The Middle-East Conflict: Israel's Survival Strategy is to CREATE a CONSTANT CRISIS to Suck Up American Financial and Military Aid

Read here article by Justin Raimondo

Quote:

".. From the day of its birth, Israel has been a Western project, a unique creation of European ideologues whose vision of a Jewish state was rooted in myth, custom, and remembrance, rather than blood and soil.

Without U.S. aid, including unconditional military and political support, Israel could not exist for long. Over the years, it has evolved its own characteristic means of survival, which is analogous to that of an EPIPHYTE – a plant that, rather than rooting in its own soil, grows on OTHER plants. (Note: An epiphyte is an organism that grows upon or attaches to a living plant.)

An epiphyte, after all, depends on its host. The host, however, may have other ideas – and that's where the extensive Israeli penetration of U.S. governmental and opinion-making institutions comes in.

Because Israel is almost entirely dependent on international support – and especially American support – for its very survival, without U.S. public opinion behind it the Jewish state would soon wither on the vine.

What this means, in practice, is that a constant stream of pro-Israel propaganda must be directed at the American people in order to justify the high levels of financial and military aid that keep Israel afloat.

What's more, the Israelis must constantly generate the urgency and immediacy of the need to support their country.

They have succeeded in doing this by projecting a sense of continuing crisis.

The idea that Israel is in danger, that unless we (Americans) ship billions more in taxpayer dollars the Israeli state will sink beneath the waves of an unrelenting Arab assault, is constantly being pushed – and we wonder why the "peace process" is perpetually stalled.

Given the need for a constant crisis, all efforts to mediate a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian question are doomed to utter failure.

The Israelis simply have NO interest in peace, when war suits their purposes so well.

Indeed, when things get too peaceful, they have every interest in stirring things up.

Once more, Israel is supposedly fighting for its life – so please keep those aid packages coming, to the tune of over $3 billion per year!

Until and unless the peculiarities of the "special relationship" (with the United States) are UNTANGLED and the cord cut, Israel will continue to rampage throughout the Middle East (with highly sophisticated American-aid weapons).

The most recent Gaza massacre is only the beginning."
- Justin Raimondo

Israel's Constant Crisis: It's a Survival Mechanism

by

Justin Raimondo

Justin Raimondo is the author of An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000). He is also the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (with an Introduction by Patrick J. Buchanan), (Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans (1996). He is a contributing editor for The American Conservative, a Senior Fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute, and an Adjunct Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and writes frequently for Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.)


As the Israelis continue to pound Gaza, killing Hamas cadre, traffic cops, and civilians alike, Americans shake their heads and wonder: why can't they all just get along? Why must we be involved? The answer to both questions lies in understanding the peculiar nature of the Israeli state and its "special relationship" to the West, specifically the U.S.

Defenders of the Israeli government and its policies often complain that Israel just wants to be treated as a "normal country," like any other. They cavil that the Jewish state is treated like an outsider, a pariah, and held up to standards that don't apply anywhere else. The big problem for these complainants, however, is that Israel is not a normal country, and never has been.

From the day of its birth, Israel has been a Western project, a unique creation of European ideologues whose vision of a Jewish state was rooted in myth, custom, and remembrance, rather than blood and soil.

Israel owes its existence to theology rather than geography, and in this it occupies a singular place in the history of nations. The only other comparable state is, or was, the old Soviet Union, which was founded as the receptacle for Leninist ideology, but even here the analogy isn't quite exact, for the simple reason that Russia preexisted the USSR by several centuries, and Russian nationalism soon came to dominate and overwhelm the ostensibly "internationalist" Kremlin leadership.

As a settler colony rather than a rooted nation, Israel's always precarious existence is made possible by an extensive international support system that exists entirely outside the Middle East. In the beginning, it was the Zionist movement itself that provided the outside material aid that nurtured and grew this nascent nation. That, however, was not enough to provide the sustenance Israel needed to come into existence and survive in a very rough neighborhood, so it was the British empire that presided over its birth. The Balfour Declaration provided the semi-legal basis for the existence of an independent Jewish state in the area known as Palestine.

The British, however, had neither the resources nor the inclination to act as Israel's permanent sponsor and protector, and this role eventually fell to the United States. Without U.S. aid, including unconditional military and political support, Israel could not exist for long. Over the years, it has evolved its own characteristic means of survival, which is analogous to that of an epiphyte – a plant that, rather than rooting in its own soil, grows on other plants.

Because Israel is almost entirely dependent on international support – and especially American support – for its very survival, without U.S. public opinion behind it the Jewish state would soon wither on the vine. What this means, in practice, is that a constant stream of pro-Israel propaganda must be directed at the American people in order to justify the high levels of financial and military aid that keep Israel afloat.

What's more, the Israelis must constantly generate the urgency and immediacy of the need to support their country. They have succeeded in doing this by projecting a sense of continuing crisis. The idea that Israel is in danger, that unless we ship billions more in taxpayer dollars the Israeli state will sink beneath the waves of an unrelenting Arab assault, is constantly being pushed – and we wonder why the "peace process" is perpetually stalled.

Given the need for a constant crisis, all efforts to mediate a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian question are doomed to utter failure. The Israelis simply have NO interest in peace, when war suits their purposes so well.

Indeed, when things get too peaceful, they have every interest in stirring things up. Once more, Israel is supposedly fighting for its life – so please keep those aid packages coming, to the tune of over $3 billion per year!

Another aspect of this epiphytic survival strategy involves the large-scale theft of military and other classified secrets, mainly from the U.S., as illustrated by the arrest of Jonathan Pollard, and, more recently, his fellow spy Ben Ami Kadish.

U.S. intelligence agencies have long characterized Israel as the most aggressive procurer of illicit technology transfers, and the case of Kadish – who stole nuclear secrets, missile defense technology, and other high-tech weapon designs – underscores this sensitive yet largely ignored aspect of the "special relationship."

Yet it isn't just technological secrets that the Israelis are interested in pilfering from their American big brothers: due to their dependence on the decisions and actions of our policymakers, they also require an extensive knowledge of the inner workings of the U.S. government. That's what the case of the AIPAC defendants is all about.

While Kadish recently pled guilty to charges of espionage, the AIPAC defendants – Steve Rosen, former AIPAC lobbying director, and Keith Weissman, who used to be AIPAC's Iran expert – are fighting the charges. They are accused of pilfering not only military-related intelligence, but also U.S. government documents revealing the internal policy debates within the administration, especially U.S. policy toward Iran. Their defense team argues that the Justice Department, in prosecuting their clients, is criminalizing what ought to be considered legitimate lobbying and advocacy.

One has to wonder, however, what kind of "advocacy" requires the theft [.pdf] of highly sensitive and classified materials and their transmission to officials of a foreign government.

Yet, from the Israeli perspective, this is entirely legitimate, given their peculiar national survival strategy. An epiphyte, after all, depends on its host. The host, however, may have other ideas – and that's where the extensive Israeli penetration of U.S. governmental and opinion-making institutions comes in. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have done us all a service is providing a comprehensive survey of this effort and its astounding success.

We are seeing this play out in the political responses to the Gaza massacre, with both major political parties, as well as the incoming president and the bulk of the media, playing right along with the Israeli propaganda machine.

Until and unless the peculiarities of the "special relationship" are untangled and the cord cut, Israel will continue to rampage throughout the Middle East.

