THE STUPIDITY OF PAS

That is a very important point that has not been explained — that Umno is as comfortable with the Sharia amendments as PAS is. Umno will not reverse what PAS did. What Umno is doing is they are leaving it to Parliament to decide, just like what PAS is doing. And yet no one talks about this.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

The people from the Islamic Party of Malaysia, PAS, are not very clever. In fact, some are downright stupid. And I say this because they do not seem to be able to explain such a simple issue and make Malaysians understand what is really happening.

Take the case of the so-called Hudud Bill that the Kelantan State Government (GoK) is said to be planning to bring to Parliament. What Hudud Bill are they talking about? There is no Hudud Bill.

Kelantan, just like all the other Malaysian states, has what we call Sharia Laws. These laws have been around for a long time, long before Merdeka. However, Sharia Laws in Malaysia, unlike in some other Muslim countries, only concerns family matters. In Malaysia, the Sharia laws do not include criminal acts. For criminal acts we have the CPC.

In 1993, the GoK amended the Sharia law to also include acts of crime. This amendment was passed by the Kelantan State Assembly and was subsequently signed by HRH the Sultan of Kelantan.

However, according to the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, states cannot pass laws that contradict or violate the Constitution. Hence this state amendment must be brought to Parliament and get Parliament’s approval. Parliament did not, however, approve the amendment. Hence the GoK cannot implement it.

Nine years later, in 2002, the Terengganu State Government (GoT) did the same thing. And the amendment to the Terengganu Sharia law was also approved by the Terengganu State Assembly and was subsequently signed by HRH the Sultan of Terengganu. And the Terengganu Sharia amendment also suffered the same fate as that of the Kelantan Sharia amendment.

Hence Kelantan and Terengganu already have Sharia laws. But these laws do not include what the CPC already covers. So in 1993, and then in 2002, the GoK and GoT got their State Assemblies to approve the amendments to include criminal acts and then got their respective Sultans to sign the amendments. But Parliament did not endorse or approve these amendments. Hence nothing happened.

Now Kelantan wants to amend the amendments of 22 years ago, which were never approved in the first place anyway and, yet again, bring them to Parliament, which will again be rejected anyway. In short, this is merely an academic exercise, which is not going to see the light of day in the end.

Why amend amendments that were never approved and will never be approved by Parliament? Why embark on an academic exercise that everyone knows is going to fail?

Well, as Muslims, it is the duty of PAS to pursue this matter even when they know they are going to fail. The success or failure (and in this case it is going to fail) of the exercise is not important. Doing what Muslims would consider the right thing is.

Bersih pursues the agenda to reform the electoral process even when they know it is never going to happen and is certainly going to fail (because any reformation will mean the death of Umno). It is their duty to pursue electoral reforms even if they know they are not going to see it happen.

The SSKM movement pursues independence for Sabah and Sarawak even though they know Sabah and Sarawak will never be allowed to leave Malaysia and become independent republics like Singapore.

Malaysia Today pursues freedom of opinion, expression and choice even though I know Malaysia will never legalise gay marriages and allow those of the same sex to register as husband and husband or wife and wife and will never allow Muslims to declare they have left Islam to become atheists.

PAS needs to explain what it is doing and why it is doing it. And just as I expect PAS to respect my right to propagate gay unions and respect my right to propagate the right of Muslims to become atheists, we must also respect the right of PAS to pursue what it regards as its duty to propagate Islam and Islamic laws.

That is what freedom of opinion, expression and choice is all about. And we cannot expect others to respect our right of freedom of opinion, expression and choice while we whack PAS for exercising that same right.

Anyway, one very important point that seems to have escaped many people is that Terengganu passed these amendments in 2002. However, for 11 years since 2004, Umno has been ruling Terengganu. Yet Umno has not abrogated or removed those amendments to the Sharia law that PAS made.

In other words, the amendments that were approved by the Terengganu State Assembly in 2002, and which were subsequently signed by HRH the Sultan, are still valid. In the 11 years that Umno has been in power they never reversed this. So that means Umno, too, is okay with these amendments although Parliament is not.

That is a very important point that has not been explained — that Umno is as comfortable with the Sharia amendments as PAS is. Umno will not reverse what PAS did. What Umno is doing is they are leaving it to Parliament to decide, just like what PAS is doing. And yet no one talks about this.