I refer to Arbibi Ashoy's Secularism not always a guarantee . His selective use of facts is misleading.

Democracy did not propel Hitler to power. If you had read your history properly you would have to acknowledge that the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party to power was due to poor economic management resulting in hyperinflation in 1923. This and the national humiliation Germany underwent after its defeat in WWI..

The Versailles Treaty sealed the victors' spoils for Britain, France and the US. The treaty provisions required Germany to accept full responsibility for causing the war and make reparations to the Allied countries led by US, Britain and France. Lord Keynes, Britain's most famous economist, later acknowledged in 1919 that the reparation payments were too punitive and would possibly push Germany into another phase of military adventurism.

Hitler and his party had subverted democracy and exploited a weak. Weimar republic to rise to power. Once he secured power, he closed parliament and made the Nazi party's rule 'permanent'. That is until the secular democracies of the US and Britain came together to destroy the Nazi regime. Ashoy fails to distinguish between secular tyrannies and secular democracies. Using selected secular countries ruled by tyrannical regimes (Hitler's Germany, Kamal Pasha's Turkey, Tito's Yugoslavia), he goes on to bash secularism as a whole.

He blames the lack of good governance and material propriety in the Muslim world on foreign meddling. Well, let's take the example of Malaysia (a secular country struggling to cope with its increasingly outspoken Muslim section) and Singapore (another secular country) - two countries that have had their fair share of meddling by foreigners in the past.

How did they manage to grow into the developing and developed economies respectively that they are today despite a history steeped in colonialism? We can always blame foreigners and the past for current failures. Only those countries that let go of the past, take responsibility for their present and plan for the future move forward in this world.

Ashoy also fails to highlight the de facto state of civil war in Iraq arising from religious tensions within Islam - I am referring to the warring Shia and Sunni factions within Iraq. The mix of religious nationalism is threatening to tear Iraq into two, if not three mini-states. It is difficult to argue that the current state of affairs is any better than that under the Saddam Hussein regime. The neighbouring Sunni (read Saudia Arabia and Syria) and Shia (read Iran) states are jostling for a foothold in what is a new frontline in the war between Sunni and Shia Islam.

And let us not forget the infamous Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It was set up, funded and supported by Pakistan's secret service, the ISS, to serve as a client government within Pakistan's sphere of influence. This is the so-called religious government that had public executions in the form of beheadings as a warning to anyone who dared question their hold on power. This is the religious government that destroyed the historically and culturally significant Bamiyan Buddhist statues dating 1,500 years old on the grounds that these were idols and hence un-Islamic.

While we are at it, we should also recall that Pakistan broke off from India purely on the grounds of religion thanks to the Machiavellian genius of one Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Here is a man who had no qualms in using religion to divide a nation that was identical in terms of its racial and ethnic make-up. All because he could not lead the Congress Party and hence lead the newly independent India. At least one to two million people died as a result of India's violent partition with Pakistan.

A few years after the partition, Pakistan breaks up into East (Bangladesh) and West Pakistan. (West) Pakistan today is ground zero for training violent Islamists thanks to the unregulated madrassahs which provide religious training without practical vocational training. The bulk of their graduates cannot get a decent job and turn to violent jihad. The state is also a safe haven for senior al-Qaeda leadership especially in the ungovernable Western Frontier.

Yes, the Palestinians have a understandable gripe with the way they were ousted from their land. But no, they do not have an excuse for their current infighting between the Hamas and Fatah factions. The Palestinian leadership has failed its people. We can blame the Zionists and Western powers until kingdom comes but until the Palestinians unite under one focused and effective leadership, they will not have peaceful homeland they dream of having.

Shall I go on?

The point I am trying to make is both secular and religious forms of government have been co-opted by humans to serve their selfish political ambitions to the detriment of their citizens. The religious state that Ashoy passionately argues for in Malaysia is no guarantee against the tyranny of its citizens any more than the current rule by the Umnoputras.

The best check-and-balance against extreme forms of political abuse is a system that allows its citizens to get rid of the present ruling class without violence. Until someone creates anything better, we have to satisfy ourselves with a democratically-elected government (and I am not talking about the current sham that is loosely called 'Malaysian democracy') with the entrenched separation of powers within the government (the executive, the legislature and an independent judiciary). This is something we had when we were first granted independence but has been gradually whittled away due to the lack of a keen oversight by us, the citizens of Malaysia.

Until the citizens stand up to their elected representatives and remind them that the electorate are the true sovereigns in our form of government, we will have to endure another 50 years of mismanagement and poor governance.

Now there's a thought for those searching for new year resolutions for 2007.