The most recent Gaza massacre is only the beginning.

PART 2: Malaysia's Home-Grown Taliban: Is This the Future of 'Moderate' Islam in Asia?

Read here for more

(This is the SECOND PART of the essay by Dr. Farish Noor, "Malaysia's Home-Grown Taliban: Is This the Future of 'Moderate' Islam in Asia?') Read here profile of Dr. Farish Noor

Read here: PART I: Malaysia's Home-Grown Taliban: Is This the Future of 'Moderate' Islam in Asia?

Quote:

"... Malaysia ­is witnessing the rise of an increasingly un-Modern (even anti-Modern), un-democratic and brand of scripturalist normative religiosity whose spokesmen and self-appointed ‘defenders’ go around disrupting parties and public events, arresting Malay-Muslim youths who have committed no crime apart from hanging out together, and then proceed to abuse them in the most degrading, humiliating and dehumanising manner.

The emergence of an authoritarian political culture that began to erode the fundamental rights of citizens, rendering certain issues like the discussion of ‘ketuanan Melayu’ as seditious and politically unacceptable.

Laws were used to stifle dissenting opinion and the mainstream media was brought under control of right-wing ethno-nationalist groups.

The dominant Muslim groups in Malaysia proceeded heedlessly, in their race to show off their Islamic credentials and to ‘out-Islamise’ the other.

What kind of a Malaysian nation are we indeed building today, when there is one set of laws for Malay-Muslims and another for the rest?

The dream of creating a modern, tolerant, pluralist and democratic Islam in Malaysia seems to be receding, as the spectre of religious communitarianism, fundamentalism and even militancy casts its long shadow on the ASEAN region.

For so long, right-wing Malay-Muslim groups, parties and organisations have cowered the non-Malay/Muslim section of society by telling them that they have NO right to comment on matters Islamic, and that they have NO right to protest against the increasingly repressive laws and regulations that have been passed in the name of Islam. Needless to say, this has engendered a climate of fear and apprehension among many otherwise-decent Malaysians who might want to comment on such matters, but have been reduced to silence instead.

‘Islam’ is simply TOO important to be left to MUSLIMS ALONE .

And if the powers-that-be in this country wish to make Islam the leitmotif of Malaysia’s national culture, then as a consequence, Islam becomes a relevant concern for ALL Malaysians, and NOT the Malay-Muslims ONLY.

The NON-Muslims of Malaysia have EVERY RIGHT to comment on the conduct, practice and development of normative Islam in Malaysia as it has a direct impact on both their private lives as well as their daily conduct and relations with Muslims.

For silence on such matters is the first step towards the consolidation of FASCISM in our midst.

The real danger that we face (is that) in the absence of a sense of SHARED DESTINY, IDENTITY and SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, we are in danger of balkanising our Malaysian nation and by doing so opening the way for FASCISM to take over, one step at a time. "
-Dr. Farish Noor

Malaysia's Home-Grown Taliban: Is This the Future of 'Moderate' Islam in Asia? - PART 2
(essay published in February 2005)

by

Dr. Farish Noor

During the recent OIC meeting held in Putrajaya, the Prime Minister Dato Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi himself pointed out that:

“It is our duty to demonstrate, by word and by action, that a Muslim country can be modern, democratic, tolerant and economically competitive.”
(BBC, ‘Islam must help curb extremism’, 28 Jan 2005).

However such sentiments, laudable though they may be, sound hollow when the host country itself, Malaysia, ­is witnessing the rise of an increasingly un-Modern (even anti-Modern), un-democratic and intolerant brand of scripturalist normative religiosity whose spokesmen and self-appointed ‘defenders’ go around disrupting parties and public events, arresting Malay-Muslim youths who have committed no crime apart from hanging out together, and then proceed to abuse them in the most degrading, humiliating and dehumanising manner.

Such actions do little to promote the image of ‘Islam Hadari’ that the present political administration is keen to foreground.

How, pray tell, has the actions of the officials of JAWI served to promote the image of Islam as a creed of love, compassion and humanity?

Islam, Malayness and the Policing of the Malay-Muslim constituency.

In part one of this series of articles we have argued that what we are witnessing in Malaysia today is nothing less than the rise of authoritarianism disguised behind the cloak of religiosity.

Parallels have been drawn elsewhere from the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the religious purists of some Arab states to the right-wing religio-political fascists that we have seen in places like India and America, and this was meant to illustrate that the problem of religious authoritarianism is not unique to Malaysia, or to Islam.

Both analytically and phenomenologically, this trend can be categorised as ‘fascism’ of the textbook variety.

But the real question is how, and why, have we come to this? That is what we shall turn to now.

Before we proceed, let us begin with some basic historical facts: During the much-appraised ‘Golden Age’ of Islam, there was no such thing as a policing apparatus of the state. Darius Rejali’s study of pre and post-revolutionary Iran is one of the works that come to mind, and in his book ‘Torture and Modernity’ he shows that in early Iranian history (as was the case elsewhere in the world) social order was maintained by society itself.

‘Policing’ as we know it today is basically a modern phenomenon, which arises with the advent of the Modern state. We have argued elsewhere that the conundrum of governmentality (imarat) is not unique to Islam or Muslim societies.

The history of western political philosophy, from Hobbes to Locke to Rousseu to Kant have all grappled with the same problem: namely, how does a regime govern (i.e. control and manage) a society while at the same time ensure that it does not end up suffocating, dominating and imprisoning the society it is trying to serve?

Muslim political theorists like al-Ghazali and ibn Khaldun have been grappling with the same question, and overall we see ­ in both the Western and Muslim worlds. , the appeal for balance, justice and ethics to be brought to the fore.

All these scholars agree that while the need to maintain social order and stability in order to avoid anarchy (fawdawiyyat) is a real political necessity, it should NEVER be used as a justification for authoritarianism, coercion (jabr) and tyranny (istibdad).

The problem, however, arises when there emerges regimes and elites who wish to expand the sphere of state control to its fullest maximalist potential for the sake of purely political ends. If and when such fascistic regimes appear, the tendency to expand the sphere of the state’s power grows accordingly.

Today all over the Muslim world we have seen the emergence of right-wing neo-fascistic tendencies that aim towards a totalised control of society. The same fascistic tendencies were evident in the rise of the Nazis and Fascists in Europe, as well as the Communist regimes under Stalin and Mao, and even in the regime of Pol Pot in Cambodia.

In all cases, the creation of a ‘morality police’ is the first step towards the state’s penetration into the most private, intimate (and therefore vulnerable) aspect of the citizenry’s lives: Here again George Orwell’s bleak warnings in his novel ‘1984’ come to mind.

This is why I have argued, time and again, that such ‘morality’ and ‘decency’ campaigns have little to do with standards of morality and decency, but rather everything to do with STATE power and control. And in any case, if these ‘moral guardians’ are so obsessed with morality and public decency, they should focus their attention on other genuine moral problems in our society, from the levels of corruption to the ‘surat layang’ culture of Malaysian politics, from detention without trial to the alleged killing of prisoners under custody.

Here in Malaysia it is evident that the process and practice of social policing is intended primarily towards one particular constituency: The Malay-Muslims.

The reason for this is obvious:

Demographic factors dictate that whoever controls the Malay-Muslims of Malaysia will be able to control the rest of the country by extension. (As the Malay-Muslims make up an estimated 60% of the population.)

