The attack by the PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang that the DAP is unclean sets many Malaysians asking whether the DAP is unclean because it does not support Hadi as Prime Minister but would become instantly “clean” if DAP supports Hadi as Prime Minister.
For seven years from 2008 to 2015, Hadi led PAS to co-operate with DAP and PKR in Pakatan Rakyat to replace the UMNO/BN coalition in Putrajaya.
At which point Hadi found that the DAP was “unclean” and not worthy of co-operation?
Was it in 2012 when Hadi sought and failed to get the support of DAP that the Pakatan Rakyat candidate for Prime Minister should be Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and not Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim?
Was Hadi preparing to spring a surprise to use the quota of PAS MPs as the “kingmakers” to decide which coalition, Pakatan Rakyat or Barisan Nasional, should form the federal government after the 13th General Election, depending among other things on whether Hadi got his way on who would be the Prime Minister – with Hadi always preferring to be Deputy Prime Minister of a Najib-led instead of an Anwar-led Cabinet?
Hadi suggests that DAP is unclean because it is not Muslim.
I am reminded of three things: Firstly, of what the great Egyptian scholar and jurist Muhammad Abduh said more than one-and-half century ago: “I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam”.
Secondly, of a 2016 research study by the George Washington University which finds that it is the Western nations which apply Islamic principles in economics and business more than the countries that are known to be “Islamic” or “Muslim” either by their demography or Constitutional declaration.
In their Economic Islamicity Index, the two researchers, Scheherazade S. Rehman, Professor of International Finance and Professor of International Affairs and Hossein Askari, Professor of International Business and International Affairs, ranked Ireland on the first place, followed by Denmark, Luxembourg, Sweden, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Singapore, Finland, Norway and Belgium as more committed to Islamic principles in dealing with economy and business than any Muslim country.
Malaysia is the first Muslim country in the list, at the 41st place in the ranking of nations.
Thirdly, the annual Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in the past 22 years.
In the first TI CPI 1995 comprising 41 countries, the first 20 nations ranked as least corrupt countries were all non-Muslim countries, with New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Australia, Switzerland, Netherlands and Norway as the first ten countries at the top of the ranking.
In the last 2016 TI CPI comprising 176 countries, the ten least corrupt nations are Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Singapore, Netherlands, Canada, Germany and Luxembourg and there is not a single Muslim country in the top-ranked 20 nations. Seven of the ten most corrupt nations among the 176 countries are Muslim countries.
It is most mind-boggling that Islam, or for that matter, any great religion, could be used to justify the worst kleptocracy on a global level.
These instances should be eye-openers for Hadi, as he seemed to have overlooked the fact that the Federal Constitution, Malaysia Agreement 1963 and the Rukunegara do not divide Malaysians into Malays and non-Malays, or Muslims and non-Muslims, but is dedicated to develop a Malaysia of excellence, justice, integrity, freedom and harmony for every Malaysian, regardless of race or religion, who are equally endowed with all the fundamental rights and liberties enshrined in the Constitution.