The Islamization of Malaysia

Malaysia-Today - Is Malaysia a secular or Islamic state? It depends

from Asian Correspondence.com

Yawnnnnn, that was my initial reaction to the guest columnist's article in RPK's M2D. But after coming across a distressful news report I changed my mind and decided on this post.

What troubled me was a report that in Syariah-governed Pakistan, a man and his wife poured acid on their daughter's face and body, yes their own daughter, because the young sweetie had talked to a boy. 

The local doctor who examined her corpse said “There were third-degree burns on her scalp, face, eyes, nostrils, both arms, chest foot and lower part of legs. Even her scalp bone was exposed.”

And the cowardly parents didn't even have the 'honour' to admit to their 'honour killing', lying through their teeth their daughter had committed an unIslamic suicide.

another case of the oxymoronic 'honour killing'

No doubt some Malaysians would react defensively by arguing that oxymoronic 'honour killing' had nothing to do with Islam or Syariah or Hudud, and was just a local tribal custom, in similar mode to the defensive argument by a Malaysian in Malaysiakini some years ago about the horrific 'honour rape' of Muktaran Bibi. For more of the disgusting barbarous lustful 'honour rape' see my earlier posts:

(1) The NW Frontier: Sharia vs Lust!

(2) The NW Frontier: Sharia vs Lust! (2)
(3) The NW Frontier: Sharia vs Lust ! (3)

(4) Musharraf: "Get Raped & Become a Millionaire"

Musharraf's attitude towards 'honour rapes', postulating Paki women had themselves raped for monetary gain, was unspeakably lamentable, especially as he was the President of a Syariah-governed nation. Unbelievably he told the Washington Post that the rape victims had sinister intentions, for by getting themselves raped, they could make money and even become a millionaire, get a visa and migrate to Canada.

We have  been informed that almost 1000 Paki women lost their lives last year in the so-called 'honour killings'. And if you wonder why such injustice recurs with regularity in a Syariah-governed country, perhaps the pathetic attitude of its former President towards such crimes might be indicative.

I wonder whether such a mafulat misogynistic mentality matches that of PAS MP for Rantau Panjang (prior to 2008), Abdul Fatah Harun, who during a parliamentary session in April 2006 enlightened us with his Weltanshauung (world-view) that “If we see women who don’t have husbands and are divorced not because their husbands are dead, (it must be because) they are ‘gatal sikit’.”

The Malaysian word ‘gatal sikit’ (sedikit) literally means ‘a little itchy’ (colloquially referred to as 'being itchified’) but really, is an euphemism for being lascivious or wanton.

When a swarm of protesters bollocked him for his crude prejudice, he qualified himself with “I said most women. I didn't say all women. Most of the women who have divorced are gatal.”

Well, that explains! It’s only most women, not all women. Thank God!

But with people like Musharraf and Abdul Fatah Harun, you wonder whether Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) should have reconsidered entry qualifications for those wanting to embrace Islam.

But that annual 1000 deaths by 'honour killings were only in Pakistan. There were also reported cases of 'honour killings' in Lebanon, Jordan and many other Islamic nations, etc, and even in their western abodes.

Continuing on the issue of rape, I recall a case in Saudi Arabia in 2007 when a 19-year old Shiite woman, referred to as the 'Qatif girl', was abducted and gang-raped by 7 Sunni men, and believe it or not, then sentenced by the Saudi Syariah court to 6 months jail and 200 lashes of the Islamic whip.

Yes, the rape victim was punished. Maybe the Saudi Syariah court believed her 'gatal-ness' was more than 'sikit', hence the severe punishment.

'Promotion of virtue'? Did the Saudi Syariah court show any iota of virtue in punishing a rape victim?

Okay, I hope you have recovered from that gob-smacked piece of unbelievable shocking news, because I'm carrying on.

In the initial trial she was given 90 lashes but on appeal her lashings were increased by more than double as a punitive measure because her case was reported in the Western media - great juridical judgement and message to the girl by the Saudi Syariah court, wasn't it?

In fact she was warned that any further appeals would see her sentences increased.

However her Sunni rapists were not sentenced to death as per the standard Saudi penalty for rape, because the Syariah court in its infinite wisdom stated there was 'lack of witnesses' and the 'absence of confessions', though I fail to understand why in those absence of evidence the court still jailed them for a couple of years - a sentence totally inconsistent with their own judgement of non availability of corroborative evidence - yes, we might as well conclude that it's another great juridical judgement by the Saudi Syariah court.

One cannot but help get the impression that in Saudi Arabia, Sunni men could bonk Shiite women with near impunity, and would only be sentenced to death if they raped Sunni women? Hardly surprising when Saudi Arabia considers the Shiite fellow Muslims are far greater enemies than Israelis. So much for Muslim fraternity.