Winning the Malay vote is therefore the key to winning power in Malaysia, but this can only be done if you control the Malay-Muslims as a whole.<

UMNO and Ketuanan Melayu

The origins of this process go back to the 1940s, when it was discovered that the Malay-Muslims were only the majority community by the narrowest of margins. The results of the colonial census of the 1910s, 30s and 40s indicated that the Malays were hardly in a position to dominate Malayan society. The immediate result of this was the creation of the UMNO party (United Malay National Organisation), which brought together forty-odd Malay organisations under the banner of Malay ethno-nationalism.

During the 1940s to the 1960s, the quest for Malay political dominance was the major factor that shaped the contours of Malayan politics. Even then, campaigns at ‘policing’ the Malays were already going on in earnest, following the earlier debates over who was a ‘true Malay’ and who were the ‘hybrids’ and ‘mongrels’ whose blood was no longer pure.

Parallel to this was the emergence of an authoritarian political culture that began to erode the fundamental rights of citizens, rendering certain issues like the discussion of ‘ketuanan Melayu’ (Malay dominance) as seditious and politically unacceptable. Laws were used to stifle dissenting opinion and the mainstream media was brought under control of right-wing ethno-nationalist groups.

The net result was of course the gradual slide towards authoritarianism and a politics of majoritarianism. But what the elites failed to note was the fact that their brand of exclusive communitarian ethno-nationalism was also being challenged by another set of ideas: namely a political vision of religion that eventually developed into a theocratic oppositional ideology.

Malay Politics and Politicisation of Islam

By the 1970s and 80s, Malaysian politics became more and more convoluted with the politicisation of religion, particularly Islam. The main Malay-Muslim political groupings in the country were all competing for the support of the Malays but on Islamic, rather than racial, grounds.

Islam was politicised as a result of the Islamisation race between UMNO and PAS (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party). Throughout this period, there were hardly any Muslim groups in Malaysia that dared to challenge the narrow and ultimately self-defeating logic of this Islamisation race, save for a handful of intellectuals and activists, such as Sisters in Islam.

The dominant Muslim groups in Malaysia proceeded heedlessly, in their race to show off their Islamic credentials and to ‘out-Islamise’ the other. While both UMNO and PAS claimed that theirs was the ‘correct’ version of Islam, neither side has ever really shown any willingness to concede that differences of opinion and interpretation do exist in the Muslim world. (The persecution of the Darul Arqam movement, and the current harassment of the mystic Ayah Pin - Ariffin Mohammad- are cases in point).

Where has this got us - the Malaysian nation -­ thus far? Is Malaysian society any more ‘decent’ or ‘moral’ as a result of this moral-religious policing?

Far from it, judging by the plethora of corruption cases that we see in the press. And has it made Malaysia’s Muslims any more open or progressive in their thought and actions? Far from it, judging by the numbers of books on Islam that are regularly banned and the constant harassment of Muslim academics, intellectuals and activists.

The dream of creating a modern, tolerant, pluralist and democratic Islam in Malaysia seems to be receding, as the spectre of religious communitarianism, fundamentalism and even militancy casts its long shadow on the ASEAN region.

But worst of all, the policing of the Malay-Muslim community threatens to undermine the most sensitive project of all: nation-building itself.

For what kind of a Malaysian nation are we indeed building today, when there is one set of laws for Malay-Muslims and another for the rest?
(Note:Harakah reported (28 December 2008): Presiden PAS Dato' Seri Abdul Hadi Awang menjelaskan bahawa pelaksanaan Hudud hanya melibatkan kalangan yang beragama Islam. Masyarakat bukan Islam tidak seharusnya berasa bimbang jika hukum Hudud dilaksanakan di negara ini sebaliknya boleh memilih undang-undang yang mereka mahuseperti yang telah tertulis dalam Undang-undang Kanun Jenayah Syariah Kelantan dan Terengganu, katanya. Read here for more)

While the Malay-Muslim parties like UMNO and PAS continue to out-do each other in the Islamisation race, they are in danger of entrenching deeper mistrust and misunderstandings between the communities at the same time. What began as a Malay-Muslim issue has now become a matter of national concern, and this writer would argue that this is now a Malaysian problem.

This is NOT a Malay-Muslim problem!

Let us return to the events of that fateful night when more than a hundred Malaysian citizens were harassed by the authorities:

According to the media reports we have been given, ‘an announcement over the club’s PA system instructed the non-Muslims to proceed to another part of the club ‘to enjoy themselves’ while the rest, about 100 Muslims, were told to form two separate groups, men and women.’
(Sunday Mail, 23 January).

This begs the most obvious, embarrassing and painful question of all:

What were the non-Malay/non-Muslim Malaysian citizens doing when their friends (I am assuming that they did have some friends among the Malay-Muslims) were being harassed thus?

The report remains silent on this question, but one dreads to think of the prospect that while more than a hundred Malaysians were being arrested and harassed so publicly the rest who were present simply ‘proceeded to another part of the club to enjoy themselves’.

IF that was what actually happened, then the JAWI raid on the club in KL has brought to the surface an extremely ugly and unpalatable aspect of Malaysian society.

Now before I get accused of non-Malay/non-Muslim baiting/bashing here, allow me to reiterate the main point:

The real issue is that a group of Malaysians (regardless of their race/religion) were harassed while others failed to help or simply turned away. ‘Islam’ is not the issue here, nor is ‘Islam’ at fault; but rather authoritarianism disguised behind the cloak of religiosity.

Imagine a hypothetical situation where a group of extreme right-wing Hindus, Buddhists or Christians decided to act as self-appointed ‘moral guardians’ of their community, and then went around policing and harassing members of their faith community. Confronted by such a group I would not hesitate to defend the rights of my fellow Malaysians, despite the fact that I am not a Hindu, Buddhist or Christian.

The bottom line is that the emergence of such groups is a threat to the cohesion and harmony of Malaysian society as a whole, and such a group would be a threat to the fundamental rights and liberties of fellow Malaysian citizens.

The apparent SILENCE of the non-Muslims is the result of decades of divisive communitarian politics here in Malaysia.

For so long, right-wing Malay-Muslim groups, parties and organisations have cowered the non-Malay/Muslim section of society by telling them that they have no right to comment on matters Islamic, and that they have no right to protest against the increasingly repressive laws and regulations that have been passed in the name of Islam.

Needless to say, this has engendered a climate of fear and apprehension among many otherwise-decent Malaysians who might want to comment on such matters, but have been reduced to silence instead.

But as this writer has said and written time and again: ‘Islam’ is simply too important to be left to Muslims ALONE.

And if the powers-that-be in this country wish to make Islam the leitmotif of Malaysia’s national culture, then as a consequence Islam becomes a relevant concern for ALL Malaysians, and not the Malay-Muslims only.

The non-Muslims of Malaysia have every right to comment on the conduct, practice and development of normative Islam in Malaysia as it has a direct impact on both their private lives as well as their daily conduct and relations with Muslims.

Again I make the comparison: If I was living in Hindu-majority India at the time when the extreme right-wing Hindu fundamentalists of the BJP/RSS were rising in power, I would feel that I have every right to comment on the development of normative Hinduism in the country, as it would affect me as well. I don’t have to be a Hindu scholar to condemn what I see as the deliberate distortion of the creed by a bunch of extremist Hindu fascists, any more than a non-Muslim Malaysian citizen has to be a Muslim scholar to condemn the politicisation of Islam that will have an immediate impact on him/her.

