Granted, organisers of the PAS-led Act 355 rally say that amending Act 355 is not about hudud. But to law lecturer Azmi Sharom, it is the first step towards it.
And like the rally, which former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad described as “politically motivated”, hudud itself , I would argue, is “politically motivated”, going by how it has been played up in the country all this while. Simply put, it is more about politics than religion.
I’ll state the obvious here, something that many are aware of, which is that PAS has, for years, put hudud high on its agenda in the grand plan of making the country Islamic.
Along the way, the party has garnered support among some Malay Muslims. The level of support is not enough to enable the party to govern the entire country, but sufficient for it to win and rule Kelantan until today, and Terengganu and Kedah for a spell.
Along the way also, PAS has managed to, for want of a better word, “demonise” arch rival Umno, making some Malays perceive the nationalist party as “unIslamic “ or not “Islamic enough” for that matter.
That hurt Umno in many ways. For a party that claims to fight for the Malay race and Islam, such an accusation could lead to the erosion of Malay-Muslim support.
Umno, I have always believed, was never keen to implement hudud, considering the country’s multiracial and religious population, which it governs through the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.
The party that helms the BN has, however, put in place elements of “Islamisation” in running the country. This is to balance things out with PAS so to speak and, of course, to ensure continuous Malay-Muslim support.
Still, PAS has not let up on its “Umno not Islamic” onslaught, even to the extent of, at one time, accusing its rival of being infidels. And among the most potent weapons it uses is the issue of hudud, which is a contentious issue among many international Islamic scholars within the bigger picture of Islam as a way of life, in view of the current state of the Islamic world, parts of which are riddled with poverty, civil war, corruption and disunity, and even failed states .
Umno could not remain idle and let PAS to accuse it of not wanting to implement God’s command.
To neutralise the PAS attack and, at the same time, not implement hudud, Umno came out fighting, saying it was not that it did not want to implement hudud, merely the PAS version of it — a narrow interpretation by the religion-based party.
Hence, PAS was portrayed as a party of religious extremists. Its leaders were labelled incompetent politicians who made use of religion, in particular the hudud issue, to win votes and cover their weaknesses. PAS ulamaks were accused of not being “real ulamaks”.
To an extent, the strategy worked but PAS has continued to portray itself as more Islamic than Umno, putting the latter forever on the back foot.
So, the battle of trying to prove to the Malay Muslims which party is more Islamic continues. In the process, Umno and PAS are trying very hard to show that each is more Islamic than the other. And hudud still remains at the core of it all .
But it is not just PAS and Umno that are using hudud for politics.
Non-Muslim parties from both sides of the political divide have joined the fray, particularly in recent years.
Ronnie Ooi, a Gerakan candidate in the 1978 general election, was quoted by Malaysiakini as saying that hudud has also become a “political football used by Chinese-based parties to blame each other [for allowing the hudud issue to dominate] and prove their worth to the Chinese community”.
Back to PAS and Umno. He conceded that people are not just worried about hudud, but also about the expanding process of Islamisation. The country is wrestling with the politics of religion and ethnicity.
lims (need I say they comprise the bulk of voters in the electoral roll by virtue of being the majority community) are turning to religion or want to be closer to Islam.
So, it not surprising that in recent months, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has led Umno in putting forth a more Islamic image. Najib himself has spoken on religion many times and interjected Islamic aspects into speeches, even at non-religious functions.
One can also see many of those attending these events wearing white robes and religious skullcaps.
And that’s not all. Umno has sort of extended the olive branch to PAS, saying they can work together on certain issues, all in the name of Islam and the ummah. Good examples are the Rohinga humanitarian crisis and the Act 355 issue.
The Act 355 rally was attended by current Umno leaders such as Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom and Datuk Dr Asyraf Wajdi Dasuki, obviously with Najib’s blessings. In fact, Najib had stated at the Umno assembly last year that the government would adopt Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill to amend Act 355.
But will all Umno MPs vote for the bill in Parliament should it come to that, together with the PAS MPs? Will Muslim MPs from the opposition risk being labelled “not Islamic” should they do otherwise?
The story does not end here. The Umno-PAS “consensus” on Act 355 is giving non-Muslim BN component parties a hard time too.
Where do they go from here? How will they vote if it comes to that? Will they earn the wrath of Umno or the non-Muslims?
Umno, too, has its own worries. The party must be wary of its non-Muslim allies in Sabah and Sarawak, which will become kingmakers of sorts in the whole equation should Umno collaborate with PAS.
Don’t forget that it was the political parties from these two states that gave BN the victory during GE 13. Najib and Umno owe them a big favour. But will they dutifully support Umno this time?
One thing’s for sure — hudud, and for that matter, religion, will continue to be used for politics by God-fearing people, claiming that they are doing so in the name of God.
Mohsin Abdullah, now a freelance writer, is a veteran journalist. He was formerly executive producer at The Edge TV.
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