Back to my point and the thrust of my post - Tribal or no tribal custom, the Paki and Saudi cases, especially the former, all took place under the umbrella of Syariah jurisprudence, proving consistently and beyond any doubt that Syariah law is no guarantee for justice or a crime-free society.

And it's not because Allah's law is not perfect but fundamentally, because His Muslim cleric-judges most certainly aren't. And don't we in Malaysia know that just too well.

We have many of those (very much less than exemplary) Muslim clerics, one who even fabricated a dangerous and highly inflammatory tale about a Christian church in Perak converting Muslims, then sms-ing his followers to rush to the church to stop a non-existent proselytizing of Muslims, and when proven wrong in his seditious act, cowardly blamed it on his female accomplice, a ball-less act not unlike the Paki parents who cold-bloodedly killed their teenage daughter and claimed she committed suicide.

Was he arrested and charged with sedition? Nope, instead he was made a Tan Sri.

Another of his colleague-wonders also narrated a long, tall and hairy tale of solar-powered al Kitab's doing insidious subversive proselytizing work among Muslims. I wonder whether he's praying for an ellipse of the sun?

Datuk Paduka Marina Mahathir had once lamented in her Star column (as best as I can recall, in my own words) that one of Malaysia's deficiencies has been the poor educational level of the government's Islamic clerics. That's right, not every cleric is an erudite well-learned Dr Mohd Asri (former Perlis Mufti),  a rare avis in Malaysian Islamic community.

Dr Asri

Thus I wasn't surprised at all to read of the pathetic behaviour of some religious department officers during the infamous Zuok nightclub raid, where those moral police immorally forced the young sweeties caught in the nightclub to pee in the open in front of their hot, hungry, lustful and ogling eyes. No doubt those religious department officers were diligently scrutinizing those wayward women for any deviant behaviour, for example, like peeing while standing up.

Their boorish bad behaviour is guaranteed to happen again because the system provides near unbridled power to officials who lack knowledge in depth, intellectual capacity or good character to handle such authority. Abuses are likely to occur when power is not moderated by knowledgeable and scrupulous responsibility.

While injustices and crimes exist also in secular states, the sort of barbarism and blatant injustices just described in the above Syariah-governed states (or at the Zuok nightclub) won't have a snowflake chance in hell (or at least very little chances) of ever occurring in mature secular democracies like Australia, New Zealand, Canada or Britain [sorry, I can't include the USA yet].

What then do the above evidence of injustice, cruelty, abuses and barbarism in Syariah-governed land tell us about PAS’ promise that adoption of the rule of Syariah will stop endemic social decadences and rampant injustices.

Forgive me if I find it hard to believe them.

I rather believe that our only defence against the insidious subversion of God’s laws into an unacceptable clerical-centred ‘God only proposes but it’s Man (the cleric) who disposes’ is the strengthening, upholding and non-negotiable protection of the secular Constitution and the civil courts (warts and all).

Syariah-hudud laws will only over-empower (to unacceptable quantum) the Muslim clerics, people such as Hasan Ali, Harussani, and Azizan Abdul Razak and his now inviolable, unquestionable, and ominously all-powerful fatwas.

It'll also enable people like Nasrudin Hasan to intrude into and interfere with non-Muslim events such as Valentine’s Day, entertainment concerts/shows and god-knows-what-else with absolute impunity.

What a frightening, terrifying, horrendous thought for non-Muslims to have to swallow Nasrudin's brand of moralizing!

Even grandfatherly and much-loved Pak Haji Nik Aziz had not too long ago call for the death sentence for (single?) mothers who abandoned their babies, without even evaluating and considering the socio-religious circumstances which forced them to do so.

He then shocked us by stating that illicit (unmarried) lovers should be stoned to death.

Stoned to death?!

In Malaysiakini’s Karpal locks horns with Nik Aziz over baby dumping, Karpal Singh said that the Pak Haji was too harsh - Bhai you're telling me. F* I can't get over it, proposing such a medieval punishment of stoning people to death!

It's bad enough to have capital punishment without that Middle-Eastern inhuman speciality, which is best left to the Arabs and Israelis (remember “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her”?).

When we leave the laws of the country in the unaccountable hands of clerics, who would of course claim they speak in the name of or on behalf of God and therefore cannot be questioned (and it’s a universal trait, not exclusive to any religion), we are immediately at their tender mercies, prejudice and vested interests, as was the Shiite ‘Qatif’ rape victim in Saudi Arabia.

Most politicians who include religion, any religion, as part of their political platforms are only interested in exploiting the religious beliefs of voters for their personal vested (political) interests. Thus I am a firm believer in separation of State from Church.