If it be the case that Malaysians are now terrified to talk and discuss about religion and politics, then Malaysian society has reached an impasse of its own making.

For silence on such matters is the first step towards the consolidation of fascism in our midst. This is the real danger that we face:

In the absence of a sense of shared destiny, identity and social responsibility, we are in danger of balkanising our Malaysian nation and by doing so opening the way for fascism to take over, one step at a time.

There is, however, one way out of this impasse- though it would be a courageous step for some.

It would entail going back to the universal, humanist fundamentals of Islam which is a common feature of all religions, and it would mean trying to develop an open, dynamic and pluralist approach to the faith that rescues it from the clutches of narrow communitarian politics. But this gesture also requires that ephemeral quality that is so difficult to pin down, yet whose power is strong enough to shake governments and shape nations: Love.

Endnotes:

(1) Darius Rejali, ‘Torture and Modernity: Self, Society and State in Modern Iran’, Westview Press, Boulder, 1994.

(2) Farish A. Noor, ‘Islam Embedded: The Historical Development of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) 1951-2003’, Malaysian Sociological Research Institute (MSRI), Kuala Lumpur, 2004. Volume II, Part II, (see: pp. 730-737, ‘The Anti-Politics of the Islamic State’.)

(3) Muhammad Khalid Masud, ‘Defining Democracy in Islamic Polity’, Paper for the conference ‘The Future of Islam, Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Age of Globalisation’, organised by the International Centre for Islam and Pluralism (ICIP), Jakarta, 5-6 December 2004.

PART 1: Malaysia's Home-Grown TALIBAN: Is This the Future of 'MODERATE ' ISLAM in Asia?

Read here for more on the article by Dr. Farish Noor

Quote

"... For too long, Muslims and non-Muslims alike have been cowed into a state of fear and submission by these authoritarian bullies who claim that they alone have the right to interpret what is the version of Islam and to IMPOSE their vision of the faith on the rest of society.

Can Malaysians show the courage and political conviction that is needed to say once and for all:

We will no longer tolerate the abuse of religion -ANY religion for that matter - for political ends, and that we will no longer be treated like children, herded and bullied about, by demagogues?

Any attack on ANY section of Malaysian society (whatever their racial, ethnic, linguistic, gender or cultural background) is an attack on Malaysian society as a whole.

When one Malaysian citizen has his or her rights infringed, threatened or abused, WE – all of us – are the shared victims of that abuse.

We need to realise this now, more than ever. .."
-Dr. Farish Noor

Note:

The following essay by Dr Farish Noor was published in January 2005, firstly on the Interfaith website, then reposted on the NNUUU (Muslims Wake Up) website.

We feel it is now timely to revisit Dr Farish Noor's essay, because PAS has again rekindled its fundamentalist stand on the huddud laws and the Islamic State, beckoned on by Islamist bloggers and radicial Pro-PAS supporters in cyberspace.

In the 2008 General Election, NON-Muslim voters shifted the political ground away from UMNO/Barisan Nasional to enable PAS to become, for the FIRST time, a major player in Opposition politics outside Kelantan. It took some convincing the non-Muslim voters that PAS , if given the opportunity to govern, would work harmoniously with its Pakatan Rakyat partners; that PAS would find a common platform to accommodate the moral and universal values embedded in Islam such as the concept of the welfare society, as well as reject racially-based policies of UMNO and, critically, shed its fundamentalist position on Islam.

The last few months since the March 8 general election, issues of religion (Islam) are again topping PAS's political agenda, culminating in the latest bout with UMNO on the huddud laws, and causing concern to Pakatan Rakyat partners and to NON-muslim Malaysians. The sought-after prize is the parliamentary seat in Kuala Trengganu. To win the Kuala Trengganu parliamentary seat, UMNO and PAS are not only fighting for the votes of the 87.4 % Malay voters, but also that of the 12.3 % crucial non-Malays' swing voters.

PAS, either as a result of a political entrapment by UMNO or as a deliberate political tactic to win the votes of its religious heartland in the Kuala Trenggan by-election, has decided to bring to the fore-front the issue of huddud laws, and by extension the establishment of the Islamic State if it wins power in the Federal Government.

The question Malaysians are asking: Is PAS, with its ascendancy in politics since March 2008 with the help of NON-Muslim voters, exploiting its new-found popularity to push the envelope further on to voters to accept its fundamentalist position on the Islamic State and the enforcement of huddud laws?

That seemed to be the direction the PAS leadership is working on over the last 9 months. This is creating considerable discomfort among some Muslim voters and among the majority of NON-muslim voters. A case in point is the proposed street protest by PAS Youth in Penang against the Pakatan Rakyat Penang State Government's support for the I-Dance competition because "street dancing is bad for the moral values of Muslim youths."

Is this an expression of PAS's arrogance based on its performance in the March 8 election, or simply that PAS leadership is being politically naive on the rough and tumble of federal politics?

In the 2004 general election, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism fired up by UMNO and PAS was a cause of concern to voters, especially NON-Muslim voters. PAS stubbornly stood by its stand on the Islamic state and huddud laws, and voters abandoned PAS. PAS lost disastrously in the 2004 general election despite the gains it made in the earlier 1999 general election.

It is against the above political landscape that we bring back Dr.Farish Noor's insightful writings on how religious fervours based on narrow and bigoted views of Islam can poison and destroy the fragile social fabric of a multi-religious and multi-racial society like Malaysia.

We contend Dr. Farish Noor's concerns on the religio-politics of Malaysia are still relevant today (2008) as it had been in 2005 (immediately after the 2004 General Election).
-Malaysian Unplug

Malaysia's Home-Grown Taliban: Is This the Future of 'Moderate' Islam in Asia? - PART I

Read here for more

by

Dr. Farish Noor
Dr. Farish Ahmad Noor was on born 15 May 1967 in Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia. He is a Malaysian author and researcher currently attached to Zentrum Moderner Orient (Centre for Modern Oriental Studies) in Berlin, Germany. He is also a senior fellow at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.He received his BA in Philosophy & Literature from the University of Sussex in 1989, before studying for an MA in Philosophy at the same University in 1990, an MA in South-East Asian Studies at the School of Oriental & Asian Studies in London, before completing his PhD at the University of Essex in 1997.Dr. Noor's teaching credits include the Centre for Civilisational Dialogue, University of Malaya and the Institute for Islamic Studies, Free University Berlin.Farish A. Noor's blog articles comment upon, attempt to interpret, and build bridges over the conflict between Islam and Judeo-Christian cultures. The perspectives Dr. Noor expresses give his writing a reasoned tone, not favoring either side, but instead analyzing how the sides fail to communicate and accept each other.

There was, not too long ago, a time when I could safely say to myself:

“Well, no matter how bad things are here in Malaysia, thank God we don’t live in a country like Afghanistan when it was under the control of the Taliban.”

But life has a way of ripping apart your illusions in the most brutal manner, and we are reminded as we grow older that adults are not allowed to entertain the sweet delusions of youth for too long.

Just when we thought that we had seen the back of the tide of radical religio-politics of the 1970s and 1980s, there came a string of embarrassing blunders to remind us that we, too, have our fair share of wannabe-Talibans right HERE in Malaysia.

