MGG Pillai Commentary View

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The National Front makes another mistake

THE MINISTER IN CHARGE OF PARLIAMENT, otherwise known as minister in the Prime Minister's Department. has made it clear that the Senate is not for discussion and eventually vote on contentious bills. He has warned the National Front women senators that they must vote against their conscience and for their own degradation. It does not matter what they personally thought. The chairman of the Senate, in most countries elected but in Malaysia a sinecure for elderly National Front members, did not object. Those who did oppose it, and saw Dato' Seri Naziz Aziz, were told bluntly there would be no discussion or debate. It is final: the women will be second class citizens in their country. The non-Islamic members of the National Front did not object to this proposal, which UMNO had thought up to become more Islamic than the opposition PAS, and presumably agreed to it. Even the cabinet minister for women's affairs, a woman, had agreed to her downgrading. She values her position in the cabinet more than her sex. Women could be downgraded, in the name of Islam, if the National Front could steal a march over Parti Sa Islam or PAS. But this is only one of several laws passed which makes the non-Muslim and women second class citizens. A former climber of Mount Evert, an Indian, who was reduced to a cripple in a wheelchair after another accident, has died, and the Selangor Religious Affairs Department has insisted he be buried as a Muslim. His family says he was a Hindu, and should be buried as a Hindu. A former cabinet minister, an Indian, had to be buried urgently so that the Selangor Religious Affairs Department would not get at the body after the state funeral.

Islam in Malaysia will not join the other religious faiths to discuss common issues. They make their views known independently, but the non- Islamic faiths announce a common position separately. The Islamic faith reserves the right to bury non-Muslims on the grounds they have become Muslims. What happened to the non-Muslims after they died - when the religious affairs department had a unseemly battle with the familes over where the bodies should be buried according to Islamic rights or according to the religion, in a Muslim cemetery or a Non- Muslim place of burial. Even in an Islamic country, non-Muslims practice their faith and are buried according to the rites they followed. It would not be, as in Malaysia, a matter of who would bury the bodies. Islam is a tolerant religion, but in Malaysia it is seen as an intolerant one. People became Muslims in the past, usually to marry. But the National Front Islamic bodies in this country is not prepared to allow the tribe to rise naturally. Chinese and indian officers who have reached their glass ceiling are told they could breach it if they became Muslim. Those who accepted the offer had gone ahead; those who did not remained at their level for the rest of their career. Any Indian or Chinese who enter the government services cannot get to the top unless he became a Muslim later on in life. The courts have ruled that civil law cannot discuss what is in the jurisdiction of sharia law. Once a man becomes a Muslim, and marries another, his non-Muslim wife is automatically divorced, and he has no responsibility for their children unless they converted to Islam.

The law which reduces women - Islamic and non-Islamic - into second class citizens is bitterly opposed, particularly by the women. But every avenue they go to be heard is blocked. There is no discussion about it, in Parliament or outside, and the newspapers do not report on the opposition to it. The National Front leadership was therefore surprised when the bill was protested by the women in their ranks that the Minister for Parliament had to issue the whip, not as a matter of course, as in many countries, but as a warning what could happen to them if they voted against. It is the family law bill, which has made the position of women in such bad straits. This is the only way they could bring non-Malays into the Act. But it reduces the position of women in Malaysia. It passed the lower house of Parliament in September and therefore did not attract the attention it now has. The National Front thought it would be plain sailing in the Senate. But it has had to issue threats to keep the Senators in line. PAS members of parliament and senators have stayed, by and large, out of the fray. The National Front members, which holds the majority in parliament, the senate and thirteen of the fourteen states. It is used to have its way in all, except in Kelantan where PAS is the state government. It worked in the past, but the National Front is divided against itself. There is the Prime Minister's camp, and there are others. If the women senators and the men senators who are against the bill votes against, it is possible that the bill could go to the House for re-introduction of the bill in parliament. The National Front government does not want this to happen; hence its strong arm tactics.

The National Front government, which has turned Malaysia into an Islamic country, would lose badly vis-a-vis PAS if it floundered on this bill. It does not believe it should be discussed in public before it is introduced in parliament. So it took everyone, especially the women groups, by surprise. They saw their rights whittled down. And those in a position to oppose it did. Already many Muslim women do not get married, or they marry outside their race, hoping that the men they marry would not behave as Malay men would. They see their working as licence for their husbands to marry again. What got the women's groups on the war parth was that the family law bill had five contentious clauses: the right of a husband to claim his existing wife's property upon his committing polygamy; making polygamy easier for men; forcing a wife to chose either maintenance or division of joint propery upon a husband's polygamous marriage; enhance the husband's right to divorce; allowing a husband to get a court order to stop his wife from disposing of her property. Some of these provisions are against Islamic law.

The National Front government saw this has a hot potato. More than one cabinet minister was roped in to quell the revolt, which got the women senators from government and the opposition PAS together. They drafted a letter to the Prime Minister, whose department had initiated the bill, requesting that it be withdrawn. It would not, if the political position of Dato' Seri Nazri Aziz is any guide. It would also restrict the government's hands in future. The non-Islamic parties in the National Front does not want to get involved, and will be thrown by the wayside in this. But the National Front has realised that it cannot have its way in parliament even if it controls most of the seats. It has dissensions within it - those who do not support the ruling group; those that support Tun Mahathir Mohamed, the former prime minister; those who support Tengku Razaleigh, the former finance minister; those that support Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy prime minister who is in the opposition. It has already seen Islam Hadhari, which is Pak Lah's version of Islam, to the sidelines when PAS is around. Now it is the women from the National Front who has caused Pak Lah to be careful of his legislative plans. He has ensured that the whip will allow the senate to pass the bill. But it would be like telling the Yang Di Pertuan Agung not to address a function he had agreed to. In this revolt by the National Front women senators, it loses whether it succeds in the senate passing the bill or not. The government would have to make its plans carefully and with consultation.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com