Don’t mock Hadi, take him very seriously

 

“You perceive the force of a word. He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense... Give me the right word and the right accent and I will move the world.”

- Joseph Conrad

It is very easy for comfortable middle-class urban (especially non-Malay) audiences to mock PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang.

His atavistic reading of Islamic dogma is denigrated by non-believers who falsely assume that eventually people – the Malay polity – will see through the lies and realise what PAS and Hadi are.

See, that’s the problem right there. When people show you who they are you should believe them. Hadi is the personification of the kind of Islamic governance the people who vote for PAS want.

This is not about Hadi but rather how a certain growing section of the Malay/Muslim polity believes in religious governance to the exclusion of anything else.

This is about PAS and tangentially whoever works with PAS. I sometimes make the mistake of saying religious extremist coalition but the reality is that the first principle of this coalition is set down by PAS.

In other words, it really does not matter if it is Bersatu or Dr Mahathir Mohamad, or Gerakan, it is all PAS, all the time.

I wonder if people who so easily mock Hadi actually take the time and read what he says as opposed to the soundbites that appear in the English language media. I always read what Hadi writes. I go straight to the source.

Do you know how I wrote that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim should make this about class instead of race and religion? Well, Hadi does something really interesting.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim

In his writings, he manages to conflate race and class, and what English language audiences only get is the “race” bit. Indeed Hadi’s rhetoric is drenched in the kind of class rhetoric that would make a committed socialist quiver.

He cherry-picks elements of religious dogma to highlight the inequalities of democratic systems when it comes to class issues but ghettoises those ideas in religious supremacy and the power of clerics.

True voice of opposition

So if you are a disenfranchised Muslim (regardless of race) in capitalistic Western-influenced Malaysia, you would take away two points from Hadi.

The first is, by virtue of your class, you are being shafted by the system even though your religion dictates otherwise.

And the second point, in an Islamic state, the keepers of the faith will protect you from the inequalities of the system because Islam as a system of governance supposedly treats everyone equally.

People who vote for PAS truly believe what that Indian import Zakir Naik says about being better to be led by corrupt Muslim leaders rather than honest non-Muslim leaders.

Hadi, the true voice of the opposition, has said more or less the same thing. But wait, you say? Who could believe such bigoted nonsense?

This is about something more. Look how Pakatan Harapan supporters have sublimated their principles for the greater good when it comes to working with the “corrupt” Umno because the greater evil is PAS/PN coming into power.

Well, PAS supporters see the greater goal of an Islamic state as more important than the imperfections of their leaders. Do you get it now?

Hadi understands his audience. He understands how young people have been indoctrinated by the vast religious bureaucracy. But most importantly, he has people who understand how to use social media.

What we are dealing with here is the long game. The fruits of the labour of the vast religious bureaucracy and how it has shaped a generation of young people that race and religion are the sole determinants for political power.

While the urban polity has been in its echo chambers, the religious industrial complex has defined “Malay” culture and preoccupations from entertainment to commerce and has normalised, especially among the young people, ideas that are anathema to secular democratic norms.

Defend Islam

Keep in mind, that doctrinally, Islam is meant to be defended. When some Muslims say the faith needs to be defended, what they actually mean is the faith needs to be superior. This is the last word of God after all.

Now for modern progressive Muslims, this means very little. Like most progressive believers, they believe the relationship between the supreme being and themselves is a personal one.

This does not hold true for the people who vote for PAS and indeed for any mainstream political party. This is why Harapan Muslim leaders are always obsessed about being seen to “defend” Islam.

Hadi and his political operatives have defied Malay rulers. What this demonstrates to people who believe in PAS and their struggle is that the leaders of this struggle are willing to slay sacred cows in the service of saving their religion.

Not only are they defending Islam against autocratic rulers but they are normalising religious obligation over supposedly sacred conventions that have sustained this country for decades.

Hadi is not alone. He is not some crazed voice in the Malaysian political landscape. Think about it. I mean really think about it.

Everything which relates to Islam in this country is in some way defined by Hadi and PAS. Of course, the Islamic bureaucracy in certain states has to blunt their religious aspirations but ideologically they are in sync with Hadi.

Hadi uses his religion which is the religion of the state, so anyone attempting to charge him is in reality opening up the mainstream interpretation of Islam for investigation. And this is the key.

People make the mistake of thinking that Hadi is just pulling this nonsense out of his posterior. He is not. Hadi, like most theocrats in waiting, understands they need to reshape the political landscape so it will be malleable to their religious indoctrination.

This is why I keep harping on the fact that there must be a counter-narrative to the kind of Islam PAS propagates. But there isn’t. Every Islamic institution in this country serves Hadi’s vision of Islam.

Indeed, why do you think PAS and Hadi have never really brawled with local state Islamic authorities in any meaningful way? The answer is simple. Those local religious authorities share the same ideological DNA as PAS.

Hadi is the most astute religious operative in this country because he understands - and this is the important bit - that the religious state project of this country is not an individual endeavour.

It is a group effort. - Mkini

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.