Updated: 11:18 AM
“Whether Pakatan is a moderate voice, we have to wait and see. The test is not whether they allow non-Muslims sufficient freedom; that's easy, but whether they will be ‘moderate’ to Muslims.”
COMMENT | People were predictably up in arms after former law minister Zaid Ibrahim made some rather aspirational claims about clerical leadership or the possibility of clerical stewardship in this country.
The fact that he doubled down on his claims is vintage Zaid.
Here is the thing about Zaid the politician, he said the quiet part aloud as he did in the series of interviews I did with him a decade ago.
Needless to say, I do not share Zaid’s view of clerical leadership and ironically, it is because of how Zaid has articulated the problem of the religion of the state.
The quote that opens this piece is exactly what is wrong with the way Islam is practised in this country.
“Whether Pakatan is a moderate voice, we have to wait and see. The test is not whether they allow non-Muslims sufficient freedom; that's easy, but whether they will be ‘moderate’ to Muslims.”
– Zaid Ibrahim, 2012 interview
COMMENT | People were predictably up in arms after former law minister Zaid Ibrahim made some rather aspirational claims about clerical leadership or the possibility of clerical stewardship in this country.
The fact that he doubled down on his claims is vintage Zaid.
Here is the thing about Zaid the politician, he said the quiet part aloud as he did in the series of interviews I did with him a decade ago.
Needless to say, I do not share Zaid’s view of clerical leadership and ironically, it is because of how Zaid has articulated the problem of the religion of the state.
The quote that opens this piece is exactly what is wrong with the way Islam is practised in this country.
Ex-minister Zaid Ibrahim
Here is another snippet from the interview, the context of which was a statement Nurul Izzah Anwar had made at the time – “But scholars have no influence in Malaysia; only religious bureaucrats.
“Nurul Izzah is brave to express an opinion; but in Malaysia, Muslims have no right to an opinion on their own religion. They can be punished. Only the state can issue opinions.”
So, Islamic policy here is defined by the religious bureaucracy and enabled by ethnocentric politicians.
So, the test is whether the state and its religious bureaucracy would allow Muslims to be moderate?
Let us talk about Iran and its clerical rule. Why do you think that young people, women and various minorities - yes, there are minorities in Iran - are rejecting clerical rule, the religion of the state and there is a growing movement towards authentic pre-Islamic Persian traditions?
Here is another snippet from the interview, the context of which was a statement Nurul Izzah Anwar had made at the time – “But scholars have no influence in Malaysia; only religious bureaucrats.
“Nurul Izzah is brave to express an opinion; but in Malaysia, Muslims have no right to an opinion on their own religion. They can be punished. Only the state can issue opinions.”
So, Islamic policy here is defined by the religious bureaucracy and enabled by ethnocentric politicians.
So, the test is whether the state and its religious bureaucracy would allow Muslims to be moderate?
Let us talk about Iran and its clerical rule. Why do you think that young people, women and various minorities - yes, there are minorities in Iran - are rejecting clerical rule, the religion of the state and there is a growing movement towards authentic pre-Islamic Persian traditions?
Why do you think the Mahsa Amini protest and its ancillary demands of social freedoms happened? All this was a rejection of clerical rule that doesn’t allow the majority of Iranians to be “moderate” in their belief in God.
One Islamic narrative
People who vote for PAS understand exactly what they are signing up for.
It doesn’t matter if it is the clerical leadership or any of its other branches of internal power; what people want from PAS is the kind of atavistic religion that the state has indoctrinated them to want.
With each passing day, its party president Abdul Hadi Awang and his bunch of religious extremists are getting stronger. They are getting stronger because they believe the state security apparatus and religious bureaucracy are on their side.
The history and culture of Islam in Malaysia are tributaries of religious expressions, a kind of Islam Nusantara, if you will.
You can witness the polychromatic nature of Islam in Malaysia in bygone books and films.
The problem with the religious dialectic in this country is that it is defined between Muslim and non-Muslim, and this is what the people in power want.
While the state attempts to control the Islamic narrative, there are a myriad of Muslim voices attempting to be heard and express themselves while constraining against the confines of the religious bureaucracy.
This is why books, films and plays by scholars, poets, academics and average Muslim citizens are banned by the state. The religious class wants you to believe that there is only one Islamic narrative. This is why there is this obsession by the state about ideas that "confuse" Muslims.
