The pursuit of Hudud law and the rallying behind the Royals are not ends in themselves as much as means to restore the pre-colonial past -- where the population was mostly Muslims from the Nusantara. Its an reaction to the unresolved 1946 Question -- why should the minorities be treated as equals if they refuse to be assimilated? And to draw the line on the hierarchical order between ethno-religious communities, the supremacy of Islam - not just a first-among-equal privilege -- is at its core. Implementation of Hudud is the next move of Malay-Muslim nationalism agenda, not that of Islam -- if countries like Tunisia (98% Muslims), Bangladesh (90%) and Indonesia (87%) which uphold secularism can be of any reference. And crude and crass criticism of Hudud will only reinforce the momentum for the pro-Hudud agenda, for the political goal of asserting Malays can conveniently merge with the religious goal of defending Islam. The secular state that many liberals count on as the defense is incidentally part of the post-colonial order that Malay-Muslim nationalists want to rewrite. And they have got people like Judge Apandi of the Appellate Court (who ruled on the Allah ban) in their camp. Constitutional secularism therefore cannot be counted on as a safeguard until and unless the multi-ethnicity of Malaysia is fully embraced. What do all these tell us? The bad news -- or the wake-up call -- is that the 1946 model characterised by mild Malay-centrism cannot be tenable. We are then before two paths -- building a better model than that or seeing it disintegrating. We are going to be better or worse. We just cant standstill. You cant just reboot. There are bugs in the original programme. Period. Mustafa K Anuar, Altaf Deviyati, Farouk Musa.
Posted on: Mon, 09 Jun 2014 05:19:48 +0000