COMMENT Now, at the start to the conferment of the status of dhimmitude on non-Muslim citizens, in Peninsular Malaysia at least, it behooves the DAP, as the political party with the strongest claims to secularism, to take a step that will help to check the spiral that is impelling the country towards an Islamic state.
Dhimmitude is the relegation of non-Muslims to the status of subject peoples in an Islamic polity. Non-Muslims had to pay a tax, called the jizra, in Ottoman and earlier times to their Muslim overlords as confirmation and protection of their status of subjection.
Peninsular non-Muslims are not as yet required to pay the jizra.