The Malaysian Allah Controversy

"... And argue not with the People of the Scripture unless it be in (a way) that is better, save with such of them as do wrong; and say: We believe in that which hath been revealed unto us and revealed unto you; our Allah and your Allah is One, and unto Him we surrender."

Surah 29 Ayat 46, Al-Qur'an

Nicked this off Quran.com.

First off, I would like to say that I'm an atheist. I am therefore completely outside the influence of any kind of bias in this matter.

Christianity was established in the mid-1st century AD in the eastern Mediterranean and early Christians have existed in Arab-speaking lands since the 3rd century (there is still a community, though small, existing there today - talked about as recently as last year's June copy of NatGeo magazine). The Arabic language dates back to the 4th century, existing hundreds of years before Islam was founded by the prophet Muhammad in the 7th century.

You know what this means? Do I have to spell it out for youse folks? This means that Christians have been using the word "Allah" for their God hundreds of years before the prophet Muhammad was even born, before even a single Muslim existed in this world. The Christians in the Middle East today still uses it, and the Middle Eastern Muslims saw no problem with that at all. And now, you - a bunch of Malay-speaking bigots - are raising this unholy hoo-ha about how other people use a word in someone else's native tongue.

Also, read your own scriptures, Muslims. Verse 46 of the 29th surah, the Surat al-‘Ankabūt of the Qur'an (quoted right at the top of this post). Your own holy book said that the Christian God is Allah too, and even pointed out that you guys worship the same deity, the God of Abraham/Ibrahim. So what now? Muslims can call the Roman Catholic Christian God Allah, but the Christians themselves can't?

Look, you don't have to take my words for it. You have your own Qur'ans. Go thumb the pages.

Imagine now for a moment that you guys succeed in overturning the high court's decision and successfully institute a nationwide ban on the use of the word "Allah" in reference to the Christians' God - what would you have done? You'll have to ban the Qur'an now, won't you?

And one more thing, "Allah" is the generic Arabic word for God. It is not God's name. It is God's job. You cannot sue for exclusive use of a generic word - it is simply not legal to do so. How if tomorrow, I sue for the exclusive use of the word "banana", or "aeroplane" and make it illegal for anyone else to use these words in print? Good thing is, I can't lawfully do this. And neither can you.

So, my Muslim friends, you argue that you are afraid that people might confuse the two religions? You are afraid that Muslims might be bamboozled and led astray by the Catholics' use of the word?

Seriously, do you really think that your brethren are that spectacularly stupid? C'mon now, quit insulting the intelligence of your own brothers and sisters of the faith.

I am speaking up because I believe in the truth, in the freedom of speech of all humanity. If you truly love knowledge, and love the truth as your own God have ordained, you would not oppose the Catholics' use of the word Allah. Your opposition is both ignorant and unlawful, and is demonstrably against your own religion - to say nothing of torching Christian churches and Sikh temples.

There, I wrote it all in the simplest English I can.



Addendum 15/01/2010: Here is a couple of useful links given by an esteemed Muslim colleague of mine in the comments section for those who want an eloquent Muslim perspective on this matter. Certainly worth a read, in my opinion;

Isu Nama Allah: Garis Panduan Penggunaan Nama Allah
Beza Antara Merebut Nama Allah Dan Mempertahankan Akidah

And here's an easy to understand article on the reason behind the usage of the word "Allah" in the Malay Bible by one Dr Ng Kam Weng;

Allah can't be substituted by Tuhan in Bible translation



P.S. Link this post in your blog so this can reach as many people as possible. Or if you don't like to give me traffic, just copy and paste this. Or rewrite it in your own words. Seriously, I don't give a fuck.

P.P.S. Isn't it ironic that when the Religion of Love clashes with the Religion of Peace, intimidation and violence happens?

P.P.P.S. Here's a shout out to a Malay Muslim friend of mine who helped me hunt down and affirm the translation of the relevant Qur'an verse. He wishes to remain anonymous, naturally.

Assalamualaikum,
k0k s3n w4i

A Study in Kicking Ass

"I can't fly. But I can kick your ass."

Tagline for Kick-Ass (2010)

That's right, bitches.

It's official. Kick-Ass is my most anticipated comic book film of 2010. Watch this teaser right now and tell me you're not completely hooked too,

I'm a huge fan of the ongoing Mark Millar comic series that this movie is adapted from, and if you don't already know, Mark Millar is also the mind behind the Wanted comics which indirectly spawned the unholy 2008 flick of the same name starring Some Guy McAvoy and Angelina Jolie. While the Wanted film was an enjoyable summer popcorn fare, it's completely missing the point of its source material - which is about a world in which all superheroes were either defeated or dead, and the supervillains are in control of the world behind the scenes. The film is about a fraternity of assassins killing people on the orders of a glorified sewing machine to keep the balance of the world or some shit.

