Datuk Johari Umno supreme council member warmed Don’t Use Hudud to Poison the Discourse and Polarise the Polity

It’s not moderate Muslims’ fault  fundamentalist Islamic organisations have sent tremors round the world. As a scared world dissects the causes and tries to find solutions, many stress the role of the ‘moderate Muslim’, or educated and modern Muslims who have kept quiet or not spoken up enough in all this.However, it isn’t as simple. To find solutions, it is important not to assign blame to a whole group of people. The first step is to try and understand the moderate Muslim point of view.Imagine this. You have grown up respecting a religion and its holy texts. Along with customs and rituals you have also affirmed a lot of positive values – compassion, honesty, humility, love, integrity, generosity. You are a rational, scientific human being but still give religion an important place in your life. After all it teaches you humanity, makes you a better person and keeps you positive.

Now imagine a small section of Muslims like PAS , who claim to share your religion, spreading hate and violence. They claim to be defending the same religion you love and respect, but their actions do not agree with your conscience at all. This fringe group is a paradox. It upholds something you love, but acts in a manner you despise

he Now imagine a small section of Muslims like PAS , who claim to share your religion, spreading hate and violence. They claim to be defending the same religion you love and respect, but their actions do not agree with your conscience at all. This fringe group is a paradox. It upholds something you love, but acts in a manner you despise.
 to the soul; they indicate the real you. Have you tried looking deep into your own eyes? Most people are scared of doing so, even as self-help gurus encourage us to do so. For, our eyes can sometimes reveal truths that we are not prepared to face. You could fool the whole world and even yourself into believing whatever your mind wants you to believe, but the accusing look, the hurt in your eyes will pull you up sharply. As beautifully put by a poet trying to explain the connection between eyes and the soul, “Eyes mirror our souls… actually they don’t. They have been carved out of our souls.” Just like the body, the eyes have a language of their own. Here are some interesting tips from body language experts, which will help you unravel the language of the eyes. Too much blinking can indicate discomfort, while someone who hardly blinks may be trying to hide something. Looking directly at you? Interested in you and the conversation. Too prolonged a gaze? Threatening and could be obsessive. Looking away frequently? Distracted and hiding something. Looking closely at the eyes of a romantic interest can help you figure out if they are interested in you. Dilated pupils indicate interest 

 Do some science, can we? Didn’t we send a space tourist, with the Russians, to the Space Station a while ago?

Waste not your time linking the flood to the “wrath of God”… primarily it is a Natural disaster coupled with Man’s destruction of the environment as well as the Butterfly Effect of things. Even in lands deemed very Islamic such as Kelantan and Trengganu and Pahang, Man hath shaved the hills bald even deforestating the ‘Serambi Mekah’ and although there is also a ‘Crystal Masjid’ to show piety in another state…This is a testament, if we follow their religious explanation of events, of a defiance of the law governing the Natural State of the Universe – you shave hills for profit, you profit from logging, you become capitalists and petite bourgeoisie in religious garb, you steal from Nature to turn it into Technology and next, turn it in Capital. You do all these, you have become a religiously unethical person as well.

We saw this in Sarawak and now in Cameron Highlands. Not because there is no hudud in place. You are seeing this even in Mecca itself; with the Saudis who do not care about the environment, let alone history in the major reconstruction projects in the holy city.

There must be a joint interstate fatwa to make shaving hills in Kelantan haram to the max and also to make arguing about hudud at a time like this haram, too, I should say

But spend time not linking religion and science and making strange spurious correlations. We have to spend more time improving our disaster management plans, continuously advancing skills to the highest and more professional level, using the science of Advanced Computer Simulation to predict and control events, and to redesign habitats to ensure we do have extensive casualties and property damage when annual disaster like this strike…“Pray to God, but tie your camel,” as they say… or rather, “Pray to God and design a 3-D camel that can help you in a major flood like this”… I’d say… “Think of new technologies for crisis management.”

Our prayers go to those affected by the flood… “I have been in one too many way up in the North back in the day…”

But here is the larger picture.

Are we environmentally doomed? Are we at the eleventh hour of total environmental destruction? How devastating has the impact of carbon dioxide emissions been? How serious is the depletion of the ozone layer? How much of the rainforests of the world have been destroyed? How fast are the polar ice caps melting, speeding up the looming disaster of Armageddon/ Qiamat of humankind? How many more frequent, major flash floods must we endure?

‘Man should not have carved the stone’

The Chinese philosopher and mystic Lao Tzu once said, “Man should not have carved the stone”, meaning man should not have invented things for, “… as Man began carving the stone, the process of destruction begins”.

