Allah - comment on Jebat Must Die

empanggup (14:10:37) : comment on JebatMustParai

What a lenghty discussion this is. I am a Sarawakian, a christain and a native of Sarawak. Our ancestors were headhunters once and had mostly believed in Animism. Then some fine days -way before Malaysia was born some Tuans came to Sarawak preaching christainity. God knows what the converted natives called God then. Since the natives couldn’t speak English the missionary priests opted to learn and speak the native languages instead - predominantly the Iban language. To see the Tuans speak Ibans for instance was quite amusing to the simple longhouse folks. Many missionary schools were set up in Sarawak whereby the children of Ibans, Lauts, Bidayuh, Melanaus, China, Tambi (mostly baieee) attended. The teachers at the mission schools (majority priests) would then require sutdents (irrespective of their race, religion or religionless - to pray a morning prayer in English or even in Iban - a christain way, with the sign of cross, etc. like : dalam nama apai, nama anak enggau roh kudus….

Notice that - where the heck that language “roh kudus” was coming from? It’s definitely not from the Iban, Bidayuh, Kelabit, etc.

We the christain natives have been hearing our Tuan whiteman priests preaching in Iban langauge who referred to God as “Allah Taala”…but mind you most of the natives did not know how to read and write, so they heard something like “Alah Tala”…but no issue for us. The point is whether the origin of this “Alah Tala” was from Saudi Arabia, Ireland, Russia, Sipadan, Timbuktu, or wherever, we don’t care! What we care is that we have been using it and refer to God.

But now after so many donkey years…if you like to count from 1800, well that’s quite a lot of years (although some Ibans then were still busy pursuing head hunting activities and tribal warfare) - but now, yes only now, after the formation of Malaysia, our brother Muslims in Malaysia, mainly the West Malaysians - Orang Malaya we called them in our local slang, AGAINST the native christains to use the word!

Sensitive or not, minority or majority or not, all these depend on which angle you are looking at it from. From our Dayak christain angle, we oppose such as a call, as we think it is unfair and discriminate is the minority bumiputra. Had this cropped up during the formation of Malaysia, Tun Jugah then would have said “NO”. So, is this now an issue the Herald is trying to depend. What’s wrong they depend? We from East Malaysia say now to our brother Malays, come on big brothers, please give us a chance!