The status of Islam in the Constitution

BACA dengan mata HATI

Point of View
By TUN HANIF OMAR
IS the Malaysian Constitution a secular one? Lately we have had calls from some MPs and others claiming that our Federal Constitution is a secular one and that it is incorrect to call Malaysia an Islamic country.

They find disquiet in every step taken to inculcate Islamic values into Malaysian life. Sometimes non-Muslim citizens expressed discomfort even when the additional Islamic values are applied only to their Muslim fellow citizens.

All these have a tendency to make certain Muslim groups and individuals resentful of these people. Add to this mix a perception among such Muslims that there is a drive to introduce pluralism into religion in Malaysia and a desire for equal official treatment of the various religions, we get a perceptible stiffening of attitudes. The concoction becomes more volatile when traditional policies on apostasy and conversion are challenged.

We are not standing in such a volatile concoction and certainly not in an explosive situation, yet. But there is no room for complacency because the danger is clear. We need every ounce of wisdom on the part of people who matter to prevent the danger from becoming imminent.

Who are the people who matter? They are those on both sides of the equation who are the activists or the reactionaries in the dynamics playing out before us. When we live in a melting pot with ingredients that necessarily take time to melt down, we must give the pot the time. We must see what it takes for the alloy to come to a nice boil and hasten slowly to avoid a conflagration.

Every other day I read all kinds of statements, reports and articles that support or oppose the move for inter-faith dialogue. Why should there be such a need for dialogue unless some group feels that it has a grievance that can best be solved if the other party can be made to appreciate it and help to find a solution to it.
To me, nothing can be more reasonable than that. So, why is there some strong opposition to engage in a dialogue?

I have not seen anyone giving a full list of reasons but statements emanating from the Badai group (the Malay acronym for the Anti-Inter Faith Commission) that caused the Article 11 forum in Penang to stop prematurely complained of the proceedings being in English which, I suppose, placed the Badai group at a disadvantage.

Those in favour of a dialogue with another party have the duty to engage that party in a language it is comfortable with. It is perfectly reasonable to expect that those who seriously want to engage with Malaysians who are comfortable only with Bahasa would hold the dialogue in Bahasa: it is our national language.

At the very least, since we still have citizen social activists who for some reasons or other are still not fluent in Bahasa, satisfactory translation facilities should be made available. That will undercut the most basic reason for not participating in a dialogue.

If the Badai or some other opposing groups are not happy to have the dialogue for some other reasons, then they have the language to explain the reasons and to hear and understand the counter-reasons. The onus for this arrangement must be with the dialogue organisers, the Article 11 people.

It is no use for the Article 11 people to say that they do not need to dialogue with the Badai and such opposing groups because they have enough qualified Muslims to dialogue with, such as some learned scholars and experts.

Badai and their ilk are in fact the important people to tackle because it is their fears and objections that have to be overcome. The key is to show that their fears and objections are non-existent, unreasonable or unnecessary.

Most people opposed to inter-faith dialogue feel that Islam is under assault by non-Muslims in a Muslim country. It is a perception the inter-faith people must tackle carefully and rationally.

Their opponents feel that when they take up the case for apostates, they are interfering in the administration of Islam. They do not see it as protecting the human rights of persons who are no longer Muslims. To bridge these divergent views, there must be a dialogue: that is why all impediments to dialogue must be removed, such as the totally unnecessary one of the medium of communication.

The siege mentality can be seen clearly in the report, “Muslim lawyers form group to defend Islam from attack” (p10, The Star, July 14 2006). The group is called the Peguam Pembela Islam (PPI) or Lawyers in Defence of Islam.

Their objective is principally to clear the “misconception” on the status of Islam in Malaysia by giving their side of the story. Its pro-tem chairman Zainur Zakaria is reported to have said: “Among non-Muslims, it was viewed that Malaysia is not an Islamic state ... What we are hearing are the voices of those advocating a secular state where Islam is subservient to the Constitution.”

I am happy that the avowed aim of PPI is to give its side of the story. Giving one’s side of the story is in reality participating in a dialogue. That is the rational thing to do and I fully supported the PPI’s declared intention.

Is Malaysia an Islamic country? We will be debating this for the foreseeable future. There is no statement to that effect in the Constitution. But we are certainly not a Christian country or a Buddhist or Hindu country because not only is there no statement in the Constitution to that effect, each of these religious communities is a minority compared to the Muslim community.

By virtue of the Muslims being not only in the majority but a practising majority at that, I personally think that they have every right to think that it is a Muslim country. It was already a Muslim country in the pre-colonial era and Islamic law was further declared by the court during colonial times to be part of the law of the land.

Even the Merdeka and Malaysia constitutions which introduced so many more non-Muslims into the citizenship milieu did not detract from the special position of Islam as the sole official (though not national) religion.

They also recognised the syariah court’s special position although they set its limits just as the secular civil court has its own limitations. So Malaysia is de facto, as the government has said, an Islamic country. But Article 4 (1) of the Federal Constitution states that, “This Constitution is the supreme law of the Federation” and there is no ambiguity in its declaration.

The syariah is not the supreme law of the land. However, to all intents and purposes, the supreme law of the land does not prevent a Muslim from any Islamic practice. It does prevent the imposition of the syariah court on non-Muslims. The trick here is to determine whether a practice is in fact an Islamic practice fundamental to the tenets of Islam.

So is the Malaysian constitution a secular constitution? To my mind, no. The sine-qua-non is not there. There is no absolute separation of state from religion as evident from the position of Islam as an official religion, a constitutionally endowed Muslim religious court system, albeit with jurisdiction only over Muslims and in respect only of those matters stated in the 9th Schedule, List 11 – State List, Section 1.

Our Constitution is quasi-secular only. This is my view. There are other people I know, and some are very learned who feel that our Constitution is secular but this we should leave to the constitutional court to decide on some appropriate occasion. What is important is that Article 4(1) declares that the Constitution is the “supreme law of the Federation” and it guarantees the right to freedom of religion to all.
It is also my view that the adherent of any faith should not be subjected to the practices specific to any other religion.

Our country is greatly admired by all and sundry, not least by other Muslim countries, for the ability of its multi-racial and multi-creed citizenry to live among each other in peace and tolerance. This is our high ground. Come and join me in maintaining it.

FAIR enough??!!!