Category: Society

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Liberty Politics & government Society

[2149] Of there are Malay alternatives to the term Allah and tuhan

I have clarified my position regarding the usage of the term Allah by Catholic group and by extension, any term by anybody. This reasoning forms the basis of my position not to oppose Catholic group’s use of the term. Indeed, I consider this line of reasoning as not only the most convincing for me, consistent with my wider libertarian philosophy that I hold, it is the only line of reasoning that informs my decision not to oppose it. This is the libertarian position. The purpose of this entry is to address another position regarding the lack of alternative.

First, there are other reasons that have been bandied elsewhere. Arguably, the argument I have seen the most is based on historical development of the Malay Bible. As it goes, certain domination of Christianity — and Sikhs — have been using the term Allah well before the 1980s, when the government first interfered in the issue. Furthermore, the first Bible that used the term Allah to refer to the Christian god was first translated into Malay in the 17th century by a Dutchman as part of Christian evangelization effort in Southeast Asia. Notwithstanding the libertarian position, this argument is acceptable because it appeals to historical accident. Moreover, it demonstrates that the use of the term by Christian, obviously, as not a recent phenomenon. Yet, it fails to kill the suspicion that use of the term Allah is really for proselytizing activities, which is one major problem associated with the whole controversy to start with. This failure what convinces me that this particular rationale as imperfect.

I have no problem with propagation of any religion as long as those religions do not violate liberty but in addressing the issue in Malaysia, the suspicion seriously have to be addressed. To say that there is a law to prevent propagation of other religions among Muslims as an answer to that concern is utterly deficient because — ignoring its anti-liberty rationale — would such law work? Do differentiate the normative and positive aspects.

Despite its failure, I reiterate, the argument based on history may have some sway.

The second argument, which is the purpose of this entry, is the point that there is a lack of alternative to describe the term god. Ignore the fact that terms can be imported from other languages, even the Malay language has alternatives to Allah and tuhan. There are more than two words to describe the idea.

While I set out to disprove the argument that there is no alternative to the word Allah and tuhan in Malay, knowing that there are alternatives, my casual research on the language and terms to describe the idea of god really surprises me even.

Consider the fourth edition of R. O. Winstedt’s An Unabridged English-Malay Dictionary published in 1963. For god, Winstedt listed Allah, tuhan, dewa, dewi, dewata, indera and khalik. These words are detailed by Teuku Iskandar’s Kamus Dewan as published by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka in 1970. Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka’s Kamus Dwibahasa Bahasa Inggeris-Bahasa Malaysia adds another one and that is betara. This has not even considered other words and phrases like pencipta, tuan and dato’ which can be made to mean the same as god within specific context.

There are also older words like Hyang or Sang Yang that are rarely used but remains Malay nonetheless.

I personally have never encountered the word khalik and betara but that shows how, even for a native speaker of Malay, the full breadth of the language is larger, as it should typically be, than everyday popular vocabulary bank. In this sense, arguing that there is no alternative is an act of sheer arrogance of one’s pool of knowledge. Arrogance can be justified but when it is based on ignorance, then humility must take its place.

Thus, this renders the argument of no alternative to naught. In fact, I consider such argument as a point in ignorance, if not outright dishonesty.

This requires highlight in political terms. Even I as a person who is generally dismissive of religions and its activities and as a libertarian who actually does not oppose the use of the term Allah by Catholic Church in Malaysia am distrustful of the motive behind the employment of the rationale. Consider what would conservative Malay Muslims would think? The label conservative Malay Muslims is rather misleading. A lot of not-so conservative Malay Muslims feel distressed about the issue. I can divorce the flaw of the ”˜no alternative’ argument from my overall position but the less libertarian Malays would not do so and would use it instead to strengthen their illberal opposition.

Using the ”˜no alternative’ argument will just give more fuel to the opposition fire. Not only it defeats effort at bridge building, it helps to popularly defeat libertarian position on the matter.

So, my advice is, do not use the argument that there is no alternative. It is simply not true. Just stick to the historical accident and libertarian arguments.

Categories
Society

[2148] Of racism and moral authority

In an ideal world, moral authority is unnecessary for a person to hold a position, to raise a point, to criticize it, to object to an action, to advocate it or anything similar. What is of value is the argument itself. It is most regrettable however that we live here down in the mud where the difference between ideal and reality is self-evident. That affects many things, including effort to address racial issues.

