[Islamic] fascism - creeping in "moderate" Malaysia

Kedah's new fatwa ruling anti-democratic Front
APRIL 19 - The Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF) reads reports of Kedah's new fatwa ruling with alarm.

According to The Star, the ruling enacted by the Kedah State Assembly on Tuesday will ensure that a fatwa decided by the mufti and fatwa committee "cannot be challenged, appealed, reviewed, denied or questioned in any civil court or syariah court."

This ban against any challenge to all of Kedah's fatwas practically grants the mufti and fatwa committee absolute say in matters concerning religion - a clear breach of democracy.

What took place on Tuesday, in other words, was nothing less than an exploitation of the democratic process towards authoritarian rule. It also assumes that those in the fatwa committee as infallibles.

The ruling also goes against what a fatwa is supposed to be. A fatwa is not supposed to be bound to any institution. It is not more than a juristic opinion from a mufti. It has no divinity attached to it. Even the great Imam Malik, one of the highest authorities in Sunni tradition after the Companions of the Prophet, prohibited his fatwas in al-Muwatta' to be enacted as the rule of the land at that time.

Furthermore, that opinions and fatwas must take into account changing times and circumstances, which the new ruling - because it prohibits any review of fatwas - denies. Fatwas in matters of science and medicine, for example, require opinions of experts in such fields, also known as ulama' al-waqi' or context experts and not just ulama' an-nusus or text experts.

Additionally, this ruling also goes against Adab Ikhtilaf (the ethics of disagreement) which has for long been a hallmark of the dynamism and richness of the Islamic intellectual tradition. The principle of Ijtihad which Islam safeguards necessitates that the freedom of conscience and disagreement is also secured in the process.

In leading to the next general election, PAS has repeatedly told Malaysians that they are now endorsing a welfare state. With this development it appears clear that many among the ranks of the party are still attached to the notion of an authoritarian Islamic state.

Sympathisers of Pakatan Rakyat have often viewed the coalition as a united front against the fascism of BN that had gripped Malaysian politics for so long. Should the Kedah ruling be all that it's made to be, it only suggests that the supposedly united front still bears its own traces of fascism - in this case Islamic fascism - a clear indication that real change may take much longer than already imagined.

Kedah fatwa ruling - a clear breach of democracy
Islamic Renaissance Front
10:36AM Apr 20, 2012

COMMENT The Islamic Renaissance Front reads reports of Kedah's new fatwa ruling with alarm.

According to the English language daily The Star, the ruling enacted by the Kedah state assembly on Tuesday will ensure that a fatwa decided by the mufti and fatwa committee "cannot be challenged, appealed, reviewed, denied or questioned in any civil court or syariah court".

This ban against any challenge to all of Kedah's fatwas practically grants the mufti and fatwa committee absolute say in matters concerning religion - a clear breach of democracy...
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/195512

Zaid: Malaysia turning into a fascist state
By Ken Vin Lek, Free Malaysia Today
Jul 5, 2010
PETALING JAYA: Malaysia is emerging as a fascist state after five decades of Barisan Nasional-Umno rule, says PKR supreme council member Zaid Ibrahim.

Speaking at the launch of Friends of Pakatan Rakyat (FPR) at Holborn, London, over the weekend, Zaid likened Malaysia to an ailing nation with a sordid democracy — its body and vital state institutions all in intensive care.

About 200 people including social activists, Pakatan Rakyat members and reporters were present.

"The medication now being pumped into the sick body of this nation is fascism... fascsim has a penchant for abusing religious or ethnic identities, where they are moulded into a culture of supremacism," he said.

"The Malaysian state right now distorts and cheapens the sacred core values of our cultural traditions beyond all recognition, so that they can be sold off as the ultimate political drug by BN."

Zaid, who spoke with candour about the state of affairs in Malaysia, also touched on the Malaysian constitution, describing its spirit as being seriously abused over the years.

"The constitution is a document embedded with great political vision and hope, designed with an intricate system of checks-and-balances to manage justly the conflicting interests of individuals, communities and states."

"Today, however, the spirit of the constitution has been seriously injured, as a result of the years of abuse, perpetrated through brute force by those with vested interests who turned away from liberty, justice and equality during the judicial crisis of 1988," he added.