In the year 2000 we were treated to the Islamiah Aqidah Protection Bill of Perlis, that proposed – among other things – that Muslims found guilty of ‘deviant’ and ‘un-Islamic’ behaviour be sent to so-called ‘faith rehabilitation centres’ so that their interpretation and practice of faith could be somehow ‘corrected’ by the religious ideologues of the state.

Then we were fed a steady diet of nonsensical non-issues dressed up as religious controversies, ranging from the attack on independent academics, writers and activists by right-wing pressure groups in 2002.

Later in 2003 and 2004 the demagogues of UMNO, not to be outdone, tried their best to show that they too could police the discourse of Islam by trying to criminalise differences of opinion, such as the pathetic attempt to demonise a lone blogger whose comments posted on an independent blogsite was said to be ever-so-offensive to some.

Despite the talk of ‘Islam Hadari’ and the attempts to promote the agenda of ‘progressive, moderate Islam’ here in Malaysia, it should be painfully obvious to all by now that there remain very real repressive undercurrents in Malaysian society.

This is particularly true for the Malay-Muslims of Malaysia, who are forced to live under the constant threat of a myriad of increasingly repressive, intrusive and constricting laws governing their practice, understanding and expression of normative Islam.

The latest proof of this gradual slide towards an increasingly nasty brand of authoritarian social policing came some days ago (13 January 2005 ), when about a hundred Malay-Muslim citizens were rounded up by ‘moral guardians’ said to be working for JAWI (Federal Territory Department of Religious Affairs) at a nightspot in Kuala Lumpur. (Sunday Mail, Seeing Red over JAWI Raid, 23 January). According to the testimony of some of those arrested, the JAWI officials were ‘overzealous’, ‘abusive’, ‘rude’ and behaved ‘like thugs’ in a ‘high-handed manner’.

The manner in which the raid was carried out deserves to be repeated here, as the details provide us with a glimpse into the not-so-pretty collective Malaysian psyche:

At around 12.55 am a group of about 50 people dressed in plain clothes entered the club. Some of them wore uniforms with the word JAWI on them. The officials then ordered the music to be turned off, and then segregated the crowd.

Then, apparently, ‘an announcement over the club’s PA system instructed the non-Muslims to proceed to another part of the club ‘to enjoy themselves’ while the rest, about 100 Muslims, were told to form two separate groups, men and women.’ Sunday Mail, 23 January 2005).

What happened next can only be described as dehumanising and degrading:

Our fellow Malaysian citizens were ordered to crouch down on the ground, then herded together into a caged space in a lorry and then driven off to a detention centre at the JAWI headquarters.

Some of those arrested claimed that the driver of the lorry drove recklessly, despite the screams of panic and fear of those locked in the cage. Once at the JAWI headquarters, the men and women were locked in cells, some of which were so small that ‘they were forced to stand throughout their six to ten-hour ordeal.’

To get an glimpse into the mindset of these so-called ‘moral guardians’, the testimonies of the victims are again relevant:

‘The officers were only paying attention to the girls’, according to some of those detained.

The women were said to have been exposed to verbal abuse and humiliation, and some were even asked to ‘twirl’ around in front of the so-called ‘moral guardians’ so that the latter could get a better look at them, thus able to ‘assess’ if the girls were ‘improperly dressed’.

Among the highlights of the evening was one girl being forced to urinate in her clothes because she was denied access to the toilet; another girl asked to lower her handbag (which she used to cover her chest) so that the officials could have a better look at her nipples; and another female student being asked by the so-called ‘moral guardians’ if she had her genitals pierced.
(Sunday Mail, 23 January.)

It seemed as if these ‘moral guardians’ could only think of sex in the course of their moral policing! One is then compelled to ask:

Whatever happened to the Quranic injunction for men to lower their gaze and guard their own modesty?

It is reported that some of the victims felt so thoroughly humiliated and abused that they felt they had ‘been soured against their own religion’.

So much for Malaysia’s promotion of the long-awaited project of ‘progressive, moderate’ Islam Hadari. If this is the sort of behaviour we should expect from the ‘defenders of Islam’ in Malaysia, then the Malaysian electorate might as well have voted for PAS at the previous elections!

Genealogy of Authoritarianism

The goings-on that took place on the night of 13-14 January should remind all of us that despite the superficial changes in terms of official rhetoric and despite Malaysia’s new-found status as a ‘moderate Muslim state’ by none other than the neo-Con establishment of Washington, things have NOT really changed here.

Furthermore it should alert all Malaysians that what is being done in the name of ‘safeguarding Islam’ has serious repercussions for the future of Malaysia;

• the status of all Malaysian citizens – be they Muslims or non-Muslims;
  
  
• Malaysia’s international image and standing, and
  
  
• its own credibility as a supposed ‘bastion of moderate Islamism at work’.

It raises some difficult, embarrassing and even painful questions that we – the citizens of Malaysia – have to ask ourselves, openly and honestly.

Before we even begin to solve this problem – namely, of the growing tide of religio-political authoritarianism and intolerance in Malaysia – we need to understand the nature of the PROBLEM itself.

This problem has a name, and its name is FASCISM.

‘Fascism’, in case we have forgotten, is not some nasty thing in the past dreamt of by German and Italian right-wingers wearing silly oversized boots and monocles. As an ideology as well as a mode of political conduct, it is characterised by several salient essentials:

1. The valorisation of power, force and violence as a means to achieve political ends;

2. The use of a defensive, parochial and introverted rhetoric that constantly warns of ‘dangers and threats’ to the community;

3. The active cultivation of a culture of fear, paranoia and prejudice that presents difference and alterity as threats to the cohesion of the whole;

4. The wilful and deliberate identification of ‘Other’ groups (religious, ethnic, racial and gender communities usually) as ‘external threats’ and ‘contaminating’ influences that need to be guarded against; and,

5. The tendency to promote and foreground a singular, simplistic understanding of unity predicated on an oppositional dialectics that sees others in negative terms to be opposed, fought against and defeated.

It is for this reason that ‘Fascism’ or fascistic tendencies can be found practically everywhere in the world, among right-wing groups: Be they the neo-Con militarists who currently hold power in Washington, extremist Hindu fundamentalists and Aryan racial supremacists in India, to the Taliban and Neo-Salafi/Wahhabi elites in the Muslim world.

All these groups share a similar worldview and value system, and the _expression of their fascistic inclinations is often the same, manifesting itself in terms of violent moral police, hounding campaigns and witch-hunts against their enemies, demonising their enemies as ‘deviant, corrupt, evil,’ etc.

Here in Malaysia the first signs of the rise of authoritarianism could be found in the dominant political culture of the state itself.

By the 1970s, the authoritarian political culture of Malaysia gave birth to local oppositional groups that were likewise mirror-reflections of the authoritarian culture they opposed:

On the campuses of Malaysia there emerged right-wing Malay-Muslim student groups who claimed to be ‘Islamist activists’, but who were really more concerned about isolating the Malay-Muslims from the rest of the student body and to police their fellow Muslims instead.

It was during this period that hot-headed thugs began their campaign to ‘police’ student campus life, to the point of breaking into campus dormitories and checking on their fellow Malay-Muslim students, in order to make sure that they were ‘behaving properly’.

Today, the logic of popular authoritarianism has come full circle, with the state playing a role it has no business playing: namely, policing the values, beliefs and private lives of ordinary Malaysians.