The impression which I got osmotically through the Kick-Ass teaser is that it's going to be helluva faithful, and boy, it's going to piss a lot of sanctimonious moral guardians off (giving all of them fatal cerebral aneurysms, I hope). I saw Chloë Moretz in (500) Days of Summer last year as an unlikely relationship guru for Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, and I see her appearance as Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl in this film to be the logical next step in her acting career. Do not question my chain of reasoning.

Another genius casting decision was Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Red Mist. I've liked this guy ever since I saw him in Superbad as McLovin, and he was arguably the best thing about that film. I can't say much about Aaron Johnson though since none of his previous acting roles have been memorable to me at all, but hey, I think he warranted a mention here since he's playing the eponymous Kick-Ass in this film.

This is going to be so so so mind-blowingly AWESOME!

Totally geeking out,
k0k s3n w4i

A Post on Everything

"Everyone is disappointing the more you know someone."

Adele Lack-Cotard, played by Catherine Keener
in Synecdoche, New York (2008)

This is not a review of Synecdoche, New York, but it's a meditation which descended directly from it. It's not one of the best-made films I have ever watched or even one of the most enjoyable - but it's probably one of the most important I have, or will ever experience. I will not recommend it to everyone. I have made it a point to be as honest as I can in my writings, and I do not see any reason why I should stop now. The truth is, most of you are far too stupid to understand this film.

I am incredibly conceited and am far more egotistical than I really deserve to be, but I know this. My conceit is a conscious choice, a role I have casted myself in because the skin feels comfortable and I enjoy wearing it. Staying in character, it's very hard for me to recognise any form of thought by anyone else to be superior to my own and it takes extraordinary, superlative persuasion to convince me to admit that I have been wrong all along. Synecdoche, New York, to understate it, is very persuasive.

Determinism is the belief that every event in this universe, every single action, decision, thought... everything and everything is the direct consequence of what happened before them. To frame an example: a man married a woman. He did it because he was in love with her. He fell in love with her after meeting her at a party, where they talked and found that they have so much in common. He went to the party because he had nothing better to do that Saturday after his dinner plans with his then-girlfriend was cancelled because they had a terrible row which broke them up... and you can extrapolate the chain of causes all the way back to the beginning of the universe. To trace the thread in the other direction, every single one of my actions, decisions and thoughts henceforth - tomorrow, next year, and on the day before I die - are all predetermined by events which preceded them. Free will is therefore an illusion. Everything is therefore fated. Even if you decide to fight fate, that decision was fated to begin with.

I used to pooh-pooh the idea of fate. Now I'm not so sure. It's not that I have never wrestled with the concept of determinism before but it's only since yesterday that I can accept it. A character in the film convinced me of that when she bought a burning house and told me that "the end is built into the beginning." It became clear to me immediately. We aren't pieces on a cosmic chessboard pushed about by some sort of alien motive force. We are both the pieces and the force, and this is only possible because we are imperfect, myopic and oblivious. The day we become omniscient enough to understand every thread of causality relevant to our lives is the day we lose our illusory free will. Poor Doctor Manhattan.

I remember 2007 when I spent most of the year single, feeling like I was at some kind of crossroads where so many branches of my life lay open to me. Had I fallen for someone other than Phoebe, oh how different my life would be now! I still wonder, on occasion, at all the possible lives I could have led. It's only natural to be curious, isn't it? But that's how things work. You play a card and hope shit doesn't happen. For my part, I feel I'm holding the winning hand. Phoebe and I are two years old on the count last Boxing Day and for two whole years, I have not felt sadness. No sadness. Two years. I have not been sad for two whole years. I can say without the merest trace of irony that I am at the point of my life when I feel happiest and most fulfilled. That's funny because I used to tell the ex-grrrfriend that "I'm just an unhappy sort of person"every time she asked me why I was so depressed. I thought my melancholy was built-in, that it's all my fault I had such a cancerous outlook on life. I actually believed that love is pain.

On a side note, that is why I write so sparsely these days. I no longer have enough angst to do so.

