In my last article on the role of the Malaysian constitution in defining our civil law or public space morality, I asked the prime minister five questions to help the cabinet (as the executive) – and hopefully the legislature and the judiciary – to review some core issues in the light of the questionable and confusing interpretation and decisions related to the M Moorthy case.
The Moorthy family and lawyers have said that they will take the matter to the International Court of Justice (World Court). That is as it should be. It is the international principles of civil law which define global public space. Malaysia and Malaysians do not live entirely on their own on an island, especially on human rights principles.
Therefore, as much as Malaysia has an opinion about the nature of democracy in Burma, the rest of the world is also allowed to have an opinion on how we \”treat human beings and specific human rights cases in Malaysia\”. The UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights dictates this by our own agreement.
I call the core issue of religious expression in free space as \’public space morality\’. Whose or which set of values help us define the rules of conduct within this \”organisation\” we call Malaysia, the nation-state? What is the basis of these \”organisational values\”? Where do we get those values from? And, what framework do we use in the adoption of these values?
Within the history of the birth of Malaysia, we must not forget the factors which led to the specific form of independence we achieved. First, it was political independence from Britain, and then the on-going journey of economic, social and cultural independence of Malaya within the larger space of the global community of nations. This political independence was negotiated and agreed to collaboratively among all parties in the negotiation – our Social Contract was translated originally into the current Constitution of the Federation of Malaya in 1957.
Along the way, we had three more states join us to make Malaysia in 1963, each with their own set of terms. Then Singapore left us to become an independent island nation two years later. Today we say that the federation we call Malaysia is either 48 or 42 years old, depending on whose perspective we use. Malaya is 48 years independent, Sabah and Sarawak 42 years, and Singapore 40 years. That is history as it was and we cannot change it.
Nevertheless, what we can change is our perception of that reality. Many nations rewrite history, after independence, to give their own interpretation to history. We have done it too in our children\’s history books. That may be viewed as part of nation-building. As long as complete and total untruths are not propagated, the different interpretive bias can be accepted based on what in science is called the Heisenberg effect. The very act of measuring causes the measured to be changed. The very act of writing history books causes the books to be coloured by the worldview of the writer.
That we live in independent Malaysia is no doubt to anyone. There was even a time when the Americans viewed us \”undemocratic\” because of the Internal Security Act. That has now changed because they have had to also \”protect that nation-state\” after the 911 disaster. Such law-making is now no more viewed as \”undemocratic\” but viewed as a necessary privilege for the protection of a nation-states\’ very existence. They have therefore called it the Patriots Act, or something like that. We welcome them into the arena of nation-states of the globe.
Dignity in the workplace
The real question for all Malaysians as we migrate and meander towards 2020 is what values will and should define us a we move forward, to ensure that we do achieve a developed or civil society. To answer this question, allow me to use some of the lessons I learned from my doctoral dissertation on the \”dignity in the workplace\”.
The central thesis of my \”operational dignity definition\” was the tension between what is called the \”organisational imperative\” and the \”individual imperative\” within the context of workplace issues. For instance, where do the dictates of the organisation end and where does the creativity of the worker begin in work-related matters? Technically, one is employed to work roughly eight hours a day. Now, what freedoms are the workers allowed within such work and time space?
In volitional matters, how do we protect these freedoms and guarantee the God-ordained destiny of the worker, to ensure that his dignity is not denied or violated? That dignity is enshrined in the very creation of man; that he is created in the image of the Creator. How then is creativity and innovation or productivity enhanced in the workplace if we do not recognise that the individual is a responsible, creative, and a destiny pursuing person?
While rules and regulations are important in all organisations, where is the limit to such restrictions so that we temper between the organisational necessity and moderate the individual freedoms? Creating space within the tension of these opposing imperatives denotes the operational definition of dignity in the workplace.
I will try to apply this model and definition of dignity into the public space of organisational life in Malaysia. The public space we call Malaysia is the organisational arena within which we created and carved out our political independence. That independence fundamentally is the independence of human dignity and the corresponding human rights enshrined and protected within the UN Declaration. That same individual independence of the dignity of human life raised to the level of the national state is what is called national political sovereignty, equally guaranteed by the same UN.
