Complain Complain Complain But What Solution Do You Suggest

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Three items in the news in the past two weeks recorded not just a quite common complaint (our failure to progress socially - which can be debated) but the personal 'failures' of the people who made those complaints.
The first was the woman who asked where are we after 30 years of "Islamisation"? A  confession of failure after 30 years.  The clock is ticking, the biology is taking its toll, time is running out. What has been achieved over the past 30 years? Not much.
The second was the lament by the ex-diplomat that the country was headed towards becoming more religiously radicalised.  Tell us something that we dont already know.
The third was also the lament by three "activists" - all three of whom are personal friends of mine - that we are losing the battle against the "not moderates". 
There is something else strange I want to share. There are Muslim folks in the country who keep sending me plenty of stuff "defending" Islam, including defending what is happening in other Islamic countries around the world like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia etc. 'Defending' because both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia frequently appear in the Press for the wrong reasons. These folks feel it is their duty to publicise any good news about these 'Islamic countries' and by extension also defend "Islam".  Yet over the past week these were the same people who were sending me all that stuff about voting against the 'green wave'. Dont vote PAS. But arent Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and PAS  part of that same mob?
This is confusion. You are trying to hunt with the hounds and run with the hares at the same time. Hello friends, religion is like getting pregnant. You cannot be lightly pregnant, moderately pregnant or extremely pregnant. Either you are pregnant or not. 
But lets get back to planet Malaysia.  
If you do not understand your neighbour, if you do not know your neighbour, if you cannot understand your neighbour's issues, problems, hopes, peculiarities, etc then you will not be much help to your neighbour. Here I am referring to Malays, Kelantanese, the people who support the lebais, Indian Tamils, Ceylon Tamils, Punjabis, Malayalees, hindus, muslims, christians,  Chinese, the Dayaks, the Kadazans, christians, muslims, native religions etc. We have to be able to understand, regard and care for each and everyone of these different people. 
The easiest method to helping all of them is to follow the Singapore model. They wiped out most of the separate racial identities - no Chinese, Malay or Tamil schools, English is the de facto language of Singapore. This wiped out the language issues. No religion ANYWHERE in the public sphere - they wiped out religious issues. So Singaporeans can focus on being just Singaporeans.  This can be considered a success in Singapore. There are still "economic disparities" by race but they have created a Singaporean identity.
But as I have said before - the problems, the issues, the obstacles, the hurdles that we face all rest in one group of people only. That is the Malays on the Peninsula. Not all bumiputras because the bumiputras in Sarawak and the wonderful state of Sabah seem quite removed from the issues frequently brought up by the Malays on the Peninsula. 
It is always a Malays versus everyone else issue. That recent case of that 18 year old Indian child being told off rudely when she asked a question about the racial quotas is a clear example. Its Malays versus the rest of the world. 
Yet we have to really try and understand what are their real issues and suggest good and workable solutiuons.
About 30 years ago some friends and I were invited to address the Human Rights Committee of the Bar Council. At that time few people knew "us". Sivarasa was there (at that time defending PAS), Charles Hector Fernandez and if my memory is right Cecil Rajendra (the lawyer poet) was also present. I went with my friend Pak Man (who has passed), lawyers Dato Jahaberdeen and Harith Ibrahim (who has also died recently).
We went to talk about the religious persecution of Muslims. I told the Human Rights Committee that there was an increasing persecution of Muslims by the religious authorities. This was about 30 years ago ok. And (from our own experiences with this problem - some of our friends had been harrassed, issued fatwas against them etc) at that time we found that the non-Muslims in this country, especially the legal fraternity then - were not too keen on "fighting" for these issues. To the non-Muslims it was a 'Malay problem' or a 'Muslim problem'. Nothing to do with us type of attitude.  This is what I told them. 
And I also told them that this may be a 'Melayu problem' or a 'Muslim problem' now but if you just ignore it and dont care about it it will jump over the fence and bite you in the butt as well. And that is exactly what has happened in the 30 years that have passed since then. 
Since then it has become nightmarish for quite a few people. The Indhira Gandhi case, the Pastor Koh abduction, non Muslims are corrupted, Muslim only laundries, Loh Siew Hong, Nyonya Tahir are now a dime a dozen. They have jumped over the fence and indeed they are biting everyone in the butt. 
This is where there is a lot of confusion among the confused, on all sides. As I said 30 years ago even Sivarasa was supporting PAS - political expediency. And today some of those Muslims who warned me "against" the green wave just last week still take the "islamist" attitude when it comes to the Indhira Gandhi case and even the Pastor Koh case (he was converting Muslims to christianity!!)
These are thoroughly confused people. Hunting with the hounds and running with the hares. Lightly pregnant, maybe moderately pregnant but not extremely pregnant.
Ok the solutions.
First lets identify the source of the problem. The source of the problem is government. 
The government is bad for religion. So far ALL the governments. They are all bad. When it comes to religion, government policies are just bad, bad, bad. Government policies are the source of the problems. 
And government creates problems by passing bad laws - bad legislation. Government can only operate (and screw up the country) via legislation.
That is why although we have changed FIVE prime ministers in five years the country is still screwed up. They have not changed the laws, they have not changed the legislation.
We must change the laws and all the right thinking people in the country must focus towards this end. Because that is the only solution. 
And to the Pakatan Harapan supporters (including those people who made those complaints above) this is your golden opportunity. Your hero is now the top dog in the country. For starters tell him to do again what was done for a few weeks in 2018 - abolish the Sedition Act.   
In 2018 the PH gomen at that time abolished the Sedition Act. It is absolutely critical that this really useless, very dangerous and harmful law be abolished. But in 2018 they only abolished it for a few weeks. After a few weeks they put back. 
The Sedition Act can be easily abused because it does not exist in reality. It does not exist in reality because it does not clearly define its offences. Insulting this, insulting that is a crime. What exactly is insulting this or insulting that? How do you measure it? You cannot. It is up to the "discretion" of some Civil Servant to "measure" the degree of the insult. The politicians love the Sedition Act exactly because of this as well. It is vague, it is not clearly defined and hence easily manipulated. 
The other legislation that must be abolished or seriously amended are the 'blasphemy laws' that we have in this country. These are the religious enactments that come under the purview of the States and the Federal gomen in the Federal Territories. 
Blasphemy Laws (they are grouped under the religious criminal enactments) pertaining to the criminalisation of religious beliefs different from the orthodoxy.   The criminalisation of the Shias is a good example, banning books on religious grounds, arresting and prosecuting writers, speakers and even bookshop employees on religious grounds should all be abolished. 
If we had done this 30 years ago the "religious" landscape of the country and especially of our politics would have changed drastically. I guarantee it. There would be much less religious extremism today especially of the government created variety. Because lets face it it is the government (or governments) who maintain all these dysfunctional legislation because it suits their political fortunes. Every single gomen plays the 3Rs. 
Better late than never. Lets plan the next 30 years. If we start now the country will change for the better over the next 30 years. 
Abolish the Sedition Act. Hello Pakatan Harapan supporters at some point in life you must stop being hypocrites - tell your hero to abolish the Sedition Act. This is your golden opportunity.
Abolish or seriously amend the Blasphemy Laws that we have in the country. The religious criminal enactments. They must be fixed.
Get rid of these laws alone and we can solve so much of our "extremism" problems. This is the solution.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
By Syed Akbar Ali 

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