"These are among the measures that we will implement to ensure our new recruits fulfil the criteria that we are looking for."

- Bukit Aman Management Department director Abdul Rahim Jaafar

COMMENT | This new policy by the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) for new recruits to undergo an Islamic (for Muslims) or moral (for non-Muslims) test is the kind of a hypocritical agenda that only a morally and intellectually bankrupt state advocates in lieu of substantive policies which would ensure a functional security apparatus.

A good example of substantive policy – I have no idea of the follow-up though – is when inspector-general of police Abdul Hamid Bador said this: "An example is illegal gaming and vice syndicate operations, which have seen police officers being compromised by these syndicates before. I have issued a warning, an ultimatum to all these officers to cut off any connection whatsoever that they have with these syndicates."

Furthermore, this Islamic or moral test is also another policy that divides us – in this case, the state security apparatus – along religious lines. At first glance, Muslim recruits taking an Islamic test and non-Muslims taking a moral test seems logical, especially in this climate of heightened racial and religious suspicion.

However, what this is is merely an ongoing narrative that religion, in this case Islam, is somehow different from the “morals” of non-Muslims. When Bukit Aman Management Department director Abdul Rahim Jaafar says that religious education is a shield (whatever that means) against bad behaviour, what he is implying – even though he may not mean to – is that Islam supposedly shields its adherents from bad behaviour while downplaying the value of the test the non-Muslim recruits take since it is not a “religious” test.

If he did not mean to imply this, then why not all recruits take the same “moral test” instead of furthering entrenching religious beliefs amongst the personnel of the state security apparatus? After all, is there a difference between an Islamic test and a moral test?

However, any religious or moral test is a moronic idea. Forget about the moral force of the law. The reality is that new recruits learn how to operate or behave not from standard operating procedures (SOPs) but from their senior...