We face problems of great magnitude, so how can they be resolved by the application of Sharia's Law, since these problems did not exist in the early centuries of Islam? - Dr Farag Foda (The Absent Truth)

COMMENT By now readers are probably wondering why S Thayaparan is going on about the ‘Islamic' issue when obviously there are bigger fish to fry. After all, hudud will never come to pass in Malaysia, so there's nothing to worry about.

Never mind that under Umno, Malaysians have been witness to a slow process of Arabisation that has seen the civil service decimated in terms of its racial and religious components.

Never mind that since race and religion are not mutually exclusive here in Malaysia that the history taught to successive generations is nothing more than propaganda meant to remind everyone of their place in the Umno social order.

Never mind that books are banned and that silence is the only response by the so-called alternative front to Umno hegemony. Never mind that Malay culture has changed so radically over the past decades that anyone viewing Malay cultural artifacts from a bygone age are amazed at how different the ‘Malays' were, or at least how ‘Malays' were viewed...