The sure way to avoid unnecessary disappointment in this jaded world is to assume that each person pursues his or her own interest. It is true that there are altruists even in this world but that is no reason to revise that assumption regarding self-interest. If one does meet an altruist, one should consider such meeting as a bonus, no matter how frequent such encounter is.

While self-interest has proven to be a driver of human progress, it does have its downside. It is because of self-interest that far too many individuals say and do far too many things not because they believe in it, but because it is convenient to say or do so. Honesty simply cannot be taken for granted. Skepticism is always a justifiable position.

With the recognition that we do not live in an ideal world and with the assumption that one needs to make in order to avoid disappointment, moral authority becomes a useful indicator in determining the worth of an argument to some extent. Here, moral authority refers to the appropriateness of a person’s action or position in a particular issue in the eyes of others or even one’s own in an earnest way. It provides context for us to assess the level of honesty of a particular argument.

In discussing racial discrimination or downright racism in Malaysia, perhaps it is sometimes useful to look at the issue through the prism of moral authority.

There are various ways to gain moral authority but with respect to racism, one significant way is by becoming a victim of racial discrimination, or simply hatred grounded on race. By becoming a victim, one experiences actual stress caused by racism. This may sound like a tautology but such experience requires stressing so that the point made here is clear.

For example, US senator and war veteran John McCain has the moral authority — or at least he has greater gravitas compared to other politicians — to speak on the issue of prisoners of war because he was a prisoner himself. Without being one, he would have little authority to speak on the matter. Others would not give his opinion the necessary weight otherwise, controlling for other factors such as consistency.

As much as his personal suffering gives McCain his moral authority on a particular subject, a victim of racism gets elevated above others untouched by racism. Victims speak from experience, unlike innocent others. Lacking personal experience, the innocent others may look at the victims for leadership or as heroes of the issue until the innocents become victims themselves, if ever. In the same line, since the victims speak from experience, the victims may see themselves as the logical opinion leaders or heroes among the innocent others.

As a result, any person that does not speak from experience, but only speaks from the position of knowledge, suffers some sort of dismissal by others in speaking against racism compared to those who speak from experience, even if the point is the same. Such is the curse of a world less than ideal.

As such, moral authority is a marvelous resource if utilized against all versions of racism.

The same moral authority unfortunately can be a resource to promote further racism in the reversed direction and in doing so, exacerbating the problem. The perceived moral authority may explain why there are individuals who respond to racism by espousing racism. With the moral authority as victims, they consider their racist actions as justified.

When a person sees his or her racism as justified, it becomes hard to convince them why such racism is wrong. This is especially so when such racism is justified in the person’s eyes as well as in the eyes of others too. What moral authority conferred by others reinforces the moral authority a person perceives that he or she has.

Despite so, when victims of racism use their moral authority to commit further racism, there are reasons to think how that negates their moral authority on the issue. From a third party perspective or the innocent others, if the victim commits the very same act he or she suffered from onto another person, the new victim will gain moral authority to speak out against racism, or to perpetuate it. When both victims have such moral authority following a game of tit-for-tat, a third person will not be able to decide who has greater moral authority in the case. As a result, the victim gains moral authority only to lose it.

What is the case in one’s own eyes? If a person thinks that his or her racism is justified because he or she has gone through victimhood, then one must necessarily find others’ act of racism against him or her as justified when others obtain their moral authority by the same way the person obtains his or hers. Here lies the danger. The original victims and subsequent victims trapped in a racist loophole may consider themselves as obtaining additional moral authority to commit racism, each time they become victims yet again.

When individuals find themselves trapped in the loop, the ones who may be able to break the cycle are a third party and the victims of racism who use their moral authority to speak out against all kind of racism instead of committing racism in the reversed direction.

The third party, who are the innocent others and presumably impartial parties, may highlight how racists lose their moral authority from a third person perspective. Unfortunately, because the third party is the innocent others, the racists’ perception — racists born out victimhood of racism — that the innocent others do not have the moral authority to speak out against racism may limit the influence of the innocent others.

This leaves victims of racism who do not perpetuate racism in return as a formidable force in effort to break the loop of racism from the point of view of moral authority. In their own eyes, they do not see any act of racism as justified — unlike the other victims — while having they moral authority intact. In the eyes of third parties as well, they certainly have moral authority intact unlike the other victims of racism who exacerbate the problem of racism.

Therefore, if effort to address racism is to be successful in terms of moral authority, then voices of these victims who use their moral authority to speak against all kind of racism have to be amplified. We have to give them space to speak out against racism. Not only that, we need to encourage them to speak out.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

First published in The Malaysian Insider on January 9 2010.

