With regards to the controversial raid by the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Affairs Department on a nightclub on Jan 20, allow me to say that the issue is not whether the particular officers involved were not courteous enough or whether the raiding party had no women officers.

Would it make us very different from Iran if the raiding party were half-comprised women and all of them were very courteous in detaining those suspected of immorality in nightclubs or public parks?

If it were the cabinet's principle, as reported , that Malaysia had no need for morality police to enforce morality and that morality should be the responsibility of the family, then morality should not be enforced by arrest and criminal sanctions.

All future raids, therefore, should not be held, the legal jurisdiction given to religious officers to make such raids be rescinded, and the corps of 'morality police' be disbanded with henceforth.

Such a position would be consistent with the Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's statement at the World Economic Forum's annual meet in Davos Switzerland that '... Malaysia stands out as a model country that has successfully combined Islam and modernisation for greater prosperity' and is not another Iran.

Right now our community and political leaders are still ambivalent and are still talking at cross-purposes without care for internal consistency or grasping what the real principle is.

A 'courteous' bunch of morality enforcers and raiders with a sprinkling of 'courteous and smiling' women would make no difference to the paramount principle that only criminal behaviour causing harm to life and property should be enforced by officers sanctioned by law.

Good morals, on the other hand, should be inculcated by the family and the education system.

This separation of criminal law from morality is the benchmark of any modern society and political leaders aspiring to lead such a society should have the political will to keep them separate.

There is no point in talking about the principle of one thing and in the next breath, talking of something else that - when stripped of its veneer - is diametrically opposite to that principle and thereafter either do nothing or do something very different from the principle first stated.

It is this that can be perceived as political opportunism.