Militants attach churches: CEN 1.15.10 p 8.

Police inspect All Saints Taiping after it was firebombed in the wake of the Malaysian Supreme Court "Allah" ruling

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

Eight churches and a convent school have been attacked by Islamic militants in Malaysia in the wake of a High Court ruling overturning a government ban on Christians using the word “Allah” to describe God.

All Saints Anglican Church in Taiping in the northern state of Perak and Good Shepherd Anglican Church in Miri in Sarawak on the island of Borneo were among the Catholic, Lutheran and Pentecostal churches attacked by militants between Jan 8-10. Prime Minister Najib Razak has denounced the attacks, and promised government assistance in rebuilding the Metro Tabernacle church in suburban Kuala Lumpur, which was badly damaged by petrol bomb on Jan 8.

The attacks follow a Dec 31 High Court ruling overturning a ban on Christians using the word ‘Allah’ to refer to God. The government has seized Malay-language Bibles that use ‘Allah’ for God, and has sought to close the country’s Catholic Herald for using the word in its publication.

The government has appealed the court ruling, arguing that making ‘Allah’ synonymous with God will confuse Muslims and aid in their conversion to Christianity.

However, lawyers for the Catholic Church have argued that the Arabic word ‘Allah’ has been used in Christian Bibles for the past millennia and its use in Malay to refer to God is not sectarian. The government’s fear of confusion and potential conversion, they argue, is not shared by other Muslim nations, including neighboring Indonesia where Christians and Muslims both use the word ‘Allah’ to refer to God.

The ‘Allah’ dispute has political repercussions for the government of Prime Minister Najib Razak whose United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party leads the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition of fourteen political parties, including the Malaysian Chinese Association and the Malaysian Indian Congress.

In Sept 2008 Razak’s predecessor as prime minister and UMNO party leader Abdullah Badawi instituted the “1Malaysia” campaign to promote national unity, ethnic tolerance, and government efficiency. Since taking power in April, Najib Razak has sought to broaden the coalition’s political base.

Muslims comprise approximately 60 per cent of the country’s population and are predominantly ethnic Malays, while Christians comprise 10 per cent of the population of 28 million.

Opposition MP Charles Santiago told the Press Association the attacks showed that “after 52 years of living together, nation building and national unity is in tatters. The church attacks shattered notions of Malaysia as a model secular Muslim nation in the eyes of the international community.

“Malaysians are now living in fear of a racial clash following the church attacks and rising orthodox Islamic tones in the country,” Santiago said, while opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim blamed the attacks on the UMNO’s “incessant racist propaganda” over the ‘Allah’ issue.

All Saints Church in Taiping, the first Anglican Church consecrated in the Federated Malay States in 1887, was attacked by a petrol bomb on the night of Jan 8. Police report the bomb failed to ignite the Gothic wooden church, which had survived the Second World War unscathed,

Across the country in Sarawak on the northern coast of Borneo, the windows of Good Shepherd Church in Miri were smashed by bricks during the night of Jan 9. The Rev. Donald Jutie told the Utusan Borneo newspaper that upon arriving for church on Sunday morning, he found the windows of the sacristy and choir room, as well as windows in the parish hall smashed.

He told the Borneo Post his congregation was “nervous but we want very much to act like nothing had happened to our church. We have been living in harmony. It is sad for such a thing to happen if indeed it is related to what had been happening in West Malaysia.”

“We really don’t want to speculate on the incident and we don’t want to blame anybody as we don’t know who is behind this,” he said