PAS IS CONFUSING THE PEOPLE REGARDING ISLAM

PAS is becoming more politics and less Islam by the day. The voters need to be clear about what PAS represents because at the end of the day it is Islam that suffers when Malaysians look at this whole thing as a defect in Islam rather than the fault of the people who are seen to represent the voice and face of Islam. Because of these people Islam is seen as a terrible religion.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

PAS pecat Ustaz Lotfi sebab sertai jihad di Syria

PAS telah menamatkan keanggotaan Ustaz Lotfi Ariffin berikutan dakwaan pembabitannya dalam kumpulan militan di Syria.

Setiausaha Agung PAS Datuk Mustafa Ali berkata Lotfi telah disingkir keluar dari parti itu bulan lalu apabila dakwaan pembabitannya dengan kumpulan militan di Syria muncul di media dan juga media sosial.

“Kami menjalankan siasatan kami sendiri dan memutuskan untuk menamatkan keahlian Lotfi. Ini menjadi peringatan dan amaran kepada semua ahli-ahli kami untuk tidak mengaitkan diri mereka dengan mana-mana kumpulan militan, kerana kita tidak menyokong keganasan,” katanya.

Mustafa berkata demikian sebagai memberi tindak balas terhadap laporan The Star yang mengetengahkan penglibatan Lotfi dalam kumpulan militan di Syria.

Lotfi dilaporkan menyatakan hasrat untuk mempertahankan hak-hak orang-orang Syria yang ditindas. — (mStar)

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Why are people in Syria killing each other?

The killing started in April 2011, when peaceful protests inspired by earlier revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia rose up to challenge the dictatorship running the country. The government responded — there is no getting around this — like monsters. First, security forces quietly killed activists. Then they started kidnapping, raping, torturing and killing activists and their family members, including a lot of children, dumping their mutilated bodies by the sides of roads. Then troops began simply opening fire on protests. Eventually, civilians started shooting back.

Fighting escalated from there until it was a civil war. Armed civilians organized into rebel groups. The army deployed across the country, shelling and bombing whole neighbourhoods and towns, trying to terrorise people into submission. They’ve also allegedly used chemical weapons, which is a big deal for reasons I’ll address below. Volunteers from other countries joined the rebels, either because they wanted freedom and democracy for Syria or, more likely, because they are jihadists who hate Syria’s secular government. The rebels were gaining ground for a while and now it looks like Assad is coming back. There is no end in sight. — (The Washington Post)

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According to Islam, jihad is compulsory upon all Muslims. However, the jihad meant by Islam is resistance or opposition against tyranny, oppression, persecution and occupation, and not as a means of aggression or to attack and invade other countries.

Ustaz Lotfi Ariffin from PAS has gone to Syria to join the fighting there, says PAS, something very few Malaysians would dare do. The question here would be is Ustaz Lotfi Ariffin fighting on the side of the aggressors or on the side of the oppressed? This, PAS did not explain, and this needs explaining because one is virtuous while the other treacherous.

During the German occupation of Europe many underground resistance movements emerged to oppose the Nazis. And many partisans died — most were unknown heroes buried in unmarked graves.

In Malaya we had Force 136 and the MPAJA that opposed the Japanese occupation during World War Two. They were called heroes and at the end of the war were brought to England to be decorated by King George VI.

Ustaz Lotfi Ariffin from PAS, however, is condemned for his jihad and has been expelled from the party because the party does not support what it calls ‘militancy’. I really do not know how else to fight tyranny and oppression against a government that uses violence against its own citizens where 100,000 have so far died and millions have been displaced.

In World War Two the Allied forces used militancy to free Europe from Nazi occupation. The Allied Army also used militancy to free Iraq from Saddam Hussein. The West hails Nelson Mandela as one of the greatest heroes to ever walk the face of this earth for fighting against Apartheid, again using militancy.

What is PAS’s definition of jihad? A non-militant resistance movement? By just talking? How does PAS expect to oppose violent dictators who murder their own citizens by the hundreds of thousands if not through militancy? Can merely talking be good enough?

Will the Malaysian government reform the electoral system and give Malaysians free and fair elections if all we do is hold seminars and forums? Why form Bersih and take to the streets and organise protest demonstrations to fight for electoral reforms? Is this not militancy, although a mild form of militancy and not militancy through an armed resurrection?

What about freedom of choice and freedom of association? Does PAS not respect freedom of choice and freedom of association? And does not Ustaz Lotfi Ariffin have freedom of choice and freedom of association?

If a PAS member joins the Malaysian military to defend Malaysia from external aggression is this not also militancy? And in the event that this particular soldier needs to go to war to defend, say Sabah and Sarawak, from terrorists from the Philippines would this soldier also be sacked from PAS?

PAS needs to explain its action and its stand on jihad plus its policy on opposing persecution, tyranny and oppression. The fact that Ustaz Lotfi Ariffin fights in Syria instead of in Sabah or Sarawak is not the yardstick to use regarding whether he is a good militant or a bad militant. Evil is evil anywhere in the world and we must oppose it never mind where it occurs.

There are just too many contradicting statements coming out from PAS. One PAS leader says this and another says that. MP Khalid Samad whacks MAIS and on the same day in Kelantan they amend the 1981 law similar to the 1988 Selangor law regarding the propagation of Christianity to Muslims. Then one PAS leader says the party wants Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim to resign while another says this is not true.

PAS is becoming more politics and less Islam by the day. The voters need to be clear about what PAS represents because at the end of the day it is Islam that suffers when Malaysians look at this whole thing as a defect in Islam rather than the fault of the people who are seen to represent the voice and face of Islam. Because of these people Islam is seen as a terrible religion.