A small little voice from Shah Alam

My heart is aching, and my feeling is disturbed, distorted, disorientated. It could be the same feeling like how the other Malaysians feels now.

I am just a small little boy, talking issues like these might get my scholarship jeopardized. I am a Christian, but that isn't the reason why I felt sad when 3 churches were burnt down amid the conflicts over "Allah". I am disappointed because Malaysian acts way too childish regarding sensitive issues after 52 years of independence.

When those 3 churches were burnt down, what was I doing?

I WAS HAVING A VERY HAPPY CONVERSATION WITH Pn Liza, my ethics and moral lecturer who is going to teach me about ethics, and I was with her because I would like to know more about ethics and akhlak in different religious view. She is an Islam, and I am a Christian. She is a lecturer, and I am a student.

Indeed, I am very grateful as she explained to me how to look into ethics and differentiate between good and evil in Islamic views. I am really interested in ethics and philosophy as a single topic can be viewed in a multitude of perspective.

She didn't burn me down or chase me away when I mentioned that I am a Christian. In fact, we started discussing about how Protestant and Roman Catholic formed at the very beginning after cruxifition of Jesus Christ. We shared idea about our own religions view regarding these and that for 1 hour and 10 minute. It is a very short period of mine, but it means a lot to my way of thinking.

The underlying conclusion is that We don't really know much about our neighbour religions. We share a lot of things in common, but a little bit of difference can crumble our harmonious relationship. Both of the religions teach us to have peace with each others, but we end up having war and resentment against each others.

Then we started to discuss about our view on ethics. Actually we learnt something from each others. Both of us act like an insight in our religions so that we can be inspiration towards each others. Pn Liza actually said "thanks you, I had learnt something new from new today, why I didn't think about that before." She was talking about how to differentiate between a good muslim and a bad muslim by some of their activities like Hajj and zakat and solat. What I learnt from her is actually the reason why some of the Muslim they refuse to accept "allah' to be used among Christians who speak in Malay. The Holy Bible never mentions about "Allah" but to Muslim, "Allah" appears in Quran for more than thousands time! They can't be blamed as, to me, "Allah" is a really important and precious word.

However, "Allah" by definition is only an Arabic word for "God". Linguistically, "Allah" is a very unique word different from English word "God" because "Allah" cannot be defined in sex while "God" might lead to confusion as there is an ambiguity to define "God". "Allah", as an Arabic word, can truly explain the characteristics and attribution of "God" or "Tuhan". Therefore, some of the Christian in Egypt and Middle East Countries use "Allah" instead of "God" .

This leads to the fundamental question, "why do Christians in Malaysia insist on using 'Allah'?" Since 'Allah' is just an Arabic word, and Malay native speaker don't really use Arabic words like "Allah" to represent God, but "Tuhan" to represent Him.

Muslims in Malaysia, on the other hand, worry that the use of "Allah" in Christian will lead to confusion among muslims and thus lead to their conviction to Christianity.

I am here not to judge who is right, who is wrong, but to tell you, these controversial should not be the factor that disintegrates our harmony. A teacher and a student can discuss such a sensitive issue in an open-minded way harmoniously, why not for those other erudite scholars in religions?

No matter who is behind all these, I am proud to say that, the next generation of Malaysia like me will not allow such havoc to happen in Malaysia. Sometimes when your thoughts are provoked and irritated by these sensitive issues, think of the light-hearted conversation between two young souls discussing about religions and ethics. Listen to the little voice for peace and harmony from that pedestrian room, in a mundane school. :)

They can have peace, why you can't?