Hidden agenda and it’s not just about ibubapa The recent amendment to clause 107 (b) of the Administration of Islamic Law (FT) Act 2013 has attracted a lot of attention in regards to the singular or plural meaning of Parent or in Bahasa the meaning of Ibubapa to Ibu atau Bapa. I am sure we are all aware of this and the reaction of the public towards this. I will not go into the pros or cons or the fairness in this whole issue but just to say that, the child should follow the religion of the parent who is awarded the custody of the child. There is no need to discuss or have a public forum about this as it relates the conversion of a child to Islam, in which case the parents would have either adopted Islam as their religion or would have filed for divorce and custody of the child. The divorce should and must be based on family law considerations. It’s only logical since the child will be with the parent who has won custody. Religion should be secondary as the primary issue is the well being of the child to be brought up by the person most suited to provide better care and love. I am more concerned about the implication on social order and my fear is that this is an engineered condition to attract a desired reaction. Let me try to explain this, it may be just my distorted view of this government or perhaps some elements that may be important to look at. Its up to you to interpret this piece. This issue was actually settled in 2009, when cabinet declared that in such cases, the child shall remain in the religion of the parents at the time of their marriage. (This solution in my opinion would still have problems should both parents adopt different religions altogether) a bill was put through and failed to get the rulers consent and the bill was never seen again. Now the government has decided to reinitiate the bill in the current form in reliance of a case law decided on December 2007 in references to Subashini’s case where article 12(4) the word parent is to be given a singular meaning, needing only one parent for conversion purpose. This is a problematic solution since any conversion to Islam automatically put this in Syariah courts jurisdiction and any decision favoring the non muslin parent would be hard to come by. The big question I am asking is this, The government knew about Subashini’s case in 2007 and yet in 2009 came out with a decision to allow the child to remain in the religion of the parents at the time of marriage but now in 2013, suddenly makes a u-turn and relies on this 2007 case to formulate a bill that incorporates this decision. This to me will only have one desired result. Which is putting non-Muslims in direct confrontation with Muslims. Something I believe is also designed to shake the position of PAS dominance in preaching Islamic practices. Should the Bill be presented, MPs of both political devide must decide religion or policy should prevail. The consequence is that Non-Muslim BN MPs will have to either choose to support the bill and risk the backlash from their local communities or choose to oppose the bill. This will ultimately result in a situation of Non-Muslims vs Muslims. I think this is one of the strategy the government has in raising the sentiments of the Malays against the non Malays. Even in the PKR and PAS camps this will a be situation that would be difficult to react as not supporting it would be seen as un Islamic and supporting it would mean alienating Non Malay support for these parties. Its good to note that PKR, PAS and DAP has choose to consult each other before any decision is made but what ever decision it comes by would have caused significant damage to its self. I am sure and the government know well enough that their component party members will vote against the bill paving the way for Umno to initiate their Malay (Muslim) propaganda against the others and I believe Perkasa role will be much more visible from then on. This caution stems from the fact that race and religion card has always been played during the entire campaign by the government specifically Umno and knowing that Umno did well on its own with little help from Component members might have allowed this strategy to commence. The whole strategic planning is to draw a racial divide between Muslims and Non Muslims so that the concept of divide and conquer can be used against the citizen of Malaysia. This is a more sophisticated strategy to gain the Malay momentum it lost during the last election. This is the reason why I predict the next elections will be within three to four years time. I also trust more schemes and strategy are being planned out to cause distress to our communities to distrust each other. Please be vary of media reports by mainstream channels for possible insinuations and the Opposition pack must react immediately to counter all racially motivated persuasions. Many Malays hold their religion very close to their heart and some scholars have said that the difference between a Muslim and non-Muslim is that the Muslims live with their religion where else the rest practice their religion, hence the difficulty by the moderate Muslims to discourage fanatism and misinterpretations of a beautiful religion. The government is intending to use this bill to gauge the sentiment of Malays before their next move and its best for all Opposition think tanks to come together and prepare contingency plans to counter any use of religion as a mode of attack by the government, namely Umno. It would be sad to see the racial harmony and togetherness that Pakatan has managed to bring about in Malaysia to be shattered by the same game plan used in 1969. Good Luck to all of us
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 00:58:21 +0000
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