DEVIL'S ADVOCATE

Below I reproduced an article written by the blogger Jebat Must Die which I find interesting and as food for thoughts. Its title is "Devil's Advocate".

As the Kuala Terengganu by election drawing closer, a lot had been said about the choice of candidates, the campaign of both coalitions and also the potential result of the election.

He have heard so many opinions and arguments about this by election. The forum attended by two personalities back in December set the tone of the campaign.

Husam Musa and Khairy Jamaluddin begun their quest to attain higher position in their respective party by sparring with each other.

Not much was gained from that spar except for this blogger to be the devil’s advocate and explore the issues further.

Allow me to compartmentalise those issues into two sections:

The non Malay votes in Kuala Terengganu

To me it is clear that should the non Malays vote for Mohd Abdul Wahid Endut of PAS in this by election, they are sending one more MP to the parliament that will vote for Hudud laws. With Anwar Ibrahim endorsing PAS’ stand on Hudud and publicly told Karpal Singh to shut his mouth, the minorities of this country will then have to embrace themselves with further talk on Hudud by PAS in years to come.

But please do not even think that Hudud laws will not apply to the non Malays as well. That was just one political trick of Anwar Ibrahim. Hudud, should it come into effect, will encompass the non Muslims too. If not, then Islam will not be deemed fair to their own followers. This had been done since 1400 years ago. There must not be two sets of criminal laws in the country. Hudud is a criminal law which deals with, among others, offences like:

1) Theft (sariqa, السرقة)
2) Highway robbery (qat’ al-tariq, قطع الطريق)
3) Illegal sexual intercourse (zina’, الزناء)
4) Rebellion against the ruler (sedition or high treason)
5) Apostasy (irtidād or ridda, ارتداد) includes blasphemy

Everyone in Malaysia who committed the crimes above will be sentenced under the Hudud laws. Everyone knows about this.

Anwar Ibrahim is just trying to hoodwink the non Malays just for his own political mileage and for the sake of unity in Pakatan Rakyat.

Jebat Must Die however, as the devil’s advocate is unconcerned about Anwar’s stand. We know what Anwar Ibrahim’s political plays are. We have an encyclopedia of it.

PAS on the other hand will definitely stick to its Constitution. Especially regarding the Fasal 5 of their Perlembagaan:-

“Tujuan atau matlamat perjuangan PAS ialah memperjuangkan wujudnya di dalam negara ini sebuah masyarakat dan pemerintahan yang terlaksana di dalamnya nilai-nilai hidup lslam dan hukum-hukumnya menuju keredhaan Allah serta mempertahankan kesucian lslam, juga kemerdekaan dan kedaulatan negara.”

We know how frustrated the members of PAS had been all these years when their leaders kept on dodging the Hudud issues as their election manifesto. It is hoped that with one more PAS MP in parliament, their dream will come true.

Therefore, it is indeed a good thing that the non Malays will vote for PAS this time around.

What do you think?

UMNO’s political stand vis-a-vis the support of non-Malays

As for Umno, it is clear that its stand of being moderate and tolerant to the non-Malays and people of other faiths in this land was not reciprocated by the very own people they protected against the religious fanaticism of PAS. Then why should Umno be made to toil and sweating itself out just to please these ungrateful people?

The minorities only make up less than 35% of the whole population. If we take into account the number of Muslims in this country, then the non-Muslims are only about 39%. With the dwindling number of non-Malays in the near future, why should Umno focus more on this people and safeguard their sensitivities? PAS had not been doing that since their inception, labelling people as infidels and preaching fanatical Islamic supremacy as the way of life for all Malaysians. And yet, they get all the support from most non-Malays since the last general election.

Isn’t it time for Umno to put on a more Islamic approach? Even Nik Aziz had once said, if Umno use Islam as the pillar of its idealogy, he will disband PAS so that all Muslims will unite under Umno.

To extrapolate further, Umno with 79 seats, in addition of PAS’ 23 seats together with PBB of Sarawak and a couple more East Malaysian parties, a true Muslim coalition can rule the country comfortably. Together with a few more Muslim MPs from PKR, Malaysia can become the next Islamic nation of the East.

Hence, why should Umno even give a damn about the non Malays when all these while most of them spat at the party?

Therefore, as the title of this article implies, I hope Umno should become more like PAS and drop their moderate and tolerant ideology and be more Islamic. This could be a great way to increase support from the Malays AND the non-Malays. As all of us know, non-Malays are warming up to PAS anyway… regardless of their strong Islamic views.

What do you think?