I was struck by one Q & A in Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s final interview as Prime Minister on 31st March 2009, as published by The Star yesterday, viz;

Q: You talked about progress Muslims made in earlier years and how we must emulate their efforts. But we must examine the Islam practised then. It was so free, lots of freedom to research, to think and implement. When you introduced Islam Hadhari, I thought this would bring it back to that era. But under you, Islam has gone to be more repressive. Just look at the lectures given by the ustaz on RTM1, they are so narrow and parochial.

A: It is a big problem – overseas the idea is welcome. Even Indonesia. But here it is all in a mess. Because we are fighting each other politically. Some PAS members do not like the idea. It is a battle that goes on. Changing of the mind. To do anything like that is not easy.

I have given myself that role. When I talk about democracy and freedom of discourse, it is not an easy job to do. But you have to allow people to enjoy it.

When people like it, the freedom, they think it is very nice. But I would have managed it better. I think up to now, nobody can silence the papers anymore. I don’t like the word takut (scared). Takut is not the way. Being reasonable is very important as well as being correct. Scaring does not work.

No denial whatsoever from Abdullah that under his Islam Hadhari, “Islam has gone to be more repressive…so narrow and parochial”.

Just total evasion of the problem created during Abdullah premiership as a result of the yawning gulf between promise and reality – whether as posed by the questioner or in other fields such as fostering national unity, promoting inter-religious and inter-civilisational dialogue, anti-corruption or to end Malaysia’s “first-world infrastructure, third-world mentality” malaise