Malaysia is a sub-system of the international global and political arrangement of collaborations and mutual respect we call the United Nations. The rule of law that flows out of the UN is what is viewed as both civil and criminal law. These laws define and determine civil and public space morality around the globe. Unless this guarantee exists at the international level, one cannot establish it at the local and national levels. Both these sets of laws are enacted by the various jurisdictions to define their particular moral values of socio-political freedoms. These then define the public space morality in each jurisdiction.
Reverse takeover
The question before us in the Moorthy case is essentially the definitions of the limits of other personal faith-based laws and its jurisdiction in the life of the rest of his family. Herein lays the erroneous conclusion by the learned judges. The public space morality for the late Moorthy\’s family is civil and criminal law, which is guaranteed by the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
They have an equal freedom of religion protected by the larger civil law of the nation. How can Moorthy\’s conversion deny his wife and children their freedom of belief and consequently their legal redress under such a freedom? Even in Malaysian law, the syariah jurisdiction is a personal faith law which focuses on issues of a personal nature to the adherent.
The difficulty arose in the late Moorthy case was because \”his conversion\” was kept a secret. Therefore, his wife and child claimed that their husband and father was still a Hindu and head of the family\’s faith system. Now, I will not discuss whether or not he was a Hindu at point of death; as there appears to be two sides to that debate. I am personally more concerned about the living and their human rights and freedoms that give them human dignity.
How can her rights and protections under the constitution be denied just because her husband became a Muslim? Had Moorthy instead exercised his rights of conversion to, let us say, hypothetically, Christianity, his case could still have been heard under civil law. But only because he became a Muslim, somehow, \”public space morality in Malaysia is frozen\” under our civil law by the careless decision of the so-called learned judge in interpreting Article 121 (1A). I beg to disagree.
The primacy of the constitution and thus civil law in Malaysia is a given and cannot be reversed. It is only the less than clear or the more than ardent, who want to see an Islamic state established in Malaysia via a reverse takeover; and are attempting to surreptitiously \”enforce\” syariah laws and principles into Malaysian public space morality. Why else would a \”snoop squad\” be formed right under the noses of the federal government headquarters in Putrajaya when the cabinet had clearly declared that \”personal morality\” is a private matter and not under the jurisdiction of \”illegal snoop squads?\”
What about corruption?
On the contrary and if we are serious about public morality, my question is why do we not declare an all-out war on corruption and \”enforce\” non-bribery as the central core of our public space morality? If Singapore can achieve almost a perfect score on the non-corruption index, why is it so difficult for all our \”religious authorities\” to collaborate with PM Pak Lah\’s government to eradicate corruption in all its forms, whether at the level of personal morality, societal morality or even at the national level?
But needless to say, that also requires agreement about our definitions of what is a corrupt act. Although we have our anti-corruption laws, it appears sometimes known and corrupted individuals are still running around the country with big titles against their names.
Bribery and corruption is always a personal sin. When it is an accepted culture of the majority at personal levels, then it becomes institutionalised corruption at the systemic level. Then our society has collapsed, whether we call it Buddhist, Christian, Hindu or Islamic. A corrupt society is just that; let us not invoke the name of God to protect such a decadent society. My pet hypothesis is that, if we can eradicate bribery and corruption at the personal level, all other sins and vices can slowly but surely be equally eradicated.
The point is: dignity of the individual involves the \”protection and preservation of individual destiny\” and that responsibility is always a personal choice of accountability. It is always a personal responsibility for one\’s destiny. No one else can be held accountable before the Almighty for personal failures in terms of morality, ethics or even spiritual disciplines. And least of all, the governing state.
Our nation needs to do some serious soul searching, and really decide which direction we want to choose to go forward in. PM Pak Lah has espoused his progressive model of the Islamic way of life he calls Islam Hadhari. The late Moorthy case \’incident/accident\’ has challenged our views and concerns about the future direction of this nation. The 90 percent majority is no more entirely with PM Pak Lah on this single issue.
Let us therefore tread carefully and cautiously in how we handle this issue; all of us are watching, but the rest of the world is also watching, since we have also declared that we are a \”model Muslim country\”. May our espoused theory and theory-in-use achieve congruence in our actions so that everyone can believe that there is national integrity in the way justice is delivered to the late Moorthy\’s wife and child under our constitution and rule of law.
God bless Malaysia.
