The suggestion that the government‘s version of RUU355 would be applicable to Muslims in West Malaysia only points to a heavy undertone of political manipulation to win popularity votes from Sabah and Sarawak in preparation for the coming General Election.
This is seriously manipulative and the MPs from these 2 East Malaysian states should not step back in their resistance and allowed themselves to be won over and be misguided into thinking that the issue is no longer of their concern.
On the other hand, if history has anything to show us, we should be reminded that time and again, the slow erosion of our Sarawakian rights is the result of wilful neglect and calculated design by those in power. In view of the approaching general election, we shall be vigilant and watchful that the Prime Minister and his cabinet may make all kinds of sweet promises to the Sarawakians and Sabahans, given that we hold the kingpin in the coming election battle. We should look pass these sweet promises and look at the bigger picture of how unworkable this “so called solution” is. We have thousands of Sabahans and Sarawakians staying and working in West Malaysia who are Muslims. We have our Muslim youths pursuing their tertiary education there too. If any of them are caught committing an offence while in West Malaysia, then they shall be equally subject to the punishments under the Syariah law as enforcement of law is based on the location where the offences were committed and not on the state nationality of the offenders.
Our Sarawak CM Abang Johari has said that he is concerned about the discriminatory penalties between Muslims and Non-muslims. We can be sure that if the MPs from Sabah and Sarawak are not sufficiently far-sighted and allow themselves to be convinced that once implemented as law, the Sabahans and Sarawakians would be exempted, then they are not discharging their duty to protect the interest of the people in these two states. We can be sure that once the amended Syariah law is in place, it would only be a matter of time before cries would be made for it to be extended to Sabah and Sarawak and for an amendment to our penal code so that all Malaysians, regardless of religion, would be subject to the same penalties as prescribed by the Syariah law in order to comply with the concept of equality of law under Article 8 of the Federal Constitution.
It may well be the slippery slope if the MPs for Sabah and Sarawak do not protest this bill in its entirety and stand with our West Malaysian counterparts who oppose the bill. Our Sarawak CM and MPs should always be minded in continuing the legacy of the former Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem in strongly and vocally opposing the tabling and implementation of the bill.
The stand so far made by our CM is vague to say the least as on one hand, he said that he shares the same stand as made by our former CM in opposing Hudud law and yet on the other hand, he had been reported to say that whether the BN component parties in Sarawak would support the Bill or not depends on the outcome of meetings between the PM and the BN component leaders. This is strongly suggestive that our CM has yet to make a firm stand to oppose the Bill and is still receptive to persuasions to support the bill. I am sure that had it been Adenan Satem today, he would have unequivocally made his stand clear and might even have led the opposition against the tabling of the bill within the BN component parties to protect the best interest of all Sarawakians and the secularism of our nation as founded by our forefathers.
There should not even be allowed a window of slightest possibility for this bill to slip through and all MPs from Sabah and Sarawak should stand very firm in asserting their right to equality under Article 8 by not supporting this bill to be implemented anywhere in Malaysia. Sabah and Sarawak should take the lead in not allowing ourselves to be manipulated and used as agents by those in power to divide and rule our country for their own political agenda.