I reinvent myself every two or three years or so. Sometimes, it's obvious. Sometimes, I change something invisible to everyone but myself. Regardless, the change is almost always fundamental to my psyche, my core. I believe that if a person cannot change, he has absolutely nothing new to offer to the world or more importantly, to offer himself. When Synecdoche, New York introduced its protagonist, Caden Cotard, in the beginning and followed him as he woke up from bed, went out to retrieve his mail and had breakfast with his family, the date kept fast-forwarding subtly and what we as the audience perceive as a single morning actually spanned weeks. The deejay on the clock radio said it was 22nd of September. The date on the newspaper said it was October 14, 2005 and then quickly contradicts itself on another page, claiming October 17. The spoilt carton of milk suggested that it was at least past October 20 and suddenly, the radio guy said it's Halloween. I am not sure what I'm suppose to make of that entire set piece but it screams of some sort of desperation to me. Or maybe I'm just projecting. Maybe, I just don't want to be the same person all my life where my mornings are all alike.

I feel it would be liberating to be able to step out of a role one day and walk into another as you please in the next as if life is one big stage production. That guy working to save dolphins on the nature channel - I wonder what his day is like. That cute girl who who smiled at me from behind the Starbucks counter. That doctor who knew all his patients by their first names. That kid who aspires to be the leader of the free world some day. Their joys, their problems, their thoughts, what do they mean? How does it feel to put on their shoes?

My regret is that I have only one life to play through, and my choices so meagre. And that's all I want to say today. Now, I'll leave you with a part of the speech the Monologuing Minister gave in the film;

"... even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but it doesn't really."

Have a nice day.



Your move,
k0k s3n w4i

On The Meaning of Certain Words and Things

I am angry. It is STUPID to say that since god give us life, only he has the right to take it away. Anyone who tells me that is STUPID and I look down on that person. Anything that can be taken back is NOT a gift.

On an unrelated and not at all angry note, sacrificing something to fix something you caused is not called sacrifice. It's called taking responsibility for the shit you pulled. Also, if you set up the problem that requires your "sacrifice" to fix, it's called being a dick.

A sacrifice is NOT a sacrifice unless you actually lose something or give something away for good. I suppose he did sacrifice some of his time, I guess. Wait, scratch that. A finite amount taken from an infinite amount approaches ZERO mathematically, so he sacrificed zilch. And you didn't volunteer to die for anyone's sins if you didn't actually go kaput permanently.

If I tell a girl that I love her and then threatened her with torture if she does not reciprocate, I am a sick fuck. If I am able to somehow do this forever and ever without giving reprieve or showing mercy, I am god.

By the way, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore (which accounts for the years not covered in Jesus' official biography - you know which one) is an awesome, awesome book. It's been so long since I've laughed out loud so much reading a novel. I really should look into comic fantasy genre more. Anyway, Moore's book is not hostile to Christianity at all and is in fact, quite an affectionate love letter to the faith, so don't let my scary atheistic blasphemy scare you from reading a really good book. The author's a baptised Methodist too, you know, in case that's important. To those folks who I've intro'ed the Bartimaeus Trilogy to and have subsequently fallen in love with them, this book's for you guys.

I am just... pissed... at someone. Not at someOne, if you catch my drift. But then again, I shouldn't feel the need to say that. It's just not possible to hate someOne you don't believe exists.

Meet My New Girlfriend, Jeffra

Yes, yes, I know I've been away for quite some time now but I have excuses! They are many and myriad, these excuses - but first, Jeffra;

Hi, I am Jeffra. And I love Kok very much.

She's a beauty ain't she? I'm like, talking to you through her right now. Trippy huh? I won't bore you with her, um, measurements but she's definitely beefier than any system I've owned in my life before. For the first time ever, I can actually run games not published a decade ago. Joy.

I named her after my favourite Sim which I lost to toasted silicon after Priscille's very sudden demise last Wednesday. Priscille was my girl for the past 4 and a half years. She was with me through my entire tenure in India, working hard almost 24 hours a day to keep me entertained, happy, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I have an incredibly low threshold for boredom, you see, and I've sworn off television completely (I am proud to say that I have not seen a complete show on the telly for four entire years now). In the intervening days between Priscille's death coma and Jeffra's entrance into my life, I tried sitting in front of the bloody tube for a bit and I found that I can no longer enjoy anything passively. I need to read, to click, to interact. This is one reason I have never named our TV. It's a buggered piece of machinery. Mechanical, cold and unfeeling. Now, we'll discuss my computer fetishism one day. Today is not that day.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a bit of "us alone" time to spend with Jeffra.

She says hello, by the way.