Raja Petra Kamarudin And what Dr Chandra Muzaffar said in his piece below is very true. Why in the first place take this matter to court? First of all, the court rules according to the law. And the law is supposed to be guided by the Constitution. But most times the law is interpreted according to one’s understanding of what it is supposed to mean. And many times, also, the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law prevails. Hence it is a great risk taking this matter to court when the court comprises of humans who think like humans and who interpret things the way humans would. Furthermore, humans interpret things with prejudices and biasness and based on how they have been conditioned and brainwashed into thinking. In other words, Muslim judges would think like Muslims first and lawyers second, even though this may be a great departure from what the Constitution says and, as some constitutional lawyers such as Tommy Thomas have said, is an unconstitutional ruling. Let me put it another way. Religion is unconstitutional. Religion violates your civil liberties. Religion denies you free choice. Religion has no respect for democracy. Can you, therefore, expect the Constitution to rule in matters such as religion when religion itself breaches your civil rights? Anyway, back to St Jude, whose feast we are celebrating today -- The Feast of St Jude. St Jude was one of the Apostles or ‘trustees’ of Jesus entrusted with the job of spreading the word of the Gospel. And when we talk about the Gospel here, we are, of course, talking about the Old Testament, because at the time of the ‘appointment’ of these 12 Apostles the New Testament had not been written yet. When we discuss the Gospel we have to refer to Genesis followed by Exodus. Genesis starts with the story of the creation of humankind (the story of Adam and Eve and their descendants) and ends with the story of Yusuf (the Grand Vizier of Egypt). Exodus then continues (after a gap of about 400 years of no story) with the story of Moses (the Father of Judaism) and the creation of the nation of Israel. Hence, St Jude, whose feast we are celebrating today, was tasked with the job of spreading the word of the Old Testament, not the word of the New Testament. Okay, now back to my statement of praying to God, whatever His name may be. In Genesis, it is mentioned 48 times that God’s name is ‘El Shaddai’. It mentions 250 times that His name is ‘El’. And it mentions 2,570 times that His name is ‘Elohim’, which means ‘Shining Ones’. Exodus starts with the story of Moses and it relates how Moses ‘met’ God at the ‘burning bush’. And at the burning bush God said to Moses, “I am El Shaddai, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” And this is the message that St Jude was asked by Jesus to deliver to us, one of the 12 Apostles whose feast we are celebrating today, the Feast of St Jude. So, if we were true followers of Jesus, then we would want to call God ‘El Shaddai’ or ‘El’ or ‘Elohim’, as what the Gospel tells us and according to what Jesus told St Jude and the other 11 Apostles to tell us. Jesus never said that God’s name is ‘Allah’ and neither did the Gospel. So why have we changed the word of the Gospel and the word of Jesus? Okay, we may argue that the Gospel has been translated into Bahasa Malaysia and is not in Aramaic (the language that Jesus spoke) or Hebrew (the language of the Jews) or Latin (the language of the Roman Christians). Well, Malays, too, have translated the Quran into Bahasa Malaysia. And while the Quran may have been translated into Bahasa Malaysia from its original language, Arabic, the name of God has been retained in Arabic, which is Allah. The Christians, however, translate the original Aramaic or Hebrew Gospel into Bahasa Malaysia but instead of using the original Aramaic or Hebrew name of God they want to use the Arabic name. This is what puzzles me. It is like translating my name, Petra, into English (which would be ‘Rock’) or into Bahasa Malaysia (which would be ‘Batu’ -- although they do call me ‘kepala batu’ or ‘stubborn-headed’). My name, in any language, is still ‘Petra’. Anyway, the problem here is the Christians decided to take this matter to court. In other words, the Christians want the court to be the judge or referee in this argument. Once you have thrown this matter to a judge or referee to decide, this means you have agreed that the judge or referee will make the final decision. And this also means you have agreed to abide by the decision of the judge or referee. The danger with this is you have just handed the matter over to a ‘middleman’ to settle. And you never know what decision the middleman is going to take. The middleman might agree with you. On the other hand, the middleman might disagree with you. But whatever decision the middleman makes you are bound by it because you have agreed that you will hand the matter to the middleman to decide. When I was sued a number of times in the past, I refused to make an appearance in court to defend myself. That was because I refuse to subject myself to the jurisdiction of the court. No doubt those who sued me ‘won in default’ since I did not make an appearance to contest the suit. But I did not subject myself to the court so that means I do not accept the court’s ‘decision in absentia’. That was the same when I was charged for a criminal offence. Since I was under arrest I had no choice but to appear in court as I was handcuffed anyway. But I refused to enter any plea and the court, at its own discretion, took this ‘no plea’ as a plea of ‘not guilty’. I shouted at the court that I did not plead ‘not guilty’. Instead, I refuse to enter any plea, which means I did not recognise the court. The court, however, insisted that I had pleaded ‘not guilty’ and insisted that I face trial on a plea of ‘not guilty’. And you know the rest of the story. I then left the country and never made any appearance in court and the court eventually was forced to drop the charges. So you see, once you accept the court’s jurisdiction, you are forced to accept the court’s decision. But if you do not accept the court’s decision then do not take the matter to court. Boycott the court, like how I did. Then you can defy the government and continue to use ‘Allah’ as the name of God since you never agreed to hand the matter to a middleman to decide. Now, I am not saying I do not agree that Christians can use the name of Allah. I am saying you can no longer make that decision since you have forfeited the right to decide by handing it to a third party to decide.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 05:57:12 +0000