing political instability”.

“My mother is considering moving the whole family to Australia because the future is very uncertain in Malaysia,” she said, supporting Chelliah's claims that the number of middle-aged emigrants are also on the rise.

'Piecemeal efforts not working'

While the government appears to be aware of what Lim calls the “haemorrhaging of vital skills and talent”, attempts to retain talent have only reached limited success.

Technology and Innovation Ministry secretary-general Madinah Mohamad said in a speech in June that government programmes in place since 1995 has thus far attracted only 1,286 Malaysian and foreign experts.

This is a small number when compared to the estimated 20,000 Malaysian researchers, scientists and engineers who are residing abroad, according to a 2008 study.

Among the reasons for these failed attempts, Teck Ghee said, is the lack of a holistic approach.

If the government is serious about curbing the brain-drain, he said, these “piecemeal solutions” should be assessed independently to determine their effectiveness.

The first step however, is to declassify data on migration, which is currently under the Official Secrets Act, to allow researchers to study why people are voting with their feet.

“It does not require rocket science to address some of the causative factors (of emigration) - only strong political leadership truly committed to an inclusive 1Malaysia concept,” he said.

Ku Li: BN has destroyed Malaysia’s future

KUALA LUMPUR: Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (picture) today painted a bleak future for Malaysia under the Barisan Nasional government, saying it had squandered the nation’s oil wealth to the tune of billions of ringgit.

The former Finance Minister said Petronas’s oil profits had been used “to bail out failing companies, buy arms, build grandiose cities amidst cleared palm oil estates.”

“Instead of helping eradicate poverty in the poorest states, our oil wealth came to be channeled into our political and politically-linked class,” the first Petronas chief and former Umno vice president said in a speech at the Young Corporate Malaysians Summit.

He said Petronas money had been used as a slush fund to prop up authoritarian rule, to corrupt the entire political and business elite and to erode constitutional democracy.

The Gua Musang MP told the conference that Petronas had contributed 40 percent to the national budget over the years.

But such a great reliance on oil income was getting untenable, he said. “The oil that was meant to spur our transition to a more humane, educated society has instead become a narcotic that provides economic quick fixes and hollow symbols such as the Petronas Towers.”

Read the rest of this article at FreeMalaysiaToday.

Antara Raja, Menteri, Negara, dan Rakyat...

A really sharp article from Dr. Asri on apparent hypocrisies that all of us Malaysian know so well but yet nobody has the guts to say something about because of the political/legal repercussion that might befall. Finally, here comes MAZA with the much needed guts and conviction that

Tanggungjawab di hadapan Allah lebih besar daripada segala-galanya.

But the big question is, do these people, those directed in his article (but not all of them obviously), have the capacity to think wisely and the guts to do the right thing, or maybe they just don't have the cpacity to think at all! Or maybe some of them are just born with inherent genetic abnormalities with the tendency to only prioritize about getting their pockets and bellies bloated.

Wallahualam...

Cooking With Sound: Stove Converts Heat Into Electricity

ScienceDaily (July 20, 2009) — A low-cost generator with the potential to transform lives in the world's poorest communities is now being tested across the UK and in Nepal. The Score project, led by The University of Nottingham, is developing a bio-mass burning cooking stove which also converts heat into acoustic energy and then into electricity, all in one unit.

The £2 million Score project (Stove for Cooking, Refrigeration and Electricity) brings together experts from across the world to develop the biomass-powered generator. By developing an affordable, versatile domestic appliance Score aims to address the energy needs of rural communities in Africa and Asia, where access to power is extremely limited.

Researchers in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at The University of Nottingham are working on the generator's Linear Alternator — the part which turns the sound energy into electricity. The system uses special configurations of magnets which generate electrical energy from sound. Computer simulations of the linear alternator have proved successful, and test models are currently being constructed in the department's workshops.

Nottingham researchers are working with Dai-ichi, one of Malaysia's largest loudspeaker manufacturers, to bring down production costs through good design practice. Though the Score unit does not physically resemble the average loudspeaker, it is compatible with the Dai-ichi manufacturing process.

More on this at ScienceDaily.com.