Why just hudud?
We need to remind ourselves that Umno, and the current policies being perpetuated by an Umno-led BN, has just as much of an Islamic state agenda as PAS does.
By Jacqueline Ann Surin, The Nut Graph
IT is understandably very easy to demonise PAS for its Islamic state agenda. After all, the party leadership seems quite adept at declaring its intentions to implement some features of an Islamic state, such as hudud, at the most inopportune moments.
In a global climate of Islamophobia and because of Muslims acting out of a siege mentality, including in Malaysia, Islam's poster men and women are unfortunately irrational bigots. Or terrorists. Or barbaric and autocratic regimes such as the Taliban. Hence, PAS's recent repeat about implementing hudud in multiracial Malaysia can only further fuel some people's distrust of the world's second largest, and fastest-growing religion.
But it is way too easy to be blindsided by prejudices against Islam, and against a self-avowed Islamist party such as PAS. Hence, even more so, we should rigorously test the assumptions and query the public rhetoric surrounding PAS and the Islamic state it wants for Malaysia. This is the question we need to ask as Malaysians: Is PAS really the only political party that has an Islamic state agenda in Malaysia?