Light bulbs, automobiles, powerplants, factories, telephone lines, bombs and computers are inventions that have historically transformed nature. Human beings ‘carve the stone’ and build structures of power and wealth which transform or even rape Nature in the process.

Ancient philosophies and the teachings of ‘revealed religion’ (of the Judeo-Christian tradition) warned against the exploitation of the physical environment so that humanity would continue to be close to Nature and closer to the realisation of the Natural Self. Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and probably the most extreme of all Hindu sects, Jainism, teaches human beings to respect living things as part of the great chain of beings.

But Western scientific ideology has taught Man to be free from not only thinking about spirits and spirituality, nature and the natural self, religion and deep reflection, but has also ‘enlightened’ human beings into mastering Nature and using its resources for the ‘progress’ of mankind. Progress, measured linearly and scientifically, is then equated with ‘civilisation’.I hope in 2015 and beyond do not talk too much about hudud and forbidding Muslims from saying “Merry Christmas” but to focus on realism and constantly finding ways to solve social problems and how to manage natural disasters better. Or at least to start learning what pragmatism and liberalism means and how to apply these concepts to the practice of our national daily lives.

End this with these two quotes:

“We did not ask you white men to come here. The Great Spirit gave us this country as a home. You had yours. We did not interfere with you. The Great Spirit gave us plenty of land to live on, and buffalo, deer, antelope and other game. But you have come here, you are taking my land from me, you are killing off our game, so it is hard for us to live.

“Now, you tell us to work for a living, but the Great Spirit did not make us to work, but to live by hunting. You white men can work if you want to. We do not interfere with you, and again you say why do you not become civilised? We do not want your civilisation! We would live as our fathers did, and their fathers before them.” – Crazy Horse of the Sioux tribe

“I was just thinking that of all the trails in this life there is one that matters most. It is the trail of a true human being.” – Kicking Bird, (quote from the movie ‘Dances With Wolves’)

PAS's silence hurt DAP, PKR  blamed PAS squarely for the massive Muslim vote base was dented the winner is UMNO  Pas the queen who couldn’t be the kingmaker

the victor who lost; the queen without the crown  couldn’t get anywhere near power at the Centre when UMNO would be sharing it with some parties that got just a couple of seats,Elections offer takeaways for winner and losers, and here are a couple for MCA Strategic compromise is sometimes better than a Pyrrhic victory. Wishful thinking of a prospective post-poll ally under performing may be as dangerous as underestimating a rival.Some may contest this on the premise that  a DAP -PAS would have triggered a reconfiguration of political equations in  that  PAS might have gone with UMNO; that the Left and the smaller parties would have joined such a coalition sensing anti-right polarisation.To date, it has two Malay MPs – Bukit Bendera's Zairil Khir Johari and Raub's Datuk Ariff Sabri – both of whom lead Chinese-majority seats.said despite fielding Dyana, the party will have a challenging task ahead in changing the perception of the electorate.

“This is something that will take time because perception takes a longer time to build up. DAP has a long-term view of this by trying to recast their image from being a communal to a national party,

We have all at some point of time in our lives wondered if we're actually being too nice to someone that the person has started taking us for granted. It is always nice to be there for somebody, especially people who are close to you — but when you find that they have started treating you the way they wish to because you are being too nice to them, it is time to step back.

But how many of us can actually do that, especially with our loved ones? It's too harsh to move out from somebody's life because that person has started taking advantage of your feelings.

Detach yourself: The moment you feel that the person you love is taking advantage of your feelings for him/her, you need to stop being there for the person right away. Sure, it is not easy, but you have to try. It may make you feel completely hollow within, but remember you are doing this for sometime, till the time the person realises what he/she has done to you is wrong.

Detachment doesn't mean you stop caring: There is a fine line between detaching yourself from the person and actually stop caring about him/her. Don't make it so evident that the person thinks that you are doing it to get something back from him/her, instead of making them realise their fault. Be there for them when they need you, but step back when you think that you've gone way too far with your concerns for that person.

 PM Najib a person who the world respects as someone who can’t be taken for granted. A person who has the authority in UMNO that is unmistaken.Ultimately, the Najib have the power, not the proxies.The job of the PM, the dharma, is to provide governance. Provide all that a nation of a billion plus deserves. Education, food, water, shelter, clothing, sanitation, ability to lead a life of dignity. It cannot be done if the person himself is unable to live with dignity.

