Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Hidup Melayu vs Hidup Islam: Where is the solution?



Mahathir's strategy to revive Malay's spirit from being 'layu' resulted in two extremes of political approaches:

1) those of UMNO & PERKASA type where their major struggle is for the Malay race... the natioanalistic approach. Malay nationalism is being put forward where Islam is seen as only the its complement.

2) Those of PAS type. Nowadays they are quite anti-nationalistic with the slogan PAS For All. With PAS, struggle for Malay supremacy is not that much needed. What important is Islam's supremacy thus rejecting any means of struggle for reviving the Malay's sad condition as explained by Mahathir.

Both approaches has one similar problem: they are mere slogans. UMNO shouts the slogans of Malays supremacy while PAS for being the very opposite opposition comes out with a slogan denying UMNO's solution stating that ISLAM is the Solution.

UMNO's and PERKASA's nationalistic approach deemed to be a failure as for over 5 decades it hasn't be able to solve the problems the Malays are facing. Clearly (for those who understand) Islam is the solution to the problems Malays are facing. It was clear to today's youth that UMNO's formula had failed.

However PAS slogan that reverberate the denial of any of racial intervention in Islamic struggle is a problem as well. It is simply an ignorance over the prophetic history. The Prophet Muhammad used the comfort of tribal protections as a strategy to spread the message of Tauheed. Remember how Abu Talib protects him? How Bani Hashim had suffered from the boycott alongside the Muslims? And not many knows that the Ansar tribe is Prophet Muhammad's family. Abdul Mutallib, the prophet grandfather was born in Yathrib, a descendant of them.

The problem lies in the SLOGAN. Slogan from PAS that yell the hatred over nationalistic approach had concealed the fact that racial or tribal intervention is a part of our Prophet's strategy. Thus the slogan "ISLAM IS THE SOLUTION" doesn't solve the problem as it is a mere slogan. It doesn't explain the strategy even; worse in our condition concealed the much needed strategy of reviving the Malays as the backbone of Islamic revival in Malaysia.

Enough with the slogans my fellow Muslims (Well... 90% of them are Malays anyway) in Malaysia. Slogans doesn't give the solutions. It just gives an ideology that makes us feels good but it doesn't show us clear solutions.

Speaking of solutions, we must come to an intermediate solution. A moderate solution which takes Islam as the main aim, having racial intervention as the strategy therefore not denying that we are born as Malays with our embedded cultures, at the same time not denying that we are also Muslims having Lailahaillallah as our main guide in life and as our aim of Jihad.

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