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I find it particularly amusing to read about the way the fiasco between Zarina Abdullah Majid and the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (Jais) ended , after all the publicity surrounding the controversial raid by Jais officers at Zarina’s wedding.

In the first place, Zarina is not even a Muslim, and her application to change her name should have been taken as a cue for Jais to avoid embarrassing itself with the raid. With no proper investigation being done, Jais and Mais should, in fact, compensate Zarina for the way her wedding turned out.

While I am happy for Zarina, there is more to it than meets the eyes. In the first place, we were told by Penang MCA deputy chief Tan Teik Cheng that it appeared as if the opposition bloc which includes Penang, Selangor and Kelantan, is planning to get rid of all non-Muslims in their states. Although it is a wild accusation from a loose cannon, I shall use the statement from Tan to show what Barisan Nasional is up to, whenever such a fiasco surfaces.

In earlier reports since Jais’ raid of the wedding ceremony, and even Jais’ raid of the Bible Society of Malaysia, there were already attempts to link Jais to the Selangor state government in order implicate the Pakatan government for the raids.

Whether due to ignorance or ill-intention, I do not know, but it is always the same old story: anything ‘bad’ is linked to the state government, anything 'good' is linked to the people who could even be behind the raids. Let me elaborate.

Cow’s milk known as ‘sapi’

Although the Selangor Menteri Besar, Khalid Ibrahim, had said last week that Jais was willing to help Zarina to apply for her name change, what transpired yesterday (June 10) involving Mais clearly shows that the credit due to Khalid has suddenly shifted to Mais.

Now, I wonder if Mais chairperson Mohamad Adzib Mohd Isa has any political interests in this entire episode. From the grapevine, I learnt that Adzib is an Umno lawyer and that alone is enough for me to wonder if Adzib has any political interest involved.

I wish that Adzib would do a similar stunt with the raid on the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) in January this year, but it was he who came out in a statement to say that Jais does not come under the state government, but directly comes under Mais’ purview and that Jais is still investigating the BSM case.

Yet, the propaganda used by Penang MCA and Penang Gerakan Youth is that the raids are blamed on the state governments, which they claimed to have authority over the religious authorities. It’s all but just hot air as far as I can see it.

Even when the former BSM chairperson said the BSM office will shift out of Selangor, the office is still there in Damansara Kim. I always wondered where he got his logics from, because even in non-Pakatan states like Negri Sembilan, the church received brickbats for displaying Easter buntings in Bahasa Malaysia!

Perhaps, it is under the current leadership of Ng Moon Hing, who is probably a lot wiser, that BSM is staying put in Selangor after all, because Ng and his exco realise that neither in a Pakatan state or elsewhere, the BSM office will be ‘safe’ after all, as long as the powers-that-be continue to play on the religious sentiments of the people.

In raising his ‘concerns’, Penang MCA's Tan has made a pertinent point that I want to answer. Tan asked and I summarise: Why is it that such raids are being done by the religious authorities in states that are managed by Pakatan?

Root cause

My answer to this is simple. Tan should look at how his political master in Umno behave in these states, be it in 1969 or in 2008. Has Umno been particularly proven itself to be a credible opposition, or were they creating one ruckus after another? Since 2008, we have seen one episode after another, not forgetting the cow head parade in Shah Alam.

In that particular episode, I remember very well that the then-home minister, Hishammuddin Hussein said that there were PAS members in the midst of the demonstrators. But when PAS member of parliament Khalid Samad challenged him to produce the list, till today, I do not remember reading anywhere that Hishammuddin was able to produce the list.

Instead of trying to cast aspersions on the DAP state government in Penang, now I ask Tan to explain why the Penang Religious authority (JAIPP) was allowed to remove the body of Teoh Cheng Cheng from the grieving family of the deceased in the first place. Who empowered JAIPP to carry out such raids on funerals?

Even more incredible was the young Gerakan Youth chief Tan Keng Liang who said that Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng should not ‘run away his responsibility’, (here again) claiming that JAIPP is under the jurisdiction of the Penang state government.

Now that Lim has agreed to extend legal aid to Teoh’s mother against JAIPP, what does both Tan have to say? To me, it clearly shows that both the Penang state government and its chief minister are not evading responsibility. JAIPP will have to face the music, although extremist Muslim NGOs would probably appear soon to ‘protect’ JAIPP, but we know who these people are in terms of their political affiliations.

Religious authority

Just because it is Jais or JAIPP does not mean the religious authority is under the state’s purview. We have to understand this important point so that we do not blame the wrong parties for what the raids were intended for in the first place.

A lot of people fail to understand who state religious authorities report to. In Malaysiakini , I find one particular line explains it all: “Jais is an agency under Mais’ purview, while Mais is answerable to the Selangor sultan.”

This is why, in an earlier letter to the editor, I had mentioned that in the January raid of BSM, Jais is in a quandary who they will follow. While the Selangor state government wanted the Alkitab to be returned, Jais is still holding on to the Alkitab.

This is because it has a direct reporting line to Mais, while only a dotted line (administratively) to the Selangor state government. Jais is caught in a situation where it has to ultimately follow the instructions of Mais, because the sultan is ultimately the head of Islam.

So you can now understand why until today, the seized copies of the Alkitab have not been returned to the BSM.

A solution can only be achieved in this instance when the attorney-general gives his instruction that the Alkitab be returned, but it appears to me that Mais is still dragging its feet on the issue for whatever reason apart from saying that Jais is still investigating the case.

We are the bosses

Collectively, we have to tell the Prime Minister, Najib Abdul Razak, that with each day that Jais continues to keep the Alkitab, we are hardening our hearts against the Barisan Nasional even more. Make sure it does not come to a stage where it reaches a point of no return. After all, 60 years is enough for BN to rule this nation, and it should not overstay our Malaysian hospitality.

This is the only way for Malaysians to put a stop to all the nonsense that we see every day. Muslims or non-Muslims, we have to stand united, and say we reject all the gutter politics that we see today that continues to play on race, religion and royalty.

I have always said that if all the Islamic religious authorities came under the control of one man like former Kelantan menteri besar Nik Aziz Nik Mat, people would respect these agencies more. In the hands of someone like his contemporary, well, you can guess what happens to all these agencies as Umno’s rot is evident to all.

I shall not go into the recent controversy using the sultan’s name which involved Khaled Nordin, Menteri Besar of Johor, whom I regard as lacking the IQ of a senior politician ruling the state of Johor, but I believe Khaled has had enough brickbats even from within his own party.

What we want is to see more public debates based on facts and reasons, for example, why the Goods and Services Tax (GST) should be implemented. We are still waiting for the public debate between opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, and Najib. While Anwar has agreed, Najib is nowhere to be seen even talking about it.


STEPHEN NG is a chemist by training. He dealt with printing ink, paint and emulsion polymer for 15 years before becoming a freelance writer.

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