This system must be smashed. Najib is seen by many as somebody who can change the system from within.  only a newcomer, like me, People ask, am I not disillusioned with theDAP’s populism, crazy statements, and unending but unsubstantiated allegations of corruption? Up to a point yes, but I never expected much better. An anti-corruption movement brings together diverse people. When that movement is converted into a party, contradictions will emerge. Chaotic sloganeering and populism will follow.  can truly attack the system. I may disagree strongly with Pakatan leaderS Anwar.Lim Kit Siang and Pas president  on economic policy, their emphasis on quick justice and checking judicial corruption 

The desire to be politically correct has overtaken the imperative to be politically sensible. Method and order, the favourite weapons of Hercule Poirot, might be usefully employed in analysis The life-blood of our democracy is a covenant, a pact between elector and elected that the quid pro quo for the vote is service to the constituency. The quality of that service is an important (but not the only) factor in an MP’s re-election. This is the one big check that keeps a MP on some sort of practical leash.

 MPs are elected on the basis of lists prepared by the Pakatan party leaders, enabling them to send their chosen favourites to the House in direct proportion to the percentage of votes they have received.The relationship between MP and voter can, thereby, be officially abandoned. This should make party bosses delirious.The irony is that such flaws can be easily corrected, with some time and thought. Both have been absent from the process. The pro-reservation lobbies have employed hustle topped off by self-congratulation; those opposed think that explosions constitute an argument.he former worked through cheerleaders in the media; the latter played to galleries beyond the media, and did so effectively. Pakatan began to waver when the message from the second horizon began to permeate back to Putra Jaya Pakatan was indifferent to the threat from UMNO, but it could not remain immune to a threat from the voter. Empowerment of Malays is powerful and necessary objective, but the route map should be navigated with care.

“TRULY, GOD DOES NOT CHANGE THE CONDITION OF A PEOPLE UNTIL THEY CHANGE WHAT IS IN THEMSELVES.”YOU CAN’T BANNED THE PEOPLE’S VOICES TO KEEP ALIVE DEMOCRACY

There is a verse in the Holy Quran that captures what is happening in the Arab world today.
“Truly, God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” (13:11).
That verse was often cited by ordinary Muslims, scholars and apathetic youth before the revolutions; now it takes on a different meaning,  “Allahu Akbar” or God is Great is used by Muslim protestors who believe God is greater than the crimes of their party PAS On Twitter and Facebook, young people profess their belief in Islam alongside their belief in democracy, and frequently post verses from the Holy Quran that reference injustice, oppression and patience.

There is a big difference between the terms Islamic and Islamist, which revolutionary youth are not, but their unhappiness and frustration is directly related to their desire for better treatment and dignity, which Islam preaches. Youth in the Arab revolutions demanded society stop pretending that the status quo is acceptable; the implications that has on religion cannot be overlooked.

Nik Abduh must explain himself more clearly

We have all at some point of time in our lives wondered if we're actually being too nice to someone that the person has started taking us for granted. It is always nice to be there for somebody, especially people who are close to you — but when you find that they have started treating you the way they wish to because you are being too nice to them, it is time to step back.

But how many of us can actually do that, especially with our loved ones? It's too harsh to move out from somebody's life because that person has started taking advantage of your feelings.

Detach yourself: The moment you feel that the person you love is taking advantage of your feelings for him/her, you need to stop being there for the person right away. Sure, it is not easy, but you have to try. It may make you feel completely hollow within, but remember you are doing this for sometime, till the time the person realises what he/she has done to you is wrong.

Detachment doesn't mean you stop caring: There is a fine line between detaching yourself from the person and actually stop caring about him/her. Don't make it so evident that the person thinks that you are doing it to get something back from him/her, instead of making them realise their fault. Be there for them when they need you, but step back when you think that you've gone way too far with your concerns for that person.


The current high pitch on Hudud is not about faith, but about politics. The purpose of ‘re-converting’ a few dozen Hindus and Christians to PAS is not so much to address any past wrongs or to increase the number of PAS fignters in the country as to make the public discourse communal and polarize society. The PAS and its fellow travellers PERKASA hope to crystallise Malay solidarity further around itself by forcing the Opposition parties to speak up for the minorities, so that they can be branded as minority parties and secularism can be caricatured as championing the minorities at the expense of the majority Malays
 Prime Minister Najib’s silence on the subject. If this foretaste of religious nationalism does not turn you off, tune in to the Islamic State, which has declared a Caliphate and proposes to make all infidels see the light and to enslave those who refuse to.

