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Do you think Malaysia should be a secular or an Islamic state? Why?

Terminologies can be a bit difficult. If we can move away from semantics and look at what is actually meant, it would be easier to understand.

From my point of view, being a PAS member, obviously I agree with the objectives of the party, which states clearly in its constitution that it struggles to ensure the formation of a society within which Islamic principles and values are upheld.

To say "secular state", meaning completely free of religion, would not really [be in line] with the realities of any society. In every society, the questions of morality, ethics, and right and wrong are integral.

While trying to keep away from labels which may misrepresent the issue as a whole, I would say I believe in a society within which Islamic values and principles of justice are established. If that's what Islamic state means, so be it.

But I think the term conjures up a lot of misunderstanding and fears. It should be avoided, except within circles who understand what is meant.

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-Pejabat YB Khalid Samad-

Comments

Anonymous said…
After independence,Malaysia,like other Asian countries have been following blindly everything western.As a result,Asian countries have become chaotic,lifeless/souless. We seem to have forgotten(or lacking the desire) to rexplore the fundamentals of Asiatic civilization.The fact is,Asiatic civilization,kingdoms have always been based on principles of spiritual laws.Life evolves,and now is the time to rediscover the spiritual essence in every thing and everywhere for a new rebirth
Anonymous said…
Asia is One

Sri Aurobindo’s second dream concerns the rise of Asia. Today much is being said about Asia becoming a major player in the world market. India and China are often spoken of as holding the key to the economic future of the world. If this is all the destiny of India and of Asia, as an economic giant in the drive for a new developing globalization, then we have lost a great opportunity. The Asia that Sri Aurobindo is speaking of is an Asia fertilized by powerful rivers of spirituality, many emanating from India – the Asia that received Buddhism and Hinduism and made its own forms of these, the Asia through which Islam spread not as an orthodoxy but as Sufi mysticism, the Asia in which Confucianism, Taoism and Shinto mingled their rivers with Buddhism in new creative forms through many regional histories. This eclectic spiritual continent called Asia is what Sri Aurobindo is referring to. To approach this, we have to move our attention from the material and economic to the depths of the cultural and spiritual. Do we see any movements of this kind today? I don’t see any. Here again, is where our aspirations come in, we have to make these dreams into realities.

At the turn of the 19th/20th century, Sri Aurobindo started an anti-colonial revolutionary movement in Bengal with a few splinter groups who has already received some preparation towards revolutionary action, not by an Indian, but by a Japanese ideologue by name of Okakura Kakuzo. He had come from Japan to India in 1902 looking for a spiritual personality to take back so as to to re-enliven Japanese spiritual culture. The personality he wished to take back was Vivekananda. This did not happen, since Vivekananda died that year, but Okakura also brought a message to India. This was the message of Pan-Asianism, which he expressed in his famous book, The Ideals of the East. Okakura began this book with the line “Asia is one” and in its very first page, he referred to an all-embracing “Advaita” as the very soul of Asia, a spirit of non-dual spirituality which flowed into the whole of the continent from India. It is this spirit which needs to be kindled in dynamic and living forms today. This rekindling is necessary if Asia of the ages is to rise again into the comity of nations and realize the dream of Sri Aurobindo. This is hardly the Asia which is today playing out a derivative role furthering the commercial vision of the European Enlightenment through neo-liberal globalization.
http://www.sciy.org/2010/03/19/sri-aurobindos-five-dreams-nation-souls-and-the-triple-transformation/
Anonymous said…
The Turn towards Unity: its Necessity and Dangers (Excerpt)



The surfaces of life are easy to understand; their laws, characteristic movements, practical utilities are ready to our hand and we can seize on them and turn them to account with a sufficient facility and rapidity. But they do not carry us very far. They suffice for an active superficial life from day to day, but they do not solve the great problems of existence. On the other hand, the knowledge of life's profundities, its potent secrets, its great, hidden, all-determining laws is exceedingly difficult to us. We have found no plummet that can fathom these depths; they seem to us a vague, indeterminate movement, a profound obscurity from which the mind recoils willingly to play with the fret and foam and facile radiances of the surface. Yet it is these depths and their unseen forces that we ought to know if we would understand existence; on the surface we get only Nature's secondary rules and practical bye-laws which help us to tide over the difficulties of the moment and to organise empirically without understanding them her continual transitions.

