I am really appalled by the politicisation of our schools and all public institutions and the various applications of Islamisation in Malaysia. I am absolutely against compulsory religious indoctrination of children in our schools.

However, I would like to share this; I worked in Egypt for two years as an engineer.

Being a Christian, I attended mass in Egyptian churches on Sundays.

As mass was celebrated in English only in a very few churches and only at certain times, I had to attend mass in various other languages that were used in the Churches there; French, German and Arabic.

I was taken aback the first time I attended mass in Arabic, because the priest started by saying:"Bismillah Al-Rahman, Al-Rahim".

Remembering this was mass in a Catholic church, I asked my Egyptian friends what it meant. They informed me that it meant "In the name of the Almighty, God".

I also found out that the word "madrasah" meant religious school, Christian or Muslim.

The word "Allah" was used in Christian churches all the time. In fact there were many Christians in Arabia, speaking Arabic and praying in Arabic; Copts, Orthodox Greek, Armenian, Syrian, all Christians, speaking Arabic.

Learning Arabic is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact I found the Arabic people so genuine, honest and caring, I eagerly tried to learn as much Arabic as possible.

The only thing wrong with the picture in Malaysia is that the Malays are trying to hijack Arabic and make it a Muslim language, which it is not, it is just a language.

Paul Anka was an Arab and he is Christian and there are many Arab Christians.

I still am devastated by the things, Malays are forcing upon our children; however, if we fail to prevent this practice, I think we should inform our children that Arabic is not Islamic - they should visit the many beautiful churches in Egypt and attend mass in Arabic.