The Anger of Compassion

Malaysia: Sharia or Civil Law?

I tell you, some folks just don't know when they have it good. While adherents of the Religion of Peace are busy building societies based on tolerance and acceptance, the world is full of malcontents agitating for civil law and other such foolishness. It seems that the latest whiners are in Malaysia:

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's minorities are banding together to put up a united front against what they fear is a steady encroachment of Sharia (Islamic law) into their lives.

Unsettled by the decision of a court last month that it had no jurisdiction in Islamic matters and that a non-Muslim had no remedy under common law, the minorities, led by moderate leaders, are putting up stiff resistance.

Observers say the resistance has placed the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi in a delicate position because it needs to balance the competing demands from the majority Muslims. While non-Muslims want common law and the secular constitution of Malaysia preserved and protected, Muslims demand a society based on Sharia.

Non-Muslims have "no remedy under common law." What's the problem?

In Malaysia, a strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction has been building up among the country's minority communities against fundamentalists pushing the Islamic way into many matters - from banking and halal food to family matters, education and personal issues such as religious conversion.

In effect, two parallel societies - Muslim and non-Muslim - have gradually replaced what was a pluralistic, secular Malaysian society based on common law that was the legacy British colonials handed over upon independence in 1957.

Indigenous Malays, nearly all of whom follow Islam, constitute 60% of Malaysia's 24 million population, while Chinese, who are mostly Buddhists, make up 30% and the largely Hindu Indians another 8%. There are smaller racial groups such as Eurasians.

Malay is the official language and Islam the official religion but the constitution guarantees freedom of worship, although this provision, according to the minorities, has been gradually and systematically eroded.

The last straw was the forced burial last month of a 36-year-old soldier and mountaineer, M Moorthy, as a Muslim, over the protest of his Hindu wife. Judge Mohamed Raus Sharif ruled that his civil court had no jurisdiction to hear an application by S Kaliammal that her husband was Hindu.

Sharif refused to alter an ex parte judgment, obtained from a Sharia court by the Islamic Affairs Department Sharia, that deemed that the dead man had converted to Islam - in effect telling non-Muslims that they have no remedy in such cases.

Outrageous, that some forty percent of the country refuses to accept its dhimmitude. Next thing you know they'll be wanting beauty pageants and western music and nudity during marital sex and other such filth. Ungrateful bastards.

The Malay National Force (TERAS), a Malay non-government organization, said in a statement that Article 121 (1A) provided specific guarantees that the civil court will not interfere in Islamic matters.

"The Sharia court should not be seen as an institution that denies justice to non-Muslims. On the contrary, if its laws are fully applied, there is an assurance of better justice here compared to civil laws, which are the heritage of British colonial rule," said TERAS president Mohamad Azmi Abdul Hamid.

Well there you have it. The British legal tradition, featuring such abuses as habeus corpus and trial by jury, is clearly inferior to the justice systems of, just to take some examples, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and post-Soviet Afghanistan.

A nice, mellow portrait of the Creator can be found here. Sensitive rendering. As for the whiners in Malaysia, let's just paraphrase Marie Antoinette and say, "Let them eat grapes."

Posted by Craig Ceely at January 16, 2006 11:13 AM