Malaysian Digest - Member of Parliament (MP) for Shah Alam Khalid Samad said today that one of the main challenges of PAS is in the convincing of the way Islam without imposing it on societies.

In his talk on PAS: Rising to New Challenges organised by Malaysian Digest, Khalid also stressed on the importance of PAS to be more sensitive to other races and religions.

“To convince people of Islam is an ongoing process. Islam cannot be imposed on societies,” Khalid said during the event held at Killiney Sooka Sentral here last Friday.

“PAS should not force the society to do what we want. Instead, we have to convince the people first,” he added.

He also talked about the challenges in overcoming the overwhelming control UMNO / BN has over the mainstream media.

“We have outperformed UMNO in Selangor but all our achievements in Selangor have been completely blacked out by the mainstream media. We just need to get the message across in other ways,” he said.

Khalid added that PAS / Pakatan Rakyat’s achievements must be conveyed in an old-fashioned manner and they are willing to go to the extent of going door to door.

On Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s trial, Khalid said that having the Pakatan Rakyat leader sentenced to prison would actually be an advantage to the Opposition.

“If Anwar is put in jail, even though we don't want it, it will make our job easier because people can see for themselves that injustice is being committed (by the government),” Khalid said.

Khalid added that the government’s effort on stamping out corruption and having an independent judiciary is all talk and no actual action is being taken.

During the question and answer session after his speech, when asked about the difficulties faced by Pakatan Rakyat coalition with its component parties having differing stands and ideologies, Khalid said that developing a working coalition will always be an ongoing process.

“PAS, DAP and PKR have similar objectives in that we are against race politics, corruption, injustices... When we got to work together there are many things that we find similar in terms of objectives. From then on we don't look at who the members of the parties are, instead we look at the parties' objectives,” Khalid said.

However, the charismatic MP said that it’s an unfortunate fact that there are still a small group of members within PAS who don't completely trust DAP and the same inclination exists within all Pakatan Rakyat component parties towards each other.

The former ISA detainee also said that to undertake change for the better the rakyat plays a major role.

“I think the rakyat understands that to change, everyone needs to chip in. We need everybody to chip in to ensure that the rakyat's voice is heard,” he said.

He added that he’s confident that through a proper and dedicated leadership change can be achieved.

The casual and open forum is the first of a series of monthly event called the Teh Tarik Session. Guests and participants of the inaugural event include Rahmat Harun, Adman Salleh, Nurul Izzah, Nam Ron, Thian Chua and Kee Thuan Chye.

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