In God we trust, in Umno it’s another story
By Sun Line
Pas’ spiritual leader Nik Aziz’s reported brave plans to ban the wearing of the purdah and ex-PM Mahathir Mohamad’s challenging the popular belief that it is not encouraged for Muslims to brush their teeth during Ramadan draw the spotlight on how many Malaysian Muslims have been living in a little world of their own.
Both Nik Aziz and Mahathir were drawing attention to the fact that many Malaysian Muslims have been confusing Islamic teachings per se with fantasies that are not parts of the Koran nor hadiths.
How these fantasies became a virtual part of Malaysian Muslims’ life is unclear but popular belief is that the export of dodgy Islamic sub-culture began with the birth of the Shite Islamic Republic of Iran, and later through the deeds of the Sunni Talibans of Afghanistan.
From the 1970s onwards, local Muslims slowly started to shed their traditional, cultural ways of practising Islam and started to adopt a more visual approach and concentrated on form rather than substance.
So began the journey of Umno’s political Islam which soon led to the codification of syariah laws and establishment of agencies like Islamic Affairs Department (JAWI), Selangor Islamic Religious Department (JAIS) etc to enforce the fatwas of the day on Muslims, nevermind that these agencies were Man-made and such snoop squads and privacy intruders were ultra vires the Koran and hadiths.
The constitution defines a Malay as someone who must be a Muslim, among other things. Be that as it may, Umno quickly hijacked the religious platform and redefined Islam, hence we now have the time-bomb situation where race is pitted against race and Muslims against Muslims, all for the benefit of one fascist-capitalist party which habitually flashes its laughable Islamic credentials at Muslims, many who are gullible enough to buy it lock stock and barrel.
As a secular country, the government has no business mixing religion with politics. A government’s function is to administer the country and leave religion, which is a private matter, to the public.
The Pakatan state governments, especially Penang which the DAP leads, and Selangor which the DAP holds a strong hand, are in a position to make it clear that Malaysia is secular and shall remain secular.
But the promises of the defence of secularism sound hollow if words are not met by deeds.
For starters, Pakatan should 1) disband all state level religious enforcement agencies, and; 2) instruct its reps to not use any taxpayers money for donation to any places of worship.
Pakatan should, because the BN wouldn’t, start rolling back the tides of fascist-capitalist mumbo-jumbo political Islam by deregulating religion from politics and let the various flocks manage their own relationship with the Almighty, in whatever name He may be known.
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