During the recent OIC meeting held in Putrajaya, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi himself pointed out that "It is our duty to demonstrate, by word and by action, that a Muslim country can be modern, democratic, tolerant and economically competitive." ( BBC , 'Islam must help curb extremism', Jan 28, 2005).

However such sentiments, laudable though they may be, sound hollow when the host country itself Malaysia is witnessing the rise of an increasingly un-modern (even anti-modern), undemocratic and intolerant brand of scripturalist normative religiosity whose spokesmen and self-appointed 'defenders' go around disrupting parties and public events, arresting Malay-Muslim youths who have committed no crime apart from hanging out together, and then proceed to abuse them in the most degrading, humiliating and dehumanising manner.

Such actions do little to promote the image of Islam Hadhari that the present political administration is keen to foreground. How, pray tell, have the actions of the Jawi officials served to promote the image of Islam as a creed of love, compassion and humanity? The mind boggles, and one's moral sensibilities are stunned by this abusive exercise carried out in the name of 'protecting morality'.