I woke up one day last week, to a front page news about attacks being made upon churches in Malaysia – Kuala Lumpur (KL) in particular.
It shocked me. KL is a mere 3-hour car ride away from Singapore, and being there over the last week of December scared me to bits. It brought upon me the reality of such racial and religious tensions to quiet, peaceful Singapore. On top of that, my mother and I were stuck in the middle of the 1st August riots near Masjid India in KL. Our shopping trip turned into a looking-for-shelter-tissue-paper trip because of the tear gas sprayed on civilians.
Yes. I experience tear gas. I hope for the first and last time. Although I do admit that the excitement was one that I could never get in Singapore, I mean, rioting and running away from water vapour that burned your eyes, it’s all very exciting -
I digress.
It’s just that I could never imagine being so far yet so near to chaos. Attacks on churches in Malaysia and then you have Indonesians telling Malaysians not to ‘copy’ from them. The attacks being emulated in Malaysia shows how vulnerable anyone is to attacks in other countries. Nau’zubillah, I hope it won’t happen in Singapore. Racial and religious tension here in my lion city is the last thing I would ever want to encounter. Next thing you know, it’s against the law to fall in love with someone of a different religion, which I have been guilty of -
ANYWAYS. My take on the ‘Allah’ issue? It’s not an issue. It is a misconstrued idea that only Muslims are allowed to use the word ‘Allah’. I know Islamic clerics may disagree with me, or rather, I disagree with their opinions, but to me, anyone can say and use the word ‘Allah’.
Firstly, based on my humble knowledge of my own faith, Islam; the people of the book are those who believe in the revelations in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. We believe that we are all Ahli Sunnah Wal-Jamaah – People of the Book. We come from the same source, Allah, who in turn send to us messengers (Moses, Jesus and Muhammad) to preach the same religion. However, due to miscommunication and misconstrued ideas between the first two messengers (Jesus and Moses) and the people, a different religion surfaced altogether. Both Moses and Muhammad appear in the Holy Bible, and Muslims are allowed to eat Kosher food when Halal food is unavailable. If we share the same source of power, that is Allah, why can’t we all use his name?
Secondly, if all three religions I’ve mentioned came from the same source, it means they also share the same Holy Land – Jerusalem. Though it may now be the centre of conflict in the Palestinian issue, we cannot deny the fact that Jerusalem has a certain degree of importance to us Muslims, and you Christians and Jews. Now if we once shared a Holy Land, there must be some way to communicate with one another right? And how else to do that but to communicate in Arabic? Allah is ‘God’ in Arabic. A Korean singer was overheard during a radio interview with an Arabic radio station saying ‘inshallah’ – God-willing. So technically, anyone can say ‘Allah’, right?
I’m no expert at this, I must admit. But from my understanding as a soon to be 20-year-old undergrad, the reasons above are my views on the ‘chaos’ in Malaysia. Why people are attacking churches and Sikh temples (???????WTF??????) I have no idea. It is a sin to attack places of worship, even in times of war. I just pray that the attacks stop and that the attackers realise that their actions mean nothing.
I’m just wondering, though, what the Late Yasmin Ahmad would think of these attacks. I’m just glad it didn’t happen when she was alive.
She would have been very disappointed.