Across the spectrum we have seen groups from PUM to TERAS to PAS to UMNO trying to police the behaviour, thoughts and lifestyles of Malay-Muslims, ostensibly in the name of ‘defending Islam’.

Academics, writers, activists and now ordinary kids going out for a good time have become their victims. There have been attempts to criminalise differences of opinion in Islam, attempts to demonise Muslim womens’ groups (like the NGO Sisters in Islam), demonise Muslim gays/lesbians, etc.

The latest addition to this gamut of repressive laws and instruments of state is Malacca Chief Minister Mohammad Ali Rustam’s suggestion that the Malacca 4B Youth Movement should be called upon to help ‘spy’ on Malaysian Muslims, and to police their private lives- again in the name of defending the good name and honour of Islam.

Never has ‘Islam’ been so sullied by those who simply wish to expand and increase their own share of power!

Morality, Moral Campaigns and the Thirst for Power

The bottom line is that all these so-called ‘moral campaigns’ are nothing more than an exercise of expanding the power of the state and the powers-that-be.

Despite the claims that these groups wish to police the morality of the public for the sake of ‘common decency’, there is and has NEVER been anything moral or decent about such self-appointed social guardians in the first place.

The policing of the private lives of citizens, as George Orwell has pointed out, is the first step towards the encroachment of the state into the private lives of everyone.

Behind the slogan of ‘Islam in danger!’ we have witnessed the rise of so many authoritarian movements, from the :

• Taliban in Afghanistan,
  
  
• the Ahle Hadith, Laskar Taiba/Jamaat’ul Dawa in Pakistan to
  
  
• groups like the Laskar Jihad, Fron Pembela Islam and Majlis Mujahideen Indonesia in Indonesia.

It is important to note that if and when such ‘moral campaigns’ get off the ground, it is always the weakest, most marginal and disenfranchised sections of society who have to pay the human costs: gender minorities, kids, racial/ethnic minorities, the poor and unemployed, etc.

It is interesting to note that in some of the reports on the incident that took place in Kuala Lumpur, one of the Muslim youths was allowed to get away, ostensibly because he was well-connected socially. (Mail, 23 Jan 2005 ) So here already we find the first contradiction in the exercise: that there are two standards of morality, namely one for the rich and one for the poor and ordinary!

For too long, Muslims and non-Muslims alike have been cowed into a state of fear and submission by these authoritarian bullies who claim that they alone have the right to interpret what is the ‘right’ version of Islam and to impose their vision of the faith on the rest of society.

In some cases, the outcome has been the suffering, even deaths, of innocents.

One such case was the instance when the moral police of an Arab country chose to lock the gates of a girls dormitory that had caught fire, on the grounds that some of the girls should not be allowed to escape as they were not ‘decently dressed’ and had not covered their heads with scarves. The end result was the deaths of these young girls – but the ‘moral police’ would presumably have defended their actions by saying that the girls who died had ‘gone to heaven’ as their modesty was not compromised!

Is the Malaysian public in store for such developments as well? This country, whose leadership prides itself as being a model of ‘moderate, progressive’ Islam is now forced to look itself squarely in the face and ask the question:

How much longer must we tolerate the flagrant infringement of our rights and
private space?

The present political leadership was voted into power last year (2004) with such an overwhelming show of support, precisely because the Malaysian public was fed up with the brand of theocratic absolutism, bordering on the medieval, offered by the opposition (PAS).

Is this what the Malaysian public voted for?

Or can Malaysians show the courage and political conviction that is needed to say once and for all:

We will no longer tolerate the abuse of religion – any religion for that matter – for political ends, and that we will no longer be treated like children, herded and bullied about, by demagogues?

Above all, we must remember this simply yet vital truth:

Any attack on any section of Malaysian society (whatever their racial, ethnic, linguistic, gender or cultural background) is an attack on Malaysian society as a whole.

When one Malaysian citizen has his or her rights infringed, threatened or abused, we – all of us – are the shared victims of that abuse. We need to realise this now, more than ever.

In the words of the American film director Spike Lee: “Wake up. Please, wake up.”


PART 2: to be continued.....

Tough Choice for Kuala Trengganu Voters in By-Election on 17 January 2009: Between the Devil-You-Know (UMNO) and the Devil-You-DON'T-Know (PAS)

The battle in Kuala Trengganu is primarily between UMNO and PAS. Other component parties in Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat are just bystanders.

Is there a clear choice between UMNO and PAS?

There is NO clear choice for the Kuala Trengganu voters because both parties are still playing DIVISIVE POLITICS after 9 months since the March 8 General Election.

The fight for the Malay soul in Kuala Trengganu by PAS is for PAS leaders to regurgitate the old issue of huddud laws, and by extension, the establishment of an Islamic state, which is opposed by the component parties in Pakatan Rakyat.

Meanwhile UMNO will continue to play the race card by claiming PAS is marginalising Malays through its close association with non-Malays (read: DAP) in Pakatan Rakyat.

The 80,325 Kuala Trengganu voters will basically have to choose UMNO or PAS, and to choose wisely, to represent them in the Federal Parliament. The constituency has Malays (87.4 per cent),Chinese (11.6 per cent),Indian (0.7 per cent) and others (0.3 per cent) .

The Consequences of Giving Power to UMNO

(Image courtesy of Penarik Beca blog)

The Consequences of Giving Power to PAS

What is "RAJM" in the Huddud Law?

Read here for more and HERE

Related articles:

• Opposing Rajm (Stoning to Death) by Ibrahim B. Syed, Ph. D. President, Islamic Research Foundation International Read here
  


• Stoning to Death Does Not Appear in the Qur’an by Akbarally Meherally, Islamic Research Foundation International. Read here
  


• ‘MAN MADE CODIFICATIONS OF HUDUD LAW’ by Nik Noriani Nik Badli Shah (Sisters in Islam)-2002 Read here

"RAJM" is an arabic word that means "to stone". The closest word in the English language is "LAPIDATION " ie ' the act of pelting with stones; punishment inflicted by throwing stones at the victim (even unto death) '.

In Islamic law, the practice of stoning is a punishment that has been prescribed as proper for married men and women who commit adultery when proof is established, or there is pregnancy, or a confession.

However, the Quran does NOT mention stoning as a punishment for adultery. The only punishment for adultery is lashings.

Though some hadith allow stoning, the Qur'an does NOT explicitly prescribe stoning as a punishment.

There is disagreement among modernist Islamic thinkers as to the applicability of stoning for adultery, as religious texts often give examples with and without stoning, but the Quran makes NO mention of stoning as punishment for any crime. However, traditionalists do not see this as a problem, since HADITH can also establish laws which the Qur'an does not mention.

Sectarian Islam tried to revoke the Quranic verses and added something ALIEN to the Quran: namely stoning to death.

What is still more terrifying was the allegation of traditionalists who argued that there was a missing link in the Quran that had to be supplemented. According to their account, the verse that treated the stoning to death of the offender accused of adultery did exist but was eaten up by a goat.

All the Islamic sects WITHOUT exception have vindicated this argument. Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Davudi Hanbal, Ibn Maja hold a brief for the existence of rajm.

Yet, the retribution for adultery is well explained in the Quran.

To introduce a NEW provision that CONTRADICTS the Quran shows the kind of mentality and the degree of faith in the Quran of the traditionalist Islamist.

