David Hutt
World Politics Review
Aug. 30, 2016

During my last visit to Malaysia in February, I met the famed film director Chiu Keng Guan to discuss his fourth and latest movie, “Ola Bola.” It had just come out in local cinemas and was already proving to be such a sensation that one newspaper asked if there was an “Ola Bola overload.” A little misty-eyed perhaps, the film is a fictionalized account of the Malaysian national football team’s qualification for the 1980 Olympic Games, arguably one of the country’s finest sporting milestones, made all the more memorable by the fact that it was achieved by a multiracial, multireligious team.

“Ola Bola is a story about Malaysia,” Chiu told me as we sat on the steps of the decaying Stadium Merdeka, where independence from Britain was announced in 1957. “I wanted to talk about team spirit, how a team of young players went through difficulties, trained together, sweated together, and how they worked as a team.”

Being in Malaysia at the time of the film’s release, it wasn’t difficult to notice that, aside from the nostalgia, people were speaking of it as a piece of social commentary in a country where racial and religious tensions are never far from the surface. One critic surmised, “Ola Bola [has] been able to do for Malaysia what many politicians cannot do—to remind us as a nation and as Malaysians, ‘kita menang sama-sama, kita kalah sama-sama’”: We win together; we lose together. One cannot help but feel the critic’s words were even more pertinent months later when politicians forced the country into yet another existential debate.

In May, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, PAS), an opposition party, successfully tabled a bill to introduce strict Islamic criminal codes, known as “hudud,” in the northern state of Kelantan, which has been a PAS stronghold since 1990. Hudud are criminal punishments established by the Quran and Sunnah, the oral teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, which typically cover what are deemed criminal offenses, such as theft, fornication, intoxication, apostasy and slander. Punishments can include the amputation of limbs for theft, flogging for “improper” sexual acts and stoning to death for adultery, although the latter is not always imposed. Read the rest of this entry »

Who is more dangerous and subversive to the Malaysian nation-building process – ISIS member Mohd Rafi Udin warning Bukit Aman plice personnel they will have “no peace” or a state mufti spouting “kafir harbi” edict implying that non-Muslims Malaysians can be killed regardless of rule of law?

Who is more dangerous and subversive to the Malaysian nation-building process – ISIS member Mohd Rafi Udin from Negri Sembilan warning that there would be “no peace” for police personnel in the Bukit Aman headquarters, and urging IS supporters in Malaysia to employ whatever means necessary to kill non-believers – “Kill them wherever you meet them…if you have a car, hit them…Use your weapon and knives to stab them in the chest” – or a state mufti spouting “kafir harbi” edict implying that DAP and non-Muslims can be killed regardless of the rule of law?
I think it is the latter who pose a greater threat to the integrity and success of the Malaysian nation-building process than the former, for there is a Special Branch Counter-Terrorism Division whose special responsibility is to be vigilant and prepared for such ISIS threats, but Malaysia seemed to be completely defenceless to ISIS-minded religious officials preaching doctrines no different from ISIS.

Pahang mufti Abdul Rahman Osman yesterday insisted that he would neither retract his statement nor apologise to DAP over his earlier remarks labelling DAP as ‘kafir harbi’. Read the rest of this entry »

Prof Dato Dr Siddiq Fadzil
Pengerusi Institut Darul Ehsan (IDE)
27.6.2016

Pembinaan bangsa dalam konteks Malaysia harus berasaskan formula kepelbagaian dalam kesatuan. Kita harus dapat bersikap positif, melihat dan menerima kepelbagaian kaum, agama dan budaya bukan sebagai sumber konflik, sebaliknya sebagai aset kekuatan, kekayaan, kreativiti dan dinamika kemajuan. Bangsa tidak dapat dibina menerusi formula melting pot atau kawah besar peleburan. Tidak ada golongan yang rela jati dirinya dilebur. Kebinekaan atau keragaman budaya tidak menjadi masalah, andainya ia diletakkan dalam bingkai keekaan atau kesatuan.

Formula kepelbagaian dalam kesatuan adalah selaras dan serasi dengan fitrah dan sunnatu’Lah. Tema inilah yang dihuraikan dengan cukup menarik oleh Dr.Muhammad `Imarah dalam bukunya, al-Islam wa al-Ta`addudiyyah: al-Ikhtilaf wa al-Tanawwu` fi Itar al-Wihdah (Islam dan Pluralisme: Perbezaan danKepelbagaian dalam Bingkai Kesatuan).

Segala kewujudan yang kita saksikan pada alam dan kehidupan semuanya memancarkan hakikat kepelbagaian dalam kesatuan–keesaan Pencipta dengan kepelbagaian makhluk ciptaan-Nya; kesatuan keinsanan dengan kepelbagaian bangsa, warna dan bahasanya; kesatuan agama Allah dengankepelbagaian syari`atnya; kesatuan syari`at dengan kepelbagaian fiqh, mazhab dan ijtihadnya. Read the rest of this entry »