Pushing the envelope
The title of this article is ‘Pushing the envelope’ and this is what I am doing here, pushing the envelope. But it is a debate that we need to have because once you declare war against extremism and tyranny then you also declare war against being forced to follow organised religion, never mind what religion that may be.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
On Christmas Day, PAS MP vows to fight religious extremism, tyranny
(The Malay Mail) – As the “Allah” controversy continues to smoulder and cast a pall over Christmas, PAS lawmaker Datuk Dr Mujahid Yusof Rawa reached out to Malaysian Christians today, expressing his solidarity in the fight against religious extremism, racism and injustice.
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Dr Mujahid Yusof Rawa is the son of a one-time PAS President so he has always been one of my most-interesting-to-watch characters. I believe, in his pre-politics days, Mujahid used to work in a bank, Bank Islam I think it was. Hence in that sense he could be considered as amongst the more professional leaders of PAS alongside people like Dr Hatta, Dr Dzul, Dr Siti, and so on (also all professionals).
Hence perish the thought if you think that all or most PAS leaders are merely village preachers with narrow minds and small brains. You would probably find more professionals in the PAS leadership than in many of the other political parties in Malaysia.
It is because of Mujahid and those other professional and/or liberal leaders in the party that non-Malays have become quite comfortable with voting for PAS candidates in the last two general elections compared to, say, in 1999 when the Chinese punished DAP for its alliance with PAS.
DAP was so badly bruised in the 1999 general election that in 2004 it decided to go solo and that resulted in the opposition performing its worse ever in Malaysian election history.
Before I continue, understand what the word ‘extreme’ means. This means beyond normal or reasonable limits while ‘tyranny’ means oppression or harsh treatment by a person, group or unjust government.
Now, it is nice to hear a rising PAS leader issuing such a statement on Christmas Day. It is reassuring to hear that Malaysian politics may actually be moving to the middle/centre rather than to the extreme right or extreme left. However, while such statements may be welcome to the non-Malays (meaning non-Muslims as well), what would its implications be to the Malays/Muslims?
I know Mujahid’s statement is targeted at the Christians being Christmas Day and all that. But can Malaysian Malays/Muslims take that statement as also applying to them or is this promise of fighting against extremism and tyranny only for the benefit of the non-Malays/non-Muslims while the Malays/Muslims will still be subjected to extremism and tyranny?
In other words, is Malaysia going to be a one county, one policy or a one country, two policies type of country?
This is where Mujahid and PAS need to tread very carefully because they are walking on very thin ice here and my question would be: how far do they wish to push the envelope?
As I said earlier, ‘extreme’ means beyond normal or reasonable limits while ‘tyranny’ means oppression or harsh treatment by a person, group or unjust government. Hence to remove extremism and tyranny we have to remove all those ideas and policies that make something extreme and/or tyrannical.
While Mujahid and PAS may have no problems promising the non-Malays/non-Muslims this, is Mujahid and PAS promising the same to Malays/Muslims to ensure that Malaysia becomes a one country with one policy and not a one country with two policies (one for Malays/Muslims and another for non-Malays/non-Muslims)?
To debate the issue of extremism we must first debate what is considered extreme. Since extreme means beyond what is normal and reasonable then we must define ‘normal’ and ‘reasonable’.
Is it normal to believe in something that cannot be proven? Is it reasonable to expect others to believe in what you believe when something cannot be proven? Is it not tyrannical to force others to believe in what you believe when others may not share your view in believing in the unproven?
Hence to remove extremism and tyranny we have to remove what is beyond normal and reasonable and stop forcing others to believe in something not normal or reasonable.
Reasonable comes from the word reason. And to reason something you need to argue your case with logical points. And when something defies logic then it becomes unreasonable. Hence to force these ideas on other people becomes unreasonable and an act of oppression, which is tyranny, and hence extreme.
I have said this many times before: religion is about faith and not about logic. It is what you believe and not about what you can prove. I have, in fact, also said many times before that faith is the word they use to describe absence of proof. Hence when you cannot prove something you call it faith.
Therefore, if a Malay does not wish to believe in Sunni Islam but would rather believe, say, in Shia Islam (although some Sunnis say that Shias are not Muslims just like some Christians say that Catholics are not Christians) or a Sunni Muslim does not believe in Islam totally but believes in Christianity, would this be acceptable to PAS and people like Mujahid?
The title of this article is ‘Pushing the envelope’ and this is what I am doing here, pushing the envelope. But it is a debate that we need to have because once you declare war against extremism and tyranny then you also declare war against being forced to follow organised religion, never mind what religion that may be.
It is oppressive and unreasonable to force someone to do something against his/her will and the only way to end extremism and tyranny would be to allow every Malaysian to follow his/her belief even if that belief is God does not exist and that religion did not come from God (which you believe does not exist anyway) but was a creation of humans who wanted to control fellow humans through a strict dogma.
Can you see how one thing leads to another and how that the path to hell is paved with good intentions?
