IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES: Pas and DAP find each other’s ideology objectionable
The creation of an Islamic state has always been regarded by Pas as a sacred obligation and the air of immutability surrounding its relentless crusade is palpable. We may throw up our hands in utter horror and despair, but Pas has every right to retain this crucially important article of faith in exactly the same way that DAP is a full member of Socialist International.
KARPAL Singh is most people’s idea of a Sikh warrior, and he has lived up to his reputation for courage and constancy.
Some years ago, I had occasion to comment in an article in this newspaper that whatever we might think of him, we were unanimous about one aspect of the man: he is and has always been consistent in his views on a whole range of issues. It is a trait I find refreshing in a politician, and on this score alone, he stands out from many of the common garden variety specimens we have to put up with in all parties.
Karpal has been pointedly blunt in his opposition to an Islamic state that Pas leaders are apparently bent on foisting upon this multi-religious nation of ours, with or without our consent. Karpal is shrewd, and knows from the deafening silence of the lambs in the top hierarchy of his party on this emotionally inflammable, nay, incendiary issue, that he is skating on thin ice. By persisting in his chosen path, he cannot surely be oblivious to the real danger of his throwing Pakatan Rakyat into further confusion and disarray; even derailing their dream of storming the citadel of power at Putrajaya.
Karpal enjoys a degree of party immunity as many in the party observe, but with or without it, he will not in the nature of his being bow to hypocrisy whatever the personal cost may be.
When Pas decided, in a fit of absent mindedness, to bed down with DAP, the thought that the Chinese-dominated party would not be content to play a passive secondary role had probably escaped the skull-capped, turbaned ulama. However incongruous the alliance might have appeared, it was on the face of it a strategic master stroke. Pas on its own could not make much headway in national politics given its narrow religious appeal mainly to rural and semi-urban Malays.
DAP, both in scope and reach, is nothing more than an urban party drawing its main support from the Chinese community and on its own, the prospects for nationwide electoral dominance will forever remain a hazy gleam in the eye unless it could gain Malay trust and support. This seems unlikely on present showing. Malay distrust of certain members of the party leadership is all but complete.
The creation of an Islamic state has always been regarded by Pas as a sacred obligation and the air of immutability surrounding its relentless crusade is palpable. We may throw up our hands in utter horror and despair, but Pas has every right to retain this crucially important article of faith in exactly the same way that DAP is a full member of Socialist International.
It is also no secret how hard they have been working on Pas to abandon its Islamic state agenda and substitute it with a welfare state, a euphemism at best for a socialist state.
Pas mullahs have just woken up to the fact that they have been taken for a ride on the DAP rocket, well away from their Malaysian holy dream. If DAP leaders find the Pas political ideology so objectionable, why not opt out now as it is evident that this is one marriage not made in heaven? This marriage of convenience, entered into with eyes wide open, has, as predicted, come unstuck. The ideological differences are so wide that they are irreconcilable, and given the structural cracks that are clear for all to see, it is a matter of time before a decree absolute puts an end to this bickering unholy alliance.
I cannot see the point of Karpal’s handwringing because an Islamic state will remain merely a statement of intent with absolutely no prospect of it coming to pass, no pun intended, any time soon. The only way Pas could overcome the constitutional blockade facing them in carrying out their plan to ram an Islamic State down our collective throat is for them, alone, to secure a two-thirds parliamentary majority.
On the balance of probabilities, an Islamic state is not going to materialise and, thank God, Karpal will not be put to the test over his celebrated “Hudud, over my dead body” statement. It was nothing more than an “in a manner of speaking” response, and best left to die a natural death.