Nothing is more obscure to humanity or less seized by its understanding, whether in the power that moves it or the sense of the aim towards which it moves, than its own communal and collective life. Sociology does not help us, for it only gives us the general story of the past and the external conditions under which communities have survived. History teaches us nothing; it is a confused torrent of events and personalities or a kaleidoscope of changing institutions. We do not seize the real sense of all this change and this continual streaming forward of human life in the channels of Time. What we do seize are current or recurrent phenomena, facile generalisations, partial ideas. We talk of democracy, aristocracy and autocracy, collectivism and individualism, imperialism and nationalism, the State and the commune, capitalism and labour; we advance hasty generalisations and make absolute systems which are positively announced today only to be abandoned perforce tomorrow; we espouse causes and ardent enthusiasms whose triumph turns to an early disillusionment and then forsake them for others, perhaps for those that we have taken so much trouble to destroy. For a whole century mankind thirsts and battles after liberty and earns it with a bitter expense of toil, tears and blood; the century that enjoys without having fought for it turns away as from a puerile illusion and is ready to renounce the depreciated gain as the price of some new good. And all this happens because our whole thought and action with regard to our collective life is shallow and empirical; it does not seek for, it does not base itself on a firm, profound and complete knowledge. The moral is not the vanity of human life, of its ardours and enthusiasms and of the ideals it pursues, but the necessity of a wiser, larger, more patient search after its true law and aim
http://www.mirapuri-enterprises.com/Mirapuri-Verlag/English/IdealUnity.htm
Anonymous said…
I am Chinese and I strongly agreed with you YB.

I hope that the Rakyat should give Pakatan on the whole be it PAS, DAP or Keadilan the opportunity to prove themselves in Putrajaya instead of giving BN the opportunities in abusing the whole nation.

NGOs should also do likewise, who obviously know what and how BN has undermined the mandates rakyat have given to BN.
Anonymous said…
Khalid,
Well, we have no issue of agreeing to disagreeing, however, I can accept your reasonings as opinions. An opinion of a wise man.
Obviously, I am avowed secularist though I am a christian myself but then again, you are indeed a good man, MP, fellow friend. Hope that you would be part of the New Cabinet for PR next GE
Rakyat Malaysia 1963 said…
I think that we have come to a point that we should not be boxed in by labels, secular or islamic. This labels are keenly use by bigots and racist (please stand up UMNO, Muhyiddin "I am Malay First" Yassin, Perkasa, Hasan Ali, Zul Nordin, Utusan) so that the rakyat would be divided and of course this people can play the role of Jaguh Kampung.
Look beyond labels and we can unite whatever our race and religion and take on the world.
Anak Malaysia Sejati said…
Dato Khalid berkata "secular state", meaning completely free of religion, would not really [be in line] with the realities of any society. In every society, the questions of morality, ethics, and right and wrong are integral.

Apakah YB Khalid bertanggapan bahawa sebuah negara sekular ('secular state') itu tidak bermoral, tiada etika dan tidak kenal betul atau salah?

Kalau benar ini yang YB maksudkan, maka saya kecewa dgn YB Khalid kerana YB adalah salah, tidak memahami apa itu sekularisma, dan tidak menilai konsep sekularism secara jujur.

YB Khalid harus merujuk kepada rakan ahli parlimen YB mengenai pandangan beliau tentang negara Islamik dan negara sekular.

Pada pokoknya, sekularisma tidak mencampurkan agama (atau mana-mana agama tertentu) dengan politik. Tapi ingat: ini tidak bermaksud sekularisma itu "anti-agama" atau pentadbiran negara itu harus dilakukan secara "anti-agama" atau sekularisma itu menolak nilai-nilai agama. Ini tidak betul sama sekali.

Sekularism menerima semua agama dan pluralisma agama. Semua orang bebas menganut dan mengamalkan kepercayaan dan agama mana-mana pun, selagi hak orang lain utk mempraktikkan agama mereka tidak digugat.

Sekularisma berpercaya bahawa sesebuah negara itu harus ditadbir mengikut prinsip-prinsip dan nilai-nilai universal ('universal principles and values) yang dipunyai dan dikongsi oleh SEMUA agama, tidak kira Islam, Kristian atau Hinduisma.


Kesemua agama-agama ini adalah berlandaskan (i) kebenaran, (ii) keadilan, (iii) rasa kasih sayang dan (iv) dan hidup yg spiritual. Inilah asas dan mesej yang disampaikan diperjuangkan Islam dan agama-agama yang lain.

