Not
only have they shown an indifference to the royal institution
demonstrated by the Bon Odori brouhaha, but they have also demonstrated,
like the Kedah menteri besar, a causal disregard for non-Muslim
ārightsā all in the name of religious piety.
PAS
understands that not only is the political instability brought upon by
the machinations of a kleptocratic regime useful to them but also that
more democracy injected into the Malaysian body politic is detrimental
to them.
For decades, Umno was the gatekeeper of Islam in this
country. Umno defined Islam and PAS was the voice of dissent, playing
the long game of slowly building consensus against the narratives of the
Umno state.
Recently, because of a compromised Umno, they made
inroads into mainstream Malay/Muslim politics and were aided and abetted
by the deep Islamic state.
Do not be misled. Do not let the 1MDB
issue and the persecution of political operatives mask Islamic intrigues
that are happening on a sub-rosa level.
BN component
parties, MCA and MIC, merely follow what Umno says and are merely
playing offence when it comes to PAS and their Islamism.
They
constantly remind the non-Malay communities that PAS is the Islamic
bogeyman while Umno is busy making pacts and alliances with PAS
operatives beyond the headlines and creating pockets of religious
extremism where once democracy sputtered.
Existential threat
When PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang (top photo)
claimed (in the early days) that the reason why Umno and PAS were
āgetting marriedā was that they could rightfully reclaim rule over the
non-Malays, this is neither controversial nor disingenuous.
The much sought-after Malay base
probably thought this way too, which is why Malay political operatives
in Harapan do not bother countering this narrative with the Bangsa
Malaysia propaganda.
It
didnāt take long for Umno and PAS to understand that there will never
be a sole protector of Malay rights and Islam in this country anymore.
Youth
and Sports Minister Ahmad Faizal Azumu may not for some reason not want
to go to hell but when he was the menteri besar of Perak when the
kampong Manjoi extremists criminally damaged a convenience store because
they wanted to stop it from selling alcohol.
He advised other shop operators operating in other Malay villages to be āmore sensitive to the feeling of locals."
Malay uber alles
political operatives behave this way because they understand they will
get very little pushback from Harapan, which is struggling to widen its
Malay base after decades in play, but more importantly by the missteps
of the DAP which has made it very easy for the mainstream Islamic
establishment to paint them as either hypocritical or anti-Islam because
of the DAPās hypocrisy and religious cosplay.
This was also the menteri besar who was waging a solo battle against āpuak puak DAPā.
āI
want to defend the land of the Malays, I want to champion our
religion,ā he tells a group of people during an informal discussion.
ā(But) I do it, slowly. Alhamduillah (thank God), my Umno friends (in Perak) do not scold me like this.ā
The
existential threat facing this country is not corruption or even
mismanagement, which can be easily rectified if there is political will.
The threat facing this country is religious extremism.
Every time Malay/Muslim political operatives lose control of anything, they will fall back on race and religion.
That
is Part 1 of the problem. Part 2 of the problem is that instead of
offering a counter-narrative, Harapan would rather keep quiet and
attempt to murmur a few platitudes instead of addressing the issue and
exposing the hypocrisy for what it is for fear of offending Malay/Muslim
sensibilities.
It
gets worse when it comes to policy. People talk about the billion
ringgit budget of Jakim but remember during Harapanās time, an insane
amount of money was given to Jakim and the then-Harapan religious czar
justified the expenditure.
PAS and Umno will no doubt carry on
using a weaponised Islam for political purposes. Remember, class
divisions feed into these Islamic narratives of victimhood, which is why
it is important for rural constituents to lag behind compared to their
urban brethren.
Political instability in the near future will not
be defined by frogs but rather by increased religious extremism in our
public and private spheres.
Sooner or later, the economy and
mismanagement are going to destroy whatever illusion these religious
extremists generate of their ability to govern and there will be civil
unrest, which could lead to a neo-colonialism of sorts perpetrated by
various power groups at play in the region.
Religious extremists always forget the golden rule, you reap what you sow.
