Out Of Court Settlement The Best Solution

The Malaysian Insider on August the 1st reports:

HISHAMUDDIN SAYS REGRETS ALLAH BAN

Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said today that his predecessor should not have banned the word “Allah” from being used by the Catholic Church.

The decision, he added, will continue to haunt his ministry “for a very long time.”

“In this ministry, it is a zero-sum game. We are [now] in an uncharted landscape which will haunt us for a very long time.

“We should have let the sleeping dogs lie. It was triggered by those that believed that the word ‘Allah’ should not be used in Sabah and Sarawak.”

This shows the wisdom and maturity of the Home Minister. Datuk Seri Hishamuddin has made a wise reflection. It is a pity that someone smart like him was not appointed as Home Minister earlier. Instead we had a minister who could not decide whether he should or should not ban the word "Allah", which was a non-issue in the first place.

It is hoped that Datuk Seri Hishamuddin's wisdom would outweigh views from narrow-minded politicians like Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Maj-Gen (Rtd) Datuk Jamil Khir Baharom who seem to be hell-bent on banning Malay-speaking Christians from using a name they have used for a very long time in worship.

It is therefore hoped that the Home Ministry would do something to allow Malay-speaking Christians to continue using the word "Allah" and at the same time keep the bigots happy. A good way to do this would be to announce an out-of-court settlement with the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church too should refrain from using the word "Allah" in its publication for a certain period until things calm down.

The government need not announce the outcome of the out-of-court settlement decision. This way the rights of Christians would continue to be protected while the wishes of the extremists would seem to be fulfilled.