‘As polls loom, PAS eyes staggered Islamic state rollout’ was the headline yesterday of an exclusive interview with Abdul Hadi Awang by the Malaysian Insider . PAS is insistent in its push for the Islamic state with hudud law to be enforced in ‘stages’.

NONE Only last week, Malaysiakini reported PAS Youth chief Nasrudin Hassan Tantawi as declaring the only way to deal with “those who have sinned” by having premarital sex is the imposition of whipping and stoning punishment.

Nasrudin ( left ) earlier demanded the cancellation of a concert by gay popstar Adam Lambert in addition to blasting the TV3 Aidilfitri ad as “a mockery to Islam” for combining “elements of Christmas, as well as Hinduism and Buddhism”.

PAS president Hadi told Insider that “Islam is not just a religion but also a way of life, and it encompasses all aspects of daily life”. This is a most salient message that DAP apologists for Islamic supremism should internalise as it would help them understand, at least for one, PAS’s attempt to convert Shah Alam into an alcohol-free zone.

DAP chairman Karpal Singh has previously argued that hudud is unconstitutional but Prof Abdul Aziz Bari of the International Islamic University begs to differ.

NONE Aziz ( right ) observed “hudud is not ultra vires the constitution” at a Sept 29 forum organised by the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies. Replying to my question from the floor during the event, the professor of constitutional law explained that the federal constitution’s alleged secular character does not exist, and that hudud can be implemented after the required Parliamentary majority is obtained.  

Another renowned senior lawyer I spoke to said hudud is simply a matter of passing an act of Parliament with a simple majority (not even two-thirds needed).

PAS admirably steadfast

I similarly raised the hudud poser to PAS central committee member Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad during the Q&A session at his Malaysia Day talk under the auspices of the 5th National Congress on Unity.

a kugan detention death funeral ummc to puchong 280109 kuala selangor mp dr dzulkefly ahmad Dr Dzul ( left ) replied, “If it [Islamic law] is achieved through a proper democratic and legislative process, then we will implement it.” Asking the public to allow PAS the space to try and carry it out, he remonstrated , “Whenever we talk about Islam now, we see resistance that is based on contempt and hatred, borderline Islamophobia, like we are criminals.”

Terence Netto in his article ‘Time Dr Dzul takes the bit between the teeth’ does the math. Presuming a Pakatan federal government, Netto queries if PAS were to move the constitutional amendment on hudud, would PKR’s Muslim MPs oppose such a bill “given that support for syariah is a religious obligation”.

He further conjectures whether the Muslim MPs in the opposition (Umno, presumably) might support such an amendment “on the basis of religious duty”.

How will the numbers stack up if voting goes down to the wire between Muslim and non-Muslim MPs?

Unlike Netto who asks the hard questions, DAP is adopting a ‘ belakang kira ’ (to employ a colloquialism) approach. For DAP, the means - i.e. pandering to Islamism - justifies the ends, the ultimate goal being Putrajaya. Burning issues like hudud which will dent the Pakatan electoral compact are swept under the carpet. The only problem is, the proverbial carpet is catching fire.

While DAP has sidestepped the hudud issue with its non-Malay vote bank, PAS which is not as devious and quite admirably consistent in the pursuit of its stated aims has refused to correspondingly put the contentious target objective on the backburner.

Karpal a Lone Ranger

The Insider Dec 1 article reiterated PAS spiritual adviser Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat’s claim that Karpal is the sole DAP leader to have publicly spoken out against the Islamic state. Nik Aziz also noted that other DAP leaders have been conspicuously silent, and surmising silence means consent. “According to Nik Aziz, Karpal’s views did not represent the views of DAP,” the news portal reported.

NONE In my reply to a reader some weeks ago, I’d quoted the very same Nik Aziz ( right ) pronouncement and citing PAS party organ Harakah as the source. Nik Aziz had stated that the anti-Islamic State stance was merely Karpal’s “personal view” and he had not heard officially from DAP itself that the ‘democratic action’ party rejected the Islamic concept.

This is the PAS Mursyidul Am speaking, no less. So do not underestimate the extent of DAP’s sweet talk under the bedcovers for the venerable Nik Aziz to have come to his conclusion.

