Is Malaysia a model Islamic country which is progressive and moderate with the minimum universal standards of human rights? Current events in Malaysia over the past few months alone paint a very sad and disheartening picture for democratic and fair-minded persons:

Rational public discussions (Article 11 forums ) disrupted by police who pander to irrational mobs who shamelessly infringe on others' democratic rights with threats and intimidations (contrast this with the police not ending prematurely the Asean meeting disrupted by the Umno Youth mob);

A prime minister who is too meek to even raise his fingers against mobs and his ex-mentor, but has instead picked on the soft targets (Article 11, citizens etc), warning them against exercising their democratic rights to freedoms of speech and assembly in order to safeguard his political position;

Sober discussions on the meaning of the freedom of religion are being labelled (including by the prime minister himself) as attempts to challenge other provisions of the Constitution and challenging the status of Islam as the official religion;

Loose talk of 'Ops Lalang' being used to shut up the Press from reporting genuinely newsworthy 'news', especially those which could embarrass the government and affect the minorities;

Proposed control of Internet media and websites to destroy the last frontier of free press;

Denying the opposition freedom of assembly for public discussions;

Student leaders of UPM, one of the nation's largest universities, behaving like a gangsters; and

Oxford-educated Khairy Jamaludin, the nation's brightest young leader, forcing himself onto the recent Asean meeting like, again, a gangster, in order to impress his Umno Youth members.

The list goes on. How is any one of the above compatible with human rights and democracy?

The country is heading towards a direction where the majority's interpretation of the Constitution prevails, regardless of whether it perverts the language of the Constitution.

It is sad, but it is time we all admit that most Malaysians do not fully appreciate or accept the fundamental values of democracy. We do not have the democratic culture which would sustain a true democracy.

Democracy does not only mean majority rule - it also has to go hand-in-hand with minority rights. Majority rule without minority rights is only tyranny of the majority, and no minority would be stupid enough to accept such a system.

Fundamental in the system of democracy is absolute acceptance and protection of the fundamental rights of minorities, no matter who they are - including the minority of one individual who does not wish to belong to any religion. A democracy must protect those freedoms and rights.

So, to call present day Malaysia 'democratic' is, perhaps, deceptive. When you consider that 'official religion' could mean 'Islamic state', words in the Constitution no longer carry any serious meaning.

If we continue to abuse the language of our Constitution, it would be intellectually dishonest to call Malaysia a democracy compatible with the universal standard of human rights. The recent experience of Article 11 has shown that it is meaningless - if not dangerous - to reason with people who do not fully understand and accept the true values of democracy.

Instead of championing the Constitution and the causes of human rights, perhaps the focus of our human rights activists should be in laying the groundwork - educating our children and masses on the values of democracy and minority rights, in order to build a strong and lasting cultural foundation for democracy.

Because, as we have seen recently, when such a culture is weak, even a grandly-worded Constitution is not even worth the papers it is printed on.