I agree with Joe Fernandez's 'Unholy alliance of politics and religion' and am of the opinion that Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad should go nationwide to explain PAS' deviationist teachings, and thereafter the government should ban PAS, send its leaders to Kamunting Detention Centre under the Internal Security Act, and take over all the religious schools run by them in Kelantan, Terengganu and other states.

How else do you deal with people who seek to take advantage of democracy to establish a theocracy contrary to it?

To introduce hudud that carries punishments such as stoning to death for adultery and amputation of limbs for theft, PAS will bring the nation back a thousand years. While the country is moving ahead to equalise the sexes, PAS is segregating them.

For a law like hudud to be introduced, there must be shared norms of the communities affected to support it. It cannot be forced down the throat. Silence — in fear of being branded unIslamic to oppose it — does not prove consent or consensus.

To steamroller hudud through even though the Constitution expressly prohibits Terengganu from enacting criminal laws under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government is a flagrant defiance of the Constitution — an act of blatant insurgency!

What will happen if people think that as long as one brandishes the banner of Islam, one can get away with breaking the Constitution, the most basic and fundamental of all laws of the land?

What will happen if when told that certain acts are illegal by laws of the land, they say God's laws are more important? Then there is no point to have laws, is there? How does one reason with those whose language of discourse is entirely based on religious absolutes rather than logic or facts?

In realpolitik terms, Umno should not waste time competing with PAS regarding as to who is more Islamic because this is their game — the politics of religion. The more extreme PAS will always win, and Umno will be booted or subverted, whichever is earlier.

Enough criticisms have already been leveled against the government for abuse of power that its image can suffer no worse for 'abusing' it one more time by incarcerating all those whose ultimate goal is to subvert and change Malaysian way of life to that in Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia. (Even Suhakam cannot defend that hudud is consistent with human rights).

Indeed, it is the sacred duty of the elected government to deploy all powers within its means to uphold the Constitution and defend the Malaysian way of life and all that the country has achieved so far.

Not only should the ruling party and coalition draw the line and make a stand here and now — but also the opposition (Keadilan, PRM and DAP) too.

It is no more bipartisan politics at issue. At stake, here and now, is the Malaysian cause: whether we want to allow a group to hijack religion and usurp political power at the cost of changing the entire fabric of Malaysian society and known way of life .