Hijacked Islam - who indeed Mr Anwar? By Farish Noor - Recollect this after September 11

COMMENT | In my writings over the years, I have made it very clear that I view religious extremism as the existential threat to this country. Issues of corruption closely linked to corporate malfeasances are subordinate to the danger of the theocratic state project.

Yes, they are not mutually exclusive but a country can recover from a kleptocracy, it cannot recover from a theocracy.

From the extremely malevolent citizenship amendments to the way how this regime has been warning journalists and citizens to report the “truth” or face sanctions from the state, this regime is attempting to scare the non-Malays that the people in power now are a better option than the people wanting to claim power, all the while signalling to the Malay-majority electorate that there is very little sunlight between the policies of this unity government and PN.

Read the article in full here.....

OCT : PMX is more a salesman who will promised everything under the sun before the sale is closed but will not fulfill the promised when the sale is finalised. He went around the world to market Malaysia and supports Hamas and Palestinians who don't concern Malaysia at all.

So far, PMX returns with future but unsecured/guarantee of investments and no solution for the Isreal/Palestinian conflict. In short, its all failures while in Malaysia, PMX cannot resolve any 2R issues as he knows his job depends on 2R support. His elegance silence is the same as Badawi.

NM is allowed to be bullied and be punch bag for 2R as the Govt dares not act in a decisive way. To-date no Govt dares to act against any 2R issues. Don't expect any Govt to act against 2R issues when the Govt depends on them to be in power. This is the reality.

OrangeJaguar9341 : "why isn’t the Madani government taking responsibility and detaining Umno Youth chief Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh under Sosma or whatever draconian laws that Harapan political operatives now claim are needed to protect racial and religious harmony? Because clearly, protection is for only one group of people.

AntiRacial : Anwar, meanwhile, has remained silent when his comrades’ cars have been firebombed by ________, a KK Mart was an attempted target of a _______ attack, and - as of writing - another KK Mart has been targeted in a successful if non-fatal _______ attack, and of course, the numerous other racial and religious provocations that his non-Malay base has been subjected to.

It looks like Anwar has sold his dignity to keep his position as PM. He worried his position as PM would be at stake if he allowed any action to be taken against Akmal (worried that UMNO would pull out from the unity government). For Anwar, his position as PM is more important than his dignity!

Eaglebaby05 : Sir , write all you want. You are one of the Best commentators we have. But PLEASE remember Anwar WAS the Chief hatchet man for Mahathir in the war between UMNO and PAS for Malay support.

And Malay support means Islam. Non-Malays are disallowed to broach this subject -- although nearly half the Malaysian demography is Non-Muslim. And this nearly half the population pays almost 90 % of taxes which is then used almost wholely for the slightly more than half of the population.

Very sane PMs like Hussein Onn , Badawi and even Najib were pushed aside by Martinet Mahathir. As you so rightly write - kleptocracy can be righted -- theocracy will take decades to correct -- as the moderate population of Iran are now facing.

Malaysia is on the right path to theocracy -- decades later when the rest of South East Asia , including Indonésia , progresses it would be too late for Malaya.