Hadi’s RUU355 is
democratically allowed. Not only can a Member of Parliament table a
private member’s bill to amend or abolish the Sharia, he or she can also
table a private member’s bill to amend or abolish Chinese education and
Chinese schools in favour of a single education system. But you need
112 votes to pass bills into law.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
My daughter, Sara, spoke to me last month regarding ‘fake
news’. She was alarmed about what she called the ‘new’ phenomena of
‘fake news’. Well, she is below 30 and ‘kids’ of that generation look at
things only from the perspective of 2008, the year that Malaysia’s
political ground shifted. When you are 66 like me you tend to look at
things further back, to the pre-Merdeka days.
It all depends on what you mean by fake news when you say
‘fake news’. Different people have different interpretations of ‘fake
news’. One man’s meat is another man’s poison or one man’s terrorist is
another man’s freedom fighter. The problem is, when you judge things
according to your own yardstick, values or standards then you get a
slanted perspective — as you are biased or judgmental and you have
actually decided pre-evaluation what the result is going to be.
For example, billions of people regard the Bible (or the
many versions of the Bible) as fake news. I am sure Christians would be
appalled to hear this. On the other hand, billions of Christians and
non-Muslims regard the Qur’an as fake news as well. And atheists will
tell you that both the Bible (or the many Bibles) and the Qur’an are
equally fake news.
And, to be honest, since both the Bible (or the many
Bibles) and the Qur’an cannot be proven as authentic (or not ‘fake
news’), and would be regarded as hearsay according to modern standards
of legal jurisprudence — where hearsay cannot be admitted into evidence
and the maker needs to be brought to court to testify as to the
authenticity of the document — then the atheists actually win this
debate.
The punishment for rejecting ‘fake news’ up to 200 years ago
No doubt the laws of more than 1,000 years ago say that to
not believe in the ‘holy books’ (whether the Bible(s) or the Qur’an) is
a crime punishable by death. Today, the non-Muslims and ‘liberal’
Muslims want Malaysia to be turned into a Secular State and for the
Sharia to be abolished. That can happen (and I will not be opposed to it
if it does) but first of all we need to remove or amend Article 3 of
the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, which makes Islam the religion of
the Federation, so that it says Malaysia is a Secular State.
I can understand the non-Muslims wanting to turn Malaysia
into a Secular State and for the Sharia to be abolished. After all it is
mentioned in the Qur’an that this is what the kafir will do till
the end of time. What I can’t understand is those ‘moderate’ or
‘liberal’ Muslims who oppose the Sharia but do not want Article 3 of the
Constitution to be removed or amended.
Have they not heard the saying the fruit of a poisonous
tree is poisonous? The problem is not Abdul Hadi Awang or PAS or the
Islamists. The problem is the Federal Constitution of Malaysia. People
like Lim Kit Siang and DAP and the ‘moderate’ or ‘liberal’ Muslims
pretend that Malaysia is a Secular State. Either they are delusional or
they are liars.
Non-Muslims and ‘liberal’ Muslims want Malaysia to be declared a Secular State and for the Sharia to be abolished
They say this was what the British intended. They say this
was what the First Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman said. If that is
true then the British would have done in Malaya in 1957 what they did
100 years before that in India in 1857.
We had ‘British India’ (until 1947) and ‘British Malaya’
(until 1957). ‘British Malaya’ was governed by the British from India
until 1829 when Stamford Raffles brought Singapore into the Straits
Settlements and governed Malaya from Singapore. Earlier, in 1824, the
British took over Melaka and ‘founded’ Penang before that in 1786.
Now that is what Malaysian kids are taught in history
class (as were we in 1966 and 1967 in form four and form five). But then
that itself is ‘fake news’. It was not ‘the British’ who took Penang in
1786, Melaka in 1824, and Singapore in 1829. It was the East India
Company.
The East India Company was a public listed company in
London and its motivation was exploitation, trade monopoly, and profit.
On the last day of 1600, Queen Elizabeth I gave the East India Company a
charter to own the monopoly of the India trade. So, for more than 250
years from 1st January 1601 up to 1858, it was a company listed in
London, the ‘Honourable EIC’, that governed India. Hence up to 1858 it
was a company in London that governed Malaya as well. It was not the
British government.
But the East India Company did things differently in India
compared to what they did in Malaya. In India, the EIC abolished the
monarchy (not the Indian rakyat, as the ‘fake news’ tries to
suggest). In Malaya, the EIC upheld the monarchy and did not interfere
in local customs, traditions and religion, like they did in India. In
India the Christians converted many Muslims and Hindus into Christianity
while in Malaya the Christians only converted the Hindus, Buddhists and
Animists, but did not touch the Muslims (they left Islam to the
Sultans).
“A vigorous and
intelligent race of young men who will be in touch with modern progress
but not out of touch with old traditions; who will be liberally educated
but not educated out of sympathy with their own families and people,”
said R.J. Wilkinson in 1903, the Federal Inspector of Schools for the
FMS, in his letter to the Resident-General, Sir William Treacher,
suggesting that a special residential school be built for the sons of
the Malay royalty and the elite.
And if you were to read the Federal Constitution of
Malaysia (which was ‘invented’ by the British before Merdeka in 1957)
you can see that Islam has been given a ‘special place’ in the
Constitution. The British created Article 3 that says Islam is the
religion of the Federation. And it was the British who created schools
like the Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) where Malays can be educated
the way of the English public schools while still retaining Malay
customs, traditions and religion (which was why we had to wear Baju Melayu for dinner).
Malay College
prefects (1911-1914) in front of the Big School. Left to right: Raja
Musa Raja Mahadi, Hussein, Ungku C.E. Mohamed, Raja Shahriman Raja Abdul
Hamid (head boy), William Hargreaves (headmaster); Mahmud, Raja Razman
Raja Abdul Hamid, Samah and Ismail. (Source: Arkib Negara Malaysia)
And all this talk about the British intending for Malaya
to be a Secular State and that the Federal Constitution of Malaya is a
secular constitution and that Tunku Abdul Rahman confirmed this is yet
another ‘fake news.’ No such thing was intended and Article 3 proves it.
But then Malaysia is also a democracy and if not less than
112 Members of Parliament vote to abolish Article 3 of the Federal
Constitution and vote to abolish the Sharia and vote to turn Malaysia
into a Secular State I have no problems with that. In fact, if not less
than 112 Members of Parliament also vote to abolish Chinese education
and Chinese schools in favour of a single education system like all the
other counties all over the world that would also be perfectly
democratic.
To some Sarawak Report is fake news while to others it is God’s word