Zaid also hit out at Umno for its transgressions, including abusing democratic and public institutions, making a mockery of cultural values, and taking a skewed approach in defining morality.

He said that political survival of BN is meaningless without principles incorporated into its system.

Earlier last week, Bayan Baru MP Zahrain Hashim exposed details of a meeting between Zaid and fugitive blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK) in Manchester, UK, last year.

Reacting to it, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein questioned Zaid's relationship with RPK, saying that the former must clarify it to the people.

Zaid said that he is prepared to meet Hishammuddin and explain to him his relationship with RPK, provided that it is held in a public place.

A Kugan is not the point. His race is not the point. His criminality is not the point. The point is the fundamental function of the democratic process - the total and inviolable separation of enforcement, judgment, and punishment - has been violated.

When police become judges and executioners, you have de facto fascism. It does not matter whom you elect into leadership. If that leadership cannot absolutely guarantee that those whom you turn to for protection will not attack and harm or kill you instead, the said leadership must either resign or be voted out of office. No other issues even matter, if alleged criminals start dying in prison.

The 'fascism' crept further in when a former Malaysian police official beat someone up (it doesn't matter who), until that person had to go all the way to Germany to obtain surgical relief from his severe back pains.

This 'creeping fascism' was further welcomed into Malaysian life when the aforementioned police official was given a three-month 'suspended sentence', i.e., he did not even go to jail!

This is why no enforcement authority can ever be trusted to 'self-regulate'. Someone must always monitor enforcement actions from outside. Always. What is Putrajaya's hesitation to form a truly independent police commission?

If you say that this is 'the Malay way', then the Malays may be said to favor fascism over democracy, as many other Muslims in this world also do, by tolerating or at least failing to resist the neo-fascist dictators who rule in so much of the Muslim world.

Asking some friends which Muslim countries had a claim to true democratisation, the answer was clear - Indonesia first, Iran second, and Malaysia maybe one-fourth of the way toward being the third.

No others. Either elections do not provide any real choice of leaders, or else they may not be trusted. Nobody wins ninety-plus percent of any election in any real democracy.

Or, sad to say, if fair and true elections do choose devout Muslim leaders, this world's other 'democratic' powers exercise their creeping fascism by coming in and destroying those elected governments, such as in Algeria and Gaza.

'Fascism' is not an ideology as such. It is rather the name for any governmental system in which power increases as you rise to the top of the governing hierarchy, until the top man has most or all of the available power over anybody.

Such 'creeping fascists' may then enter any citizen's life and ruin it without any permission or moral authority to do so. Beating up un-sentenced criminals in jail is only one example of how this 'power-from-the-top' really works.

All this uproar about changing political parties here in Malaysia is an early symptom of the same misunderstanding. People may always change political parties, if they feel morally compelled to do so. 'Disloyalty' is some sort of misplaced accusation derived from 'off-with-your-head' monarchical systems.

Both 'disloyalty' and 'sedition' are absurdly distorted allegations against many acts of freedom that people may espouse. Why, for example, should south Thailand be forced to live under Bangkok's Buddhism when they have absolutely nothing in common with those in Bangkok?

Who ever asked the southern Thais, who are mostly Melayu Muslim, what they wanted? Longing to be free to practice their own culture and faith cannot possibly be labeled 'seditious', except by egomaniacs in the Thai government.

And so it goes. World Wars One and Two were both fought at horrendous cost to the human community, to defeat fascists and their ilk in all parts of the world. And yet the battle goes on. Any fascist dictator who calls himself 'Muslim' is no less fascist, no less criminal, for doing so.
http://malaysiakini.me/letters/97427

Wow, they’re finally coming out and saying that islam and democracy are not compatible eh?

Ya think some of the lessons of Terengganu and Kelantan would have been learned by now. Or else Jakim will be there to adjust their attitudes soon.

PAS AND UMNO ARE THE DIFFERENT SIDES OF THE SAME COIN.

Back to the regular programming now while the islamization/Arabization of Malaysia continues.... Zzzzzzzzzzz

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