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Mahathir Says Malaysia Can Never Be An Islamic State
by Kazi Mahmood for IslamOnline
KUALA LUMPUR, March 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Malaysia will never be an Islamic state due to its multi-racial composition, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said in Parliament on Tuesday.
His comments and criticism of the Party Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) in Parliament was badly received by opposition Islamists who cancelled a meeting with the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) on Malay unity over the statement.
Mahathir said that even the PAS has failed to implement Islamic, or shari'ah, laws in the two states it controls: Terengganu and Kelantan. The PAS won these states having defeated the UMNO in elections in 1999.
The PAS has also made the formation of an Islamic state in Malaysia the war cry of its political struggle.
"We have many Islamic laws in this country, but PAS continues to make trouble. They control the state governments in Kelantan and Terengganu and yet they have not been able to impose Islamic laws there," Mahathir said.
Mahathir in Parliament found it difficult during the traditional Westminster style of questioning by the opposition. The PAS asked Mahathir whether he was calling for Malay unity talks because his party had lost the support of the community.
PAS secretary-general Nasharudin Mat Isa commented: ''When Kelantan wanted to impose the Shari'ah or Hudud law, UMNO said it could not be done because Malaysia is a multi-racial country.
"But that multi-racial concept has now been forgotten because [the] UMNO has lost support," he said.
Mahathir's responded by attacking the PAS, accusing it of only wanting to use Islam to gain political support, but also to mislead Muslims.
He said their actions undermined Muslims and that the labeling of UMNO members as infidels (kafirs) by the PAS was a vivid example of the PAS's hegemony.
He added that Malaysia was a liberal and multi-racial country that allowed all communities the freedom to practice their own religion and speak their own languages, adding that the Malaysian government never asked the Chinese community to convert to Islam or change their names as a requirement of citizenship.
"If we wished to have a truly Malaysian race, then the best way is through assimilation, but we are a liberal country, more than even the United States where only one language is used," he said.
He said UMNO was not opposed to Islamic laws but it could create problems when a large majority of the country were non-Muslims.
"And Islam does not teach us to create problems," he said.
The PAS, for its part, has consistently accused the UMNO of shredding the strictness of Islam for a too liberal approach, creating numerous problems in society, a member of the PAS said.
The PAS has accused the Malaysian UMNO-led government of sabotaging its efforts to impose Hudud laws in Kelantan, and now in Terengganu. In Malaysia, states need a vote in National Parliament to implement specific laws.
Islamic laws and the Hudud fall into that category needing a majority in the National Parliament to be implemented. The PAS has been denied parliamentary support since the early 1990s. The UMNO-led National Front (NF) coalition has maintained a two-thirds majority in parliament.
After attacking the PAS on its Islamic policies, Mahathir urged the opposition party to come to the table and participate in proposed Malay unity talks and laconically said the PAS would not be destroyed just because it joined the UMNO in upholding Malay rights.
The PAS has insisted that the UMNO accept two major conditions before it would join unity talks.
One is that its popular tabloid to be granted a publishing license on a weekly basis, rather than the current bi-monthly.
The government had clamped down on the Harakah daily. The magazine has a printing and publishing license allowing it to appear twice a month. The PAS violated the license by publishing twice a week at the peak of the reform movement in Kuala Lumpur.
The PAS has also urged Mahathir to return the annual oil royalty "it hijacked from the state of Terengganu," a PAS member said.
Mahathir said his party was ready to talk concerning Malay unity (a majority of whom support the PAS) but would not discuss national unity. He also ruled out the possibility that the two major demands by the PAS would be entertained.
He reiterated his party's stand that the proposed talks were meant to defend the special rights of Malays and the position of Islam as the official religion as enshrined in the Federal Constitution.
PAS also wants the talks to be wide-ranging and include issues such as the independence of the judiciary, freedom of assembly and national unity.
"I do not know if PAS is under pressure to include national unity in the talks but its conditions have nothing to do with unity," Mahathir said.
Malaysia has a multi-racial population of which 55% are Malay, 30% Chinese and 10% Indian. The rest comprise of different races, inclusive of Dayaks and Ibans on the Island of Borneo.
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