Colour of Malaysian space

What is the colour of the air we breathe? If we ask Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, he would swear that it only is green. Therefore, his edict or advice to the public servants of the Municipality of Kota Baru that Muslims wearing lipstick or high heels are guilty works for him.

That is the dress code according to Nik Aziz’s interpretation of Islam. Someone in Kelantan should take this matter to the civil court to test if this directive is consistent with our federal constitutional, the supreme law of Malaysia.

Frankly, Nik Aziz may even have problems defending it and preserving it under state syariah law, if interpreted professionally and objectively by those outside the State of Kelantan, and if they are also sworn to uphold the Malaysian Constitution.

Such is the supremacy of the federal constitutional and civil laws in Malaysia, fully cognisant of the current syariah provisions under state enactments. The Federation and her Constitution reigns supreme over the 12 States. I hope some constitutional law expert will correct me if I am wrong here.

More recently, a group of young ones in Kelantan have insisted that their headgear (or serban) is an equivalent of the ‘ lebai cap’ or ‘Sikh turban’, therefore exempting them from wearing a crash helmet. Now again my question is what is the colour of the air we breathe?

Are they declaring that the air they breathe is such holy air that they are protected and preserved from getting their serban wearing heads smashed in an accident?

Sadly, Tok Nik Aziz has argued that these too are law abiding citizens, presumably premised on the green air argument, maybe they will also get a short cut to heaven if they have to go, accidentally!

Not to be beaten by this colour of the air game, the new Menteri Besar of Kedah Azizan Abdul Razak has gone one step further.

He is going to allow deforestation of the source hills of the water catchments’ in Kedah, which will affect Penang, Perlis and Perak as well.

If there is a shortage of funds in the state because of politics, then he will up the ante by playing even greater partisan politics. I wonder if he has ever heard of the outstanding thesis by Seyyed Hussain Nasr entitled Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man . I think this should be compulsory reading for all scholars.

Nasr argues that the modern problem of the abuse of nature is directly related to the materialistic worldview of modern man.

The Kedah MB is obviously going to turn out to be one such man. Man has become the center of his own universe of thinking and acting and therefore justifies all truth centered on his ‘interpretation of priorities’, even ignoring a God-centered worldview.

Head prefect alumnus

N

ot to be beaten at this game of a man-centered view of the world, the principal of a school in Subang Jaya has ventured to define a ‘view of the world’ for the rest of the world. Hannah Yeoh, ADUN for Subang Jaya, an ex-student and former Head Prefect of a school in Subang Jaya was denied access to an alumni function, only because of the Ministry of Education’s edict that “opposition MPs and ADUNs are not allowed into school compounds for any public events.”

Without going into this sickening politicisation of education in Malaysia (such politics is then ironically barred for university students in public universities), what is the rationale for a public servant to issue such an edict? To be fair to the director general of education, he was quoted to have defined the limits of his circular to public schools events and not their private functions.

Firstly, the event is an alumni event and may have little or nothing to do with the students of the school, which is the only jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. Even that, I presume extends only to school-time and not home time or private time.

Secondly, the participants are alumni, who presumably are older and working adults who have most probably all voted in the last elections and have made known their views about BN politics in Subang Jaya.

Thirdly, the Ministry of Education must be aware that they are totally politicising primary and secondary education in Malaysia with this ‘scatter-brained policy directive’ which is arbitrarily being further abused and implemented by equally non-thinking public servants?

Therefore, my question again, what is the colour of the air we breathe? Does the federal government of multi-ethnic Malaysia know that the majority of the people voted against race-based politics in favour of non-race-based or need-based politics?

Therefore, I fail to understand how the minister who apologised for his keris-waving antics can ignite another round of furore by failing to recognise the democratically elected yang berhormat?

People power

Maybe the many federal ministers of the BN from Umno fail to really understand what it means that we are a Federation of Malaysia with three states.

One, the Peninsular of Malaya made up of 10 states of the original social contract, and the other two are the two new states who make up to form Malaysia. Is this so difficult to understand?

Are our Umno federal ministers so dull of hearing or even reading the Federal Constitution or understanding the nature of our democratically elected Governments; whether state or federal? Was Anifah Aman of Umno Sabah therefore wrong to suggest that “for Sabah immigration is a state matter”?

Is the minister of tourism so dull to understand that federal funds are managed by the federal government for the interest of all the states of the nation, not just for those run by the federal government or Umno?

Do ministers really know and understand the principle of federal and state lists, and the constitutional provision of funds for state administration? Can’t they educate the uninformed Kedah MB?

Shahrir Abdul Samad has said – as I have written before – Parliament is the seat of people power, where our elected representatives hold court for five years.

If these representatives fail the trust of the people then the people will change those holding office.

One simple example: the Peninsular-based People’s Parliament can actually start a signature campaign to ask all our elected representatives in Sabah and Sarawak to begin to respect the Federal Constitution and to seriously consider a vote of no-confidence of this UMNO-led government who are unclear about the colour of the air we breathe, in federal-state terms.

To me, there is only one colour we breathe; it is colourless. The moment it takes on a particular colour it becomes truly polluted and thereby denies the Federal Constitution and all federal citizenship rights and privileges.

May all governments in Malaysia maintain reason, logic and sanity in their policy pronouncements.