Not being content with such concoctions, Bukhari says that even MONKEYS having witnessed an adulterous relation between two monkeys had punished the offenders by stoning them to death.

Kurtubi says that at the end of the Sura Ahzab there was a missing verse (namely the verse about rajm) and that it had been omitted by the scribes under Caliph Osman.

There was NO end to justifications sought to vindicate the existence of rajm.

To prove their case, sectarians have tried to abrogate (nasih) the explicit provision of 24 The Light, 2. According to one rumor, there was no rajm in the Quran during the time of Caliph Omar; according to another account, it is alleged that it had been omitted during the time of Caliph Osman.

And according to another legend,it was said that a goat had eaten it. Then the rajm of monkeys are reported which, according to hearsay, the companions had witnessed.

All these in TOTAL DISREGARD the explicit prescription in the Quran to this effect!

According to the Quran, the Quran is a SELF-SUFFICIENT and COMPLETE book.

But, according to books of hadiths and the sectarians this is NOT so. The sects have been relentless in insisting on the details to be observed during the stoning:

“In stoning, pebbles each of the size of a chickpea shall be used. The adulteress will be driven into a pit while the man shall be stoned standing.” Read here for more

A Graphic Image of the "Stoning to Death" Killing of a 17 Year Girl by her Community



Du'a Khalil Aswad Lay Dead After Being Stoned to Death

The gruesome video clip of the stoning to death
(WARNING!! The images are very disturbing)



Muslim Activist, Ghada Jamshir, Opposes Sharia Courts Adjucating Matters affecting Women/Children



The Case of Amina Lawal, a Nigerian Muslim Woman

Read here for more on BBC article by Jane Little

by

Jane Little

Excerpts from BBC

Stoning (rajm) for adultery and the introduction of vice and virtue squads were hallmarks of Afghanistan's Taliban regime.

Now the debate over Islamic law is raging globally, among MUSLIM women's groups alarmed by cases in Nigeria and Pakistan.

Amina Lawal, divorced mother-of-three, retains a strong faith in her Islamic religion, even though she has become what many see as a victim of Islamic law.

She was sentenced to death in March 2002 by a SHARIA COURT in northern Nigeria. Her crime was getting pregnant out of wedlock. The Man has NOT been charged.

She is now appealing against being buried up to her neck and stoned to death.

Her case has provoked international outcry and cast the spotlight on what many see as the BARBARIC and DISCRIMINATORY penal codes in ISLAMIC LAW. Or the interpretation of Islamic law.

There are four schools of Islamic law and the one in northern Nigeria - the Maliki one - is particularly strict.

Huddud is the part of Islamic law dealing with punishments for crimes such as "illegal sex" - or sex outside marriage.

There is NO equivalent number of MEN in jail for the same offences, which raises the question:

Who are these women having sex with?

But is Islamic law inherently mysogynistic? No, it is the MEN who interpret it, say a growing number of Islamic women's networks, which are hitting back at those they say are abusing the law for their own political ends.

According to Zainah Anwar of MALAYSIAN advocacy group Sisters in Islam, this huddud law was intended originally to protect a woman's reputation against slander, but it is being distorted.

Zainah Anwar says,

"What was particularly outrageous in the law was that a woman who reports she has been raped will be charged for slanderous accusation and flogged 80 lashes if she is unable to prove the rape.

Under the huddud law you have to produce four pious male Muslim eyewitnesses in order to prove illicit sex has taken place and it's impossible."

Perversely, if there were four witnesses to a rape, they would have been accessories to the crime.

Ziba Mir Hosseini, author of Islam and Gender, says:

"We do NOT have in modern times ANY STATE which has introduced SHARIA and has been able to respect women's
rights."

She says nowhere does the punishment of stoning appear in the Koran. She adds that pre-modern interpretations of the Sharia, which often have a heavy overlay of cultural prejudices, are not in keeping with the spirit of Islam, which is about justice and equality.

So what is the answer? For some it is to get rid of patriarchal structures and allow women to act as jurists.

But in the meantime, Amina Lawal in Nigeria has to hope that the NON-Islamic appeal court will overturn her conviction. In her culture, the shame will be more difficult to remove.

The Case of 43-year old mother of two, Mokarrameh Ebrahimi in the ISLAMIC STATE of IRAN

Read here for more in The Daily Mail (UK)

An Iranian woman faces being stoned to death for having an affair with a married man.
Mother- of- two Mokarrameh Ebrahimi has spent the last 11 years in jail for adultery with Jafar Kiani. Authorities in Tehran confirmed yesterday that Kiani had been executed last week.

Now human rights groups fear 43-year-old Ebrahimi will suffer the same BRUTAL fate.

Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen, launching an "urgent" appeal, said:

"To execute anyone by STONING is BARBARIC and DISGRACEFUL, to execute a WOMAN for adultery in this cruel way simply beggars belief.

It is imperative that Iran's head of judiciary takes immediate steps to stop the shameful stoning of Mokarrameh Ebrahimi."

A stoning pit, in which she will be buried up to her neck, has already been prepared for her.

Tehran stopped official stonings in 2002 following international pressure.

But judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi confirmed that Jafar Kiani had been killed on Thursday. "The verdict was implemented because it was definitive," he said.

Under Islamic (HUDDUD) law:

• a male convict is buried up to the waist with his hands tied behind his back,
  
  
• while a female is usually buried up to her neck.
  
  
• Spectators and officials then carry out the execution by hurling rocks and stones.
  
  
• The stones are deliberately chosen to be large enough to cause pain, but not big enough to kill the person in just one or two strikes. (i.e. to cause a SLOW, TERRIFYING and PAINFUL death)

The Iranian women's group Stop Stoning Forever say the couple were living together when they were first detained, with reports suggesting Mokarrameh had been thrown out of the family home by her husband.

Both the man and woman have children from their previous marriages.

Stoning was widely used after the 1979 Islamic revolution propelled hard line clerics into power, but in 2002 they were replaced with other means of punishment.

Despite this, human rights groups say a man and a woman were stoned to death in 2006 in north-east Iran, after being convicted of adultery and murdering the woman's husband.

Last night it emerged that Mokarrameh Ebrahimi has been given a stay of execution while her case is reviewed. However human rights campaigners believe there may be little hope for her. They point out that her lover was told two weeks ago that his death sentence had been suspended, only for him then to be executed last Thursday.

DAP Tells PAS: Get Real and Stop Day-Dreaming at the Expense of Pakatan Rakyat

Read here for more

Related articles:

• Kuala Trengganu By-Election on 17 January 2009: PAS Should Be REJECTED for its Arrogance in Pakatan Rakyat
  
  
• PAS : An Unreliable Partner With Loose Cannon Leaders
  
  
• PAS's True Colours: An UNRELIABLE Team Player and a DISHONEST Partner
  
  
• PAS Youth's Thuggery to Deny the Freedom of Muslim Youths in Malaysia
  
  
• PAS: A Prickly Thorn in Pakatan Rakyat's Side
  
  
• WHY "Religion" and "God" Should be Removed from the Federal Constitution and Rukunegara
  

Prickly, Thorny and Divisive Politics of PAS in Pakatan Rakyat

Excerpts:

DAP chairman Karpal Singh said that PAS's intention to implement hudud laws did NOT consider the political reality in the country.

Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat asked for reasons why DAP are objecting to the move.

Karpal Singh lists the following reasons:

1. "To start off, the Federal Constitution does not provide for an Islamic state from which introduction of Islamic criminal laws like hudud could follow."
   
   
2. “Next, PAS cannot afford to ignore the five-man unanimous decision of the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, in 1988 that the country was not an Islamic state but a secular state. It was Tun Salleh Abbas, who was at one time a PAS state exco member in Terengganu, who headed the five-man panel of the Supreme Court that had made that judicial pronouncement."
   
   
3. “The Federal Constitution is a sacred document which must be accepted and respected by everyone, including PAS. Its leaders, including Nik Aziz, should NOT defy and continuously be in contempt of it when insisting on the implementation of hudud laws in the country.
   
   
4. “It is wrong for PAS, for political expediency, to crave what is clearly AGAINST national interests."

Karpal said PAS should also be careful NOT to scuttle the smooth running of the Pakatan Rakyat alliance.

He reminded PAS that threatening to go ahead with its plan (on huddud laws) would be counter-productive to PAS's own interests.

PAS: A Prickly Thorn in Pakatan Rakyat's Side

Read here article "A thorn in Pakatan’s side" for more



UPDATE:

DAP will continue to support PAS
Read here for more in Malaysiakini

Excerpts:

"... DAP national chairperson Karpal Singh said DAP will continue to support PAS, especially by campaigning for the party in Kuala Terengganu. He, however, cautioned that recent upheavals in the opposition coalition have affected DAP's enthusiasm.

When asked whether the controversy would affect the votes of non-Muslims in the by-election, Karpal said, "Since Husam had retracted his statement, we go back to square one."

Karpal also today said time has come for DAP to tell PAS that there is a limit to what they can do and there is a limit to their (DAPs) political patience. Karpal Singh said,

"PAS should refrain from rocking the boat after the March 8 tsunami. It is quite obvious that the public want an alternative and we CAN attain that alternative in the NEXT election. I think PAS should hold its peace.

I have repeated a number of times that the five-men bench (Supreme Court) in 1988, then headed by Lord President Salleh Abas had delivered judgement which heard that Malaysia is a secular state, not an Islamic state.

So PAS cannot defy the constitution and the judicial pronouncement by the highest court of the land."

Karpal also reiterated that Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim must break his silence on the issue.

"He (Anwar) cannot afford to keep quiet. This is a very fundamental issue and PAS has been harping on it for a long long time."

--- End of Update ---


A Thorn in Pakatan’s Side

by

Baradan Kuppusamy

Excerpts: Read here for more

An old ghost has returned to haunt the Pakatan Rakyat coalition.

Out of the blues PAS is again ratcheting up its demand to implement the Islamic hudud and qisas laws that variously punish theft, robbery, illicit sex, alcohol consumption and apostasy with whipping, stoning to death and amputation of limbs.

Top PAS leaders defend hudud. (They) promise, when Pakatan seizes power, that they would implement the law. (They say) there was nothing wrong about it but only that DAP and PKR leaders, who oppose hudud, need some “educating” to end their opposition.

• PAS spiritual leader Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat said it was ibadat or religious obligation for PAS to pursue hudud laws. Nik Aziz said, “If they can accept the death sentence, why can’t they accept hudud.”
  
  
• PAS vice-president Datuk Husam Musa, the man behind the current controversy, said PAS would not give up on hudud which he said, was God’s law.“We will explain to all quarters, including the Pakatan Rakyat component parties, until they are ready to accept the law,” he said.

A Sense of Betrayal by PAS

Such statements coming from respected PAS leaders are disheartening to many recent NON-Muslim supporters of PAS.

They had argued that with the co-operation, understanding and common manifesto put forward by Pakatan on March 8, the hudud and such issues have been finally laid to rest.

They had put their faith in a “new PAS” that they saw as moderate, liberal, and inclusive and even “secular” – a party that had abandoned the Islamic state ideology for a welfare state concept that was based on common human values.

But that view now appears whimsical.

As expected DAP leaders, worried over the negative impact of hudud on non-Muslims, are incensed with PAS leaders and have quickly and firmly restated their opposition to hudud.

They worry such statements would alienate the 11% Chinese voters in Kuala Terengganu whose support is crucial to wrest the seat from the Barisan Nasional.
(Note: The by-election is scheduled to be held on 17 Jan 2009)

The issue is too fundamental for PAS. PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, whose push for hudud, an Islamic constitution for the country and an Islamic financial system, after winning big in the 1999 general election, ENDED DISASTROUSLY (for PAS) in 2004.

Between the victory of 1999 and the defeat of 2004, the single dominant issue for Hadi and PAS was hudud and an Islamic theocratic state.

After a lull for several years and with a big by-election battle in Hadi’s own backyard, the same issue has cropped up.

Secular political parties like the DAP or PKR, unlike PAS, can sit down and negotiate a common platform based on “common human values” and continuously “adjust” their programmes according to needs.

PAS, however, is different being a party based on religion. One part of the party is cast in concrete and inflexible on fundamentals while another is moderate and liberal but even then in a LIMITED way.

It’s probably this inflexibility that has hampered Anwar from putting together a clearly spelt out vision and mission statement for the Pakatan Rakyat coalition that is compatible with the long-term aims of PAS.

A senior PAS leader said expecting PAS to give up on hudud or qisas is like asking the DAP to give up on its Malaysian Malaysia ideology or Umno to give up on ketuanan Melayu.

PKR and DAP leaders, however, insist a common platform acceptable to all is already available in the Constitution which balances and guarantees Muslim and non-Muslim rights. But for PAS that is NOT good enough.

The Quran is their constitution in THIS LIFE and THEREAFTER and because of that the political hiccups over hudud and syariah are UNLIKELY to end any time soon.

PAS Youth Becoming Thugs Going into the Streets to Deny the Freedom of Muslim Youths in Malaysia

Read here for more

PERANGAI SAMSENG !!


Read here related article:

• PAS Should Be REJECTED in the K.Trengganu By-Election for its Arrogance in Pakatan Rakyat

Excerpts: Read here for more

Penang PAS Youth will stage a street protest tomorrow if the state government goes ahead with the I-Dance street dancing competition.

Mohamed Hafiz, the Penang PAS Youth chief said the I-Dance competition should NOT be open to Muslim teenagers and youths as it could erode their moral values.

Mohamed Hafiz Mohd Nordin said the protest also showed its serious stand on the event which it viewed could have a negative impact on young people. He said,

"We are not stopping the state government from holding the event but it must not involve Muslim youths. If they do it for youths of other religions, please go ahead.

If the state government wants to go ahead with the street dancing event, we have no choice but to hold a street protest. Then it's only fair for the government and Muslims in the state."

This was the second such protest, which lasted for about half an hour from 2pm.

On 12 Dec, more than 200 Penang PAS Youth members staged a similar protest in the compound of the Permatang Janggus mosque, near here, carrying banners and the protesters loudly condemning the (Pakatan Rakyat) state government's leadership for supporting the street dancing competition despite the protest from various quarters.

It is understood that the state government, through its Youth and Sports Committee, supported the event organised by Danzity Productions to promote a healthy lifestyle and past-time activity for young people.

The preliminary rounds of the competition will be held at the New World Park tomorrow and the final at the Queensbay Mall on 27 Dec.