“A secular state does not identify any particular religion as the official religion but people are allowed to practise their own religion”, says he law minister. That is true only when secular is expressly constitutionally mandated as in USA, India & Turkey. But otherwise its not necessarily the case as there’s many countries with official religions but are yet secular in governance and laws and allow their peoples to practice whatever religion or no religion as my earlier post (under current moderation) explains. It depends on the prevailing culture. Constitution can say anything but it’s not cast in stone and as all things expressed in words are vulnerable, it’s up for opportunistic interpretation. Tunku & Hussein Onn & Lord President Salleh Abas could say secular, but that was then, as Tun Dr Mahathir had thereafter aggressively Islamised the administration for 22 years, re-defined the national culture and identity and say its Islamic bequeathing it as legacy. TDM says it depends on facts prevailing. Can anyone dispute it’s an Islamic administration and not secular? It’s the question of what is –in fact- the reality aside from question of what it ought to be per constitution’s original intention or previous PM’s or Lord president’s pronouncements or even what’s good for the nation’s future. In saying its Islamic nation/state (to compete with PAS for Muslim malay support) Nazri is not going that far to say its an Islamic state of a theocracy kind. For that would not reflect reality that 40% of pop not Muslims and the fact that it would be against the capitalistic “Lu tolong gua, gua tolong lu!” culture & practices of the ruling elites.

It raises the question whether here one can draw strict line in black and white terms whether the nation is secular or Islamic. Here nothing is (generally) that clear cut in black and white. One recalls when TDM first declared Islamic state MCA big wigs reconciled it by saying this a “secular Islamic state” never mind to many its an oxymoron! But what other concept is clear here – “1 Malaysia?” To one audience its inclusive multiracial pluralistic “one”; to another it’s all under one majority race’s dominant cultural characteristics. Take MCA – “Malaysian Chinese Association” does MCA represent Chinese when some say it stands for Make Chinese Angry or Malaysian Coward association??? Privatisation can become Piratisation. Malay includes Constitutional Malay. The fact here is seldom we can express something clearly in black and white lines -except possibly it’s a corrupt state – everything is rounded in inconsistencies and up for opportunistic interpretation, which as a benchmark for guidance is unfortunate but also exciting because its makes us multilateral in thinking. It’s the way we’re trained from social experience. For eg when a law is enacted here the first thing we do is think how to look for loophole and go around it. In a way we’re more streetwise than other nationals. .