And Dr Mahathir, the man who declared that Malaysia is an Islamic country and not a Secular country and the man who goaded and challenged PAS into implementing Hudud and the man who is bringing Umno to the point of self-destruction, is the man who is going to weaken Umno and strengthen PAS. Ironical is it not?
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
“As Pakatan chasm grows, Kit Siang pines for Nik Aziz,” said the Malay Mail today. (READ HERE).
“There is no doubt that if the former PAS Mursyidul Am and former Kelantan mentri besar is alive today, he would not have allowed Pakatan Rakyat to face a life-and-death crisis, for he would have ensured that PAS continue to keep faith with both the Muslims and non-Muslims in Malaysia with the party’s ‘PAS for All’ agenda and spurned renewed efforts at forming UG (Unity Government) between PAS and Umno,” said Kit Siang.
That is the trouble with most people. They only see what they want to see. And the power of suggestion is certainly very powerful indeed because many people can even hear God talking to them if they would like to believe that God has spoken to them.
Do they not say that when you speak to God that is called praying but when God speaks to you that is called insanity? Nevertheless, for thousands of years people have been claiming that God has spoken to them but we do not call them insane, we call them Prophets of God. The problem is, God says different things to different people, sometimes contradicting things, so we end up fighting and killing each other because of these contradicting messages from God.
Anyway, when Nik Aziz Nik Mat first took over as the Menteri Besar of Kelantan back in 1990, he started the move to introduce the Islamic Sharia law of Hudud in the state. The Kelantan State Assembly passed the Sharia Bill but it was blocked by Parliament so Hudud could not be implemented in the state, until today, almost 25 years later.
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad then came out with a statement and said that why does PAS want to turn Malaysia into an Islamic State when Malaysia is already an Islamic country?
So there you have it. Malaysia is not a Secular country, as Tunku Abdul Rahman said. Malaysia is an Islamic country. So PAS does not need to turn Malaysia into an Islamic State since it is already an Islamic country.
And no one rebutted or contradicted what Dr Mahathir declared. UMNO did not disagree and neither did PAS, Semangat 46 President Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, etc. In fact, all the members of Barisan Nasional just kept quiet and this can be interpreted as silence is consent or that they have given tacit approval to Dr Mahathir’s claim that Malaysia is an Islamic country.
So now everyone believes that Malaysia is an Islamic country, and not a Secular country, as many had initially believed. However, the implementation of Hudud in the state of Kelantan did not happen and PAS was happy enough to allow the matter to rest and to pursue it no further.
Nik Aziz, the man who Kit Siang fondly remembers today, then came out with a statement that the objective of PAS is to see God’s laws implemented in Malaysia, meaning Hudud. If Umno is prepared to do that then there is no need for PAS to exist. They can actually close down PAS and everyone just joins Umno. However, as long as Umno resists Hudud, then PAS has to continue fighting for Islam.
Then, in 1999, Barisan Alternatif was formed, a coalition of four parties — PKN, PAS, DAP and PRM — and Terengganu fell to the opposition. Abdul Hadi Awang took over as the new Menteri Besar and even though PAS controlled the state Hadi was very careful to mention that it was the Barisan Alternatif government of Terengganu and not the PAS government of Terengganu.
Yes, instructions were sent out that Terengganu was to be referred to as a Barisan Alternatif state and not a PAS state. And Hadi made a point to call in the Chinese, Indians, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, etc., for discussions before he implemented anything.
For example, the Christians faced a problem getting approval to set up a church when the state was under Umno. So I arranged for the church leaders from Kuala Lumpur to meet Hadi to discuss this matter and they were very surprised and pleased that the matter was easily resolved.
Hadi then called the Chinese for a meeting to discuss what to do about liquor and gambling in the state and the Chinese said that liquor and gambling are part of Chinese culture and tradition. So Hadi agreed that the Chinese could continue drinking and gambling in the privacy of their homes but not in public. But Muslims are to be forbidden from drinking and gambling.
It was all well and fine in the beginning and the feedback I got from the non-Muslims and non-Malays is that they were quite happy with the ‘Islamisation’ of Terengganu. Non-Muslims and non-Malays were not subjected to the same rules that Malays and Muslims were. It was a sort of one-state-two-systems situation like what China did in Hong Kong.
Then Dr Mahathir threw PAS a challenge. Since PAS has now taken over Terengganu why do they not implement the Islamic laws of Hudud in that state? PAS promised that if they take over they are going to implement Islamic laws. But they have taken over Terengganu and yet they do not do what they promised. Dr Mahathir goaded and ridiculed PAS and called it a hypocrite.
Faced with this humiliation and challenge, PAS had no choice but to push for Hudud in Terengganu as well, just like what they did in Kelantan about ten years earlier (but failed). So the same Sharia Bill was passed by the Terengganu State Assembly, just like what happened in the Kelantan State Assembly about ten years before that.
But it did not proceed beyond that. Just like what happened in Kelantan a decade before that, the Hudud laws passed by the Terengganu State Assembly were never implemented.
