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Deceit on the ‘Islamic state’

KJ John
Malaysiakini
Oct 30, 2012

Marina Mahathir wrote in a recent column that for any candidate seeking to be voted in this general election, the following are good and civil traits:

1. Be nice, be gracious, be polite – rudeness makes you look ugly.

2. If you disagree with someone, fine. But disagree courteously and intelligently, and do not just bad-mouth them.

3. If you do not think that someone is right, give your reasons why.

4. At least pretend that your audience is smart, and live up to them.

5. If you really think violence is the answer, we will find you a ticket to Syria, where you can indulge in all that you want to.

6. If you really think you are a defender of Islam, we will get you a ticket to trail the Republicans on their election campaign. We will even get you a spot on Rush Limbaugh’s show, where you can do your defending thing.

7. Do suddenly stop kissing babies and hugging old people. Seriously, we are not buying it.

8. Leave your expensive watch at home if you are going to sympathise with how people are coping with their monthly expenses. Unless you are going to donate the cost of the watch to some worthwhile cause.

9. Lower your volume. Shouting something stupid does not make it smarter.

10. Tell us what your principles in life are, and how you aim to stick to them.

My only addition is that no serving member of parliament should lie publicly. It is worse if one is a member of the cabinet. And because of such lies, I would argue that we need a ‘truth-o-meter’ which the CNN uses to validate claims by US presidential candidates.

I am boiling mad because Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz, the so-called minister responsible for parliamentary and legal matters, was quoted by theSun as saying: “None of the nation’s past prime minister (have) ever declared Malaysia a secular state … the only sitting prime minister who (has) made a statement on the issue was … (Dr) Mahathir Mohamad, who declared that Malaysia is an Islamic state.”

Since we do not have the privilege of a truth-o-meter service in Malaysia, allow me to assume that role since my column is also called ‘Truth Matters’. Continue reading “Deceit on the ‘Islamic state’”

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Hudud will not impact non-Muslims, minister says

by Clara Chooi
The Malaysian Insider
Oct 24, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 24 — Hudud will not have an impact on non-Muslims in Malaysia, Umno minister Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom has said, disputing the repeated warnings by political ally MCA to the Chinese community on the controversial Islamic penal code.

In a written reply to Tan Tee Beng (IND-Nibong Tebal), the minister for Islamic affairs, explained that hudud, which prescribes the amputation of hands for theft, could only be applied to those who come under the jurisdiction of the Syariah court — Muslims.

“Therefore, hudud law will not impact non-Muslims,” he concluded.

MCA has been using the hudud issue to warn the non-Muslim community away from voting for Pakatan Rakyat (PR) in the coming polls, insisting that the pact’s “dominant” partner PAS would insist on its implementation despite its ties with secular DAP and PKR.

Hudud has remained a sensitive touch point in Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy, which has a 60 per cent Muslim population, with political parties continuing to spar over the subject in the run-up to the 13th general election.

The idea of an Islamic criminal code has been used to either scare the minority Chinese voters, or shore up support among the majority Malay-Muslim community. Continue reading “Hudud will not impact non-Muslims, minister says”

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Has Chua Soi Lek turned MCA into Malaysian Charlatans Party by keeping quiet on Jamil’s parliamentary answer on hudud?

Has the MCA President Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek turned MCA into “Malaysian Charlatans Party” by keeping quiet on the hudud answer given by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom in Parliament on Tuesday, exposing the utter hypocrisy of the MCA campaign on hudud in the past two years?

Yesterday, in my media statement “UMNO/MCA’s ‘Devil’s Compact’ confirmed by Mahathir within 24 hours”, I had posed the question to Chua and the MCA leadership whether Jamil’s parliamentary reply “if hudud laws are implemented in Malaysia, they will not have any implications on non-Muslims” represented the stand of MCA in Cabinet and BN, “and if not, what are they going to do about it”.

There has been no answer but only thunderous silence!

How can this be the case when in the past two years, Chua had been leading his coterie of MCA Ministers and Deputy Ministers up and down the country with only one campaign theme – that it is a “lie” that hudud laws will not affect non-Muslims. Continue reading “Has Chua Soi Lek turned MCA into Malaysian Charlatans Party by keeping quiet on Jamil’s parliamentary answer on hudud?”