Jadi apa perlunya mentadbir sesebuah negara dengan memilih satu agama sahaja?

Kan elok kalau sesebuah negara itu ditadbir mengikut prinsip-prinsip dan nilai-nilai baik yang menjadi asas kepada semua agama seperti yg disebutkan di atas termasuk Islam?


Jelas tidak adil atau elok bagi penduduk Muslim sekiranya sesebuah negara itu dikatakan berpandukan 'Christian principles and values'. Dengan cara yang sama, tidak adil atau elok bagi penduduk bukan Muslim sekiranya sesebuah negara itu dikatakan berpandukan Islam semata-mata.

Kita boleh sebut "Islam itu adil kepada semua". Memanglah. Tapi orang boleh berkata juga kepada kita bahawa "Kristian itu pun adil kepada semua".

Adalah tidak adil untuk mengenakan mana-mana satu agama kepada orang lain. Kalau kita buat negara Islamik atau negara Kristian, adalah mudah untuk kesilapan ini untuk berlaku. Ini amat merbahaya untuk keharmonian negara.

Maka sekularisma boleh menjadi platform yang paling sesuai untuk mengambil semua nilai-nilai dan prinsip yang baik dari semua agama dan menggunakan semua ini sebagai dasar atau basis untuk memerintah dan mentadbir sesebuah negara.


Ini menyatupadukan seluruh rakyat tidak kira agama. Mereka akan sedar bahawa semua agama adalah berpaksikan kebaikan, kasih sayang, kebenaran dan keadilan.

Maka cara terbaik adalah negara yg tidak memihak kepada mana-mana satu agama. Cara kehadapan yang terbaik ialah sebuah 'secular state' yang politiknya berpandukan 'universal principles and values' SEMUA agama termasuk Islam.


Sebuah 'Islamic state' atau 'Christian state' boleh memecah-belahkan rakyat walaupun niatnya itu baik dan murni.

Lagipun, kalau kita landaskan sesebuah negara mengikut satu agama sahaja, ianya boleh dikira chauvinistik ('ketuanan agama'), iaitu, ia boleh membuatkan seseorang itu menganggap seolah-olah satu agama itu lebih hebat/superior dari agama-agama yang lain. Ini menjadikan kita berfikiran sempit (narrow-minded).

Mari kita mengamalkan agama masing-masing dan memperjuangkan negara yang berdasarkan prinsip dan nilai-nilai semua agama.

Setuju tak YB Khalid dan para pembaca sekalian?
Anonymous said…
IMHO,This debate "secularism vs whatever" is meant for people like Ungku Aziz..right now,almost every socio economic indicator of this country is flashing "DANGER"..now,Pakatan is in control of 4 states..and record shows,pakatan leaders with their BERANI KERANA BENAR attitude have "turun padang" n tackling problems of rakyat..They r prudent,and doing whatever that need to be done for rakyat regardless of race and gender..to me simple,effective solutions weigh much more than debating about secular vs whatever..and so far,Pakatan's solutions are effective and showing good results..and I am sure Pakatan leaders will be able to do much much more once they are in total control of this courty(provided,they keep their personal egos/agenda in check)
Anonymous said…
I think the vast of majority of Malayians dont realise that socialism democracy took birth in Asia.
Anonymous said…
Salam YB,

Golongan yang hendak mentadbir negara dan lebih mengutamakan kenegaraan itu sendiri dari mengutamkan Allah adalah terdiri dari golongan-golongan yang telah disesatkan oleh Iblis itu sendiri. Dalam soal mentadbir negara, yang sudah pasti ialah mengikut al-quran dan sunnah. Kita mesti memerintah negara mengikut cara Islam itu sendiri. Islam adalah satu-satunya agama yang mesti diikuti dan ditaati oleh umat Nabi Muhammad SAW. Sesiapa yang merasakan dirinya islam dan umat Nabi Muhammad SAW mestilah berpegang teguh pada ajaran Islam itu sendiri.

Umat Islam mestilah tidak merendah diri pada agama lain. Dan menunjukkan akhlak yang mulia. Jika kita orang Islam diberi peluang untuk mentadbir, mestilah mentadbir dijalan ALLAH.

Tekankan Islam pada umat Melayu Islam. No compromise. Kerana Islam adalah satu-satunya agama yang dibawa oleh Nabi Muhammad SAW untuk semua umatnya.

Sekian Terima Kasih.

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