This preacher uploaded a video on how to enable minors to lie to their families, subvert religious rituals (prayers in toilets), empower teachers to transmit religious dogma to minors under their tutelage and make it very clear that religious morality trumps legal requirements.

Hence, for him, religious exploration and deception go hand in hand.

In a democracy, religious exploration is normal, but this does not apply to Muslims in this country because any kind of religious exploration is met with sanctions by the religious state.

This is why moderate Muslims always preface their objections to anything that comes to religion by claiming that they are not religious scholars. In no other religion do believers do this.

The exploration of the Islamic faith by the filmmakers of “Mentega Terbang” is verboten because such works of art would confuse the average Malay.

In other words, the only interpretation of religion should come from the state and all other intellectual thought is considered anathema.

Madani laying groundwork for theocracy

The banning of this film is in line with the Madani goal of controlling the religious narrative.

Do not take my word for it, take the word of Madani’s Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Religious Affairs) Na'im Mokhtar, who said: “I would also like to advise creatives to be more careful in producing and distributing content to the public so that the government’s goals for Malaysia Madani can be achieved.”

The problem with Anwar Ibrahim’s Islamisation is that it gives cover to Perikatan Nasional when it decides to do the same thing.

If PN eventually comes to power, what it will rely on is the blueprint set out by Anwar and the support of the non-Malays who did not raise any objections to Anwar’s Islamic agenda.

This is already peddled to the base if people are actually paying attention and not merely getting their news from the echo chambers of the Pakatan Harapan support system.

We are talking about a film here, but keep in mind that Madani’s religious czar believes that the Malay polity could be so easily “confused” that he wanted “guidelines for Muslims attending non-Muslim” events.

If you care to remember, these were things that could offend the sensitivities of Muslims - speeches or songs in the form of propaganda and the distribution of religious pamphlets, performances or speeches that insult or mock Islamic religious beliefs, carrying out the event during Muslim prayer times, event location close to a surau, mosque, Muslim cemetery, or wakaf (endowment) land, and the premises containing non-Islamic religious symbols.

All laws are created to discourage certain types of behaviour and thinking.

What were these rules or guidelines designed to discourage?

You only have to look at Muslim culture in Malaysia before the religious bureaucracy, enabled by political cretins, took over to see how diverse it was.

And you only have to look at the scholars, artists, and thinkers that the religious state goes after to understand why they want to stamp out any kind of plurality in the polity.

Imagine the diverse voices being snuffed out all over the world by theocracies or would-be theocracies.

Ultimately, these laws are designed to discourage questioning. This is the first principle of the theocratic state.