Make Malaysia sane again

How did we get to a point where Islamic preachers are openly insulting non-Muslims as filthy and immoral?

Now there have to be separate laundrettes, separate trolleys in supermarkets, separate elevators, and perhaps one day, groups demanding non-Muslim teachers not be around Muslim children for fear that their filthy hands and unclean breath and the forbidden and un-Islamic things they touch will somehow come in contact with the children.

All this in the name of understanding the true meaning of najis or filth, of the mugahlazzah, mukfaffafah, and mutawasitah – the categories of faecal matter as classified in Islam.

I am glad I grew up in the days when my most cherished teachers were Malaysians of many races – those honest, clean, pristine, and peaceful souls – of Chinese, Indian, Iban, Kadazan, Sikh, and Malay origin.

Dedicated educators of Christian, Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu, or even animistic and pagan faiths, together with sane Muslims as well, who grew up with and loved liberal ideas of universal human rights. And I never heard of any laundrettes for Muslims only.

We are seeing this nation turn into ideological filth. Reminds me of the great author Shahnon Ahmad's novel “Sh*t.” We are in deep, aren't we?

What if there is no turning back? What if Malaysia is going to be turned into an Islamic state with the help of all Malay parties, aided by the most powerful force of social reproduction, i.e., religion- and race-based schooling? Even now, elite and well-funded schools, such as Maktab Rendah Sains Mara, are being controlled by the ideologues of radical Malay-Islamism.

What if the Islamic Development Department (Jakim), funded to the tune of a billion ringgit, was tasked with giving the nation an understanding of Islam, instead of being an ineffective outfit used to promote a gross misunderstanding of the religion?

What if writers, such as Kassim Ahmad (al-fatihah to him), were right about rejecting most of the Hadith to go to the Quran directly and approach it hermeneutically, stripping off its cultural and historical context, and leaving it open to varieties of modern-day interpretations?

What if many of the ideas promoted today about Islam are just hegemonic transplants of Wahabbism and Salafism, fit only for regimes run by the Taliban, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, and radical fundamentalists, who fear Western ideas of Enlightenment needed in a multicultural country such as Malaysia?

And finally, what if we have made a wrong historical turn, by allowing the Mahathirist project of "Islamisation" to take root because the leaders we trying to appease the young Turks of Malay-Muslim radicalists possessed by the revolutionary ideals of Imam Khomeini, Hasan al-Banna, Syed Qutb and Abul A'la Maududi, who wanted to purify the world of the "evils of liberalism"?

What if the rhetoric sung by these radicalists of a new Islamic uprising and renaissance, and the slogan "No east no west Islam is the best" has only invited more slogans, which have in turn made Malaysia into a sloganised, radicalised and nonsensicalised nation, where religious groups hate each other and want to turn it into a hub of the Islamic State led by the “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?

What if we could stop this cancer from metastasising?

Here is the reality: we have gone too far in allowing the seeds of the radical Islam of the 1980s to take root. We have failed to check what has been happening in our schools, especially the all-Malay elite schools, our universities, our government offices, and even the departments that monitor Malay-Muslim students abroad.

Let alone Quran memorisation schools that are mushrooming like nobody’s business, with safety procedures out of the window, and with no serious monitoring carried out by proper authorities.

Aren’t we now a pathetic lot? Doesn’t our unity lie in diversity? Isn't our multicultural society a great reservoir of peace for our children? A chance for us to learn from each other, both about our differences and our similarities, rather than call each other filthy?

Also, this nonsense about doing battle with liberalism and multiculturalism in the name of Islam need to be stopped. It is a hollow yet dangerous proclamation and an invitation to racial and religious warfare, or even a Malaysian “civil war.”

There will come a time when the government can no longer afford to fan the fires of radicalism. Wildfires will start raging all over the nation, and we will all live to regret it.

Why don't we get serious about dismantling any governmental agency that rationalises hate using religion, cloaked with the banner of “religious development”?

Why don't we get serious about dismantling all forms of apartheid, starting from political parties right down to Muslims-only laundrettes?

We must not entertain racial and religious bigotry, especially if the government of the day is an accomplice. Let us not go gently into the Islamic state. Darkness we will meet.

Make Malaysia sane again. For all Malaysians!

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AZLY RAHMAN is an educator, academic, international columnist, and author of seven books. He grew up in Johor Baru and holds a Columbia University doctorate in International Education Development and Master’s degrees in five areas: Education, International Affairs, Peace Studies Communication, and Creative Writing. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and his blog.- Mkini