Pakatan leaders agree need for common stand on ‘Allah’ issue
Pakatan Rakyat (PR) must take a common stand on the ongoing ‘Allah’ dispute, say several leaders after one of their lawmakers warned that indecisiveness on the issue might cost the opposition pact dearly at the next general election.
However, they have not set a date for a meeting on the issue, which reignited earlier this month when Selangor Islamic authorities seized Malay and Iban language bibles on suspicion it was for proselytising rather than worship.
The PR leaders also warned that as religion is a sensitive topic, it was necessary to address it carefully to avoid the fanning emotions. Mainly Muslim Malaysia has a 29 million population with at least 10% being Christians.
PAS central committee member Khalid Samad agreed that it would benefit the opposition coalition to have a common stand.
"Pakatan leaders should discuss this, make a decision and stick to their guns," he told The Malaysian Insider.
At the same time, he cautioned against politicising the issue, as was being done by Umno and its supporters who objected to the use of the term "Allah" by non-Muslims.
The Islamist party's official stand, said the Shah Alam MP, is that the word "Allah" is not exclusive to Muslims but felt the word "God" should be translated as "Tuhan" instead of "Allah".
DAP vice-chairman Ariffin Omar said one of the reasons that contributed to the lack of common stand was that PR had yet to be registered as a coalition despite repeated attempts to do so with the Registrar of Societies (RoS).
Another was because the fight to use the word "Allah" for a Catholic weekly is set to take place before the Federal Court in seeking permission to challenge the Court of Appeal's ruling on the issue.
He said DAP had always felt that the issue had been manipulated and played up, adding that those who objected to it are minorities, consisted mostly of Umno's die-hard supporters
"Despite a lack of common stand, individual leaders in Pakatan have always spoken out against this.
"They are aware of how this matter is manipulated," he said, adding that flaming this issue further is not going to deflect attention from the rising cost of living.
PKR vice-president N. Surendran said opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had clearly stated his stand that the term is not exclusive to any community.
The problem, he said, is the use of traditional media against the pact which "drowned out" its stand.
"It is a question of perception and it arises because the media is being used in favour of BN and the extremists. Our position gets skewed or misquoted," he said.
At a forum on Monday night, PKR strategic director Rafizi Ramli said Pakatan's indecisiveness on the ongoing tussle will cause them to be "sitting lame ducks" in the next three years, which might work to Umno's advantage.
He felt the pact's reticence could be due to the results of a survey by Universiti Malaya’s Centre for Democracy and Elections last December which showed 77% Malays polled felt that the term "Allah" should not be used by non-Muslims.
This, despite the fact that Pakatan's stand for the past three years is that the term is not exclusive to any community, he said, a stand that had cost them votes.
Rafizi warned that if Pakatan continued to be indecisive and wishy-washy over its position, they would be falling into the hands of Umno and like-minded people who believed that playing up racial religious elements are the right formula to stay in power. – January 15, 2014.