Categories
Conflict & disaster Liberty Society

[2146] Of the state must act against trangression

And so it has come to this. Amid the tension between those who support — or at least do not oppose — and those who oppose the use of the term Allah by the Catholic Church in Malaysia, a church was torched by arsonists, as the initial reports go.[1] I fear that this might not be the worst. In times like this, in the interest of protection of freedom, the rule of law is paramount.

It is in times like this that those who do not understand the rule of law, the limits of a person and the rights of others must face the full consequences of their transgression.

Rightful prosecution to the fullest extent of the law is not only justified, it is a must as to serve an important lesson to all. The snowball must be stopped dead in its track, if it is a snowball. Cautionary principle demands an action, regardless whether a snowball effect is in motion or not. Prudence must prevail in this matter.

The lesson is this: no matter how badly one detests the other, use of force is never an action for the first mover. It is not an option not just because there was no actual threat directed against the perpetrators, but also because physical threat on the perpetrators is not imminent.

One’s freedom is only up to the expression of that detestation and not an inch more. If one uses force to act on that detestation, as with the case with the burning of the church in Kuala Lumpur, then one must be prepared for a proper exaction of compensation by the state on oneself.

The door of legitimate state retaliation against the actual perpetrators of crime has now been opened. This is only on behalf of the victims. It is so as a matter of protection of rights, specifically right to property. And clearly, other rights too, such as right to life, if the transgressive momentum builds up. Attacks like this can easily be a life threatening case.

It is clear that the state cannot fail to carry out its responsibility. If the state fails to carry out this, it may open up the dangerous path of vigilantism.

Pray tell, even if that vigilantism were justified  — in fact, sadly, it is in the case of failure  — enough individuals would realize how far down the spiral would go to refrain from doing so.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

[1] — KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – A church in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur was firebombed early on Friday, gutting the first storey of the building in a residential area, amid a row over the use of the word “Allah” for the Christian God.

“It is confirmed that Desa Melawati church was burnt, at about 12.25 am in the morning. There were no fatalities. We are investigating the incident and suspect foul play,” said Kuala Lumpur Chief Police Officer Mohammad Sabtu Osman.

 

A court ruling last week allowing Catholic newpaper The Herald to use “Allah” for the Christian God has been appealed by the government of the mainly Muslim nation of 28 million people.

The issue has threatened relations between the majority Malay Muslim population and the minority ethnic Chinese and Indian populations who practise a range of religions including Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism. [Malaysia Court Rules Catholic Paper Can Print ”˜Allah’. Niluksi Koswanage. David Chance. Louise Ireland. Reuters. January 8 2010]

Categories
Liberty Society

[2144] Of libertarian position on the Allah controversy

I have nothing clever to say with respect to the controversy involving the usage of the term Allah by Christians in Malaysia (specifically, Catholic Christians I suppose) and objection raised by considerable number of Muslims there.[1] What I have to say is just some plain old consequences arising from my libertarian position. I think I have somewhat clarified my position while trying to explain, what I think is why some more conservative Muslims in Malaysia object to the use of the term Allah by Christians in Malaysia.

In any case, I am going to explain my position.

From the principle of freedom, specifically religious freedom and more broadly, freedom of expression, there is no reason for me to be alarmed by the recent court decision to allow Christians to use the term Allah to refer to their god in Malaysia. For any group to claim exclusive right over an idea that cannot be, in a sense, privatized or perhaps — however ridiculous this may sound — trademarked, is problematic. I cannot quite find the right words to describe it but clearly, no individual liberty has been transgressed by this action taken by Christians. Meanwhile, to prevent Christians from doing so will violate their liberty, and therefore should be untenable for libertarians.

Furthermore, based on the concept of secularism, which I consider as an essential aspect of the libertarian concept of the state, the state should have no role in this at all. So, to me, the court decision is only right. If the court had ruled otherwise, it would call for government intervention in form of religious control in the society.

Not only that, that government intervention will expand the frontier of the state into private life of a person. Just imagine the kind of mechanism required to enforce a ruling that insists the term Allah belongs exclusively to Muslims and no one else in Malaysia. Well, actually, you do not have to imagine it. It is already in place.

Lastly, this conflict paints both Christianity and Islam in Malaysia in a bad light: those Christians who insist in using the term Allah when there are other alternatives and conservative Muslims for their schizophrenic attitude. It is true that the Christian insistence does not violate liberty but hey, a lot of things a lot of people say and do do not violate liberty either. Whether all those things are the smart things to do or say is another matter altogether, even within libertarian constraint.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

[1] — Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) — Malaysia’s High Court ruled that a government ban on non-Muslim publications using the word ”Allah” is unconstitutional, settling a dispute that stoked questions about religious freedom in the country.

