It takes two to tango

Whenever the trials for crimes of illicit sex, abandoned babies or illegitimate births, are reported only the women are publicly denounced.

Does it not take two to tango? Or do fallen women sell more newspapers?

Zarina Sulaiman is an undergraduate who received a year's jail and RM7,000 fine, for dumping her newborn baby in her hostel's garbage bin.

The baby's charred body was found amongst the rubbish which was burnt by the gardener.

The only reference to Zarina's boyfriend was that he had absconded. Is he a coward? Or is she protecting him out of love?

Zarina was tried twice. First by the media. Secondly in court.

The odds are stacked against all the Zarinas of Malaysia. Abortion is banned, except for rape victims. Neither sex education nor contraception is taught in schools.

Ironically, children are bombarded daily with sexual images in films, magazines, advertisements, music and on television. Children of both sexes are thrown together at study, work and play but are expected to conform to mores that were formed centuries ago.

Is Zarina's punishment fair? She pleaded guilty and repented her sins.

Zarina, a Felda settler, was reading Physical Sciences at the Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM). She committed her crime at eighteen.

Her counsel, Mohd Hayyatuddin Muhamad, said that UiTM wanted to give her another chance: "She has been offered a place to finish her degree. A jail sentence will only deny her the chance of getting her future back on track."

Zarina's world

Everyone, including her family, acted with compassion, but the court insisted on upholding the tenets of the religion, to prove itself a bastion of the faith.

Zarina and her baby are not the only victims. Her parents hoped that education would improve the family's life. Now, they are let down by a rigid system that fails first-time offenders. Her community and country have one less productive scientist.

Would a non-Malay girl, who gave birth illegitimately, be jailed, fined and whipped? Malay women are treated less favourably than other Malaysian women.

What if Zarina had an abortion? Would her crime have been ‘less' heinous? Jail is the wrong place for her, as she is the product of our way of life.

So let us examine the Malaysian Muslim world of Zarina.

It is not the ultra-privileged world where underaged Muslim children who are modern, cosmopolitan and from practically untouchable families, frequent night clubs and indulge in drink, designer drugs and sex.

It is not the world where the well-connected middle-class mother can take her pregnant teenager to her gynaecologist for a ‘quiet' abortion.

Nor is it the world of trendy city teenagers who know of midwives who can procure an abortion.

Zarina's world is the sordid Malaysia of low income groups, where access to alcohol is difficult and an escape through cheap drugs is easier. It is where behaviour is dictated by religious dogma and enforced by religious officials.

People are conditioned by the religion's regressive influence on ethical issues - such as the status of women, sexuality, medical matters or treatment of animals.

It is a world where Malay girls and boys are not allowed to interact normally, dress code matters more than just being kids, and where even the holding of hands or eye-contact is prohibited.

Is it any wonder that teenagers snatch intimate moments, in the most unlikely places, whenever the opportunity presents itself?

All this subterfuge may heighten the excitement of the attraction, but the consequences create panic, and panic will result in rash actions.

Most fear being whipped, fined, jailed or all three, but dread, most of all, the public humiliation.

Would Zarina have become pregnant had she and her boyfriend received sex education or known about contraception?

We must accept the premise that sex education is not just about having sex, but about being informed, forming trusting relationships and taking precautions against disease, abuse and pregnancy.

Sidestepping tough subjects

Dr. Mahathir once alluded to the vast numbers of Malay men, reading Islamic studies at university, who sidestepped ‘tough' subjects like the sciences and engineering, in which our women excel. So, has the religious department become bloated as it tries to absorb all the useless men?

Syariah issues are rarely debated before being made into law, because people fear being charged with heresy, for questioning its validity in the modern Malaysian context. Syariah law takes precedence over civil law. Three women were whipped recently even though our civil law forbids it. Understandably, women feel that syariah laws discriminate against them.

Umno deliberately targeted Malay voters to prove it was more Islamic than PAS. What transpired was a profusion of Islamic laws. Malaysia's Islamisation is now like a runaway train.

According to Dr. Maznah Mohamed, a former don of Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang: "The number of Islamic laws instituted has quadrupled in just over ten years. After Iran or Saudi Arabia, Malaysia's Syariah court system is probably the most extensive in the Muslim world, and the accompanying bureaucracy is not only big but has more bite than the national parliament."

The male-dominated syariah system will not willingly relinquish its power.

This influence translates into everyday life: Men abandoning their wives. Divorced men refusing to pay child maintenance. (The RM15m fund for single mothers absolves errant men of any responsibility men because the government picks up the tab). Men escaping punishment for their illegal polygamous marriages like Bung Mokhtar Radin.

These irresponsible men make a mockery of the syariah system. They don't just invite ridicule on themselves, but on the whole institution of syariah law.

Nevertheless, men are not the only ones who treat women shoddily. Female syariah lawyers can be less empathetic and penalise female offenders more severely. Women find female bosses more demanding. Mothers spoil their sons.

When girls marry and become mothers, they continue the ‘tradition' of pampering their sons, and their husbands. Spoilt boys become petulant men.

I had the shock discovery last week of hordes of Malay girls targeting men, irrespective of age and marital status. These vixens were desirous of being the man's next wife, provided they were given their own cars and deeds to a house. Datuks were of course, most welcome.

It appears that our children need sex education and moral upbringing to boot!

MARIAM MOKHTAR is a non-conformist traditionalist from Perak, a bucket chemist and an armchair eco-warrior. In ‘real–speak’, this translates into that she comes from Ipoh, values change but respects culture, is a petroleum chemist and also an environmental pollution-control scientist.