I want to congratulate our civil law-based judicial system; especially our Federal Court Judges who ruled appropriately about the artificial and inconsistent ban of Sisters in Islam’s (SIS) book, “under some guises that it might start a disruption among peace loving Malaysians”. The Federal Court threw out the appeal by the Home Affairs Ministry and the Attorney-General’s Chambers and ruled that the minister was misguided in instituting the ban.
Now, I want to also congratulate and recognise High Court Judge Justice Zaleha Yusof who ruled that the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department’s (Jawi) raid of the Borders bookstore was equally illegal.
Her judgment , much like the earlier judgment by Justice Mohd Ariff Yusof on the SIS book case, ruled that since the book was not declared illegal, neither the owners of the bookshop nor the executives who made the sale are guilty of anything. She ruled that this was an infringement of the law under Article 7 of the federal constitution.
A more fundamental question
The Home Affairs Ministry was originally responsible for fighting armed communist terrorism against the newly born nation-state we called Malaya, especially the struggle propagated between 1948 and 1960, which we declared a period of National Emergency. Therein, too, most of our anti-terrorism laws were promulgated before the 1948 declaration and to support that action and agenda.
However, most, if not all the laws and rules that are still in our books which are still inconsistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights need to be reviewed.
These laws were all generated and promulgated during an era of fear and hatred centred on our internal strife and war; and, which are unsuitable for peace time conditions. Many of them were even promulgated during the British rule over this colony and while the Commonwealth armed forces were stationed on our lands.
Today, in the 21st century reality, with the prevalence of internet and social media, and the reality of the inter-networked world, is not any form of resultant censorship of “so-called dangerous books” simply “a false notion of idealism” or, a kind of “false nationalism”, which has no bearing to current realities in our world? In fact, with the emergence e-books and especially those distributed vide hand held devices, or other tablet forms, is there any form of reading or text which cannot be secured vide the Internet or the social networks?
So, what is the basis of creating so much fear over something which is foolish; and merely cultivates ignorance?
My only alternate hypothesis is that such “fear syndromes” are used to create artificial fear amongst ordinary citizens, usually to secure the current regime the ability to remain in power, although there never appears real grounds for such fear. Regimes extend their shelf lives through such mindsets of fear.
Promoting ignorance?
Like within our education system, which still refuses to recognize the role of English in a globalised world, and chooses to make Bahasa Malaysia a matter of a preferential Hobson ’s choice, it appears like it is our government education strategy is to keep most Malaysians ignorant and less informed.
Why else are Malaysian school children not taught how to think critically by asking questions? The listen, listen, listen phenomenon was first sent to me by my son in the US, even before the media picked it up. His comment: “This is the reason, Dad, I did not like many of my teachers… they have never learned to listen, or, they never allowed us to question existing assumptions about life and reality!”
In the Seven Habits books, Steven Covey writes that part and parcel of growing up and maturing is the ability to move from a stage of dependency to independence towards interdependence. In any relationship, we need such growth to maturity for strengthening of bonds. Permanent dependency is like giving a person a fish, so that you need to feed them every day.
That is how I see all the BR1M programmes. They promote dependency so that the government of the day can remain the Big Daddy all the time.
The media is the biggest culprit of this “keep Malaysians ignorant” agenda of today… it does not matter which of the mainstream media it is, it appears that with or without even annual licences, as long as they have well invested owners, they create their own frameworks for censorship; often driven by the owners fear of reprisal.
But as we all know, fear is the opposite of knowing oneself and appreciating one’s God given dignity and self-respect. The absence of fear is godliness!
When the average Malaysian is “liberated from fear of the unknown and the uncertain”, then we can say we are truly on the road to transformation and democratic change. Otherwise, we are never teaching Malaysians how to fish; rather, we choose to feed them daily to create and promote a kind of bond of dependency. Big Daddy never loses his job.
Moving towards interdependence
The Malaysian judicial system is beginning to move in the right direction once again; with a fundamental overcoming of fear and ignorance even amongst the esteemed Judges. The Federal Court is the highest jurisdiction of civil administration of justice in Malaysia. Islam and Muslim matters are only state administration matters under our federal constitution, and restricted only to the Malay states and their corresponding statutes.
Article 121 (1A) of the federal constitution which was poorly designed and hastily approved has created the greatest abuse of laws and jurisdictions in this nation-state.
Recently, the former president of the Hindu Sangam wrote an excellent article about the many abuses that have resulted from the confusion created by this specific amendment. My view is that we need to make both parties (government and the opposition) accountable and responsible to correct these errors of rational thinking. Let us all consider why this happened and why the government of the day vacillates in resolving these issues. Please let us vote accordingly.
I personally hold the attorney-general as the greatest abuser of the laws of this land and my singular prayer for the change of government is linked to the confusion of jurisdiction wrought by the unfair and irrationally amended article. The AG’s Office created a sledgehammer to kill an ant and as a result have created an artificial air of lack of confidence even within the judiciary about the right and wrongness of judgments which overlap so-called jurisdictions.
Muslim judges in the Judiciary have up till now, i.e. those who are not clear and lack a rational way of thinking through issues, not understanding that interpreting Islam as a state law matter which is found as an appendix to the federal constitution, it should only apply to personal and family law; never to public space or public interest issues.
Why else would Jawi seek to charge a Malay manager when the company is a corporate entity and the personal faith of the salespersons was never an issue of contention?
The civil court judges who are learned and have understood underlying premise of civil law jurisdictions must begin to speak up and out over this misapplication of Islamic Law outside the intended jurisdiction of the limited application of Syariah law in Malaysia.
We were and will always remain a secular nation; which means that public space is not based on the specific laws of any one religion but rather upon common and universal values found everywhere. May God bless Malaysia.