Perkasa wants Vatican envoy expelled, claims Christians out to ‘confuse’ Muslims

PETALING JAYA, July 16 — Christians here intend to “confuse” Muslims with their usage of the word “Allah”, Perkasa alleged today as it joined other Malay rights groups in demanding the expulsion of the Vatican ambassador to Malaysia for broaching the controversy.

Irwan Fahmi Ideris, who leads the youth wing of the controversial right-wing group, insisted that “Allah” is exclusive to Muslims and questioned the right of Archbishop Joseph Marino (picture) to touch on Islamic rights, which he reminded is the key religion mentioned in the Federal Constitution.

He urged Muslims nationwide to band together in protecting their religion from being usurped by others, warning that being too open-minded by allowing others to use “Allah” would lead to the abuse of Islam.

“Who is Joseph Marino to speak about or challenge the Malaysian Constitution?

“Muslims in Malaysia must be firm in protecting the sanctity and identity of their religion,” he said in a statement this morning.

“Being too open to a point of allowing those of other religious faiths to abuse Islamic rights is dangerous because the key objective of Christians in using ‘Allah’ is to confuse the Muslims by claiming that all religions are the same,” he added.

In his first media interview here last Thursday, Marino, the Vatican’s first envoy to Malaysia, observed that the “Allah” storm that has been raging here for the past five years was unique to this Southeast Asian nation due to the widespread use of the Malay language, the lingua franca of Malaysia’s Bumiputera Christians.

He indicated that the local churches have presented a “logical and acceptable” argument to counter the allegations by some hardline Muslims here that “Allah”, a word of Middle Eastern origin, was exclusive to Islam.

“But the document that they produce seems to be very well-presented in terms of explaining why Christians use this word,” the apostolic nuncio said, referring to the Christian Federation of Malaysia’s (CFM) fact sheet on the “Allah” released a couple of months ago.

But Marino carefully pointed out that the ongoing appeal by the Home Ministry to reverse a 2009 High Court judgment in favour of the Catholic Church was an “internal matter” when asked to comment further on the dispute.

Last Monday, Malaysia’s Catholic Church filed an application to strike out the Home Ministry’s appeal.

For his remarks, Marino earned widespread criticism from far-right Muslim groups who immediately demanded a retraction or his expulsion from Malaysia.

On Sunday, the Malaysian Islamic NGO Consultative Council (MAPIM) accused him of not respecting the local “consensus” granting Muslims exclusivity to the Arabic word.

“Broadly speaking, the word Allah is used by non-Muslims in the Arab countries, but not in Malaysia. Malaysia has a ‘limit’ on the use of the word Allah,” Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid, the president of MAPIM, was quoted as saying in a report by Sinar Harian.

“The Vatican statement is contrary to the ‘consensus’ in Malaysia that ‘Allah’ is used specifically for Muslims in this country.”

It is unclear what “consensus” Mohd Azmi was referring to.

Marino has also come under fire from government figures.

Last week, Minister in charge of Islamic affairs Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom slammed the ambassador over the issue, accusing him causing anxiety among the public and threatening the unity among Malaysians.

On Sunday, Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman issued a strongly-worded statement over the alleged meddling into the “Allah” controversy, which he deemed to be Malaysia’s internal affairs.

Labelling Marino “disrespectful”, Irwan joined critics today in demanding that the government censure the papal envoy, apart from booting him out from Malaysia.

“The ambassador should rightfully leave this country because this is an Islamic country,” he said.

The High Court had stirred waves when in ruled in 2009 that the “Allah” word was not the exclusive right of Muslims, and the Catholic Church’s newspaper, Herald, could publish it in its Bahasa Malaysia section, which caters to its Bumiputera congregation.

The “Allah” row erupted in 2008 when the Home Ministry threatened to revoke the Herald’s newspaper permit, prompting the Catholic Church to sue the government for violating its constitutional rights.

A 2010 census puts Christians as Malaysia’s third-largest religious group at 2.6 million people, with slightly over one million of them being Catholics.

About 64 per cent of the Christians here are Bumiputera and Malay-speaking.