The New Straits Times , in a column last Saturday called on the people to ‘Sing the national anthem and renew your vows’. My retort to the writer and the NST is, who will sing for the nation and spill blood for her? Allow me to explain my question and then offer a reflection.

In 1999, while I was still at Mimos Berhad, at the staff canteen, a UTM professor asked me, \”Dr John, are you a Mahathir man or an Anwar man?\” That was at the height of the Mahathir-Anwar conflict. I gasped for breath. After all, I was a vice-president of the government’s research and development agency, and regardless of what I said, there would be two schools of thought and views.

I took another deep breath, as I turned around and looked into the hills far away. I saw my Alma Mater dimly through the large glass windows, and by the grace of God, I gave the following answer: \”Dear Professor, I was schooled in the RMC. At the RMC we were taught to salute the flag and only the flag, usually while the national anthem is played. Therefore, we do not show ultimate loyalty to individuals but rather only to the flag.\”

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I felt proud of my answer and felt greatly relieved. But, that was not a simple question either. The topic of ultimate loyalties was one of the core issues I was looking at and considering in my doctoral studies. My theoretical issue and research question was how can one be loyal to both God and mankind?

Framed another way, how can man be loyal to his faith and also to his organisation, whether we call this organisation the family, the community, the company, or even the nation-state.

My next personal challenge on the same issue came some time in 2001 or 2002, when I had the personal honour of being invited by ISIS to present my thinking at a workshop entitled \”Mesyuarah K-Ekonomi\” in Kuala Trengganu.

The real challenge then was to get serious input, feedback and thinking of the then opposition-controlled state. I agreed to do it on one condition: that I spoke as an individual Malaysian and not represent any official view or position. ISIS agreed and I spoke at the Kuala Trengganu conference. We had a very august audience of PAS leadership in attendance.

Meaning what we say

At the presentation, I challenged the audience to sing the national anthem seriously and asked if they were willing to shed their blood for the nation. To me, such singing or speaking has the same value: we must mean what we say and say what we mean.

Speaking the truth is always an issue of personal integrity. I then went on to make my larger argument to the audience: that a group of fanatics had attacked and killed Malaysians during the al-Maunah incident in Grik but I argued that they were only shedding blood for a human cause and not even for a religious cause. Neither were they doing it for the nation.

I had tested my null-hypothesis before I spoke by asking another vice-president at Mimos whether he would shed blood for the nation, or, only for the Islamic Ummah and he said, \”Definitely only for the Muslim Ummah and not for the nation!\”

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Therefore, my question to the NST writer and all other like-hearted Malaysians who are willing to sing the Negaraku with gusto and to mean what it says and to say what it means, how many other Malaysians today will do the same, for the sake of the nation?

I know of a senior police officer who has done it and put his experiences in a book. Really, how many of us can do the same?

Too often, we frame the dialogue into either-or terms and fall victim to it. Take the classic example of the vice-president of PAS who argued recently that PAS would set up an Islamic state when it comes to power at the federal level.

For one, I believe he does not understand or know our constitution. My advice to all PAS leaders is, \”Please speak with integrity. Say what you mean and mean what you say!\” To me the PAS vice-president was ignorant, in the noblest sense of the word.

My teacher, Professor SH Nasr used to say, \”A veil reveals as much as it hides\”. To me, the PAS vice-president’s logic hides as much as it reveals. The same Professor Nasr also suggested that the root word for knowledge is gnosis which is also the same root for the concept of ignorance or ignosis.

The Malaysian Constitution declares itself as the supreme law of the land. Does not the PAS vice-president know and understand the full implications of this statement? I know how Tok Guru Nik Aziz thinks, but what shocks me is that this younger vice-president still believes that in modern times, an Islamic state based on the traditional hudud and Syariah interpretive models is still possible or plausible.

Fighting the good fight

The greatest challenge to such PAS leadership within the context of PKR governance, in my opinion, is the lack of coherent knowledge of modern science and technology by their leadership, although with some noticeable exceptions.

For example, I find ex-PAS supporters like Wan Saiful Wan Jan completely refreshing in their interpretation of this concept of an Islamic state.

However, I find it extremely illegal and unconstitutional for any PAS leaders to explicitly say that they, today, after 50 years of the federation of Malaya and Malaysia, still want to undertake their Islamic state agenda when there is no clear model of what it is and how it will be practiced.

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To me, this is no different than the Hindraf leaders saying that they want to \”war for the independence of the marginalised Tamils and Telugus\” (the original indentured labour class in Malaya in the rubber plantations) or the al-Maunah dissidents, or the former militant communists who wanted to set up their own ideological state. I believe, as I wrote on the Hindraf issue, force only begets more force and more abuse!

Therefore, dear Malaysians, can we all respect the flag which upholds the federal constitution, which in turn upholds the Council of Rulers in Malaysia? The current federal constitution, unless severely amended with concurrence of the Rulers, can be the only basis of all our desires and aspirations.

It defines all aspects of the very form and nature of our democracy, which we call a constitutional democracy. Changing it within the framework of a two-party state is nothing more than pure wishful thinking, but why stoke this emotion?

My advice is, if we cannot sing Negaraku in Bahasa Malaysia with full integrity, I suggest that we only sing our state anthems in Malay and mean and live by that limited meaning!

I have therefore come to my conclusion that some Malaysians cannot rise to become true citizens of the federation because they are still fighting a private war.

I will therefore leave it to the politicians of DAP and MCA to advice the Chinese voters in Kuala Trengganu on how to vote in this by-election. May God continue to bless this federation of ours!