Additionally, in a (separate) message on the second anniversary of March 8, the Tuan Guru said [my translation]: “The current development is good as there are among the Pakatan Rakyat (including DAP) leadership who are already clever ( pandai ) in reading the Quran and the Pakatan Rakyat Penang government headed by DAP has dared to pledge they will emulate Caliph Umar Abdul Aziz in their style of governance. Whereas Gerakan, MCA and MIC who have (since Independence) been so long with Umno in the BN continue not to understand Islam”.

To get a more accurate picture of the dynamics between PAS and DAP, it is important to access the Islamist viewpoints, which unfortunately English-speaking Pakatan supporters fail to do since they eschew reading Malay media. The duplicity is inescapable if one were to compare ‘He Says, She Says’: PAS, the more honest of the two, has been constant in saying one thing, while DAP, the abject appeaser, is telling another story.

In the two short years since it tasted unprecedented power, DAP can be seen jettisoning some of its cherished principles, such as the longstanding refusal of ‘Datuk’ titles. Accepting the Datukship is an act which implicitly legitimises Kedaulatan Melayu because it is the Raja-raja Melayu who confer the honours.

DAP has made 180-degree turns too on other controversies, such as songkok and selendang (remember that the party once raised a hue-and-cry over the imposition of tudung as university convocation and police parade uniform).

For the sake of political expediency, DAP bends over backwards while PAS has not strayed from the straight and narrow.

From the PAS perspective

Pro-PAS alpha blogger Abdul Rahman Abdul Talib, better known by his online moniker ‘Tulang Besi’, posted an article on Monday titled ‘ Kuasa Ketiga (3rd Force) adalah gerakan anti-Islam’.

Tulang Besi writes [my translation]: “The group led by Haris Ibrahim and Raja Petra have begun to vent their dissatisfaction of PKR and the leadership of Anwar Ibrahim. In the recent (party) election, they were seen openly supporting Zaid Ibrahim. Those who follow the English media in Malaysia will surely be acquainted with writers like Helen Ang and the blog http://hartalmsm.wordpress.com . Readers must be able to see how this group is against any agenda that has even a whiff of Islam”.

It is true that the Hartal MSM mediawatch team has endorsed the emergence of a third force, which they announced in tandem with their Nov 16 blog write-up ‘DAP people becoming just like Umno’.

boycott the newspaper pc 280108 haris ibrahim Haris ( left ) provided his take on the Pakatan trajectory going off tangent: “It was against this backdrop of concerns that Anwar and Azmin might be on a Muslim agenda that I keenly followed and reported, first, the [PKR] divisional elections, and, more recently, the national leadership elections. And my reports were mostly negative of the whole electoral process, much to the annoyance of many.”

Hence Tulang Besi’s accusation that the third force is our new platform to forward the “ultra secularism agenda”. Tulang Besi writes that on the other hand, DAP are willing to sacrifice their “extremist” political beliefs of old in order to win the heart of the Malay - “Therefore, DAP’s ultra secular belief is every day more eroded and their cleaving to Islam is every day the closer.”

The pro-PAS blogger also points out that “never in the history of Barisan Na*** [expletive] have the MCA and MIC MPs broken fast in the mosques and suraus. But history is made under the administration of Pakatan Rakyat where the DAP wakil-wakil rakyat are trooping (to the mosques and suraus) to celebrate Ramadan with the Muslims”.

Poor little girl lost

It is not for Lim Kit Siang to clarify his party’s position on hudud as he is merely a mentor. The task falls to his son Guan Eng the secretary-general who must speak for DAP on this. But expect a deafening silence though.

Guan Eng’s brown-nosers are fond of rewinding ad nauseum the hagiography that he went to jail for a Malay girl. There is a seven-year-old girl Tan Yi Min who was ‘snatched’ by her Muslim-convert mother, backed by a Syariah Court order. This childsnatching happened in Guan Eng’s own backyard of Butterworth.

Guan Eng’s political secretary Ng Wei Aik once demanded that Najib Abdul Razak respond to the Israeli raid on Gaza flotilla ship Mavi Marmara within 24 hours. It has been 24 days since Nov 8 when Fatimah Foong Abdullah snatched their daughter who has been under the care of the father these past three years.

When one postures so nauseatingly as Caliph Umar Abdul Aziz, this paragon of Islamic virtue cannot then be seen to favour the dhimmi and the kafir if he is to keep up the role-playing. That’s the most probable reason for the DAP’s 24 days of thunderous silence on the little Chinese girl snatched from Pulau Pinang Darul Islam.

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.