Religious bureaucracy
There is very little daylight between the religious bureaucracy and PAS, and it really doesn't matter which coalition controls the religious bureaucracy.
PAS doesn't need to be in power to reap the benefits of Madani’s religious policies.
Take the proposed mufti bill, which in essence is merely a religious power grab by the Madani state.
Lawyer Latheefa Koya, in a piece every rational Malaysian should read, issued this chilling warning - “It will give power to the government through the mufti to control or police every aspect of the life of Muslims in this country.
“No government should have such powers over its people in a democracy, purportedly under the guise of religion.”
Sisters in Islam (SIS), which recently succeeded in its legal challenge against the Selangor state fatwa committee labelling it deviant and had parts of the fatwa overturned, said - “Without oversight and recourse for appeals or legal challenges, the unchecked powers of institutions or figures directly undermine the rule of law and justice.”
All this points to the reality that this country is already heading towards clerical rule.
Meaningless non-Malay votes
PAS just has to be patient and Madani will deliver a theocracy to PAS, and best of all, it would have the stamp of approval of non-Muslims, because their representation in Parliament bends the knee to the religious class.
When PAS gains federal power, it will lead the effort to disenfranchise the non-Malay vote even more and perhaps make the non-Malay vote meaningless.
This is the plan, and PAS has been very open about it.
Just four years ago, before the general election, then-PAS central committee member Khairuddin Aman Razali said: “There are long-term (needs) that require us to win the next general election with a two-thirds majority.
“(Upon achieving this) the electoral boundaries need to be changed to benefit Muslims.
“We also need to increase the number of parliamentary seats in Malay-majority areas.”
By making the non-Malay vote irrelevant, what they are doing is making non-Malay political power inconsequential - this is the very definition of “pak turut” (yes man).
This is why Perikatan Nasional is enjoying the antics of someone like Umno Youth chief Dr Akmal Saleh.
He is a constant reminder to non-Malays that their political power is meaningless. Their role within this unity government is to be the “pak turut”.
When you use religion as a political tool, you then have to demonstrate how much commitment you have towards the religion. Then the narrative becomes Manichaean.
You either support the religion wholeheartedly or you do not. PAS gets to claim that their Islam is more powerful because they have demonstrated their will to turn the states they rule into a theocracy or as near to it as possible.
This is why the prime minister is enabling the religious apparatus and demonstrating his religious bona fides at every opportunity.
He knows that a good chunk of the majority believe that PAS, as a religious party, can deliver a religious state.
In the name of God
Zaid claimed that “… there is one aspect of PAS which proved to be the party members’ greatest asset, which would also benefit the country - their genuine fear of God.”
Here is the thing. People who believe in the kind of religion that PAS advocates, that the religious bureaucracy advocates, do not really fear God.
They fear losing dominance over others in the name of their God.
This is why they do not want moderate believers. They want believers who will abide by what they say in the name of God.
If Zaid really believes that clerical rule and PAS are the panacea for what ails this country, all I can say is that this cure is worse than the disease.
S THAYAPARAN is commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”
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kt comments:
I have been wondering of late what has happened to Zaid Ibrahim, one of my fave pollies. Well, this might have been what happened (to him):
Zaid is a good man and had long wanted to play a meaningful role in politics for the good of ALL Malaysians. Alas, as a minister in UMNO he saw what happened when Teresa Kok and a young female journalist were unjustly incarcerated. So he left UMNO and joined Anwar's party (Anwar then was still in jail).
PKR under the then-leadership of Azmin didn't treat Zaid kindly (nor in my opinion, fairly). Again, Zaid a man whom I had described as "suffering no fools" left for the DAP.
The frigging tight-assed DAP, alas, shunned him and left him in cold storage. Admittedly Zaid has been known to be a bit of a 'loose cannon' and tight-ass being tight-ass, the DAP feared such 'loose cannon' playing a role in the party's policies - in the Rocket Party every thing must be scripted well in advance, wakakaka. Thus they didn't even made him a senator. So in the end he had to leave 'coz what's the frigging point of staying in a party which marginalised him.
Guess where and who Zaid is associating with now?
A good man gone to waste due to the nasty (internal) politics of PKR and DAP!
Related:
Zaid Ibrahim - suffers no fool gladly
Zaid Ibrahim: necessary man in our fraught times
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