“I will continue my sermons as per usual in surau and mosques,”
- PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang, in defying the ban on politicians from delivering lectures or sermons in mosques and surau after the Terengganu sultan was upset that some had done so without approval.
Seri Kembangan assemblyperson Wong Siew Ki is in the crosshairs of PAS because she dares to make policy suggestions that are an economic advantage to the people of Selangor.
This is not about defying the Selangor sultan but rather PAS’ intention to weaken the policy-making processes of democratically elected leaders.
The only reason why PAS continues this strategy is that it is enabled by the pusillanimous tactics of Madani, which is based on two important points: the first is to bully by proxy non-Malay political operatives, and the second is to bolster the religious and racial bona fides of a so-called unity government, which basically means unity for the majority.
The fact of the matter is that PAS is in no position to make claims that non-Malay political operatives are treacherous or seditious to the crown for allegedly defying royal decrees.
PAS’ top leadership and various PAS adjacent groups have defied the royal institutions. This has become even more pronounced of late because Perikatan Nasional senses how weak Madani is.
Keep in mind that in 2022, when the Selangor sultan rebuked then-religious affairs minister Idris Ahmad and asked him to attend the Bon Odori festival “so that he can understand the difference between religion and culture”, what did PAS do?
Its ulama wing backed the religious minister, defying the sultan by saying, “The claim that (Bon Odori) was strictly a cultural event does not have enough merit.”
The quote that opens this piece demonstrates how Hadi believes that when it comes to religion, he knows better than constitutionally mandated instruments of government.
Paying lip service
The royal institution has been weaponised against the non-Malays by the Malay uber alles crowd.
Non-Malays genuflect whenever hot-button issues arise, and the royal institution is dragged into the political arena, normally siding with the very forces that want to have and have weakened its constitutional powers.
Meanwhile, so-called “Malay first” politicians pay lip service to the institutions but rouse the rabble against the institutions when it suits their purposes.
Bersatu president Muhyiddin Yassin said, “I take shelter under the greatness and nobility of the Malay rulers, and my loyalty to the institution of constitutional monarchy should not be questioned,” when questioned by the state security apparatus about insulting the former Yang di-Pertuan Agong.
And believe me, there was nothing lost in translation in the speech he gave, decrying that he was sidelined by the royal institution when he had the necessary votes to be in the driver’s seat of Putrajaya. But all this is not new.
Remember when a former prime minister blamed a certain person for Pakatan Harapan’s pulling out of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Icerd)?
Who could forget this juicy tidbit from his press statement: “Jadi kita punya keputusan kabinet (our cabinet’s decision) this morning is that we will withdraw our ratification of the Statute of Rome kerana (because of) confusion, bukan kerana (not because) we believe it is going to be bad for us but because of the confusion created by one particular person who wants to be free to beat up people and things like that.
“And if he beats up people again, I will send the police to arrest him, I don’t care who he is.”
Keep in mind that Muhyiddin publicly declared that he rejected the Agong’s suggestion that his coalition form a unity government with Pakatan Harapan:
“Since the beginning, we already discussed that we will not cooperate with Harapan. No matter what the purpose is, we will not agree to it. So when I was asked to sign the offer letter, I signed ‘disagreed’.”
Royalty and political reality
Where was PAS during all of this? This horse manure about defending the royal institution is the kind of political skullduggery that PAS especially excels in.
The party is playing a deeper, sinister game. Theocrats around the world do not share power in the conventional sense. They allow certain legacy institutions to endure so long as those institutions give credibility and legitimacy to the religious party in control.
Keep in mind that religious extremists have always threatened the traditional institutions of power in various Muslim-majority countries.
The legacy institutions of power in this country understand that they are vulnerable to the political and religious malfeasance of religious political parties, which is why these institutions are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to their constitutional powers and theocratic impulses.
Sacred cows need to be slain by religious politicians because this will demonstrate not only the superiority of religion but also the faith of religious leaders.
This is not about whether you support the royal institution or not. This is about how these defenders of race and religion, in reality, have no respect for the institutions they claim to champion.
These are the same people who would use the royal institution as a hammer to whack recalcitrant Malays, and whack non-Malays whom they claim are disrespecting the royal institution, the Malays, and Islam.
Has a non-Malay politician ever done any of this to the royal institution? The threat to the royal institution has always come from the Malay uber alles crowd.
Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad used the royal institution when it suited his purposes, which was to bash the non-Malays, but then decried how giving too much power to the institutions resulted in the degradation of the democratic system and lamented the feudalistic nature of the dynamic in the majoritarian community.
In 2019, he spelt this out clearly, which is ironic because it is in a similar context to what Muhyiddin is fighting against now:
“Are we willing for this to continue? The rakyat is afraid of not serving the rulers, and when the rulers act beyond the Constitution, it is the rakyat who become the victims.
“This is the problem we have now. If we are willing to lose democracy and the parliamentary system, then let’s stop having elections.”
One could make the argument that this is exactly what the Seri Kembangan rep is doing. Upholding the tenets of democracy and the parliamentary system. - Mkini
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.
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