As a liberal, I believe in the twin ideas of liberty and equality. I do not see them as opposed because I think that people have the equal right to liberty. When it comes to religion, it means that each of us has the equal right to practise whatever religion we choose.

This implies a principle of tolerance grounded in the idea of equality. It follows that nobody has the right to impose religious convictions on others. In terms of politics, we can express this as the principle that a state should not endorse any one religion as the official religion of a country.

However, political structures and popular culture can sometimes violate this principle. Our Federal Constitution endorses Islam as the national religion, although it should be noted that the Constitution also provides for the freedom to practise other religions.

The Constitution then presents a kind of antinomy that needs resolution, since it seems to support an equal right to religion while making one religion theofficial religion. Perhaps it only communicates a basic truth and that is that there are more people who are Muslims in Malaysia. If so, that is a harmless truth and does not damage the principles outlined above.

Still, if the provision carries the implication that a commitment to Islam is somehow a basis for greater rights than a commitment to any other religion, then that is a dangerous and ostensibly unjust proposition.

It is dangerous because it does not bode well for religious tolerance, and tolerance in general. It can lend to the idea that a belief in Islam allows for a superior conception of membership in this community. On the flip-side, it also encourages the belief that some Muslims are hard-headed and arrogant, and on those grounds illogically places the religion itself into a kind of disrepute.

One must always be careful to separate the religion per se from those who practise it. However, that separation is not easily made when it is people that animate any social practice, including religion. Mainly, a lack of tolerance one way or the other destroys the shared identity that is necessary for a multi-racial country to survive and flourish.

If some people see themselves as more valuable than others at a moral level because of their religious commitments, or that others who do not share those convictions are less worthy of respect, then the whole idea of a shared Malaysian identity is a farce. This is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of treating one religious right as superior to another, or as a basis for limiting the general rights of others.

The fasting month has been a very good example of this kind of occurrence. We see traffic rules openly flouted each evening as people parking in inappropriate places just to procure food. What is more, the authorities seem to ignore this on thewhole, which sends out the wrong kind of message. It suggests that it is acceptable behavior and that the otherwise applicable laws must be suspended. I wonder if the same logic will apply during Christmas or Chinese New Year.

Restaurants are inundated with people who just sit there without buying food thereby preventing other customers from dining. Restaurant managers, (I am thinking of the manager of the KFC at KLCC here who thought himself powerless in that situation) could take a cue from this.

Contractually, people do not have the right to sit in a restaurant without buying anything as it denies the rights of other customers who actually do want to eat. I even witnessed one man make his way to the front of a line at a caf and proceed to justify his actions because he had been fasting. When he was told that he could not do that, he nearly resorted to fisticuffs.

Lastly, there is the general malaise that affects some people who fast, who treat that fact as an excuse not to work or otherwise provide a crucial service. The Star LRT management could take a lesson here as well. I arrived at the Star LRT University Station just at about 7pm last Friday, to find the counter closed for half an hour because the staff was breaking fast. I do not see why there can be no rotation of staff to allow things to operate smoothly. The security guard on duty used the fact of fasting as a kind of pre-emptive argument, as if to say I had no business complaining.

Does this mean that others have to wait around while some of our Muslim brethren indulge themselves? Are all services, like emergency services to be suspended in the future?

These are but a few examples of actions that imply some kind superior right just because one is fasting. Plainly, there is no justification for such a view. However, the insidious consequences of these actions are worth thinking about. Are we ever going to be able to say we have a shared identity, when such actions that assume inequality still persist?