COMMENT Malaysia will suffer a political sepsis that could spell the end of the progressive nation the world knows and we all love if the proposed hudud bill becomes law.
Islam has no business in the governance of a plural society, a concept not lost on former trade minister, Rafidah Aziz, who earlier this week echoed the same concern of mixing religion and race with politics. Such concern is shared by many other Muslims, including the much publicised G25, a group of eminent Malays,with intelligent and religious Malaysians, who oppose the hudud bill.
If the hudud bill becomes law, it will divide the nation and open the floodgates for more controversial laws and conflicts not only between Muslims and non-Muslims, but between Muslims and Muslims. Islamising the constitution is a betrayal of the founding principles of the nation which clearly separates religion from the state.
The idea of having separate judicial systems painfully reminds us of South Africa's apartheid and will make Malaysia the new pariah state in the region, especially when race is configured to create a 'they' and 'us' mind-set.
I found Dr Lim Teck Ghee's poignant warning 'Rise of Malaysia's 'racist' strain of Islam' timely and the alarm sensibly sounded. Islam itself faces the immediate threat of heresy from those who argue that it supports racism. I'd like to see its proponents take this strange doctrine to the global stage and see what reception they will get from the wider Muslim community.
The truth is no religion condones racism, not even the idol-worshippers, let alone monotheistic Islam. The politics of desperation and political survival will further taint Islam with heresy when proponents resort to creative and unsubstantiated extra-Quranic arguments to justify their quaint ideas.
No greedy hands, only covetous minds
A human hand is priceless and is worth more than any stolen property. I'm sure it is worth more than RM2.6 billion and I would not like to see the thief lose his hand over it. It is unfair to chop off a hand that has pilfered, when it is the heart and mind that is at fault.
There are no greedy hands, only covetous minds. Many, unlike corrupt politicians, steal out of desperate poverty or helpless addiction to illicit drugs or a mental sickness like kleptomania. Chopping off their hands achieves nothing but leaves society with a burden and a bitter taste. That's not the way of compassion. That's eye for eye and tooth for tooth stuff that civilisation forsook a long time ago except those who believe in capital punishment still.
Cruel methods of punishment are incongruous with contemporary values of human rights and our notion of a compassionate God in a religious country. Hudud is unacceptable to the overall Malaysian sense of justice. Even the death penalty has clearly failed as a deterrent and punishment, so what chance hudud? Is form more important than substance in Islam? Is punishment more important than mercy and rehabilitation?
Double standards are known to trouble enforcement, and with hudud they can be unfairly disastrous. Justice will not be transparent and understood. Even a married Canadian couple was mistakenly harassed when religious enforcement for khalwat went awry. Now religion wants the upper hand over civil law that has served everyone well.
Two men’s folly
It is an insult to non-Muslims to say it is a Muslim matter and non-Muslims should butt out. Is Malaysia one nation or two? When it rains, does it fall on only one community? One can't be that arrogant or daft to think non-Muslims should not interfere in what happens in their country and to their fellow Malaysians. They share a common national destiny and have a say in everything of national concern like the hudud bill.
Will non-Muslim politicians not vote on the bill then? What happens to your neighbour affects the neighbourhood. A country is composed of inter-connected communities. We are our brothers’ keepers. Hudud, the proposed law, is every citizen's business.
Why should Malaysians suffer because of two men's folly in striking a deal to further their political fortunes at the expense of the nation? When one allows the religionists to deploy the powers of the state and play God on earth, it is the beginning of the end of the civilised world as we know it. Malaysia has to be wary for the animal the government will unleash may turn on everyone, including the government itself.
Will the government or Malaysians support hudud, if once implemented, that will make it mandatory for anyone convicted of corruption to face the punishment of having a hand chopped off? I doubt it. Though I suspect many Malaysians would like to see someone's hand chopped off for defrauding the nation.
Hell knows no fury than a religious fanatic unleashed. The nightclub mass murders in Orlando is a grim reminder. More Muslims have been killed by Muslims in today’s conflicts than at any other time. The government should give priority to helping Muslims become more morally upright than hastening hudud legislation.
It is a Pyrrhic victory for the 'hududers' if the hudud bill succeeds.
Islamism needs no further encouragement when Malaysia is grappling with its citizens joining IS abroad and returning home with strange and dangerous ideas. It needs no further help in stoking the fires of fanaticism and giving the impressionable the wrong ideas with harsh hudud punishments practised by IS and failed states.
With the ushering in of the 'hudud bill', society will be placed on a knife's edge despite the dishonest claim that non-Muslims will not be affected. How ironic that a Muslim leader just a few days ago intruded into civil space by telling non-Muslims how to dress. This is a foretaste of worse to come if syariah law becomes pervasive.
Recipe for disaster
Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad must now rue the day he told voters to vote for the 'devil we know'. Today in a radical U-turn, he wants to have the 'devil we know' sacked from office. The 'devil-maker', however, has a fight on his hands. Many support him, though, in his undaunting courage to take down the entire government. While they accuse him of being inconsistent, he is consistent in being a spoiler and in rejecting hudud.
The day religion consummates its political marriage with the state, be sure it will not be another nail in the coffin for democracy but the burial itself of the constitution and the end of democracy as we know it. A failed state is when religion does the work of the state and the state does the work of religion to produce an inferior result. It is the proven recipe for economic and societal backwardness.
The Federal Constitution now faces an unprecedented threat to its traditional role as the nation's supreme law. Some politicians want to amend it and turn the country into an Islamic state, bill by bill. It is one thing to steal the state's money but another to steal a country's constitution. The country in seeing the hudud bill rushed to the front of the queue is seeing a government given to wrong priorities and making policy on the back foot and on the run.
The nation born in freedom in 1957 and enlarged in 1963 has a constitutional DNA that separates religion from state. It is under siege from those who think a political marriage of convenience will serve their egoistic, narrow political agenda and help in their political survival.
Malaysia badly needs to be defined by good governance evidenced by a “clean, efficient and trustworthy” government. It is utter hypocrisy for any government to enact a religious code of punishment when it is tainted with accusations of corruption. It is hypocrisy for a religious leader to do a dirty deal with dirty hands.
If the political leaders in Sabah and Sarawak stay true to the 18- and 20-point agreements they signed, they are obliged to reject the proposed hudud bill or be seen as traitorous to their people. In fact, it is traitorous to the nation for anyone to amend and undermine the constitution and open the floodgates for the use of two legal systems.
Malaysia was founded on the foundation of one nation, many races, many religions and many cultures, but with one constitution and one rule of law, and Islam is the religion of official purposes, not state executive.
Hudud was never acceptable to all of Malaysia's governments and leaders before and after independence. Why is it being pushed to the front of the national agenda by the government now in what appears to be a blatant attempt to save the political skins of their advocates but at great cost to the country?
Say no to hudud. There should be no hudud now. Maybe, later, when all the non-Muslims and dissenting Muslims have left the country and the country is a wasteland. Malaysia is still worth saving for the sake of all. May God watch over the government and the opposition. God bless Malaysia.
STEVE OH is the author of the novel ‘Tiger King of the Golden Jungle’ and composer of the musical of the same title. He believes in good governance and morally upright leaders. - Mkini
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