Religious Tyranny in Malaysia?

I guess most of you would have been aware of the recent spate of body snatching and sticky conversion issues happening in Bolehland. Most recently two more cases of "body" snatching occured, albeit the bodies were not cadavers but living, breathing children and wives. Two families were split forcibly by religious authorities who see fit that the families cannot be "happy" and "normal", and the husbands and wives should not be "living in sin", just because the wives in both cases were somehow muslims, never mind the fact that both were brought up as hindus and have lived as hindus. In a Malaysiakini article today (licensed from AFP), the husbands of the two families are not taking things lying down (which any sane men will do to protect their families). YB Karpal Singh has indicated he will file a habeas corpus application in an attempt to free Revathi's wife from the "rehabilitation" center in which her initial 100 days detention has been extended for another 80 days, all on the pretext that she has not "cooperated" with the religious authorities. By "cooperating" we guess it could only be that she must declare herself a muslim. To read more, click here.

The various state religious authorities seem to be getting more and more brazen in their acts which in most cases (in fact, I would warrant it's in all cases) are in total violation of the basic citizen rights as enshrined in the Federal Constitution. In fact, one could argue that since they are the supposed moral guardians who are answerable only to their God, they see no issues in enforcing their own narrow interpretation of what they believe to be divine laws. Never mind the fact that this country is not an Islamic State, where the Federal Constitution is the supreme law of the land and not the Syariah. It doesn't help as well when civil court judges who have been sworn into office with an oath to protect and uphold the Constitution see it fit to rewrite and undermine the Constitution in their judgments (for e.g., ordering/suggesting recently a plaintiff to appear before a Syariah Court which is clearly against the provisions of the Constitution). Such brazen acts by such civil court judges could only have the effect of giving more courage to the religious authorities to act further beyond the boundaries of the law of the land.

In spite of the clear signs that these cases, if continue to be allowed to happen, will further polarize and divide Malaysians along racial and religious lines, the present administration seems to adopt a "tidak apa" attitude. It is really not comforting at all to hear Nazri say the current PM is open to dialogue with religious NGOs when it is clear that previous discussions with groups such as the The Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST) has yielded nothing concrete and effective. If anything the situation has become worse, and it is indeed telling when the Council recently appealed to Malaysians to hold a one week prayer vigil to seek divine intervention. You can read more of it here, and here.

Really, our country is heading towards a very dangerous path if Malaysians do not see it fit to say "enough is enough". The very character and nature of our nation is being undermined and rewritten as the days go by. The present administration clearly is lacking any will to even stop the situation from degrading, let alone reverse the dangerous trend. Stop deluding yourself if you think the non-Muslim ministers in the administration would care. How humiliating it is when they had to submit a memorandum to the PM early 2006 only to have it rejected and ordered to be retracted by Pak Lah. One would posit that since these ministers are part of the government, they should at least be able to have influence and say in the way the country is being run or heading towards, not having to be forced to submit memorandums ala the NGOs and have it thrown back in a most humiliating manner. Worse, no positive development has occurred ever since. All we see is increasing degradation of this alarming trend.

I have said this many times to friends and families, and I will say it here. If Malaysians do not see it fit to see this development as dangerous, and do not care (until maybe one of their relatives or friends face such a sorry predicament) if these religious authorities continue on their rampage, then there is only one outcome for this nation: a basket case. Just like any of the basket case countries in the world today, the sun would have stopped shining and you would not be able to make hay anymore. By that time, even if you've woken up to the realization that you are now living in a full religious state, it may be way too late. We really have to realize that the only way out of such a scary consequence is to return to the Constitution, where each and every Malaysian have a role to play in this land of ours under the sun. This couldn't be put in a better manner than The Raja Muda of Perak Raja Nazrin Shah's keynote during the Young Malaysians' Roundtable Discussion on National Unity and Development in Malaysia.

To have a better appreciation on the dangerous trend, check out Malik Imtiaz's blog and the Article 11 movement. Contrary to what the detractors want you to belive, the movement is purely about upholding the existing Constitutional rights and have nothing to do with threatening the position of Islam as defined in the Constitution. On the contrary, the dogged opposition to this movement seem to see fit that they could usurp and undermine the constitution anyway they want. To further enforce their position, physical threats and abuse are not spared.