But ironically, it would be the ‘true believers’ among the followers of those political leaders who frequently exploit religion for political gains that pose the greatest danger to justice, compassion and civility.

anti-Arab rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu investigated for racism

US pastor Terry Jones and his burn-Koran campaign

US Evangelist-politician Pat Robertson
claimed Hinduism is demonic and Islam satanic, and
Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment against US abortion policy,
called for assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

When these ‘true believers’ enthusiastically and zealously implement what they (sincerely but incorrectly) believe their leaders wanted them to do, invariably beyond the call of normal duties, their political leaders would suddenly find they no longer have control over what/whom they have let out of Pandora’s box ...

... not unlike what happened when King Henry II was reputed to have cried out "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" and four of his knights interpreted that as his wish to have Thomas Becket killed, and they carried that out. 

murder of Thomas Becket

Dr Mahathir had changed the status of secular Malaysia into an Islamic nation for his political purpose, namely, to outflank PAS in the Heartland, and no doubt thought it was a brilliant political move. Maybe it was, but I wonder what he now thinks of his zealots taking that politically-convenient status of his making beyond what he must have envisaged … or probably had wanted.

For example, I wonder whether he realizes that under his regime's Islamization policies, non-Muslim personnel in the Armed Forces on parade were forced to participate in Muslim styled prayers, which prior to that were only conducted by the Royal Malay Regiment, and not the RMN, RMAF and non-RMR army units?

Those non-Muslims were compelled to hold their hands in the Muslim form of supplication to Allah during parade prayers, like what non-Muslim school children had suffered during school weekly morning parades under the proselytizing policies of a former UMNO Education Minister, someone who was once very much favoured by Dr Mahathir, wakakaka. And may the bells in the Hindu temples ring to remind us of that.

Distressed parents of those suffering school children complained to the deaf ears of that Education Minister who glibly retorted that such hand gestures were of universal values. If so, then why not a Thai-styled wai, which not only has even greater universal appeal as a gesture of respect but would be more in tune with Malay culture?

And just how many of those non-Muslim soldiers, sailors or airmen had complained about being forced to raise their hands in doa fashion, we would never know because communications within the Armed Forces on sensitive or embarrassing issues could be and undoubtedly were contained under security classification, or dismissed away as nothing more than military parade procedures?

Then, under AAB’s regime we saw the Royal Malaysian Police copycat-ing the military, requiring its non-Muslim female officers to don tudung headgear during parade, on the argument they would then present a uniformly dressed rank and file.

Bull! Because prior to this pathetic excuse for unnecessary and insensitive Islamization of uniforms affecting non-Muslims, did Sikhs in their magnificent turbans on formal parade for the last hundred years ever present anything significantly non-uniformed and out of place to the rest of their non-Sikh colleagues on parade?

There's no doubt Malaysia's official Islamization programs can, will and indeed have already affected non-Muslims, in many cases against their agreement, will and liking. Thus non-Muslim Malaysians justifiably have every right to speak out on this issue.

But most discouragingly of all, I notice a number of politicians claiming to represent Islam were unable to take the heat of robust political debates, and would seek cowardly or convenient escape by resorting to threatening behaviour when they lack the intellectual-political ability to handle dissenting views or beliefs.

One had even shown he was more than willing to illegally gate-crash a meeting to disrupt its proceedings, which he astonishing as a lawyer did, just because he didn't agree with the event.

In 2006, even KL city authorities could charge a Chinese couple for kissing in a park, but the victims, who didn't deny kissing, informed that they were charged ONLY after they refused to pay bribes to two city hall officials. If true, then it was a disgusting vindictive misuse of (in the first place) an unacceptable moral standards to cover up for nefarious purposes!

But Barack Obama has the correct words for such abuse of power.

Indeed, the future must not belong to those who (misuse, abuse, exploit and thus) slander Islam.

More importantly, all these infringements on non-Muslim Malaysian rights are uneasy portent of things to come should those unaccountable clerics and their minions ever rise to power in Malaysia.

As G Vinod wrote in Free Malaysia Today's Hudud will affect non-Muslims, quoting Hindu Sangam president RS Mogan Shan:


When we go to the civil courts, they say they have no jurisdiction on Syariah matters. Even when we decide to go to the Syariah court, they could not hear our case because we are non-Muslims. Even Syariah lawyers refuse to take our case because we’re not Muslims. So where are the non-Muslims to go? 

The FMT's article continued as follows:

Brickfields Buddhist Mahavihara vice-president Premasilaka KD Serisena said that it was ridiculous that politicians were considering to implement hudud on top of the existing legal system.

“Let’s look at it from a common sense perspective. Hudud is a criminal justice system and with its implementation, you are creating a dual criminal justice system.

“My question here is, what if a non-Muslim rapes a Muslim? Or Muslim commits a crime against a non-Muslim? Which system are you going to use? It’s ridiculous,” he said.

He added that it was simplistic for anyone to assume that a criminal would only commit crimes against a person of his own religion.

Those are also my concerns. Thus we must have separation of State from Church as was clearly annunciated by our founding fathers.