Sun sets on Bahasa Melayu’s surviving spirit

Implicit in the freedoms we cherish in our democracy is our right to offend. That is the cornerstone of all free thought and its expression. In a country as beautiful and complex as ours, it is our inalienable right to offend that makes us the nation we are. Ofcourse I also recognise the fact that this right attaches to itself many risks, including the risk of being targeted. But as long as these risks are within reasonable, well defined limits, most people will take them in their stride. I am ready to defend my right to offend in any debate or a court of law. But it’s not fine when mobs come to lynch you.  Even before the police can start investigations, the crime is invariably politicised. Issues of religion, caste, community, political affiliation are dragged in only to complicate (read obfuscate) the crime and, before you know it, the story dies because some other, even more ugly crime is committed somewhere else and draws away the headlines and your attention. And when that happens, criminals get away. We are today an attention deficit nation because there’s so much happening everywhere, all pretty awful stuff, that it’s impossible for anyone to stay focused.

Malays must engage the Chinese with confidence to  defend their strategic interests

When we deny ourselves the right to offend, we deny ourselves the possibility of change. That’s how societies become brutal, moribund, disgustingly boring. Is this what you want? If the answer is No and you want to stay a free citizen, insist on your right to offend. If enough people do that, change is not just inevitable. It’s assured. And change is what defines a living culture.

The truth is always whole. When you draw a line, as discretion suggests, you encourage half truths and falsehoods being foisted on others, you subvert your conscience. In some cases it’s not even possible to draw a line. A campaigner against corruption can never stop midway through his campaign even though he knows exactly at which point the truth invites danger, extreme danger. Yet India is a brave nation and there are many common people, ordinary citizens with hardly any resources and no one to protect them who are ready to go out on a limb and say it as it is. They are the ones who keep our democracy burning bright.

The 1946 question

“Where Malaysia is heading, with sensational news from Muslim-only Allah, hudud for all, body-snatching, wedding gate-crashing, police defying the Common Law Courts, to now Muslims buying only from Muslims?”



This was the question I posted six months ago when I started this column. Today, to this question, we may need to add to this “vilification of dog-touching” and “explaining floods with the absence of hudud”.
I argue that the root cause of Malaysia’s problem goes all the way back to 1946, when the British encountered, in their preparation for Malaya’s decolonisation, what I called “the 1946Question” of nationhood and citizenship: “can citizens be different yet equal?”

As long as we are still stuck in the 1946 frame of mind, we can never have our transformation, and the long transition period will only get more painful as the forces of the past struggle to stay relevant and dominant.

As I am ending this column, allow me to offer my preliminary thought on how we may transcend beyond 1946.

Historical narrative of wounds from colonisation

The first thing we must do is to learn who we were so that we can choose who we want to be. Malaysia’s official narrative of colonial history is fundamentally one of wounds, or specifically two wounds: the subjugation of Malay political authorities, and the emergence of plural society.

In this narrative, Malaysia would have stayed as a myriad Malay absolute kingdoms ratherthan a parliamentary democracy; been governed under Shariah laws rather than predominantly English Common Law; and lastly, been populated by only Malay-Muslims rather than a multi-ethnic population.

Naturally, one may then conclude that, for the historical wounds to heal, full decolonisation must eventually place some real political power in the hands of the Malay Rulers, replace the English Common Law with Shariah Law and assimilate or reduce the proportion of the non-Malays.

This narrative builds in a natural demand for “restoration” of the political system and social order in the imaginary great pre-colonial yesteryears, say before 1874 (when Britain began to intervene in the Malayan inland), 1786 (when Britain acquired Penang) or even 1511(when Portugal conquered Malacca).

The inconvenient sides in colonial history

This “wound narrative” conveniently ignores a few historical facts.

First, the emergence of plural society in Malaya was more the outcome of global capitalist development than colonisation per se. Chinese miners in Perak and Selangor were much brought in by rivalling Malay chieftains, with whom they later took sides in the Malay civilwars, which eventually led to the British intervention. Most tellingly, Chinese immigrants in Johor were mainly brought in by Temenggung Ibrahimand his son Sultan Abu Bakar, who had not a single drop of English blood.

Second, in the Malay protectorates at least, British colonisation was very much an Anglo-Malay joint venture with the Malay aristocrats as the junior partners. In place of fragmented authority held by local chieftains, the British created a moderngovernmental apparatus with the Malay Rulers as the figurehead, as they ended civil wars and/or arbitrated succession rivalry from Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Johor to Pahang.

Anti-British Malay heroes celebrated in our history textbooks today did not have their Sultan’s support in their uprisings except in Perak, where Sultan Abdullah was personallyinvolved and eventually sent in exile to the Seychelles Islands.

