I wish to comment on Umran Kadir's similarisation of Malaysia's haphazard 'indoctrination' of Islam to the neo-con political subculture in the US. I found Umran's Islamic state term too nebulous as simplistic.

In interreligious disputes, it is worthwhile to note the difference between the flaw in the basis that serves as the backbone of the justice system and the flaw in the implementation of the justice system itself. Islam protects the rights of other religious minorities at all cost.

If the rejection of the majority of the Muslim NGOs on the call for reinterpretation of Article 121(1A) is not enough to prove the sceptics that proper implementation of the syariah balances and safeguards the need of both the religious majority and minorities, then by all means the majority of the Muslims will be glad enough to have a special court established with proper implementation to judge interreligious conflicts on the sole circumstance that the backbone of the justice system does not go against the universal principles of Islam.

While I agree with Umran's on the lack of direct relation between the current perceived police conduct and the ethical guidelines as prescribed by Islam, I do not see the recent commission on body searches call for adherence to syariah principles of not humiliating others as a problem to those who are not Islamophobics. Although Jawi has a lot to improve on its ethical conduct towards those who 'misbehave', there is a mandate based on the consensus of the public that it be given enforcement power only over Muslims in order to curb overt behavior that does not run well with the locals.

However, I have to agree with Umran's argument that the notion of an Islamic state differs widely within Umno, PAS and DAP. The term has been used to propel one's own agenda, making it listed as possibly the most reported misnomer in the non-Muslim world apart from other terms such as 'syariah' and 'dhimmi'. But any efforts in deinstitutionalising Islam from the public governance aspect that serves the interests of Muslims and non-Muslims in favour of new guiding principles which endorse the separation of religion and state (and thus alienating Muslims from their rights) is a form of indoctrination of a new belief system in itself.

The true institutionalisation of Islam in public governance is often times misquoted as Islamisation when Islam, in its essence, safeguards the rights of people of different belief systems. Secularism itself is founded on the flawed premise of the separation of the belief system from public governance, since Islam views secularism as a belief system in itself.

Tunku is mistaken. Nowhere does the Federal Constitution explicitly mention the term 'secularism' or 'secular' and therefore just as the term 'Islamic state' can be a misnomer, there's no question that secularism itself is used as a political weapon to flaunt one's own illicit intentions, and in its puritanical form, it is a dogma which stands against the belief of the Muslim constituents.