By Farouk Peru on 7/6/2010 7:52 PM

It is indeed a misfortune for our great nation when the Institut Kefahaman Islam Malaysia lends its name to this article penned by its fellow, Md Asham Ahmed in the Star. The sheer haughtiness and arrogance displayed by Asham is embarrassing at the very least. At the most, it speaks of Islamofascist tendencies. I am not putting Md Asham in the same camp as Osama Bin Ladin but the seeds of the same kind of fascism are there. A simple ‘you are wrong, we are right, we are great’ set of tendencies. A point by point refutation of Asham’s article follows below:

1. Asham begins by saying ‘Many Muslim thinkers and leaders today, being educated in the West and severed from their religious intellectual tradition, do subscribe to the idea that all religions are the same, subject to development and changes.

If Asham is claiming that Islam has not been subject to ‘development and changes’, then one must wonder where...

Read More »

By Farouk Peru on 5/6/2010 7:40 AM

Indonesia took a regressive step from democracy this week with the implementation of it’s new blasphemy laws. I always looked to Indonesia as the better example of religious democracy in South East Asia. It was certainly miles ahead of Malaysia in terms of religious freedom. According to this news however, Indonesia will now uphold the ‘1965 law, which allows for criminal penalties and bans on people or groups that “distort” the central tenets of six officially recognized religions, was in line with the constitution and was vital to religious harmony.

This law , in my opinion, is a mockery of the religious freedom promised by Indonesia and worse still, an obstacle against the process of democratisation in the country. What is worse however is the logic involved in formulating such a law which utterly obfuscates the processual nature of religion itself.

Minister of Religious...

Read More »