KUALA LUMPUR: DAP has once again raised the thorny issue of the use of word ‘Allah’ in the Bahasa Malaysia version of the Bible. DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, in his Christmas message today, urged the government to allow Christians to use the word in the BM version of the bibles, in the spirit of the holiday, Malaysiakini reported.

“A people-centric government can also bring peace and prosperity based on the principles of truth, freedom, justice, democracy and integrity.

“For this reason, DAP urges the BN federal government to allow the use of the word Allah in the Bahasa Malaysia version of the Bible as has been allowed in Sabah and Sarawak for the last 50 years and practiced in the Middle East for more than a thousand years,” he was quoted as saying.

Lim (pic) said if BN was truly a people-centric coalition, it would not politicize Christianity to garner support from Malay voters. “BN should stop using the fear tactics of a Christian state to frighten Malay voters to support BN, when Christians have never sought a Christian state but instead pledged loyalty to the federal constitution that Islam is the religion of Malaysia,” he said.

He said although principles and idealism had been dismissed by irresponsible quarters as incompatible with running a government, he said a people- centric government can be both principled but practical, idealistic and yet realistic.

BN’s inability to stick to principles, he said, can be seen from episodes such as the effects of the Lynas rare earth plant on the safety of the public; the Automated Enforcement System (AES) and the RM871 billion illicit money outflows.

He said a people-centric government would not have allowed such projects which place “profits over people.”

“Further, these projects would never pass the integrity test, as accountability and transparency would quickly expose the lies, injustice and cronies who benefit the most at the expense of public interest.

“Let us advance efforts to establish a people-centric government based on integrity that gives preference to people over profits to put a stop to any future Lynas rare earth plant, the AES and RM 871 billion illicit outflow of dirty money scandals.” added Lim.

DAP’s resurrection of the ‘Allah’ issue is set to draw backlash from other quarters. In 2009, Catholic weekly The Herald landed in hot water with the Home Ministry when it used the word “Allah’ in its Bahasa Malaysia edition when referring to God.

Later that year in December, the KL High Court ruled that the Home Ministry’s ban on the word was illegal.

The ruling was then followed by a number of arson attacks on churches in the country. As a result, the ruling was suspended pending an appeal from the government to seek for the word “Allah” to only be used by Muslims.


- mD