Umno opens Pandora’s Box on the Federal Constitution

There seems to be a rethink on the face of it from the ruling Umno on the Federal Constitution vis a vis religious tenets, Islam in this particular case.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, de facto Law Minister Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz, recently declared that anything disallowed by Islam is inapplicable in Malaysia even if silent in the Federal Constitution or allowed by it.

Is this line of though endorsed in the Federal Constitution, the Quran, the Hadiths, by other Muslim-majority nations, other Faiths, the United Nations Charter and Security Council, the General Assembly and international law?

A whole lot of stuff would straightaway be illegal!

By Nazri’s thinking, a whole host of activities should be banned in the country.

These include keeping swine and/or eating pork; showing off the “sinful” female form – including the fat, obese, old and ugly -- or being in various states of undress; imbibing intoxicating liquor even if no one can’t possibly get high on just a couple of beers; gambling; unmarried members of the opposite sex being together in the dark; sex outside the confines of marriage; gay, human and women’s rights; and giving interest for deposits lodged and levying interest for loans given out.

By the same token, we are to assume henceforth that other activities are encouraged or at least not forbidden: smoking; spying on courting couples; divorce by SMS; using inventions of kafir – non-believer – societies; giving out interest-free Islamic loans where the borrower ends up paying 50 per cent than otherwise under the “sinful” conventional or unIslamic system and the like.

This kind of shallow thinking, an exercise in futility, is akin to opening the proverbial Pandora’s Box. We need not go into the reasons here for waving the Islamic sword or keris, whether for political expedience or otherwise.

Religion of the Federation

Nazri based his take on a distortion/deviation of Article 3 of the Federal Constitution, which states that Islam is “the religion of the Federation”.

The said Article also mentions that other religions can be practised in peace and harmony in any part of the Federation. This is a fact which Nazri conveniently ignored in his broadside at the opposition for citing the Federal Constitution in defence of gay rights under Article 8 (Equality Rights Under Law).

He appears to have forgotten the little matter of the Federal Constitution not specifically stating that Islam is the official or the national religion.

The Federal Constitution is silent on the issue.

In that case the reading must be that is most favourable to the nation i.e. by way of caveats, qualifiers, grey areas, Ifs and Buts. This endorses the separation of Church-and-State ideal – read secularism -- as demanded in a multi-religious state with a whole host of other unprecedented multis.

Had the Federal Constitution even remotely mentioned anything on the issue of any religion in the country being official/national, it could not have in the same breath made reference to the other religions as it would be a contradiction in terms.

The bottomline is that “religion of the Federation” actually means nothing in reality. The country remains as secular as ever under the Federal Constitution. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Secular state

Also, in keeping with the 1963 Malaysia Agreement, Article 3 on Islam refers only to Peninsular Malaysia. The rights of the Borneo states, Sabah and Sarawak, under the Malaysia Agreement cannot be compromised although, in reality, observed more often than not in the breach.

Malaysia, minus Christian-majority Dusun-owned Sabah and Dayak-owned Sarawak, would still not qualify as an Islamic state. The Malay Federal Constitution was as secular as the successor Malaysian version.

If Umno is now having a rethink on the Federal Constitution a la Islam, they would have to reckon first of all with the wrath of the non-Muslims and non-Malays in the country.

For another, Sabah and Sarawak would have no part in any attempts by Umno to rule the country by Islam rather than the Federal Constitution. Before Umno reckons with the non-Malays and non-Muslims on the issue in Peninsular Malaysia, it would have to reckon with Sabah and Sarawak. Malaysians in the Borneo states would want to know why the need to harp on Islam and religion all the time when the Federal Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land.

The danger of the Nazri-types

The dangers posed by the Nazri kind of thinking is that it can eventually get actually translated into illegal practice through enough people like him in government; through a Judiciary heavily made up of just one community whose greatest fear is going to hell; or, heaven forbid, through mob rule.

Patently, a stop must be put to the politicisation of Islam before the rot sets in and drags all of us down with it.

For starters, the Bar Council of Malaya, the Sabah Law Association and the Sarawak Advocates’ Association should speak with one voice on matters that affect the Federal Constitution.

One solution to the problem is a revamp of the Judiciary to ensure that it accurately reflects the demographics in the country.

Indeed, the question that can be raised legitimately is why the overwhelming majority of members of the Bench should come from just one community, even if it be the single biggest one in the country, if the objective is Justice for All under a colour-blind Constitution.

Will Malaysians as a whole be denied justice if members of the Bench are not almost all exclusively from just one community? Something doesn’t smell right here and tokenism in any form or function will not resolve the issue either and help the Judiciary regain credibility.

Judiciary should be inclusive and based on merit

The Judiciary must be inclusive while stressing on merit as the over-riding principle. The Judiciary in Malaysia will always be found wanting, no matter what the cosmetics, as long as non-Malays and non-Muslims are denied reaching the pinnacle of the institution.

On religion, Islam in particular, the only Muslim political take on the subject that’s worthy of consideration is that adopted and preached by Pas, the party of the fundamentalists and Islamists. Pas is all about Islam the Faith in contrast to Umno’s Islam the Politics.

Pas has established its credentials on the subject by the very fact that the party, in power in Kelantan for so many decades, is yet to build even one mosque in the state. The party has clearly told Muslims that if they want to build houses of worship, they must do it on their own, and perhaps the state government can assist where possible.

The fact that the Pas Government has made land available for the building of non-Muslim houses of worship, further establishes Pas’ strong credentials on Article 3 of the Federal Constitution.

Umno will never change its spots

Malaysians must stop believing that the leopard that Umno is can change its spots.

Umno is not about bringing the people together as one nation.

Umno is all about the politics of divide and rule as practised by the British colonialists during their century and a half in Malaysia after the departure of the Portuguese and Dutch.

Political Islam plays a key role in Umno’s tendency to twist and turn every issue in Malaysia into a racial and religious one as part of its politics of distraction and disruption. The idea is to scare the Malays into circling the wagons and gathering under one political platform – Umno – so that a tiny elite can live it up at the expense of the Malay community and the nation.

The politics of distraction and disruption – Nazri being the latest example – keeps the people pre-occupied while the politicians put their hands in the cookie jar and feather their own nests through government contracts, tenders, procurements and the like at grossly inflated prices.

Malaysia Chronicle