#malaysian progressives

Like, me, there are aspects of the Constitution and the Malaysian legal system that I don't like. It's inherited from our colonisers, we enshrine ugly, oppressive things, even in the Constitution itself, and there's the laws. God, the laws.

But I get that if we gotta change this, we're going to need to work through the democratic process, not because I don't believe in radicalism and stuff, but I gotta recognize that I'm not the only person who lives on this patch of earth, there are people who don't believe what I believe. Some shit's not negotiable, sure, but there're other things that are. Like, it's a truism that we can't work alone.

But what gets to me is that when Malaysian Progressives™ talk to the people who do want to replace this whole edifice with a system of religiously-mandated oppression and bigotry, they all fall back to the treating the Malaysian Constitution and Laws like they're Inviolate™, and I'm like, these people don't even respect that, which is why they want to destroy it.

Which is aggravating, but you know, some of these people? They're not even monsters, like, idk, white supremacists or Nazis? Like, they're Muslims. And these people go on and on about how Islam is a religion of justice, that being Islamic puts you in a position where you have to be responsible to everybody, not just your in-group. That you gotta be just. Like, there are reasons why historically pre-colonization Islamic polities split their laws between siyasah and fiqh, because Muslim rulers have had to, since day one, deal with and treat non-Muslims equitably. Because, you know, Allah SWT demands that you do, and will demand in the day of Judgement why you aided and abetted tyranny.