I have been a malaysiakini visitor for a long time. It's really a pleasure to be able to read the unprintable as the local media (the other alternative) have not been able to fill that need, frightened as they are of being Nero's messenger who brought the bad news. I hope malaysiakini will eventually be totally "value-free" in its presentation. This policy will invite more visitors, and thus more advertisements, for it to move to greater heights. Singapore's Straits Times Interactive is the most favoured site for overseas students and is totally "value-free". The robust The Manila Times is another excellent site. I cannot help noticing, though, that malaysiakini has a circle of "pen pals" whose writings - mostly diatribe - are really predictable, except for Farish Noor whose articles are fresh summer wind. The chief "pen pal" Mary Tan, in her wrath on "Jais is 'just' enforcing the law!" (June 28), amplified the earth-shattering Selangor Syariah Crime Enactment (1995), but her thunder was stolen on June 26 by the New Straits Times editorial on page 12. The NST article was eruditely written, elucidating that the enforcers had acted in bad faith. Jais' background gives it a moral high ground as high as a rice bowl of blancmange. Mary Tan has the proclivity in her writings reminiscent of the invectives of a senior cadre member of the now defunct Communist Party of Malaya - or perhaps symptoms of post-menopausal disquiet. She wretchedly castigates other writers as ignorant, stupid, dishonest, immature and faithless. Is this the way of the Malaysian polemic or is it just hubris? Malaysia is our country. The fact that we are multi-ethnic is a fait accompli. We all live and interact in two large glass houses, albeit one is bigger than the other. If the leaders of both houses keep lifting their religious sarongs at one another, something has to give way! Religion is a fierce primordial sentiment. It causes wars and ethnic conflicts all the time. It has a lousy history. The Maluku tragedy is the latest. I humbly suggest that Malaysians who have not read the book "Islam and modernity" by Fazlul Rahman (Chicago, 1982) to please do so. It is extremely easy to criticise the incumbent government. PAS uses the sacred writings of Islam to specifically challenge the alien, Western-import nature of modernity that Barisan Nasional has tried to build. PAS exercises the sovereignty of Allah over the believers, through a government that must implement the divine commands as found in the sacred writings of Islam. PAS in Kelantan and Terengganu are showing signs of theocratic intolerance. The traducers are traduced at their last annual general meeting in Kuala Terengganu. If PAS comes to power with a two-thirds majority in Peninsular Malaysia, it will certainly be God's revenge. PAS will reject even the chimerical notion of democracy. There is only one organising principle in the world - Allah - and human freedom is reduced virtually to zero. There will be no room for autonomous political activity outside the control of the Shari'a. Elections are no longer necessary. When the moment comes, DAP will be "habis manis, hampas dibuang" - a fast moving turd in the monsoon drain. Sabah and Sarawak will secede. Singapore, fearful of Lee Kuan Yew's famous dictum, "six mad mullahs in KL", will arm itself to the teeth. There will be a swift military coup d'etat by secular generals of the Malaysian military to allegedly reinstate democracy. Goodbye to all good things, Malaysians. There will be hundreds of "panmui" (Cantonese for "Filipino maids") heading for the Middle East, looking for work. Mary Tan, in her vituperations, misses the point. It is through the power of non-Muslims' economic and "self"-standing that will forever moderate and balance the political scene of our motherland. You have seen it in the streets of Jakarta. The reformasi created mayhem against the Chinese citizens. In Malaysia, we have 45 percent non-Muslims, a numerical power that holds the greatest of everything - money.