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Kit Siang: Former PMs declared Malaysia a secular state

Karen Arukesamy and Hemananthani Sivanandam at the Dewan Rakyat
The Sun
22 October 2012

KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 22, 2012): The country’s first prime minister, the late Tunku Abdul Rahman, had openly declared that Malaysia is a secular state with Islam as its official religion, the Dewan was told today.

“I can give documents and proof to show that the former prime ministers of the country have declared Malaysia as a secular state and not an Islamic state,” DAP Parliamentary Leader Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timur) said when rebutting Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz’s statement that Malaysia is not a secular state.

Quoting The Star of Feb 9, 1983, Lim said the Tunku had reportedly said: “Don’t make Malaysia an Islamic state” in his speech on his 80th birthday on Feb 8, 1983.

“It was a huge function, which was attended by all the Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders, including the current prime minister (Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak).

“The Star frontpage on Feb 9, 1983 read: ‘The Tunku turns 80 – Don’t make Malaysia an Islamic state: Tunku’.

“On Feb 13, 1983, Tun Hussein Onn, who became the third prime minister, on his birthday, gave his full support to Tunku’s statement as reported in The Star: ‘Hussein says no to Islamic state’,” Lim added.

Citing further from pre-Constitution documents, Lim said all the documents clearly indicate that Malaysia is a secular state with Islam as the official religion, but not an Islamic state. Continue reading “Kit Siang: Former PMs declared Malaysia a secular state”

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Malaysia a secular state contrary to Nazri’s remarks, say law experts

By Debra Chong and Ida Lim
The Malaysian Insider
October 23, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 23 — Malaysia is and has always been a secular state even though not expressly stated in the Federal Constitution because the country’s supreme law and founding document is secular, several law experts say as debate continues to storm over the mainly Muslim nation’s status.

The legal pundits refuted minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz’s remarks in Parliament yesterday that Malaysia is not a secular state because it had never been declared or endorsed as such and is wholly absent in the Constitution though he stopped short of labelling the country an Islamic state.

“It’s absolutely untrue,” said Tommy Thomas, regarded as one of the country’s foremost authorities on constitutional law.

“To me, to say that Malaysia is not a secular state because the Federal Constitution does not say so is a real, oversimplistic argument. Just like the Federal Constitution does not say Malaysia is an Islamic state,” he told The Malaysian Insider last night.

The veteran lawyer, who had studied the subject and presented an essay debunking Malaysia as an Islamic state at the Malaysian Law Conference seven years ago, said his research had shown that the country’s forefathers and the legal experts who helped draft the Constitution had intended the country remain secular even as it acknowledged the individual Malay state Rulers’ rights and power over religious matters which, he pointed out, was for the most part ceremonial. Continue reading “Malaysia a secular state contrary to Nazri’s remarks, say law experts”

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History contradicts minister’s arguments that Malaysia is not secular

By Zurairi AR | October 22, 2012
The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 22 ― Historical accounts show that Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Hussein Onn had both said Malaysia is a secular state, contradicting de facto law minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz’s remarks in Parliament today that the country had no secularist roots.

Nazri told Parliament today that Malaysia has never been declared or endorsed as a secular state, arguing that the country was formed of the Malay Sultanate, an Islamic government and, unlike countries like the United States, India or Turkey, was never declared as secular.

His remarks today come amid debate over the status of the Federal Constitution. It was also made despite a previous Supreme Court ruling that said Malaysia is a secular state, as well as previous statements made by earlier leaders such as the Tunku, the country’s first prime minister.

Tunku Abdul Rahman had referred to Malaysia as a secular state, and not an Islamic one, on a number of separate occasions.
Continue reading “History contradicts minister’s arguments that Malaysia is not secular”

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Only fools or knaves or those who are both could believe the lies about DAP seeking to establish a Christian State in Malaysia

Desperation knows no bounds. This is amply illustrated by UMNO/BN political desperadoes, whether in the political front-line or hiding in the shadows pulling propaganda strings hatching the most far-fetched and outlandish conspiratorial theories in the mainstream or social media to create fear and sow the seeds of hate and conflict to ensure the survival of the sixth Prime Minister and the ruling coalition in the imminent 13th General Election.

The issue of a Christian Malaysia and the allegation that DAP wants to repeal Article 3 of the Federal Constitution providing for Islam as the religion of the Malaysian Federation in order to establish a Christian State is one of the most irresponsible and reckless of lies and falsehoods in the current repertoire of the UMNO/BN political desperadoes.

