When Religion is Politicised

Mark the day 8th of January as a shameful day for Malaysians on the whole. Well, mark it as the day when a religious and theological issue was politicised by anonymous individuals or parties to fuel their own political mileage and aspirations. And mark it as the day when the infantile concept of 1Malaysia was nullified by the irresponsibility’s of certain people.

On this day, there were at least three known attacks on churches around the Klang Valley region. In one of the churches, the ground floor was destroyed by fire as a result of arson whilst at the other two churches situated in Petaling Jaya, firebombs were thrown into the compound of the churches but luckily they ceased to explode.

This whole problem stemmed from the fact that a court ruled that a Catholic newspaper could use the word ‘Allah’, the Muslim pronunciation of God, in their Malay-language publication. This led to widespread discontent and furore amongst the Muslim community upon hearing the court’s ruling.

It is for everyone to see that those responsible for the attacks acted in a very unprofessional, hostile manner. There could have been an amicable roundtable discussion on this issue. But no. First, there were threats of all sorts. And then, this minor group of hard-line but disillusionised Muslims did the unthinkable – attaching the Christians places of worship.

What I find baffling the most is the fact that the more ultra-Islamic political party, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), downplayed the significance of the court’s ruling. The party President was of the opinion that the word ‘Allah’ is not necessarily reserved for the Muslims only. After learning of the attacks, he remarked, “Where did they learn this from?”

In addition to that, the Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, also urged for calm among the Muslim community. Before the attacks, he reminded the Muslims to respect all other religions and to act in a responsible and noble manner.

So, how on Earth has this small problem regarding the legal use of ‘Allah’ in a Catholic newspaper spiral into a full-blown crisis? For one, surely the mentality of the certain individuals and groups who resist the ruling is a little ‘immature’ and ‘childish’. And then, there was the instigating and hyping of this issue by certain parties that probably led to the attacks being carried out.

The most obvious conclusion that people get to regarding this matter, especially those whom I have spoken too, is that this is all done in the name of politics. It would be hard to exactly pin-point a certain individual in this case, but the general theory and idea is there.

As we all are aware of, every religion preaches this set of basic virtues – respect other people’s religion, love one another and do not politicise religious issues. The million dollar question here is – if that is the case, why did they do it? Perhaps, the answer is that they aren’t the Muslims who are God-fearing as they claim to be.

What is your take on the matter? Was it avoidable? Is this the start of something much bigger in scale? Drop some comments to articulate your points.