Correctly interpreting Dr M’s ‘Islamic country’ declaration of 2001

Hint: There are wheels turning within wheels. Can you see it?

1. On 29 Sept 2001, Dr Mahathir Mohamad famously declared:

“Umno wishes to state loudly that Malaysia is an Islamic country.  This is based on the opinion of ulamaks who had clarified what constituted as Islamic country.  […] If Malaysia is not an Islamic country because it does not implement the hudud, then there are no Islamic countries in the world.”

2. Then on 17 June 2002, the prime minister went one up by stating that Malaysia is an Islamic fundamentalist country.

3. What is the implication of Dr M’s declarations? (You have to pause and THINK! beyond the opposition polemic.)

Saloma with movie mogul Sir Run Run Shaw (Show Brothers)

2001-2002 = Umno-controlled Malaysia.

The PM proclaimed us as having already succeeded in achieving Islamic country status. Dapat cop ‘Sirim’ dah.

Certified “Islamic country” cukup syarat by Dr M and Umno. And what was the feature of Dr M’s Islamic country in 2001? No hudud.

Or to read it another way, there was/is no need for establishing hudud to make Malaysia any more Islamic than we already were.

Walau tanpa hudud pun Malaysia dah cukup Islam. Itu kata Dr M berdasarkan ketetapan para ulama yang berkongsi ilmu mereka dengan (mantan) perdana menteri kita.

4. I would interpret Dr M as preferring civil law. He was at the pinnacle of power for 22 years. And he was a very powerful prime minister. If he had wanted hudud, we would have assuredly gotten hudud.

Ponder on what kind of a man was Mahathir as PM. You can look up his 22 years worth of public speeches in the national archives.

Does he preach like the PAS Tok Gurus or like the DAP Father Josephs love to preach? Maybe that’s why Tun Dol got on Dr M’s nerves. The 5th premier (unlike the 4th) was too fond of preaching and pontificating.

5. As icing on the cake of Dr M’s wry and wicked humour, he even declared in 2002 Malaysia to be a “fundamentalist” Islamic country. A couple of months prior, Jakim had presented a paper titled ‘Malaysia Negara Islam’, on 7 March 2002.

No hudud required. Dah cukup Islam pun. Itu ikut Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia.

In the Dr M-Umno-controlled Malaysia, there was no nationwide or national-level agitation for hudud to be implemented.

6. During the period of 2001- 2002, PAS was ruling Kelantan and Terengganu. In the rest of the country, we did not have issues like cinemas being asked to keep their lights turned on, cinemas imposing gender segregation or cinemas discouraged from operating or blocked from being built.

7. Think of the many years Umno was in power before the infiltration of that Abim spawn, Anwar Ibrahim.

In the pre-Anwar era, we had Saloma. We had the luscious Latifah Omar. Najib Razak’s mom in her younger days was a modern hottie too (photo below).

Can we say that Umno has a track record or history of possessing a Taliban bent?

‘No’, bukan?

8. Why did Dr M make his unilateral proclamations in 2001 and 2002?

This is the tricky bit but we have the benefit of hindsight. Or more likely, we’re only getting it now in retrospect.

The passage below is taken from a 19 June 2002 press statement by Lim Kit Siang.

“(Penang,  Wednesday): The announcement by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad in Parliament on Monday that Malaysia is not an moderate Islamic state but an Islamic fundamentalist state has shocked all Malaysians.

“Before his ‘929 Declaration’ that Malaysia is an Islamic state at the Gerakan national assembly on September 29 last year, MCA and Gerakan leaders had been attacking the DAP for working “hand-in-glove’ with PAS to establish an Islamic State, proclaiming at the top of their voices that Malaysia is a secular and not an Islamic State.

“But immediately after Mahathir’s “929 Declaration” that Malaysia is an Islamic state, the MCA and Gerakan leaders were the first to give their full and unequivocal support that Malaysia had always been an Islamic state from day one of our nationhood 44 years ago …” <UNQUOTE>

Okay. So here’s the deal.