By 1946, the Malay conservative elites were so more afraid of the threat of non-Malay dominance post-colonisation than the British colonisation that they initially were not keen for early independence.

Thirdly, and most importantly, this is only history from the Malayan eyes.

The colonial rule of Sarawak and Sabah by Britain, and before 1946, by the Brookes dynastyand the British North Borneo Company were viewed rather favourably by the locals – and not just the Christianised natives.

In Sarawak, for example, a young Malay teacher Rosli Dhobi assassinated British Governor Duncan Steward in 1949 in his pursuit of an independent Sarawak Kingdom under CrownPrince Anthony Brooke.

By the time Britain was prepared to relinquish Sabah and Sarawak around 1961, many opinion leaders of these two states preferred a longer colonial rule under the British rather than a hastily-constructed Malaysia for the fear of Malayan and Singaporean dominance.

An inclusive decolonisation discourse

A simplistic anti-colonial discourse would see colonial legacies as fundamentally evil and invariably construct a frame of political correctness based on one’s distance from the colonial past. Renaming roads to erase colonial history is but one of its common manifestations.

But what good does it bring with such gung-ho anti-colonial sentiments?

Malay right-wing nationalists may accuse some Bornean nationalists of having a “colonised mentality” for their nostalgia for the British or the Brookes’ rule.

But many leftists – Malay and non-Malay alike -- too may see Tunku and his ministers as neo-colonial puppets for the British. For them, independence won through peaceful negotiation – and not through violent revolution as Indonesians under Sukarno did – is compromised and not real.

Regardless of its variants, such discourse will inevitably lead us to denounce some of ourcolonial heritage which can be useful to us – democracy, secularism, liberalism or even English.

We need a more inclusive “healed” decolonisation discourse with at least three features.

First, the post-colonial state should be recognised as a new-born, the successor of the colonial state, rather than the restoration of some pre-colonial states, as colonisation rarely respects existing boundaries. 

Such recognition is important to not turn decolonisation into internal colonisation of some “peripheral” regions of the post-colonial polity by its “core”. All regions and all citizens should stand at equal footing.

Second, the ultimate goal of decolonisation should be the attainment of democracy for allwho live in the decolonised territories, and not the nationalist replacement of a foreign colonial power with a domestic/regional one.

Thirdly, the positive legacies of colonialization should not be abandoned or denied. This means that Malaysia should be recognised as the successor of British Malaya and British Borneo on the basis of 1963 Malaysia Agreement, rather than the restoration of the Malaccan Sultanate, which never controlled an inch of Bornean soil. And the federation should be built to advance the freedom and interests of all Malaysians across the South China Sea, not as an expansion of Malaya.

She should also preserve the positive aspects of British legacies, from Westminster parliamentary democracy, Common law, judiciary independence, administrative neutrality to English.

Inclusive nationhood with historical continuity

For many, the decolonisation discourse above, which would create an inclusive nationhood, sounds blasphemous and a denial of history.

It needs and should not be so. Inclusiveness should be rooted in history. Nation-states should not become faceless and identical by being inclusive. An inclusive Malaysia should embrace her civilisational, linguistic and spiritual roots.

First, the territories that constitute Malaysia today were part of the Nusantara world in the millennia before the emergence of nation-states.

Mostly of Polynesian stock, peoples living in the wide archipelagos – from Aceh and Trang in the westernmost to Manila and Ambon in the easternmost – moved around, traded, fought wars, and made peace with each other. As time passed, their civilisation was shaped by Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity.

The greatness of Srivijaya, Majapahit, Malacca, Johor-Riau, Brunei empires and the brave heroes of anti-colonial struggles should be celebrated.

Second, Malaysia should uphold and promote the use of the Malay language – the regional lingua franca for millennia which ties us to Indonesia, Brunei, Southern Thailand and Brunei. This needs not be in a trade off with linguistic freedom, as one can master several languages.

Thirdly, Malaysia should uphold Islam in the model of Westphalian secularism. In this form of soft secularism, the state is free to promote its established faith without imposing it on the citizens of other faiths or discriminating them.

So, how is this discourse different from the official one? Here, we are “psychologically” healed from colonialisation. We can live in peace with our past. We can choose and pick the best from our civilisational roots, without having to glorify and revert to every old institution.

An inclusive nationhood with a firm respect for its historical roots then promises the room for pluralism, not only for the peripheral regions and minority communities, but also within the dominant region and community, Malayan Malay-Muslims – which is what Malaysia lacks most today.