"Noh also said a faith restoration centre has been built in Bangi to house people found guilty by the courts for practising deviant teachings." [Bernama]

A "faith restoration centre" is their term. Fancy that. Something like a fat farm for figures more full than filamentous. But no, this is not a house for fat people, it is a house for "guilty" people. And not just any guilty people, but guilty Muslims. You must be a malformed Muslim to qualify.

There will not be a charge, one hopes. The prospect of losing lard is laudable, but there is the aspect of public shame, that is lamentable. A full Five-Star facility one hopes. But getting a ticket from the courts? Surely not! Some Muslims are sensitive to such instruction. After a lifetime of praying five times a day and many times more for special supplication and spiritual fitness, it is a sorry thing to think the ministers in the prime minister's department should find fault with one's faith.

Does the Umno party not know there is a fundamental Islamic principle preventing plutocrats from prodding the people? That there is to be no compulsion in religion? My, my. Perhaps the first guests should come from the Umno party itself, specifically those ministers engaged in the "checking of apostasy" as described by the honourable Parliamentary Secretary.

It is vexatious to hear that the Attorney-General's office will vet the vile and villainous vestment afore it plops upon the table to guile a gelded parliament. It is the Attorney-General's office above all that wants to know a thing or two about Islam. It is rumoured that there was once a Qur'an there, alas no more.

A bill ... a bill, you say! For the restoration of the faith among Muslim's. And it is now in its final stages, you say. Have the Sultan's been consulted? They might take umbrage at this intrusion into their remaining rights. Have the Syariah Courts been consulted? The bill is designed to aid those who slip on the tiles of the true onto the tilted and deviant path by allowing them to be "housed" at public expense [after screening by the judiciary, of course] for the "undergoing of corrective programmes at the centre."

But hurry the bill, the centre is already built in University-town Bangi [hmmm, when was it first funded?]and the beds are begging for a body. There is urgent need for hurry. Already 29 embarrassingly innocent candidates are in the pipline. One prefers to avoid ex-poste-facto problems, if possible. That they are already charged is immaterial. Charges can always be changed. The conviction, that's the thing.

They promise a return to right thinking. Do you really suppose? A turning around of the thought, as in the nature of a correction. Turning ... turning ... that is a familiar phrase which often occurs in the Malaysian courtroom milieu. Isn't there is a department for that already? Yes, I think so. You get arrested for deviating, and they take away your clothes, and put you in a cold concrete cell, then some hooded masseuse comes in and kicks your spine into line. What department is that now ... I forget. Is it the special branch? By golly, I think it is! They "turn you over" as the court testimony goes.

This new approach, however, is reserved for Muslims only. Muslim special rights, I suppose. Non-Muslims must wait their turn ... strike that ... must await new legislation. There is, for the moment, only an Islamic Advancement Department. Certainly later there will be something for Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, etc. A Buddhist Advancement Department, a Hindu Advancement Department, and a Christian Advancement Department. The MCA can preside over the legislation and the corrective centre for the Buddhists. The MIC can make these progressive measures work for the Hindus, and there will have to be another Advancement Department for the mixed bag; Everybody Else's Advancement Department. The Centre located in Kuala Baggi.

There may some uniqueness to qualify this novelty of politics for a future first. The Malaysia Book of Records might find a category for most inane idea of the millennium, or the most suicidal death-wish of any political party ever. Somewhere there is someone who will think this idea is not a total corruption of everything sacred and worthwhile in a person's life. He lives south of here, in a place called putridjaya, or some such acridnym.