UMNO's Maulidur Rasul 2013

UMNO can never carry out a religious event without contaminating with their politics can they? That is why I say, Najib has a team of punah-sihat and punai-sihat. This year’s celebration of our prophet’s birthday is the most politicised as far as I can remember. UMNO is politicising the issue- portraying that it alone embraces and practices the theme on which the celebrations is held. We shall come to this year’s theme in a while. The theme is wasathiyah tunggak kesatuan ummah.  UMNO’s focus is on the theme because it thinks it can make political capital out of it.

I am no longer sure of the religiosity side of the event now that it has been invaded by political expediency. UMNO is guilty of this. Instead of exalting the virtues of the Prophet (PBUH), themes with overt political insinuations are shamelessly imputed into the event by the prevailing government.

Thinking Malays- the influential albeit small grouping which Najib and his boys have never engaged are better off looking at this year’s celebration theme in a critical manner. As far as I can remember and was taught, this isn’t the way to remember the holy Prophet (PBUH). In the olden days, mawlid gatherings will be held, religious figures will talk on the personal and the exemplary virtues of Prophet Muhammad and Muslims partake in the remembrance of the person Allah has chosen to deliver Islam to the world by reciting Quranic verses, performing zikr and so forth . Muslims are reminded of the eternal debt that we owe to the Holy Prophet.

We were never told, like Mahathir told people some time ago, that if Allah has not chosen Muhammad to spread the message of Islam, He (Allah) would have chosen another person. That kind of idea would have been considered blasphemous and eternally condemned.

Everywhere we go; banners shout and scream wasathiyah tunggak kesatuan ummah. Or wasathiyah is the bedrock of unity. UMNO is almost drowning; the water has reached the nose level that is when UMNO finds it suitable to talk about wasathiyah being the bedrock of the community’s unity. UMNO is an opportunistic and calculating animal.

Was this element in hibernation all this while? If the social element of wasathiyah has always been there in Islam, why wasn’t it working to help out the Islamic community and UMNO all this while? Why hasnt it earned UMNO universal support? Why has it failed to unite the Muslim community at least in Malaysia with UMNO spearheading it as a social tool?

The answer: because it has never been a component of UMNO’s cultural, social or political makeup. UMNO has never believed in such religious hocus pocus( UMNO treats it such) until it is now nearly drowning. Now in 2013, UMNO wants to claim it alone champions this element and therefore deserves to be supported. Bull!

Faces of UMNO ADUNs ad MPs adorn the banners. It would be interesting, if the faces decorating the banners are asked to explain and elaborate on the concept of wasathiyah and of Muslims being described as balanced, moderates and just. Let us assume that when UMNO talks about being just, they mean the term as in the meting out of justice in accordance to the rule of law. Now, ruling in accordance to the rule of law- that would be a first for Najib’s UMNO.

Never before has the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday(PBUH) been politicised by UMNO as it is now. Because this is an election year, everything must be politicised so as to give UMNO the seeming advantage. So UMNO must overdo things to show the Malays especially, they are at the forefront in protecting Islamic interests but also insisting that it alone has the authority to interpret Islam.

Take for example, the usual daily poundings and vitriol to those opposed to UMNO on the usage of the term Allah. Since when has UMNO taken up the cudgels to confront others in things Islamic? Wasn’t it the UMNO government that allowed bibles to use the term a long time ago? Now they are misleading the issue by attributing the uncontrolled and 'un-Islamic' usage to PAS’s Islamic teachings. Why doesn’t UMNO show its manliness banning the use outright instead of telling the people they can’t do that because PAS is teaching otherwise?

PAS isn’t the federal government. UMNO is. Please come out with a decree banning the use of the term Allah instead of fudging the issue and making political capital out of it. PAS hasn’t got its own teaching of Islam. It hasn’t got a separate brand of Islam other than mainstream Islam and the One Islam.

So now Naijib is playing up the term wasathiyah which he thinks gives him political capital. He appears before TV presenting a scripted talk not knowing of refusing to know, that people who watch know deep in the hearts, the significance of the term, escapes Najib. They grow more cynical and sceptical- as Hishamudin Rais said, when Najib starts to talk about Islam, that’s when pigs start to fly.

So what does the term wasathiyah mean? Najib wants it to be interpreted as a particular grouping of the community (UMNO of course) being the champion of moderation. It doesn’t take rocket science to know against which grouping/s UMNO compares itself and therefore, smugly appears to be a saint. Other groupings which are not UMNO are religious freaks bent on talibanising society, their members made up of wild eyed zealots soon to be given license to go on a raping rampage targeting the beautiful amoys in revealing cheongsams. The other political groupings especially DAP of course are chauvinists bent on enslaving Muslim Malays, converting them into Christians and taking over Malaysia.

UMNO alone practices wasathiyah or moderation and therefore deserves unqualified support.

The term taken from Quran 2:143 says that Muslims are the middle ummah. The community that is moderate, that rejects extremism, rejects excesses in politics, religious practices and so on. The term can also be taken to mean just and in judging people in accordance to the rule of law.

Where is the operational and functionality significance of the term in UMNO’s politics? We didn’t see any refection of this element, if it has been part of UMNO’s DNA in UMNO’s social dealings. The meaning of the term, taken as a whole- whether to mean moderation, just, or balanced are designed to make a community if it actually practises wasathiyah, EXEMPLARY. If you are exemplary in your personal and political conduct, that qualifies you to judge others. At the end of the day, the Holy Prophet judges you by your actions and on your faith.

Now, ask yourselves whether Najib in his personal capacity and UMNO in its political capacity have acted in an EXEMPLARY manner? If it has failed, if its conduct has consistently been unbecoming, then come PRU13, let us unite in an exemplary manner to kick it out from Putrajaya.