Noor Farida of G25 rocks the LSE

Datuk Noor Farida Ariffin (right) and I at the London School of Economics. – Pic courtesy of Farouk Peru, May 20, 2015.I am not a big fan of the long trek to London School of Economics (fondly referred to as the LSE).

During rush hour, the London underground is usually packed to the hilt with commuters going to and from the city. It has become such an unpleasant experience for me that I prefer to wait till late just so I can have a more comfortable commute.

Today, however, was different. I would have made journey if I lived on the other side of England for this talk. Datuk Noor Farida Ariffin, the spokesperson for the now famous G25 was due to speak at the LSE!

I arrived an hour early to ensure a seat but even then, there were already people ahead of me.

This was notwithstanding the basic fact of life that Malaysians operated on their own time! In most other Malaysia-related talks, people would still be trickling in an hour after the talks had begun.

Not today though. I was the third or fourth person there and by the time we were allowed to go up to the ninth floor, I had to rush to make sure I had a seat!

We were introduced to Noor Farida by Professor Danny Quah, a son of Malaysia who had done us proud by being a professor of economics and development at the LSE.

He was also the director of the Saw Swee Hock Centre of Southeast Asian Studies at the university. Professor Quah introduced the audience to the now famous open letter by the G25 which rocked the Malaysian political scene late last year.

The G25 had voiced concern about the Islamofascist tendencies which were taking over our nation. Those Islamofascists did not represent Malay Muslims as a whole. Noor, who became the de facto spokesperson for the G25 found herself the centre of attention and, of course, criticism.

Noor took the podium knowingly predicting the shock some of us may feel at the title of the evening’s talk (Malaysia: Fighting Religious Extremism).

Had I not been an analyst and commentator of Malaysian politics, I know I would be as well.

The Malaysia I experienced  from childhood to adolescence (1980s to mid-1990s) did not display such tendencies to the present degree. However, that period was probably when the Islamofascists were quietly doing their work, planting the seeds which are now in full bloom. Noor called it “the creeping Talibanisation of Malaysia”.

Noor believed it was former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad himself who started our country down the slippery slope by placing sharia law on par with civil law back in 1988. He also declared Malaysia an Islamic state (in 2002) which was not strictly true because although Islam is said to be “the religion of the federation” (whatever that means!), it was bound to the federal constitution which is essentially our social contract.

 We are, therefore, a secular society. This fact is now being simply ignored by racial and religious supremacists, as Noor called them.

As Noor pointed out, the members of the G25 are not whom one would consider to be rabble rousers.

They are all Malay Muslims themselves who are moreover distinguished civil servants. One of them was a heart surgeon who helped established the IJN! Not quite the same as Hishamuddin Rais, I think you’ll agree. However, they were moved by the blatantly outrageous behaviour of the Islamofascists.

We have had cases of body snatching, such as the one by Everest climber Sgt M. Moorthy by the religious authorities because he had ostensibly converted to Islam. There were also cases of unilateral conversion of children by a parent who converted to Islam and thus is afforded custody rights by virtue of doing so.

It could be seen that non-Muslim parents had only to simply convert to Islam in order to win custody battles. In the Indira Gandhi case in Perak, even though the civil court had restored custody to her, the IGP had refused to co-operate on the matter! We then had the issue of certain words being reserved for Muslims (most famously, the word Allah).

Noor Farida pointed out that this was the most embarrassing case.

I wholly agree. Our failure to understand the difference between the cultural and concept is the reason why we are victims of Arabicisation today. The unfortunate result of this is that even Bibles containing the word Allah were seized and only returned a year later.

This is a most heinous act which denied those Christians the right to practise their faith.  We also had the Nik Raina case, the poor Borders manager who became a victim of Jawi’s fascist philosophy. They were only up till last week persecuting her for stocking Irshad Manji’s book, “Allah, Liberty and Love”, a choice which she did not make herself.

Jawi’s mean spiritedness in this case (one ustaz even insinuated that she was a lesbian because she was not married at the time!) shows the infantile mentality with which we are dealing. Such is the flagrant disregard of our constitution by these Islamofascists.

As thrilled as I was at meeting Noor tonight, I could not help feeling sad at the recent negative developments in Malaysia.

Our beautiful nation is being ripped apart by these puny minded individuals and groups. Our government is, at best, apathetic and at worst, complicit. It is up to us, the middle, moderate Malaysians. The G25 is the first step towards this counter-revolution. We best support it in whatever way we can. – May 20, 2015.

 * This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.