Herald’s fate irrelevant to Christians

No court or government can decide, determine or dictate how anyone should or should not call his or her god.

COMMENT

It was a foregone conclusion that the Federal Court would not grant leave to the Catholic Church and the Herald, its weekly newspaper in four languages including Bahasa, to appeal against a Court of Appeal (COA) ruling on the paper’s use of “Allah” for God.

If leave had been granted, it would have been for political reasons, keeping Sabah and Sarawak in mind. The church would have been given a hearing, but not heard at the end of the day. The church’s request for points of law rulings on nearly 30 issues would have been relegated to the dusty shelves. Judicial review, being a trite law, would focus on procedures.

The Federal Court, by a majority of four Muslim judges against three including one Muslim, said last Monday that it saw no reason to interfere with the decision of the COA.

The church may seek a revision of that decision. In that case, it must emphasise that it wants to bring up the issue of procedural fairness and nothing else. In fact, nothing else matters in judicial review cases. It was because the church had not emphasised procedural fairness that leave was not granted.

The COA had held that the Home Minister had followed procedures—whether proper or otherwise was not considered—in directing the Herald not to use “Allah” in  Malay print to refer to God.

In the COA’s opinion, to refer to God as Allah is not integral to the Christian faith. In short, Allah is exclusive to Muslims.

By itself, the COA’s opinion is “syirik”, to use the Malay spelling for the Quranic term that refers to the highest degree of blasphemy. There is no greater sin in Islam than to declare or imply that there is more than one God. Unlike Islamic scholars in Pakistan, Turkey, the Middle East and the United States, no Muslim in Malaysia has publicly raised the issue of syirik in the COA ruling.

The COA drew on the Ananda Marg case in Calcutta, where the Supreme Court of India ruled that dancing on the streets was not integral to the practice of the cult. The Indian court did not forbid Ananda Marg cultists from dancing on the streets. But the COA did not go there; it only saw “not integral to the practice of the cult”.

A mystery

How the COA arrived at the conclusion that Allah was not integral to the practice of the Christian faith in Malaysia, at least in Borneo, remains a mystery.

However, the Federal Government has said that Monday’s decision is confined only to the Herald and does not affect Christians in any other way. Presumably, Sikhs and Bahais are not affected too. They too, like the Christians in Borneo, use “Allah” as their term for God. Of course Allah is not God’s only name. “His are the most beautiful names,” says the Quran, and scholars of the holy book tells us that it mentions 99 of these names.

Even if the Herald’s fate has an all-encompassing effect on Christians as lawyers are claiming, there is little to worry about.

No court or government can decide, determine and dictate how anyone should or should not call his or her God.

Law itself exists beyond what is in the statute books and interpreted by the courts. It is natural, universal and based on common sense. If it is not enforced, cannot be enforced and/or is widely flouted, it’s as if it was never there in the first place.

It’s unfortunate that the Home Minister did not see the wisdom of withdrawing the policy directive to the Herald on the use of “Allah” in Malay print.

The Church, in its wisdom, must cease publication of the Herald and bring out a new Catholic weekly. Here, it would be free to use the term “Allah” in Malay print.