COMMENT Come June 2014, some 56 years after independence, Malaysian parliamentarians will decide whether we are going to evolve into an Islamic state as a private members bill allowing the implementation of hudud laws in Kelantan is put to them.

For those committed to secularism like this writer, the mind boggles with questions of how we came to this cross-roads after half a century of urbanisation and industrialisation? Did globalization pass us by and left us more conservative or did we take a peek at the world and have decided to reject it.