Freedom of religion, the principle that supports the right of an individual or group to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance either in private or public, is, in my opinion, intimately related to freedom of speech. You can’t have freedom of religion if you’re not allowed to utter the words of your religion, the words that make up your prayers, your religious books, and your religious principles. That is why throughout history freedom of speech was often used to limit freedom of religion.

So this morning when I picked up the paper and read about the current church burnings and public protests brought on by a trail against a Catholic newspaper in Malaysia that published an article containing the word “Allah,” I thought there had been a mistake. According to the New York Times, non-Muslims in Malaysia can be jailed for up to a year for uttering about 12 words and phrases (including heik, mufti, Allahu akbar, meaning Allah is the greatest, and inshallah, meaning God willing) that are to be spoken by Muslims only. When I read about this I thought maybe the government of Malaysia was imposing some sort of ban on religious language as an attempt to control their Muslim community, but I was wrong. Malaysian law is not stopping people from using the language of their own religion; it’s stopping non-Muslims people from using words that are foreign to their religions.

At a first glance it seems the government of Malaysia is violating the freedom of speech of non-Muslims in order to protect the freedom of religion of Muslims. But the Times claims, and I concur, that the Allah issue is much more complex and is related to the ethnic-based political system by which Malays, Chinese, and Indians in Malaysia each have separate political parties. The real issue is not religion, but rather money and power. As the Malaysian economy’s growth spurt continues, the real question in Malaysia is which ethnic-based party in parliament, and in turn, which ethnic group in society, will have more control and obtain more benefits from that growth. Each ethnic group is trying to tip the scale their own way, and the currently dominant Muslim government is apparently using the Allah issue to display its current power and control over the rest.

However, regardless of the real reasons for the ban, the idea of limiting a little freedom of speech here to add some religious security there is a classic play that has been used by many different countries in the past. What makes the Malaysian case original is the nature of the ban itself, the fact that they are not prohibiting anyone from expressing their own religion, but rather from expressing the religions of others.