However, even though Kelantan could never implement those laws, Nik Aziz never cancelled what the Kelantan State Assembly had passed. So I do not know why Kit Siang is singing Nik Aziz’s praises. Was it not Nik Aziz who was the Menteri Besar when the Kelantan State Assembly approved Hudud?
And what Kelantan is doing now is they are just amending those laws. That is what the new Sharia Bill is all about, an amendment to the original Bill that Nik Aziz pushed through the Kelantan State Assembly two decades ago. And Kit Siang appears to have forgotten this.
Umno may scream and protest and whack PAS for what it is trying to do in Kelantan. But Terengganu is not under PAS. Terengganu is under Umno, meaning Barisan Nasional. But they have not cancelled the Terengganu Sharia Bill that was passed by the Terengganu State Assembly more than ten years ago.
If what PAS is doing in Kelantan is wrong then would not retaining the Sharia Bill in Terengganu also be wrong? And in Terengganu the government is Barisan Nasional and not PAS. Yet Umno does not dare cancel that Bill. So, for all intents and purposes, Hudud has been approved for Terengganu and can be implemented if and when Parliament approves it.
When Pakatan Rakyat was formed in 2008, DAP knew that PAS had passed the Sharia Bill in the Kelantan State Assembly 15 years before that and in the Terengganu State Assembly less than ten years later. And PAS never backtracked on this. Hudud was and still remains part of the ‘struggle’ of the party.
So now all that PAS is doing is they are trying to complete what they started. And the fact that Terengganu is under Umno and yet the Sharia Bill passed by PAS in the Terengganu State Assembly has not been withdrawn or cancelled means that Umno is not opposed to Hudud.
So now PAS wants to test the waters to see what Umno is going to do if they bring the amendments to the Kelantan Sharia Bill to Parliament. Would they support it or would they block it? And if they block it then why has Umno not withdrawn the same thing in Terengganu? Why block it for Kelantan but not remove it in Terengganu?
I think Hadi is actually very brilliant. He is playing poker and with a very good hand on top of that. He is allowing Kelantan to push for Hudud and he wants to see if Umno will block it in Parliament. If Umno blocks it then his message to Muslims is that Umno opposes Islam. That would erode quite a bit of Umno’s Malay support.
Hadi will then turn around and point out that while Umno blocks Hudud in Kelantan they are not doing so in Terengganu because the Sharia Bill in Terengganu is still there and has not been removed even though Umno has been in power in Terengganu for the last 11 years.
I think Umno has to wake up and start getting very worried. Hadi is going to face the toughest test of his political career in just a couple of weeks. And his message to the PAS members is if you want Islam then you vote Hadi and if you do not want Islam then vote the other person.
And those in PAS who want Islam far outnumber those who don’t. And with DAP and its party leaders attacking Hadi because of Hudud, this only helps strengthen the argument that those who want Hadi out are opposed to Islam.
If and when Hadi wins the party presidency the next step is to try to bring the Kelantan Sharia Amendment Bill to Parliament and see what Barisan Nasional, Umno, PKR and DAP do. Will they block it? PAS does not really care if it is blocked because it does not see it getting approved anyway. It is just a political manoeuvre to demonstrate to the Malays that only PAS is sincere about Islam.
The ex-Selangor Menteri Besar who speaks no English and who the opposition once said is the most corrupt Selangor Menteri Besar in history, but who now joined PAS and is fighting for Islam, just made a most damaging statement. He said PAS leaders only know how to memorise and read the Qur’an and such people are not suitable for running the country.
Actually, Prophet Muhammad is reported to have been illiterate and he could only recite and memorise the Qur’an. Yet more than one billion Muslims all over the world accept him not just as the leader of Islam but as a Prophet of God as well. If what Mat Taib said is true then why the hell do Muslims revere Prophet Muhammad who could only recite and memorise the Qur’an and knew nothing else other than that?
I mean, at least people like Hadi can speak English (which Mat Taib cannot) and he can surf the Internet (which Prophet Muhammad could not). And, most importantly, Hadi is quite a strategist for being able to use the Hudud issue to trap his enemies in Pakatan Rakyat as well as those in Umno. He has put these people in a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation.
They support Hudud they die. They oppose Hudud they also die. And with that the aspirations of PAS to replace Umno as the number one Malay-Muslim party in Malaysia might happen after all.
Anyway, let us see how things play out the next month or two. And with Umno self-destructing due to the internal attacks on Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, we might yet see PAS as the dominant party in Malaysia.
And you still think that Hadi is an idiot? Kit Siang and son think that PAS is trying to kowtim with Umno. Actually it is the other way around. By the time Umno completes its self-destruction, Umno is going to need PAS more than PAS is going to need Umno if Umno wants to stay in power. But then it will have to be on PAS’s terms and not on Umno’s terms.
And Dr Mahathir, the man who declared that Malaysia is an Islamic country and not a Secular country and the man who goaded and challenged PAS into implementing Hudud and the man who is bringing Umno to the point of self-destruction, is the man who is going to weaken Umno and strengthen PAS. Ironical is it not?
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