05-08-2021, 07:33 PM
![[Image: mariam-mokhtar-column-300x400-1.jpg]](https://s3media.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/mariam-mokhtar-column-300x400-1.jpg)
Some Malaysians may have forgotten that it was during Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s first tenure as prime minister that religion was used, with a passion, to win votes.
When the Iranian Revolution swept across Iran at the end of the 1970s and experienced an Islamic revival, PAS became stronger as a political party.
Mahathir was afraid of the rising influence of PAS on the Malays, so he tried to appeal to them by making Malaysia more Islamic. A new dress code and a ban on the use of certain words by non-Muslims were started during his tenure.
One could add the Biro Tata Negara (BTN) or the National Civics Bureau, the dumbing down of the learning of English in schools, and Project IC in Sabah. In Project IC, or Project M, hundreds of thousands of immigrants of Muslim origin, mostly from the southern Philippines, were given ICs to change the demographics of the state.
In her interview with FMT, former minister Rafidah Aziz, who was sacked from Umno in 2018, claimed that she was sick of the “toxicity” of Malaysian politics. She also said she feared for Malaysia’s future because religion was used as a political tool.
Many Malaysians breathed a sigh of relief at her frank remarks. She is a straight talker and her views would have carried a lot of weight. Here was a veteran politician who empathised with them. They had been forced to live with the toxic combination of religion and politics for decades. It is a view that is shared by both Malays and non-Malays.
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