When the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, declared Malaysia an Islamic State, it reflected yet again the continuing 'jihad' of the Hamids. He had asked his special adviser on Islamic affairs, Dato' Seri Hamid Othman, and his minister for Islamic affairs, Brig.-Gen (R) Dato' Seri Hamid Zainal Abidin about it: the first Hamid wanted it, the second did not. In every Islamic matter referred to them, the two disagree.

Every civil servant wants to move on by making his office more Islamic -- it is already Malay -- than when he came in. So, the apartheid in schools is no abberant waywardness but a coldly calculated act of deliberate policy and political inaction. The BN government, to wean the Malay back into its fold, closes a blind eye; indeed officially plays into his hands to proclaim Malaysia an Islamic State when it is not. To deafening silence from non-Muslim parties in the grand coalition.

The hidden agenda, whatever the National Front apparatchiks would tell you, is Islamisation. The Prime Minister wants it. The deputy prime minister, wants it. UMNO wants it. MCA wants it. MIC wants it. Gerakan wants it. Indeed, no one in the National Front would argue against it. But they were quick to oppose PAS's agenda for an Islamic State, and bitterly excoriated DAP for being linked with PAS. The DAP is one up on these political parties: it opposes PAS's Islamic State agenda. None of the National Front coalition parties oppose UMNO's. It is better, they say, for UMNO's Islamic State to be the law of the land than PAS's. We do not know what either version is about. We are now told, by the deputy prime minister, no less, that the non-Muslims should not be worried, since the Islamic debate concerns only the Malays!

This is not all. The Government turns Malaysia into an Islamic State because it wants a march over PAS. But in stealth, sans debate, and contrary voices silenced. The non-Malay political parties in the National Front, there on UMNO's sufferance, would not protest, or insist on stricter consitutional observances, and pass off as if nothing had happened. The MCA organised a forum to debate it, but its "rotting fish head", Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, had nothing to say and would rather an UMNO minister explain it. To this day, we do not know how MCA views UMNO's declaration of Malaysia as an Islamic State; we know that is angry with the DAP for consorting with PAS, but not supporting its Islamic worldview.

As if to prove it, the information ministry issues a booklet justifying Malaysia as an Islamic State in which the non-Muslims are slightly better than serfs. When caught out, the government kept a straight face, would not discuss or justify it, but withdrew it when the public clamour rose. It would no doubt reappear in stealth down the road. The non-Malay partners in the National Front goes along. When the MCA organised a forum on the Islamic State, it brought it UMNO ministers to explain; it itself did not have a view except to agree along with UMNO.

It is this uncritical reporting that raises doubt about current fears that we are led up the garden path in this march to an Islamic State. The information ministry had its booklet in which the non-Muslims have lost their constitutional rights, and is withdrawn only because of public pressure. But why was that not first brought before the cabinet for approval when even the price of fish and sugar are within its purview? The non-Malay partners in the coalition dare not question, and this is taken as approval for the measure at hand. There is no public debate, which is discouraged for the views the government cannot answer. And the political parties which demand answers.

It is from this political weakness that the National Front fumbles. It will succumb to pressure. It is a sign of its own impotency. But it remains in power because it has the numbers on its side, and the power that comes fromn long incumbency: Malaysia has known no government but that controlled by UMNO. The Malay ground is divided between an UMNO, which shifted its political focus from a secular to an Islamic State, and a PAS, with its on a theocratic one. Because the political fight is so narrowed, the multiracial society goes down the drain. The stark lines between the Malay with his Islamic agenda and the non-Malay marginalises the former, who control the market place. And shows his anger by disregarding the advise they would at least agree to consider. The government is rudderless, and prone to hit fiscal and financial rocks and not know it until too late. That is why it had to scrap the ten-sen per litre tax on diesel. And the law to do it. The danger is far from over.

When Dr Mahathir said Malaysia is, always was, an Islamic country, he firmly consigned Malaysia to those Islamic States whose Muslim citizens faced further hurdles before issued visas to the United States. Dr Mahathir cries foul, but he had no choice: he could not change the rule, he is there to be at the beck and call, no more, no less. He turned defeat into victory internally yet again, and the opposition, without a strategic and tactical overview of their role, is left at the mercy of both Dr Mahathir and the United States. But is now Washington's satrapy.

In today's political climate, it is considered right and proper that mentris besar acquire a reputation of being thoroughly corrupt with being so. So, Dr Khir's predecessor, Tan Sri Taib Mahmud, could go on a holiday to Australia with an undeclared RM2.5 million in foreign notes, and he is elected an UMNO vice president, after the initial hullabaloo. Since Malaysia is an Islamic State, the mentris besar also must practice it, and have at least enough wives to tell the world of Malaysia's Islamic regime. That is also when that unexplained caches of money come in useful.

Heartaches in Putrajaya over an Islamic State CHIAROSCURO
MGG Pillai

Now, with UMNO on the Islamic bandwagon, the position of bomohs would become an issue yet again. UMNO believes, so we are told, in "moderate Islam" and PAS "retrograde Islam". There is little different between the two except in rhetoric. PAS talks of an Islamic State but promises to look after the interest of the non-Muslims; UMNO preaches moderation but in practice pass laws in the state more extreme that PAS has done in Kelantan and Trengganu. The bomoh will inevitably be the target in that battle for the hearts and minds of the Malay. Can he be wiped out when his servives are asked for before an important function: weddings, openings of parliament, important football matches, the opening of an international conference, to ensure a rain-free Islamic Aid-il-fitri holidays. So, I am not surprised how the hangings were reported in the local media.

"Our" Afghanistan is committed to human rights, wants a democratic government based on it, but is prevented by the Taliban, says the Northern Alliance's embassy in Kuala Lumpur. The Northern Alliance is known here as the Islamic State of Afghanistan, and its embassy does, as the need arises to show it exists, tell the world, if not Malaysia, how wonderful things are in its bailliwick, and how the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, more widely known as the Taliban, makes short shrift of all those wonderful ideas Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues made it a requirement for good governance. "Our ideology is unlike the Talibans," it said, and the Islamic State's "broad-based and multi-ethnic character" is proof of this commitment.

That these developments come at a time when Islam is high on the political agenda of both UMNO and the awowedly theocratical PAS in a political atmostphere of an Islamic society is not accidental. The power of the woman voter, and her generally conservative outlook, is what forced UMNO to change its Muslim male-dominated view. One important issue in this debate on an Islamic State is the status of women. One reason for that is the activist role a group of well educated, middle class activist women called the Sisters of Islam, which goes back to the roots of Islam and the Quran to insist they have rights subsequently circumscribed and fashioned in the harsh climate of medieval Middle East. In this, one follower of Sisters of Islam argues, Islam was no different from the other major religions.

The die is cast yet again. The Democratic Action Party (DAP), decides, the second time in a decade, it cannot co-exist with Parti Islam Malaysia (PAS). What caused it, then and now, is PAS's ambivalence to its commitment to an Islamic State. This would tie Malaysian political parties, government and opposition, in knots in elections to come, and throw into stark contrast how Muslims and non-Muslims view the promise of an Islamic State. Not just amongst Muslims and non-Muslims, but amongst Muslims themselves. The DAP's decision, superficially, breaks up the Alternative Front (BA - Barisan Alternatif). It is more. It questions how Malaysia would be governed in years to come. Whether this march into Islamic governance, in the political agenda of both UMNO, in the National Front, and PAS, in the BA, would erode the rights of the non-Muslims even more than it already is.

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