In fact, those who disseminate such lies and falsehoods utterly reckless about its damage to the process of nation-building in multi-racial and multi-religious Malaysia qualify to be condemned as the vilest and most despicable traitors to the vision of an united and harmonious Malaysian nation!

Only fools or knaves or those who are both could believe the lies that the DAP is seeking to establish a Christian State.

Henceforth, let Malaysians put the “fools or knaves” test to the political desperadoes who could so recklessly and irresponsibly disseminate such lies and falsehoods – whether they are fools or knaves, or both! Continue reading “Only fools or knaves or those who are both could believe the lies about DAP seeking to establish a Christian State in Malaysia”

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On the secular state controversy

― Ahmad Fuad Rahmat
The Malaysian Insider
Sep 26, 2012

SEPT 26 ― Some weeks have passed since the release of our rather controversial call for a secular state. Naturally, we encountered many comments along the way. Many were constructive, while one particularly from HAKIM was nothing short of vitriolic.

In the interest of furthering democratic debate, we shall take the opportunity here to clarify the misconceptions we encountered along the way in hope that our position will be more clearly understood. Continue reading “On the secular state controversy”

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MCA President Chua Soi Lek playing destructive role of Utusan Malaysia seeking to frighten Chinese voters with lies and falsehoods in the same manner Utusan trying to scare Malay voters

The MCA President Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek is playing the destructive role of Utusan Malaysia seeking to frighten Chinese voters with lies and falsehoods in the same manner Utusan has been trying in the past three years to scare Malay voters with its daily staple of lies and falsehoods.

The role of Utusan Malaysia, the official organ of UMNO, is to violate all ethics of journalism to systematically and unconscionably concoct and dispense lies and falsehoods about the DAP and the Pakatan Rakyat to stampede the Malay voters to vote solidly for UMNO.

For instance, Utusan Malaysia had been publishing downright lies and falsehoods about the DAP, spreading the completely baseless allegation that the DAP is anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-Malay Rulers, that the DAP wants to create a Christian Malaysia to replace Islam as the official religion, appoint a Christian Prime Minister, establish a Republic and abolish the system of Malay monarchy.

In the past months, it has become obvious that the MCA President is playing the irresponsible and divisive role of Utusan Malaysia by seeking to frighten the Chinese voters to stampede them to vote for MCA through what MCA strategists believe is the MCA trump card – the issue of Islamic state and hudud implementation.

DAP’s stand on Malaysia as a secular state has always been constant and consistent.

We hold firm to our fundamental principle that an Islamic state and hudud laws are inappropriate and unsuitable for Malaysia as a plural society. Continue reading “MCA President Chua Soi Lek playing destructive role of Utusan Malaysia seeking to frighten Chinese voters with lies and falsehoods in the same manner Utusan trying to scare Malay voters”

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Arguing for a secular state

By Ahmad Farouk Musa
Free Malaysia Today
August 23, 2012

The question is would discriminatory policies noted in classical texts of Islamic state be acceptable in the modern era.

COMMENT

To many Muslims and especially the Islamists, the term secular is a very repugnant term and this abhorrence to anything secular stems mainly from the previously bitter experience of secularism in Turkey that had led to the dissolution of the Ottoman Caliphate, the last Caliphate in the Muslim world.

The fall of the Ottoman Caliphate led to some Muslim scholars to push for a new entity known as an Islamic state. The concept of an Islamic state was not known in the Islamic world before that. The main proponent for an Islamic state was none other than Muhammad Rashid Redha, a great Muslim reformer in the early 20th century. The main intention of Redha was to stem the onslaught of Western imperialism.

History has shown that while secularism was born in the West, its values spread across the world in many different continents and societies. According to Louay Safi, a scholar at the International Institute of Islamic Thought, secularism denotes a set of notions and values whose aim is to ensure that the state is neither engaged in promoting specific religious beliefs and values, nor uses its powers and offices to persecute religion.