Dr M had declared in Parliament that Malaysia was not an moderate Islamic state but an Islamic fundamentalist state. It leaves you gobsmacked but not in the Kit Siang {{{ Malaysians are “shocked” }}} way.

In 2002. Under Umno, Malaysia was an Islamic fundamentalist state. Yet in Islamic fundamentalist Malaysia under Mahathir, there was no hudud. And Mahathirites wouldn’t have thrown stones at a teenage boy and a teenage girl holding hands in broad daylight strolling in a public park, you’d think. Whereas the PAS moral police are a different kettle of fish.

You begin to see Dr M in a different light.

Najib’s mother, Tun Rahah Noah

9. What you have to do now is this: Assess Dr M and Umno by their actions.

10. DAP and PAS make plenty of (sweet) promises and give a lot of (empty) guarantees. Again, assess these opposition parties BY THEIR ACTIONS. 

And consider the outcome of the DAP-PAS joint action. You have eyes, you have ears. Am not sure where the brain of some Pakatan supporters are located though. Kat kepala lutut, kot.

Consider all that is taking place today, and how ‘Islamic’ – Islam as framed by PAS – rules and regulations are being forced on and affecting all of us.

Consider the present climate in comparison to before PAS and DAP attained power.

11. In my preceding article, I wrote that “DAP is not anti-Islam. DAP is actually pro-Islam”. This observation may have boggled some readers.

Elementary my dear Watson. PAS is DAP is PAS is DAP. Their mullahs and their evangelistas are kissing cousins.

Please read also my companion article ‘Absurd for DAP to claim that it supports secularism‘ to put the jigsaw pieces in place.

DAP is ostensibly pro-Islam – following the vein of our discourse above – in the sense that the party is willing to advance the PAS brand of Islam which is obsessed with punishing and prohibiting.

In my previous article, I’ve shown how the DAP in its pro-Islam posturing has casually abandoned the tenets of secularism. Never mind that secularism is supposedly one of the party’s founding principles and practised by its parent party, PAP in Singapore.

The flip side of the coin to DAP being “pro-Islam” (e.g. by allowing PAS to have its way and this leeway giving rise to such situations as the case of forbidding Chinese female hairdressers to attend to Chinese male customers) is that DAP has become anti-secular.

12. DAP keeps chanting its ‘Jom Ubah’ mantra all the time. Yup, that the party has done — Ubah. DAP has truly changed, making a 180-degree turn.

Would the DAP pre-2008 have kept quiet to all that is currently happening in the PAS-ruled states?

Why is it that Karpal (and Norman) are left the lone voices in DAP keeping to the original script?

Bloghouse Malaysia president Syed Akbar Ali has put up a latest piece of writing titled ‘PAS has become a real danger‘.

We are where we are today not on account of PAS alone. The Islamist party has always been consistently pushing its Islamic state agenda. Nothing new there.

Now think again. What is it that has changed?

The kahwin mutaah of two parties riding on religion is a new development. PAS exploiting Islam, DAP exploiting Christianity.

What else has changed?

DAP did not use to have all these chameleon bible thumpers holding the reins of power in the party.

From 1952 when MCA first began its working relationship with Umno to contest the Selangor municipal election, up till today – we’re talking a span of 60 years here – have you ever seen any Chinese woman politician from any party reprising the equivalent of the Lee Kuan Yew songkok scam?

Today, the Pakatan evangelical politicians think nothing of donning the tudung in order to invade the mosques and surau.

The PAS mullahs are one cause of concern. However we’ve been exposed to them and their methods since the formation of PIS-PUS-and-PMIP.

It is the DAP Talibans whose capacity and duplicity you should be assessing critically. If allowing hudud will allow DAP to reach Putrajaya, then DAP will not go against hudud nor against the PAS willpower on things it deems Islamic.

Remember DAP=PAS=DAP=PAS. Their mullah and evangelistas are one and the same.

What do you make of these photos?

Updated: 10.36pm