All Because Of A Word....

Currently there's an on-going issue about the word "Allah" in a Catholic weekly magazine, Herald, in Malaysia. The Muslim majority opposes the usage of "Allah" for "God" in the Malay articles of the magazine, but the court allows it. 3-4 churches have faced arson attacks since yesterday morning - I am not even sure whether they're Catholic churches (They could be Protestant churches). So, there's an on-going tension in the country. I believe majority of the Muslims do not support the arson attacks though - those are the actions of some fanatics who do not even understand their own religion.

This part is my theory:
As an Atheist, I am basically neutral but I am worried that this issue may be escalated into a racial issue. The reason is the fanatics cannot differentiate Catholic and Protestant churches. I doubt they can differentiate Buddhists/Hindus/Atheists from Catholics too - they may end up targeting non-Malays. However, in this process of wrong identity, some Muslim Chinese/Indians could attacked by mistake too. It will be a havoc and absolutely not good for the nation. I am sure that if this kind of issue occurs in the U.S., the problem is the same.

From my point of view, both the Catholics that insist on using the word "Allah" knowing that it's so sensitive to the Muslims and the Muslim fanatics are equally wrong.

The Catholics should just use a different Malay word in the place of "Allah". In fact, they can use the actual Malay word "Tuhan" ("Allah" is in fact an Arabic word...not even a true Malay word). The situation is similar to provoking a group of dogs - the good dogs may do you no harm, the bad dogs may bark and chase you, the mad dog will bite you or even kill you.

The action of the Muslim fanatics are obviously wrong too. This is not the teaching of Islam or any religion. They're just a group of thugs.

The politicians have been using the word "religion tolerance" over and over for decades. Religion tolerance is just tolerating other religions without any respect. Religion tolerance is obviously not good enough - we need to respect other people's religions. Just like a Muslim friend suggested, we should visit the church/mosque/temple of another religion and help cleaning up the place or watering the plants. You'll gain respect when you learn to respect others.