In response to PAS Terengganu government's intention to table hudud laws, MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik opposed it on grounds that they victimised women constituting half the country's population and asked, "Where in the world can you get raped in front of four good Muslim men as witnesses? If they were of such character, they would stop the rape and not be there in the first place" ( New Straits Times , June 6).

With all due respect, the technical iniquity of hudud rape laws is hardly the issue here. Does hudud become more acceptable if instead of four good Muslim men as witnesses, Terengganu state government changes it to only one Muslim man of not necessarily good character?

The issue here is whether our basic law (the 1957 Constitution) based on common law derived from wisdom of men through the ages should be replaced by the Islamic syariah (from which hudud is an offshoot) believed to be derived from the wisdom of God.

To use a homely metaphor, our basic laws applicable to and agreed by all the different communities at Independence are cut on the cloth of secular common law.

PAS now desires to change the entire material of the cloth from (say) existing cotton to wool.

The question therefore is whether wool should replace cotton in this hot climate.

It is not as Ling, and a number of non-governmental organisations, including Sisters in Islam, put it, that is, when wool is used, the ruck in the texture is difficult to remove. If that were the only issue, it is easy enough for PAS to just show how to iron out the creases, thereby achieving by fait accompli a replacement of Common Law by Islamic Law without addressing a priori first question whether 'wool material is suitable' in light of existing realities of a plural Malaysian society and the pre-existing social contract based on the 1957 Federal Constitution structured on Common Law.

It is also not a question of whether women — constituting half the population — are prejudiced by hudud .

It is whether non-Muslim communities are prejudiced. It is whether religion should remain in private realm rather than public sphere by which public morality is legislated in prejudice against not only non-Muslims but Muslims as well.

It is also an issue whether we, as a modern Islamic nation, would want to follow those in the Middle East in which religious laws are the code of the land. It is also whether we want to embrace the modern world or withdraw in orthodoxy. These are the issues — not peripheral technical iniquities of rape laws under hudud. Let this be clear.

I am just amazed how basic issues unresolved is swept under the carpet and determined by discourse on peripheral issues of creases and ruck instead!