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.
Ever listened to BFM’s Business Grill?
It’s often done live and sometime you can hear the “grilled” squirming in
discomfort.
