Religious instability post GE15

Religious instability post GE15

S Thayaparan

"Let's not place religion and politics in separate corners."

- PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang

COMMENT | No matter who wins the next general election, religious instability will be the defining characteristic of Malaysian politics for some time.

In Malaysia, where race and religion are not mutually exclusive, this means that whoever wins the election is going to have to worry about the expectations of the majority voting base not only when it comes to fiscal responsibility but also social policies.

Gerrymandering, disproportionate weightage of votes, and religious extremism will result in the continued balkanisation of the Malaysian voting polity.

I would rather all these other Malay uber alles parties be banished from the political chessboard, so it would be a straight fight between Umno and Pakatan Harapan than have to worry about the possible Malay/Muslim solidarity governments that the deep Islamic state desires to ensure religious hegemony in this country.

I have said this before and I will continue saying this.

The political party that has benefited the most from the political insatiability brought upon by the Sheraton Move is PAS. As long as there is political instability, PAS will always benefit.

PAS political operatives have been flexing their religious muscles ever since they came into federal power through the backdoor.

Not only have they shown an indifference to the royal institution demonstrated by the Bon Odori brouhaha, but they have also demonstrated, like the Kedah menteri besar, a causal disregard for non-Muslim “rights” all in the name of religious piety.

PAS understands that not only is the political instability brought upon by the machinations of a kleptocratic regime useful to them but also that more democracy injected into the Malaysian body politic is detrimental to them.

For decades, Umno was the gatekeeper of Islam in this country. Umno defined Islam and PAS was the voice of dissent, playing the long game of slowly building consensus against the narratives of the Umno state.

Recently, because of a compromised Umno, they made inroads into mainstream Malay/Muslim politics and were aided and abetted by the deep Islamic state.

Do not be misled. Do not let the 1MDB issue and the persecution of political operatives mask Islamic intrigues that are happening on a sub-rosa level.

BN component parties, MCA and MIC, merely follow what Umno says and are merely playing offence when it comes to PAS and their Islamism.

They constantly remind the non-Malay communities that PAS is the Islamic bogeyman while Umno is busy making pacts and alliances with PAS operatives beyond the headlines and creating pockets of religious extremism where once democracy sputtered.


Existential threat

When PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang (top photo) claimed (in the early days) that the reason why Umno and PAS were “getting married” was that they could rightfully reclaim rule over the non-Malays, this is neither controversial nor disingenuous.

The much sought-after Malay base probably thought this way too, which is why Malay political operatives in Harapan do not bother countering this narrative with the Bangsa Malaysia propaganda.

It didn’t take long for Umno and PAS to understand that there will never be a sole protector of Malay rights and Islam in this country anymore.

Youth and Sports Minister Ahmad Faizal Azumu may not for some reason not want to go to hell but when he was the menteri besar of Perak when the kampong Manjoi extremists criminally damaged a convenience store because they wanted to stop it from selling alcohol.

He advised other shop operators operating in other Malay villages to be “more sensitive to the feeling of locals."

Malay uber alles political operatives behave this way because they understand they will get very little pushback from Harapan, which is struggling to widen its Malay base after decades in play, but more importantly by the missteps of the DAP which has made it very easy for the mainstream Islamic establishment to paint them as either hypocritical or anti-Islam because of the DAP’s hypocrisy and religious cosplay.

This was also the menteri besar who was waging a solo battle against “puak puak DAP”.

“I want to defend the land of the Malays, I want to champion our religion,” he tells a group of people during an informal discussion. “(But) I do it, slowly. Alhamduillah (thank God), my Umno friends (in Perak) do not scold me like this.”

The existential threat facing this country is not corruption or even mismanagement, which can be easily rectified if there is political will. The threat facing this country is religious extremism.

Every time Malay/Muslim political operatives lose control of anything, they will fall back on race and religion.

That is Part 1 of the problem. Part 2 of the problem is that instead of offering a counter-narrative, Harapan would rather keep quiet and attempt to murmur a few platitudes instead of addressing the issue and exposing the hypocrisy for what it is for fear of offending Malay/Muslim sensibilities.

It gets worse when it comes to policy. People talk about the billion ringgit budget of Jakim but remember during Harapan’s time, an insane amount of money was given to Jakim and the then-Harapan religious czar justified the expenditure.

PAS and Umno will no doubt carry on using a weaponised Islam for political purposes. Remember, class divisions feed into these Islamic narratives of victimhood, which is why it is important for rural constituents to lag behind compared to their urban brethren.

Political instability in the near future will not be defined by frogs but rather by increased religious extremism in our public and private spheres.

Sooner or later, the economy and mismanagement are going to destroy whatever illusion these religious extremists generate of their ability to govern and there will be civil unrest, which could lead to a neo-colonialism of sorts perpetrated by various power groups at play in the region.

Religious extremists always forget the golden rule, you reap what you sow.

S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”