M. Bakri Musa » Blog Archive » Malaya: Critical Thoughts on Islam…

As far as local TV is concerned not wanting a tudung-clad reader on screen is purely a PR exercise. I believe the BN Government does not want others to think that we are an Arab nation. But look at Arab TV on Channel 5 (Astro) the girls look just fablous and far far sexier than ours.

Funny how these mullahs think, especially our religious leaders. Most are only good at making pronouncements - this haram and that haram but are silent on corruption, incest, rape, mat rempits etc which are rampant among the Muslim Malays.

“I also notice that Muslim government officers who wear the tudung do not get promoted to high positions”

Sorry about that.

SHM

Your comments in the Forward to Salbiah Ahmad’s book “Malaya: Critical Thoughts on Islam, Rights, and Freedom in Malaysia”, Singapore aside, are valid. In Malaysia today, we suffer from myopia of the worst sort.

We use multi-prisms (PAS prism is one, Badawi’s Islam Hadhari is another, and Ayah Pin’s yet another) and are caught in a serious trap of framing our discourse in a “Us versus Them” paradigm. Our focus has been since 2003 been on trivia including the extensive use of slogans, labels and spin, matters that do not contribute to the development of our country as a united and enlightened multiracial society.

We Malays must accept the reality that we have fellow Malaysians of different religious faiths living among us. They have contributed to the country, and supported the NEP since 1970. They have rights under our Constitution to equal opportunity. While we are different, we share a common destiny. Our strength is in our diversity and we must cooperate for mutual benefit so that we can compete.

In stead, we are using Islam as a political tool, and our Malayness to fortify ourselves against some “imagined” threats. In short, we should reject isolationism and welcome open engagement. It is also time we reduce our rhetoric and start taking action to produce results with some sense of urgency.

We do not have the luxury of time since regional and global competition is upon us. The “world is flat “says Thomas Friedman, remember. Let us not be imprisoned in another Age of Extremism, right or left, and rediscover the golden mean, one of balance and simple common sense. That is Islam, in my humble non-Ulamaic opinion.

Our approach to politics will, therefore, have to be more enlightened. Less of that infantile keris rattling and the inculcation of Islamic values (arabization?) in the guise of Islam Hadhari, please. We must focus on the substance of Islam as a progressive and tolerant religion for mankind, and prepare Malaysians for the world of 2Ist century.

Abdullahi An-Naim’s,”Toward An Islamic Reformation”, published in 1990 is an interesting read and I am grateful to you for sending me a copy. I also look forward to reading your soon to be released book, “Competitive Malaysia: Development Challenges in the 21st Century”.

We precede our actions with “In the Name of God the Most Merciful and The Most Compassionate”, however our actions therafter hardly reflect those words. In seeking God, most of us would trample on others without much care and sympathy.

Recently, a Malaysian Judge ruled that the Islamic financing products offered by Malaysian banks are hardly Islamic at all. The interest rates of those products (called profit margin) are much higher than those offered by conventional banks. Upon default most of the islamic bank customers would suffer more hardship than if they took conventional banking.

An Islamic bank thereafter decided to call for a meeting with all the lawyers in its panel. And in that meeting, of course the issue of how much injustice, a valid point brought up by the Judge, was not discussed. The issue was centered on the subversive nature of the Judge’s ruling. It would seem in the mind of the “islamist” the Judge was trying to insult Islam.

The atmosphere in the country doesn’t tolerate any dissent from the offical line. Any dissenting voices would be deemed to be blasphemous. By the way, I finally got to read Kassim Ahmad’s banned work thanks to the link from your blog. Interesting. He does make a very compelling argument.

I have no idea where this country is heading. For all the talk about Tun Mahathir being undemocratic, it was only during his administration we saw challenges from within the party by the likes of Razaleigh Hamzah and the gand from Semangat 46 and thereafter from Anwar Ibrahim and from his cohorts. He never once wavered. Took them head on !

And unprecedented since the days of Hang Tuah, he took a tough stand and reign in the Malay Sultans and inadvertantly, in my eyes at least, apart from the economic boom, created the Malay nouveau riche who was not necessarily from the aristocrats.

And then of course there was Lim Kit Siang. For all his talk about cronyism, he lined up his son to take up the mantle in DAP ! I remember the criticism they levelled against Proton project. If my memory serves me right, the argument then was that it was doomed to fail and to make their point, by way of analogy, they claim Aussie’s car project, Holden if I am not mistaken, wasn’t doing well ! We may have our misgiving on Proton, but it played an important role in the economic expansion of the country, created jobs, toll plaza concessionairre had a field day and now they are experienced enough to take up jobs in India, China, Middle East and Bosnia. Oh, lest i forgot.. they were against the construction of the Penang bridge as well !

Lets not forget about PAS, I remember bitterly about their complain when Tun Mahathir imposed currency control, the rejection of IMF, their promise to sell of Putrajaya and KLCC if they are in power.

I am not saying Tun Mahathir is not without faults, but on a balance of evidence presented after more than 20 years in power, the country would have gone the way of Indonesia or Philippines had it not been for his courage amidst criticism.

One of the first few things he did when he was in power which I find simply amazing was when he decided to standardise the time between Sabah, Sarawak and the Peninsula. Who would have thought about doing such thing ? He was a man with a mission. Pak Lah hasn’t a clue what he wants to do.

Pak Lah’s main problem is that he cannot keep his election promises. He could still do it, without a doubt, but he doesn;t have the political will and the stomach to pick a fight. He tries very much to please everyone. Not a bad thing to do, since he is a politician. But the country needs a strong hand to keep it together.

I have run off tangent from the topic in discussion. I am just frustrated looking at the current politics.