Object hudud, not insult Islam

Datuk Chua Jui Meng, PKR vice-president

NO MALAYSIAN has the right to insult any religion. And MCA, in its amok frenzy to garner Chinese support for the next general election, is doing just that against Islam, the national religion.

Using the hukum hudud (Islamic criminal law) bogey, as has been used for umpteen years after Merdeka (Independence), what the MCA and even the dominant Umno in Barisan Nasional (BN) don’t realise is that the hudud is a double edged sword.

It harms and damages the integrity of both MCA and Umno. Malaysians have every right to object to the implementation of the hudud but not insult Islam.

When MCA president Chua Soi Lek says eight of the 11 countries that implemented hudud were backward and corrupt, that is just a plain insulting sweeping statement.

When Chua says hudud is a cruel law, that is harsh to the Muslims and Islam. Can’t he articulate more diplomatically? Like saying the hudud is not suitable for this era because … There are many other insults hurled by MCA against Islam which I do not wish to repeat.

The Islam-bashing led by Chua exposes Umno as a hypocrite, unable to defend the national religion against the insults. With Mahathir Mohamad, the man who ruled Malaysia for 22 years, saying MCA did not object to ‘Islamic country’ declaration, MCA is now a political dead duck to the Chinese and Muslims. It is also becoming increasingly clear to all that Mahathir is still running the country.

As usual, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak can’t make a stand. He had no response when asked about Soi Lek’s insulting statements. Najib could not defend his own religion. In exasperation, Mahathir had to take the issue into his own hands.

After the fire bombings of churches over the use of the word “Allah”, it was Pakatan Rakyat de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim and PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang who emerged to defend the constitutional rights of the Christians.

The Christian weekly, The Herald, then took the Umno-led federal government to court over the use of the word “Allah” to describe God.

On Dec 31, 2009, the High Court ruled that the Christians had the right to use the word “Allah” because the word was not exclusive to Muslims only.

I say there is no more room for race and religious politics in Malaysia. We are Malaysians loyal to the country.

And this is an extract of a June 20, 2002, AP report:
Ling Liong Sik, leader of the Malaysian Chinese Association, a party in the governing coalition, said that Malaysia was already recognized as an Islamic country by international organizations. "We will never amend the constitution," Ling said. "We are what we are — a liberal, democratic Islamic state allowing everybody to flourish. We never felt unassured.

All these zombie-like religious and racial slurs put up by MCA and Umno for the past 55 years are aimed at only maintaining their political power to enrich their crony businesses and the elite.

That is the only plausible explanation why, a natural resource-rich country, including oil and gas, like Malaysia has accumulated more than RM500 billion in federal debts, just 1.3% short of the 55% legislated debt ceiling.

If this is not gross mismanagement of the country’s wealth, what is it?