The choice before Malaysians is not between Islamic State ala-PAS or ala-UMNO but whether to defend and uphold the 46-year founding principle of the nation as a secular Malaysia with Islam as official religionMedia Conference Statement - at the launch of the Love Malaysia/Defend Secular Malaysia campaign at PJ Old Town by Lim Kit Siang (Petaling Jaya, Wednesday): For 44 years, the mainstream nation-building agenda was to develop and sustain the democratic, secular and multi-religious nature of the Malaysian Constitution and voices calling for an Islamic state were at the periphery; but overnight, with the declaration by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad at the Gerakan national delegates� conference on September 29 2001 (the �929� declaration), the controversy over what type of an Islamic state Malaysia should become has hijacked the mainstream nation-building agenda. For the first time in the 46-year Malaysian parliamentary history, the question whether the UMNO Government is �Islamic state� enough has become an abiding theme in the debates in Parliament - when for the last four decades, the term �Islamic state� was rarely heard. In the past two years, the DAP had been a lone voice as if in the wilderness seeking to draw the attention of Malaysians to the tectonic shift in the nation-building process but we have found it very heavy-going as there had been little awareness, concern and alarm, with virtually nil crisis consciousness, at the far-reaching political, legal, socio-economic and citizenship implications for all Malaysians when the 46-year democratic, secular and multi-religious nature of the Constitution is jettisoned in favour of an Islamic state - whether ala-UMNO or ala-PAS. Malaysians who want to defend the 46-year Merdeka Social Contract for a democratic, secular, multi-religious, tolerant and progressive Malaysia must be aware that they are in a race against time, for if in the next general elections - expected within the next 4 - 9 months - the Barisan Nasional is given strong support, it would be regarded as a mandate to jettison the 46-year Social Contract and embark Malaysia on the road of an Islamic State. All Malaysians and the civil society should speak up to preserve the 46-year democratic, secular and multi-religious constitution and not to allow it to be transformed into an Islamic State, for two reasons:
In the next general election, Barisan Nasional strategists would want to convince the Malaysian voters that the greatest issue before them is to choose between Islamic state ala-UMNO without any change to the Constitution and the status quo and the Islamic state ala-PAS with all the phobias about jihad and Taliban Afghanistan. If Malaysians have no other options and must choose between an Islamic state ala-UMNO or an Islamic state ala-PAS, the overwhelming majority of the people would choose the former - but this is a false choice for Malaysians. This is because the real choice that must be made by Malaysians is not to choose between Islamic state ala-UMNO or Islamic state ala-PAS, but whether to continue to defend the 44-year fundamental constitutional principle and nation-building cornerstone of Malaysia as a democratic, secular and multi-religious state with Islam as the official religion or to jettison this principle and endorse Malaysia as an Islamic state, whether ala-UMNO or ala-PAS or ala-some other formula. This is the time for moderate and progressive Malaysians, Muslim and non-Muslims, to stand up and be united in the great battle in the defence of the 44-year fundamental constitutional principle of a democratic, secular and multi-religious Malaysia with Islam as the official religion and to make it very clear that Malaysians, both Muslim and non-Muslim, do not want either UMNO or PAS Islamic state which is not mentioned in Quran and the Sunnah or any other theocratic state of other religions. (17/9/2003) * Lim Kit Siang, DAP National Chairman |