“As Anwar himself has admitted, this is a state issue more than a national issue,” Salleh Said Keruak told FMT.
“Sabah and Sarawak do not face the problems that Selangor and Penang are facing and we have to agree that the problem is in Selangor and Penang.”
Salleh, who is deputy chief of the Sabah Umno Liaision Committee, urged Anwar to take the matter to the Selangor and Penang state assemblies so that they could remove the laws that prohibit non-Muslims in the two states from using “Allah” as a reference to God, along with a number of other Arabic terms.
In Selangor, a 1988 enactment that prohibits non-Muslims from using such words in their religious practices enabled the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) to raid the Bible Society of Malaysia on Jan 8 and seize more than 300 copies of Malay and Iban translations of the Bible.
The raid reignited religious and racial tensions between Christians and Muslims that in 2010 saw a number of churches burned.
Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has said the 10-point solution that the government came up with in 2011 remained valid for Sabah and Sarawak and any other state that does not have a law similar to Selangor enactment.
The solution, proffered just before the last Sarawak state election, allowed for the printing, import and distribution of Malay-language bibles, many of which use Arabic religious terms familiar to Muslims.
Yesterday, referring to Najib’s statement that the 10-point solution was subject to state enactments, Anwar accused the prime minister of “clearly [passing] the buck” after it had become clear that the solution was flawed.
He acknowledged, however, that the issue was “complex” and said it required a resolution at the national level.
But Salleh, who is also the speaker of the Sabah state assembly, argued: “Religion is a state matter and comes under the state rulers/governers, as do the state religious departments.
“Why drag the whole country plus states like Sabah and Sarawak into a matter that is a problem to only the Pakayat Rakyat run states?”
Salleh took Anwar to task for placing the responsibility of a possible racial riot on the prime minister alone.
“Yes, we can avoid another May 13, as what both Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Kit Siang have appealed for,” he said. “But this has to be an effort by both sides.
“If the opposition insists on testing the limits of Malay tolerance and patience, there is very little the Prime Minister can do to avert racial violence short of launching another Operasi Lalang and rounding up all the troublemakers and detaining them without trial.”
He urged Anwar to first ask his party members to practice restraint before passing the buck to Najib, “as if the prime minister has the ability, power and authority to tell the opposition zealots on how to behave.”
FMT
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