To prevent state officials from using their political authority to impose a narrow set of religious attitudes and values on the larger society, and to foreclose the possibility of using religious symbols to agitate one religious community against another, a separation must be made between political authorities from religious affiliation. Continue reading “Arguing for a secular state”

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Antara Islam dan ‘negara Islam’

— by Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin
The Malaysian Insider
Nov 25, 2011

25 NOV — Awal bulan November ini saya hadiri seminar di The Middle East Centre, Oxford bertajuk “The Sacking of Syria: Assad as Hulego”. Pembentangnya Rana Kabbani, seorang penulis dan penyiar Syria. Saya kagum dengan keberanian wanita ini. Mungkin jika di Malaysia ada pihak yang tidak mahu hadiri ucapannya sebab beliau “free hair” dan agak bergaya. Letak itu di sebelah dahulu, saya kagum dengan semangatnya mengkritik regim-regim Arab. “A very inspiring speech.”

Saya tertarik apabila salah seorang British bertanya beliau bahawa tidakkah nanti selepas kejatuhan Assad akan menyebabkan golongan “extremist” yang memperjuangkan “Islam state” akan mengambil alih. Beliau dengan bersemangatnya bertanya balas “kenapa awak kata demikian? Apakah kerana awak mendengar mereka melaungkan ‘Allahu Akbar’?!”

Seterusnya beliau berkata bahawa mereka melaungkan Allahu Akhbar adalah kerana Islam agama mereka. Tiada siapa berhak menafikan hal itu. Ia bermaksud Allah itu Maha Besar. Itu adalah slogan Muslim apabila berhadapan dengan regim yang sombong dan bongkak. Untuk siapa lagi yang hendak mereka laungkan slogan kebesaran. Tiada kaitan dengan kehendak mengujudkan “Islam state” seperti yang diidamkan oleh sesetengah gerakan. Continue reading “Antara Islam dan ‘negara Islam’”

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Tunisia’s Islamist-led government rejects laws to enforce religion

Al Arabiya News
Saturday, 05 November 2011

Tom Heneghan
TUNIS REUTERS

Tunisia’s Islamist-led government will focus on democracy, human rights and a free-market economy in planned changes to the constitution, effectively leaving religion out of the text it will draw up, party leaders said.

The government, due to be announced next week, will not introduce sharia or other Islamic concepts to alter the secular nature of the constitution in force when Tunisia’s Arab Spring revolution ousted autocrat Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January.

“We are against trying to impose a particular way of life,” Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi, 70, a lifelong Islamist activist jailed and exiled under previous regimes, told Reuters.

Tunisian and foreign critics of Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party that won 41.7 percent of Tunisia’s first free election on Oct. 23, have voiced fears it would try to impose religious principles on this relatively secular Muslim country. Continue reading “Tunisia’s Islamist-led government rejects laws to enforce religion”

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Implement hudud by force, he says

by Zan Azlee
The Malaysian Insider
Oct 28, 2011

OCT 28 — “Hudud needs to be implemented by force!”

I was shocked to hear an academician, Assoc Prof Dr Mohd Ridhuan Tee Abdullah, utter those words at a recent Islamic forum on hudud.

According to the academician who teaches at the National Defence University, time is running out and it looks like the non-Muslims will never accept hudud and Islam.

As a Muslim myself, I felt ashamed and embarrassed by what he said at such a public forum. Continue reading “Implement hudud by force, he says”

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MCA and hudud: Final part

By Stanley Koh
October 22, 2011 | Free Malaysia Today

At a 2006 forum to discuss problems that non-Muslims face as Malaysian officialdom continues to assert the predominance of Islam in the country, a prominent scholar acknowledged – “with “sadness”, he said – that there was great confusion about the religion, especially among Muslims themselves.

Syed Ali Tawfik al-Attas, director-general of the Institute of Islamic Understanding (Ikim), said that Muslim administrators and Islamic activists generally had a poor understanding of the Islamic view of “knowledge” even as they examined the religion with a fine-tooth comb.

“That is the problem with the Muslim world,” he declared.

He explained that in Islamic scholarship, knowledge is generally separated into three types: interpretation of the meaning of what is perceived, revealed knowledge, and derived knowledge that is beneficial. This effectively means that non-beneficial knowledge is not construed as knowledge.

He stressed the importance of having the correct understanding of such terminologies as “freedom”, “democracy” and “Islamisation” and the equal importance of recognising that they were open to different conceptualisations. Continue reading “MCA and hudud: Final part”

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MCA and hudud: Part 3

By Stanley Koh
October 21, 2011 | Free Malaysia Today

Few will disagree that politicians are often trapped in history and history in them. MCA politicians should take heed. Unfortunately, when they throw stones at their rivals, they often forget that they live in a house of glass.

