PAS Youth chief Nasrudin Hassan At-Tantawi chided TV3 for its Raya ad as “a mockery to Islam”. Harakahdaily carried his press statement, saying, “Although they are trying to promote 1Malaysia, don’t overdo it to the extent of ignoring the sensitivity of religion and Muslim way of life.”

pas umno pemuda talks parliment 010709 nasrudin hassan Nasrudin ( right ) faulted the ad for depicting Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Chinese New Year celebrations as being at par with Aidilfitri, adding that the Muslim occasion was not a pesta to be greeted in ignorance with laughter, feasting and socialising without limits.

TV3 apologised and withdrew the ad but failed to preempt a police report being lodged.

Nasrudin is correct on its 1Malaysia theme. The ad has a flying sleigh/ trishaw, lotus flowers (usually associated with Buddhism), Deepavali lights and even special effects stardust. Among its visual elements that some Muslims found offensive were a page of jawi script upside down, and mosques that looked like they had crosses on the spires.

The Santa-ish character was more reminiscent of “the pope” than a Pak Haji, one Malay blogger groused.

azlan Such deep unease over the ad indicates our conservative religious climate. Detractors of the TV3 ad attributed the worst motives to it and said it meant to deviate the Muslims’ faith and undermine Islam. Some are speculating it to be the creative work of a Chinese producer/director.

If there were more trust between the adherents of the various religions, the complainants would not have read so much negativity into the ad.

Blowing kisses at Islam

The contentious ad was created by TV3 in its eager embrace of 1Malaysia or perhaps on orders from the top to brown nose the prime minister and his brainchild.

Going one up on 1Malaysia, DAP is aggressively pushing its Malaysian First, even though our environment of mutual suspicion is not conducive for ‘let’s-all-hug-the-Quran’ marketing undertaken by non-Muslims.

DAP courting Malay voters has been as muddled in its approach as TV3's mish-mash 1Malaysia-Raya greeting, and equally stepping on Muslim toes.

Some DAP leaders and followers - like Teo Nie Ching and her supporters - are, in their over-eagerness, not helping matters with careless gaffes that allow propaganda machines such as Utusan Malaysia and the Umno-affiliated blogs to make political capital.

For example, Teo was bent on continuing her informal Visit Surau Year campaign until the Selangor religious authorities slapped a ban on her. Imagine that they had to go to the extent of barring her from entering a surau.

On the part of the Muslims, they are calling for stricter curbs on the non-Malay ‘intrusion’ into sacred ground - both literal and figurative. PAS Youth now wants broadcasts to be more stringently vetted by Jakim, Finas, the Information Ministry and other national agencies to ensure that Islam is not denigrated.

If DAP had in the past failed to heed the message, Nasrudin’s recent caution on “the hurt feelings and sensitivity of Muslims” will, I hope, drum some sense and sobriety into DAP “on the boundaries of halal and haram” (to borrow the phrase from the PAS Youth chief).

DAP’s running around putting out Islam-related firestorms makes you wonder if they are the people’s elected representatives or the Perkim volunteer firefighting corps. The Islam-related controversies have flared up mainly due to their own charging about like the proverbial bull in a China shop.

Forgive me for asking but isn’t the DAP-Islamic-Starship Enterprise taking away focus from their proper duties as MPs and Aduns?

teo nie qing giving duit raya to children bangi surau Lim Guan Eng, is currently subject to a special police task force investigation on the Friday prayer said for him in mosques.

If you ask me, these DAP folks can do no right in the eyes of devout Muslims. For example, in her subsequent surau appearance, Teo ( centre in pic ) wore a selendang but her hair was still visible - nope, not good enough. To avert all possible criticisms, she should have donned a tudung litup , no less.

In the case of Lim, he stood out like a sore thumb in the doctored photograph showing a group of Malay men slaughtering a cow. The Mursyidul Am of DAP (oops, I meant the party secretary-general) accused Umno cybertroopers of inflaming religious hatred by counterfeiting his presence at the ritual. He twitted that the saboteurs had descended “to desperate depravities”.

lim guan eng slaughters cow 310810 lim guang eng nizar jamaluddin However, Lim should reflect deeper on the fiasco of his superimposed picture since he claims the Photoshop trick was to incite religious hatred. If he was truly the latter-day avatar of Caliph Umar Abdul Aziz as he likes to project himself, why should his joining the rest of the Muslim men in slaughtering the cow be viewed so “hatefully”?

Overplaying the Islam card

When Lim should be concentrating on the delivery of his promised competency, accountability and transparency, it is his Islam-related problems that are perpetually taking centrestage.

It is really he who allows himself to be targetted because he gives opponents an opening by going overboard in his pious posturing.

Take for instance Lim beating the clock by wishing selamat berpuasa a whole day before Ramadan, something which even the Malay-Muslim leaders have never done. They normally just wish Malaysians Selamat Hari Raya in their official messages, not ‘Happy Fasting’ an entire month ahead.

Moreover, in his Ramadan circular, Lim repeated his mistake of two years past on amar makruf nahi mungkar .

His state administration had in 2008 splashed the slogan on billboards and banners in every conceivable corner of Seberang Prai and Penang island. Lim out-Islamised even the darul states (Kelantan Darul Naim, Terengganu Darul Iman, etc, both of which have enacted hudud ) with his widespread sloganeering but alas, got the spelling wrong as amal makruf .

Isn't ‘enjoining good and hindering evil’ (Arabic, amar makruf nahi mungkar ) something universal that can be conveyed without solely ascribing it to one particular religion? Yet it seems that Lim is hardly able to discern any noble values in Buddhism or Hinduism as we hardly hear him quoting their scriptures or philosophies, or extolling their heroes and sages.

helen ang story 160910 If DAP insists on trafficking in the Islamic coin, then they should come clean with the voters on where the party stands vis-a-vis its Pakatan partners.

In 2003, PAS issued its Islamic state manifesto which outlined among other areas, tasawwur (the concept), the primary principles and policies, the caliphate - like Caliph Lim’s Pulau Pinang dar al-Islam, yah? - taqwa (God-fearing), and As-Siyaadah wal-Haakimiyah , which refers to the absolute sovereignty belonging to Allah.

PAS’s Islamic state aspiration is nothing new. What the DAP constituents might want to question is why the party is giving the impression that it is the third force in the Islamisation drive.

The conclusion made by PAS in its manifesto is that “Islam is the solution to all human problems, including issues arising from a plural society”. Tell us, does DAP concur with this formulation?

In truth, DAP can’t even resolve its own problems. Each time the DAP reps get into trouble by flatfooting - mispronouncing Quranic verses, misspelling Islamic injunctions, and other missteps - it is PAS that has to ride to their rescue.

Lim, for instance, is a trained accountant. Instead of honing his strengths of first-rate competency, Lim chooses instead to devote energies to his third-rate imposture of a mullah - and becoming the butt of Umno jokes.

Is Lim’s showboating necessary? Doesn’t Penang already have a state mufti (whose job Lim appears to be eyeing)?

It’s a foolhardy strategy for DAP to play the Islam card when they’re up against the real McCoys like Perak mufti Harussani Zakaria and Ustaz Ridhuan Tee who have the ear of the Malay masses.

HELEN ANG used to be a journalist. In future, she would like to be a practising cartoonist. But for the present, she is in the NGO circles and settling down to more serious writing and reading of social issues.