PASt Distrust

I must admit that the antics of PAS of late (especially since the passing away of Tok Nik) has made it easier to reconcile with my deep innate distrust of any organization that uses the religion – in this case, Islam - as its clarion call.

Doing so puts every Muslim who does not believe in your stands, principles, visions in a dilemma, doesn’t it.

Fed with a constant dose of P Ramlee movies, Western children books (I hear my favourite author as a child, Enid Blyton is a racist. Really? Explains a lot) and comics, Japanese Manga and then a stint (freedom, yayy) of living in the UK as an impressionable young adult, I’m quite the liberal.

I’ve sobered (love for comics still around) on the liberalist ideals; re-entrenched my faith in my search for a balance outlook pre and post life and am praying that Allah will accept me as I am, as I try, as I will forever will accede that my life is His.

I worry when some segments of the Malaysian Muslim community seem to lose this perspective with holier than thou attitudes and judgments.

My thinking now is that PAS is seeing all these changes as something that is ripe for the taking.

Some analysts are saying that the PAS – who lost its supposed (I say so because I do not know any except for Dr Mujahid and Khalid Samad) progressives – is going down the political drain; that its gonna be a party kampong, again.

Seriously, you have to really listen to the grounds before making this dangerous assumption.

My belief is that it is in fact positioning itself to grow from this groundswell of mostly young Muslims looking for directions in the theological sense.

Look at the so called IS' success in recruiting thinking, bright children from Europe to take up arms, to cross borders in answering the religious clarion call and you’ll see where exactly I am going.

The world doesn’t make sense to many of us.  We see the bad apples getting Scot free, making a mockery of the rule of law.

Those with any sense of decency will want a solid authoritative take on where things are going, and for Muslims, where else could they turn to but Allah.

Alas, the danger lies in the fact that we often need to look upon others - the so-called Ulamas – for directions, and we’ve seen how the Ulamas in this country have seemingly taken partisan stands, populist causes et cetera.

As a political party supposedly espousing principles based on Islam, PAS is quite finely poised to fill this vacuum.

If given a choice between a wholly liberalised Malaysia or one that grounded on Corporate Greed or a supposed Utopia based on religious principles, which do you the above-mentioned lost / losing it / needing directions majority would opt for?

Take a wild guess.

Then again, I may well be reading things way, way pessimistically.

Nazir Razak could come up with an ACE of a political party that caters for every bloke; all hunky dory and Malaysians live happily ever after.

Hmmph. In the meantime, Selamat berbuka to all my fellow Muslims.