When in 1993 the Kelantan government proposed the law allowing hudud punishments, the two Umno representatives in the state assembly supported it. The law, formally called the Syariah Criminal Code (11) Enactment 1993, was passed in November of that year.

There was no public outcry and the MCA leadership did not threaten to leave Barisan Nasional. The only justification for the silence was that the then prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, had already objected to the passing of the bill.

Fast forward to the present. MCA President Dr Chua Soi Lek recently said he would pull his party out of BN if its political master, Umno, ever decided to impose hudud. Is he in fact trying to rehash the anti-hudud position that his party took during the campaign for the 1999 general election? The results showed that the ruse worked. Continue reading “MCA and hudud: Part 3”

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MCA and hudud: Part 2

Stanley Koh | October 20, 2011
Free Malaysia Today

In 2001, when Dr Mahathir declared Malaysia an Islamic state, MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik said he and other non-Muslim leaders supported the prime minister’s position

COMMENT

What is the role of religions in politics? Is Islam compatible with democracy? How do we deal with the conflicts between the constitutional provisions for fundamental liberties and equality with religious laws and policies that may violate them?

Should the state legislate on morality? Is it the duty of the state to bring about a more moral society?

Can there be one truth and one final interpretation of Islam that must be legislated and govern the lives of every Muslim citizen of the country?

These were some of the questions raised in 2001 at a MCA-organised forum attended by Dr Hamid Othman of the Prime Minister’s Department, Shad Saleem Faruqi of Universiti Teknologi Mara, Zainah Anwar of Sisters in Islam and representatives of the Inter-Religious Council of Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism.

The forum came in the midst of public disquiet over then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s declaration, in September 2001, that Malaysia was an Islamic state. Many Malaysians were confused and quite a number were in fear that the country would eventually be run like a Taliban state. Continue reading “MCA and hudud: Part 2”

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MCA and hudud: Part 1

Stanley Koh | October 18, 2011 Free Malaysia Today

The party can’t hold a candle to DAP when it comes to principled opposition to Islamic state ambitions.

COMMENT

Two questions arise from MCA’s recent call on DAP to abandon the Pakatan Rakyat coalition because PAS is pushing for hudud punishments and, ultimately, an Islamic state.

First: Why did former MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik fail to protest when former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad declared Malaysia an Islamic state in 2001?

MCA Youth chief Wee Ka Siong’s recent defence of Ling’s silence does not hold water. He said Mahathir’s declaration did not include a threat to change the Federal Constitution. Neither has Pakatan said it would change the constitution to suit PAS’s ambition.

Second: Since MCA is questioning DAP’s commitment to principles, what has happened to its own principles in the face of Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s recent remark that Malaysia was merely “not ready” for hudud?

Muhyiddin’s statement seemed to suggest that Umno, like PAS, longs to turn Malaysia into an Islamic state. Continue reading “MCA and hudud: Part 1”

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Why the hudud controversy will not die

by Pak Sako
CPI
14 October 2011

PAS and DAP’s decision to ‘agree to disagree’ on hudud must be taken for what it really is: a politically-motivated temporary ceasefire.

It does not resolve the hudud controversy.

The controversy can never be resolved as long as the fundamental questions of the hudud debate continue to be avoided. The questions are:

1. What goals are hudud meant to achieve?

2. What are the pluses and minuses of hudud?

3. Do all Malaysian Muslims as well as non-Muslims want hudud?

A national dialogue on implementing hudud must exhaustively probe these questions before anything else. Continue reading “Why the hudud controversy will not die”

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Pakatan: Hudud only if all parties agree

By Shannon Teoh
The Malaysian Insider
Sep 29, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 29 — Pakatan Rakyat (PR) agreed today that the contentious hudud or Islamic criminal law is not part of its joint policy until all parties agree to it, stepping back from the brink of a major difference that broke an earlier opposition coalition.

Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim told a press conference just after midnight that the set of Islamic laws was “certainly now not PR policy and DAP’s objection has to be respected.”

Anwar said PR will continue to allow its members to air different views. — File pic
“Yes, very clear, it has to be together,” the PKR de facto leader replied to a question on whether any move to implement hudud would need the unanimous agreement of all three parties in the pact. Continue reading “Pakatan: Hudud only if all parties agree”