DECEMBER 20 — I returned from a lengthy break in Kelantan early this week, only to be faced with a situation that was indeed too surreal.

Sitting with my colleagues in the Kuala Lumpur Courts Complex, we were asked: why are educated Malaysians not speaking up about things which are going wrong in the country?

The man asking the question cited an article in Malay daily Sinar Harian — which I later found out to be a column by Dr Awang Mat Puteh — calling it “such a brave piece.”

The irony, of course, was that we were sitting and waiting in the witness room, at the hearing of law lecturer Dr Azmi Sharom who was charged with sedition for doing exactly that — offering his academic opinion.

And the one asking the question? He was part of the prosecution.

To put this into context, however, the column had merely asked why educated Malaysians are not rising up against alleged wrongdoings and abuses of power by the country’s top leaders — and even that was arguable.

And the paper’s disclaimer does ring true, that the writer’s opinion does not reflect its editorial stance. For Sinar Harian itself on its front page, has vilified lobby group G25 — surely more than qualified to be referred to as educated Malaysians — for demanding a review of the Shariah law.

Just a few days ago, one of G25’s members, Mohd Sheriff Mohd Kassim, wrote a letter to the media calling for the Rukunegara to be officially proclaimed as the national ideology.

“The whole spirit of the Rukunegara is about respect for each other. So that we can settle our differences through dialogue, not confrontation and hostility,” Sheriff said in his letter.

I can see where he is coming from. The five pillars of Rukunegara were formulated to strengthen unity and build a national identity among our then disjointed society.

In this day and age, however, extolling Rukunegara as a national ideology would only result in certain quarters pointing out again and again that “Belief in God” is the foremost principle among the Rukunegara, while “Supremacy of the Constitution” is merely at number four.

Such is the reality we live in. The Federal Constitution, while far from perfect, guarantees numerous civil and human rights to every single one of the country’s citizens.

Despite that, such rights have been eroded and denied to a number of citizens, while the Constitution itself is being undermined, simply because “Islam is the religion of the federation” sits at Article 3.

The way Islam is being administered today in Malaysia, the Federal Constitution has been usurped by the very dogma that it sought to protect and honour.

Members of the G25 were former top civil servants. And they came from another time, when the Constitution had formed the basis of the country’s governance, and it was left unchallenged by religion, as it should be.

They remember that time, and they must have realised that we are going down that spiral of theocracy that we will find hard to get out of. Otherwise, why would they now band together?

But not many remember when the Constitution was once supreme.

Decades of rampant state-sanctioned Islamisation has closed Malaysians’ eyes to the sanctity of the Constitution, and many cannot even imagine that it stands above all.

That was how many Muslims could not fathom what G25 was striving for, and lobbed one accusation after another against the group and its spokesman Noor Farida Ariffin — calling them deviants, urging for the group to be banned and disbanded, and even threatening violence and rape against her — all in the name of Islam.

Are the freedoms and rights guaranteed every Malaysian by the Constitution in jeopardy? — Picture by Yusof Mat Isa

And Noor Farida is now being investigated for sedition, for making a call that, if you will, is the direct opposite of sedition.

Sure, we need a review of the constitutionality of Shariah laws more than ever to stop this slide towards a quasi-Islamic state.

Criminalising khalwat, the mere offence of close proximity, however is just the first of such laws that needs a review for violating individual privacy.

Many more should be in line: anti-cross dressing laws, blasphemy laws, laws that demand respect of religion, and various family Islamic laws.

Many more Shariah laws subject Muslims to criminal charges that would be harmless and innocent were they not in the faith. And perhaps the biggest crime of all is that merely questioning the rationality and sensibility of such man-made laws would be deemed as against Islam itself.

The challenges that lie ahead will be to convince the public why every citizen, especially Muslims, deserve their civil rights, and man-made religious constructs — no matter how Islamic — should, and can never stand between them so long as the Constitution exists.

Malaysia was founded by the promise of the Constitution: that everyone is guaranteed their rights and freedoms.

Now that all of us are bonded to this country as citizens, we are realising that the guarantees are being revoked little by little.

It is thus that we are currently embroiled in this battle between those who are trying their hardest to prevent the Constitution’s supremacy from being usurped by the holy texts of Islam. And the former is losing fast.

*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.