Religious leaders seem blind to corruption, says Amanah president

Amanah president Mohamad Sabu greeting delegates at the party’s convention in Shah Alam.

SHAH ALAM: Amanah president Mohamad Sabu today took to task religious leaders (ulama) who were not concerned with forbidden practices such as corruption but were instead friends with corrupt individuals.

“Religious leaders do not care about corruption.

“That is why in the Muslim world, there is a lot of misconduct.

“Many Muslims are not concerned about good governance or corruption. What they care about are other things,” he said during his opening speech at the 2019 Amanah national convention at IDCC in Shah Alam this evening.

“This is what we see in almost all of the Muslim world.

“The world’s development has now moved from the West to the East, from Europe to China, Korea and Japan, but Muslims are still in a war (with each other) that is never-ending.”

Speaking on the challenges of the current political climate, he said Amanah was stuck in between two groups with different narratives — the ultra-conservative Malays and the ultra-liberals.

Mohamad, better known as Mat Sabu, said this clash between the two groups may cause uncertainty in the country.

Amanah president Mohamad Sabu with other party leaders at the national convention.

“The ultra-nationalists carry the ‘threatened Malay’ narrative. The hyper-liberal group brings forward ideas that can destroy traditional elements that are necessary to rebuild the nation.”

Mohamad said the “threatened Malay” narrative section was backed by a group of politicians who have failed in garnering majority support from the people and hope to fish for votes in the next general election.

He hoped Amanah would be able to become a party that lives by the true principles of tolerance and shared harmony.

“Racial politics and extreme democratic freedom will ruin the dreams of living together in a multiracial society.”

Coming to the defence of fellow PH component party DAP, he said Umno and PAS were using the party to influence the Malays.

“To the Malay-Muslim community, they (Umno and PAS) would exaggerate and claim that DAP is the deciding force in the PH government today.

“Such an emotional narrative can easily influence the Malays. Supposedly, DAP is using PH and DAP is anti-Malay and anti-Islam.”

Mohamad said a large part of the rakyat only want the opposition to play its role in providing checks and balances “instead of fanning racial and religious tension”.

He said PH realises the importance of stability and harmony among the different races and religions.

“Since early on, the PH government has brought the message of Islam being merciful and empathetic to all as its ruling policy.”

He said the shared prosperity vision, as the national development agenda, was aimed at addressing the various inequalities in income and opportunities among the races. - FMT