The State should stay out of religion – Ahmad Mustapha Hassan* (press secretary to Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, the second prime minister)

The following was sent to me by someone. I am taking it in good faith that it is written by Ahmad Mustapha Hassan (from way back in Feb 2016). The views expressed here are the writers. I am just sharing this. My comments at the end. 

The State should stay out of religion – Ahmad    Mustapha Hassan* (press secretary to Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, the second prime minister)

Published: 13 February 2016

Politics has become a curse to this country. It was no longer a means to achieve good governance and reliable state management. It had been turned into a source of power to inflict evil on the people. 

Power had been misused to enrich those in high positions. 
Independence had been turned into making the country socially and culturally backward. 

Religion has become the source of amassing influence. The Malays were pushed into being servile, leading to a siege mentality. 

They were made to lose their power of rational thinking. They had been made to totally accept what the powers that be had committed.

During the early days of independence, the country experienced religious tolerance and ethnic understanding. There were lots of merrymaking whenever occasions present themselves. Dances and singing were common happenings.

Fun fairs would make their rounds in various towns. There would be games for the children and at night there would be dancing to the various melodious Malay tunes. Joget dancing was the order then.

Hostesses would sit in line on the stage and those interested in doing the joget could purchase tickets and go up to pick the dancing partner of his choice.

There would be joget and later this would be termed as joget moden because Western tunes had also been incorporated. There would be the old ronggeng, the precursor to joget and in the north, there would be changgong from Perlis and ramvong, joget dancing to Thai music.

People were able to dispense with all the stress of life during the day through these fun outlets. There were no cases of rape, incest and such other devilish happenings. 
In big cities like Penang and Kuala Lumpur, there were cabarets whereby working people would be able to get rid of the stress of work.

This was the place where enterprising people would practise their flair for Western dancing.

They would do the various dances, such as foxtrot, waltz, quickstep, rumba, samba, tango and other new trends.

Competitions were also held and all were in good fun.  

Religion was never part of public dominance. It was a private matter. 

That was when religion and the state were completely separated. 
The Islamic religious departments were only involved in family matters, such as marriage, divorce and inheritance. Other aspects were left to the discretion of the people. Religion was never forced into the everyday life of the people.

Malay-Muslim children from young would attend afternoon Islamic religious classes where the various aspects of the religion were made known to them. The emphasis was that it was the individual that was answerable to Allah and not to anybody else. 

But Umno’s rivalry with PAS for the support of the Malay-Muslims caused both these political parties to accuse one another of being non-Islamic and thus the devil was let loose. 
Once PAS started to accuse Umno of being deviant in its Islamic stand and had also convinced some conservative Malays of the sins practised by Umno, the latter in the 1980s turned into being fanatical in its Islamic agenda. 

The Islamisation of the country started to take shape.

Tudung suddenly appeared as part of the so-called female Islamic attire.

Dances were no more encouraged. Life had been made to be austere.

Islamic religious departments were expanded and new ones created like Jakim. 

Religion had been made to be part of the state.

Malay-Muslim life had been regulated.

Money and power were invested in these religious institutions and with power in hand more regulations were manufactured. 

Halal certificates became necessary to indicate to the Malay/Muslims as to which places they could patronise.

This was simply to exhibit the power that these institutions had.

The Umno government became victim to the whims of PAS and there was no need for PAS to govern the country as Umno was implementing its agenda. 

The Malay culture was termed to be deviant to Islamic values and the Arabic culture started to seep in. 

There were no more “selamat pagi” or “selamat dating”. All terms must be in Arabic.

Politicians in starting their speeches would rattle off in Arabic for a few minutes to show off how Islamic they were before coming to what they wanted to deliver. The same would be in ending their speeches.

The Malay-Muslim in the country became obsessed with rituals and other humanistic aspects of religion were discarded. 

Thus they became arrogant and aggressive in displaying their Muslim-hood. 

This is nothing but mere hypocrisy. 

Religion should be personal. The state should have no say in regulating Malay-Muslim life. 

What each individual does, drinks, eats and wears is up to each individual to choose as long as there exists no criminal element.

The state must divorce itself from religion. 

The country must go back to be secular and let religion be the choice of individuals. 

There should be only one legal system and to have two running in the country has caused confusion where even the learned cannot distinguish between consent, conversion and conscience. – February 13, 2016

. * Ahmad Mustapha Hassan was press secretary to Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, the second prime minister. * This is the personal opinion of the writer.

My comments :  My view is that  you must know the right buttons to push. You must know what to ask for and what to do to rescue the Malay / Muslim society from becoming religious zombies.

For them Rule No 1 is : To keep the people inside zombieland all avenues to challenge, question, debate and interrogate the religious retards must be closed off.   No questions allowed. This is Rule No 1.

The people who do this are the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Majlis Keselamatan Negara and a few other quiet departments in the gomen.  The religious guys dont have as much authority. They only come in on the implementation  side, ie Rule No 2 stage.

Rule No 2  is pursuant to Rule No 1. 

After Rule No 1 is solidified, Rule No. 2  is to inject the unthinking with overdoses of religion. Head covers becomes an issue, without halal certification   the people may starve,  gomen schools become incubators for future extremists - no different from the pondoks,  gomen departments  have in-house retards to provide "guidance"  and crap like that.  This is the domain of the religious guys. 

Rule No. 2 is pursuant to Rule No. 1.

To effect a cure, Rule No. 1 must be overturned.

The Syariah Criminal Enactments must be abolished entirely.  Malaysia did not have the Syariah Criminal Enactments in its present form all the time. These laws were introduced much later and have been modified. The latest is the proposed amendment to that 355 or something.  Hence they can also be abolished.

The Syariah Court jurisdiction must be limited to marriages, divorces and inheritance. This was the original intent of the Federal Constitution.

(How do I know this? Because otherwise why do they need to amend the Akta 355?   Because the Federal Constitution DID NOT give them those powers in the first place.)

Secondly the Muslims must have the option to access the Civil Courts even for marriages, divorces and inheritance. 

They should be able to choose whether they want to go to the Syariah Court or the Civil Court.

I am not saying anything new. Many people do not know that this was the case in Malaysia up to the 60s and maybe 70s.  I know of Muslims who registered their marriages at the Civil Registry.  So this is not anything new.

Millions of Muslims live in countries where there are NO Syariah Courts.  And they are still able to live their lives just like any other normal human being  and they are still able to get married, get divorced and also settle inheritance issues.

180 million Muslims live in India, not all of whom have access to Syariah Courts. 

60 million Muslims live in China and 16 million live in Russia where there are no Syariah Courts.    

Finally the Syariah Court is NOT a universal "Islamic" court. There is no such thing.

Every Syariah Court is sectarian (or 'mazhabi').  

In Malaysia the Syariah Courts will differ from State to State. Perlis (under the Mufti Mohd Asri) may say one thing whereas other States may say other things.

The Syariah Court in Pakistan may differ from Sudan or Saudi Arabia or Malaysia.

The Syariah Court in Brunei may also differ.

Because religion is not uniform, religion must be kept inside the heart and inside the home. Religion should be kept out of the public sphere.