The Herald, a weekly publication of the Catholic Church of Malaysia, filed for a judicial review after it was temporarily ordered to stop publishing for two weeks in December 2007 after using the word, which means ”God,” in its Malay-language section. [Malaysia Court Rules Catholic Paper Can Print ”˜Allah’. Manirajan Ramasamy. Ranjeetha Pakiam. Bloomberg. December 31 2009]

Categories
Science & technology Society

[2140] Of dude, where’s my diskette drive?

The dawn of the 21st century disappoints the part of me growing up reading works of science fiction. Here we are living in a much too glorified new century and there are still no flying cars crisscrossing the sky, no aliens from outer space walking our streets and no human bases across the solar system. We did send a roti canai to space but many things remain out of this world. Underneath this childish disappointment is another part of me who is impressed at humanity’s pace of technological progress.

The thought came to me last October when I was frantically downloading every single file I had stored on Geocities. Yahoo! shut Geocities down later that month after more than ten years of existence.

There was a time when the internet was effectively Geocities. Almost everything imaginable was available on Geocities alone. Cheats for Diablo? Latest news on Star Wars? History of the Malay Peninsula?

If the internet was the successor of the Great Library of Alexandria, then Geocities was its precious scrolls. This was back in the mid to the late 1990s. It was a time when surfing speed was incredibly slow that made today’s speed as served by TMNet god sent. It was a time when modems make noise much to the delight of a geeky kid.

It was on Geocities where I learned the hypertext markup language in effort to prove to my friends that I could do it too. With my mastery of HTML, I created my first website.

Updating it was a tough act. If I wanted to change certain details of the website, I had to go back to my text editor application and change it there. It was a big hassle but it was fun. The introduction of WYSIWYG kept me sane for some time.

The emergence of content management system as well as wide access to cheaper storage and greater bandwidth probably ended Geocities. Frustrated as the amount of time I needed to spend to update my website on Geocities, I became an early adopter of Blogger.

The generosity of my alma mater in Ann Arbor with respect to storage further reduced my need of Geocities. Since migrating to Blogger and ultimately WordPress several years later, never once I returned to Geocities, until last October. It was time to say the final goodbye. This is my requiem for it, and for everything that is beautifully obsolete.

My experience with Geocities and the internet by no mean affected me alone. Back in the late 1990s, the latest unsanctioned information was directly available only to the political fringe.

A decade later, the introduction of content management system that makes the proliferation of blogs possible democratised the internet. It is probably not too demanding to assert that this evolution brought political evolution — some would say revolution — in Malaysia. It took years, but it happened.

The return to Geocities was a walk down memory lane for me. Old photos stashed there brought me back to a more innocent age. A folder contained photos taken in Chicago. Another in New York. Another still contained countless of other places. These pictures were scanned from actual hardcopy photographs. Yes, there was a time when film was a crucial component of a camera. The film needed to be processed first before one could enjoy one’s effort. That typically took a week. Not anymore. All those processing are done with a snap of a finger. At a far, better a resolution too. Never mind all those snazzy features a digital SLR has.

I saved all of my life’s work, including my scanned photographs, in 3½-inch diskettes around the same period. One day after spending a summer away from classes, I found my spirit renewed. I was yet again prepared to take up relentless challenges thrown by a cruel Michigan. Before that however, I just needed to transfer some of my files on that 3½-inch diskette to a computer in a laboratory on campus. Amid 50-odd computers, not one of them had a diskette driver on them.

The same situation was true over all computer laboratories on campus. In its place was a weird thing called USB drive. Life was just too hard.

Just less than four months earlier, I would happily hop from computer to computer with my diskettes. On that particular day when I found out about the end of diskette drive, a child of the information revolution felt obsolete.

The world suddenly leapt by me, catching me off-guard. I adapted — I had too — but that taste of obsoleteness still lingers with me, forever a reminder that nothing lasts forever. The only thing one can do is to prepare oneself for the eventuality.

These continuous creative destructions ensure that. It also says that it is likely that tomorrow is going to be a better day. I am willing to bet on that because all these small changes, and more, have more than compensates my childish disappointment. Under its belt is a reputation enough to earn confidence from a mere mortal.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

First published in The Malaysian Insider on December 17 2009.