MGG Pillai Commentary View

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UMNO blows hot and cold over the Trengganu syariah laws

The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, without consultation or debate, proclaims Malaysia to be an Islamic fundamentalist state. What he means to be fundamentalist is not President Bush's definition. What matters in the world outside, whether he likes it or not, is that the Bush definition is what is accepted. What this proclamation also reveals is the irrelevance and impotency of the National Front UMNO leads. For if Dato' Seri Abdul Hadi Awang or some PAS worthy had said what Dr Mahathir did, the likes of Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik and Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu would be let loose to attack him. This time there is total silence. Especially when the Prime Minister says his and UMNO's vision of a fundamentalist Islamic state is different from PAS' though both now adhere to the principle of it.

Like the war of terror and the war of drugs, Dr Mahathir's claim of a Malaysian fundamentalist Islamic state is a catchy advertising slogan he adopts, as US presidents did, to seize a temporary advantage on an issue he has not thought deeply about to meet a pressing political problem. There is more. He decided this year the UMNO General Assembly would move away from the pressing matters about the economy and where we are headed for which UMNO leaders in Government could be hardpressed to explain to a combative and confrontation headlong attack on PAS and its vision of a fundamentalist Islamic Malaysia. It is, like his declaration, to steer debate this week from the more pressing problems of a near bankrupt country continuing to insist it functions well and is so flush with cash that billions of ringgit can still be expended on new and ever irrelevant public works projects. While our once high standards of life and death gradually and deliberately decline.

This lurch into an Islamic agenda -- fundamentalist or not -- is a knee-jerk reaction to wean declining support from amongst the Malays. The role of the non-Malays are ignored, and it is now taken as read they do not matter. Since Malaysia does not encourage an open debate on these matters, and non-Muslims are all but threatened, as I am, for commenting on, for instance, the Trengganu syariah criminal bill, what we see, whether we like it or not, is the irreversible transformation of a multiracial and multicultural country into an inward looking Malay Muslim fundamentalist state in which the non-Malay survives on sufferance. UMNO is as guilty of this as PAS, neither prepared to allow non-Malay views in matters it deems Islamic.

Malaysia is not a totalitarian society where, as the Soviet poet Yuvgeny Yevtushenko wrote, "the truth is replaced by silence, and silence is a lie." But it would soon enough. Everything is ordered from above. And once spoken, unchallengeable. Silence to the momentous developments that restrict the citizen's rights is the norm in Malaysia, the opposition casual and true to form. Any group that meets informally to discuss issues of the day is targetted. It matters not what it is, even a weekly lunch. The Special Branch wanted to know the purpose of a weekly lunch a former cabinet minister hosted at which interesting people would come on occasion, and its inquiries became too insistent that it folded. The late lamented Tun Suffian's plan for one died a natural death even before it started. Just a hint of it was enough for prospective members to be "advised" by various security agencies not be in it. An official policy exists to discourage even private discussion of important issues affecting the individual.

So the silence which greeted the Prime Minister's declaration in Parliament this week of Malaysia as a fundamentalist Islamic state is the norm. As the incensed National Front attack on Trengganu's syariah criminal law bill allows Malaysians to speak their mind against it. There was the usual, expected non-Malay opposition criticism, but that is so predictable that one learns to ignore it. The opposition does not have a policy of its own, individually or collectively, except to have their usually unworkable or highly confrontational policy forced down the throats of Malaysians, whether they like it or not. If you look at it, it does not really matter who rules, the same semi-totalitarian form of government would prevail.

The Prime Minister says his federal administration would block Trengganu's syariah criminal bill if he could. "If we hace the powers, we will obstruct the implementation of unjust laws which are against the teachings of Islam." So he does not know if he could. He cannot. The Federal constitution has been amended to allow syariah criminal laws into the system. Since Islam is a state matter, and each state decides on the form of Islam it would adhere to, Kelantan and Trengganu, under PAS adminstration, opted for it. Dr Mahathir and UMNO attacked Kelantan's tightening of a syariah criminal law in 1993 UMNO had passed when in power. But voters in Kelantan were happy with it, and voted PAS back into power in 1995 and 1999. Trengganu now follows suit. The Kuala Lumpur view is that UMNO would recapture Trengganu in the next general elections. If the National Frontn is so confidence of it, it should make it an election issue in the coming general elections. If it wins in Trengganu and Kelantan it is vindicated. If it is not, it would face the same marginalisation as the Shah's Iran of the 1970s.

UMNO changes tack and attacks the laws as an abberation. But instead of attacking the substance of it, it questions motives and how wide apart PAS is from the mainstream of Islamic society. Since Dr Mahathir declares Malaysia to be a fundamentalist Islam state, he cannot object to the hudud laws being implemented. So, he as UMNO Wanita, sundry women's group, and even law firms to challenge Trengganu's implementation of the hudud laws. A senior partner of a leading legal firm known for its connexions to UMNO is to challenge the constitutional validy of the laws. Is there any need for it? Should not the Attorney-General advise Trengganu if it was ultra-vires the Federal Constitution? Besides, the constitution has been amended to have a syariah Federal court that ranks pari passu, as the lawyers say, with the civil administration. That would not be possible if the syariah courts did not have criminal jurisdiction. It does not matter if the administration of syariah laws are vested with the states, and what is in effect in one is not in another.

The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, wanted the state to refer the matter to the Attorney-General's Chambers. Why should it? The State Legal Adviser is the A-G's representative. What was his advise about the constitutionality and legality of the proposed law? He clearly had approved it. Did he do that after consulting the constitutional experts at the A-G's chambers, or did he do it irregardless of the consequences of what he approved? If he did that, he should be brought before a departmental enquiry and severely admonished. The is more to this affair than the Prime Minister's threat of blocking the Trengganu hudud law. And he is hoist on his own petard in this Faustian bargain.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my