Furore Over a Word

I always know that pen is mightier than sword and words can hurt especially when they smack of sarcasm. A word can have positive, negative and neutral connotation. A word with positive connotation exudes light feeling and jubilation and in the same time people tend to agitate when harsh word are hurled ar them.

What confounded me is that a word which is neutral can also spark controversy and subsequently lead to outburst or anger and general swearing of vengeance. The word " Allah " is a neutral word which suppose to be just a noun refering to god. However, people are at each other throat professing that only muslim can use the word as it is sacred . Likewise, christians stand firm and refuse to budge as giving in would mean compromising and eventually lead to more daring encroachment by the authority.

In the end, it remind me of a parable of the two goat. A white goat wants to cross the river and the only option is the bridge.As it was crossing the river, it met a black ,fat,strong,stout goat coming in its opposite way.As the bridge was narrow, only one of them can pass through which require another to retreat back to the banks of the river.Both refuse to retreat, and start hurling bad word at each other.The black goat, upon seeing his opponent as weak and thin, decided to charge forward and confront the white goat.The white goat refuse to cave in and resist the charge with all its might. The end results could happen in three ways.

1) Both of them slip and fall into the river. As they cannnot swim, both drown and perish. ( Malaysia decended into chaos and disoder,all malaysians will perish)

2)The black goat win and kill the white goat. However, as luck would have it, it bump into a tiger along the way.Too tired after the fight, it is unable to run for its life and become the meal of the tiger.( Muslim will win but our image at the international level will be tainted)3)

3)Both of them after fighting for the whole day,decided to seek consensus by having dialogue.( we set up a commitee for religious dialogue. )

The issue of the usage of the word " allah" by christian should not be brought to court in the first place because the issue is too sentitive and it does more harm than good in promoting religious tolerant and understanding in our country.
This is evident in the recent demonstration and destruction of church. Eventually , admist speculation that the destruction is done by extreme muslims, two mosque was attacked . The chain reaction could be dire and chaos may ensue.Sentiment and ego should definitelt take a backseat when come to religion issue .Only when we are prepare to resolve issue through dialogue , without trying to impose our values on others, then we can claim to be truly democratic and multireligious.