“I do not wish to live in a society where you are stoned for adultery. I prefer to live in a society where we get stoned first, and then commit adultery.”

- Ibn Warraq

Sometimes I worry about my reputation amongst certain quarters that I am anti-Islam, which means by definition I am also anti-Malay. Since I have made the claim that Islamic extremism is the existential threat facing this country, I see no reason to stop writing about this subject. Other pundits can concentrate on discussing issues that I consider important but in the end not as damaging to this country as the threat of Islamic imperatives that would divest us of rights and, yes, our way of life.

Sarawak DAP chairperson Chong Chieng Jen closed his open letter with this rather simplistic line of reasoning - “If we truly want to defend and preserve the secularism under our Federal Constitution, Umno must be made the opposition in the coming general election. It is only when Umno is made the opposition then that it can no longer implement its hudud agenda.”

People, this is the problem right here. Benching Umno will not preserve or defend the constitution. Over the long Umno watch, the constitution has been amended to persevere the hegemony of Umno and the agenda of Malay supremacy with the theme of Islam as the means of maintaining compliance within the Malay polity.

Chong is right about the social engineering and the demographics that would ensure a kind of Islamic supremacy controlled by Umno, which would eventually lead for whatever reasons to an ‘Islamic’ state.

However, this meme that by benching Umno, we as Malaysians, whatever our religion or credo, would be safe from the machinations of Islamic extremists, is irrational considering that we neither have a committed secular opposition nor Muslim politicians who openly commit to secular agendas. As long as this remains the default setting of Malaysian politics, there will never be a period where secularism is safe from encroaching Islamic extremism.

While everyone was blaming Umno for the ‘sandiwara’ of PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang’s bill, the reality is that Muslim politicians, especially from the opposition, made no clear statements on their stand on this Islamic bill. Now some would argue that this is about playing the game safe and being mindful of the “Malay” vote but the reality is that since there is no Muslim oppositional voices that are a direct contrast with that of Umno and PAS, there can be no alliances that defend and preserve the secularity of the constitution.

Opposition politicians, especially non-Muslim ones, should stop making over generalisations in an attempt to blame everything on Umno when the reality is that the Islamic issue runs deeper than what most opposition supporters led by their political leaders (who know or should now otherwise) believe...