Amid the hubbub over the ‘Allah’ issue, Pakatan Rakyat’s Zaid Ibrahim feels a sense of déjà vu .

pkr egm bangi zaid ibrahim joins pkr event 130609 14 Talking to Malaysiakini about the church bombings over the past week, Zaid ( left ), who helped sculpt the consensus-building Common Policy Framework for the opposition coalition, said he saw the same old weakness for ad hoc measures in the current search for solutions.

 

“We should be searching for panaceas instead of placebos in straits like these,” he said, lamenting that the government often resorted to ad hoc instead of permanent soultions.

 

“Donating half a million ringgit to a destroyed church is a placebo; defining the freedom of religion and agreeing on institutional protection of its place in Malaysian society is a panacea,” said Zaid.

‘Are we to be held hostage by Utusan ?’

The former law minister accused Umno of acquiescing to calls from paper Utusan Malaysia on various issues.

“(Now) Utusan wants the Catholic Church to withdraw from using the term ‘Allah’.

“Is the country to be held hostage to the demands of Utusan ? Is this the way a country should be run?” he said

Zaid said it was time that the rest of Malaysian society showed Umno and Utusan that they could not get what they want with mere demands.

“This country is not meant to be run by (one) party or (by) editorial diktat.

“It is to be run by the processes embedded in its constitutional structures which embody the wisdom of experiments in democratic governance of several centuries’ duration and many countries’ experience.”

He suggested that it was time for an all-party conference on religious differences and the mechanisms for their mediation.

The dialogues for the conference, he said, should be formal and structured with the federal constitution as its guiding light.

“It is said about war that it is too serious to be left to generals, likewise religion. It’s too serious to be left to theologians, least of all editorialists,” Zaid opined.

“And it’s best that all participants approach (the conference) with an attitude that’s not above measure or sobriety but cultivates truth in charity,” concluded Zaid.