Integrity And Religion

INTRODUCTION

Integrity and religion is according to the article 11 provides the freedom of religion. Article 11 illustrate about every person has the right to proclaim, possession and practice their own religion. In the Article 3 stated regarding Islam is the religion that practices in Federation. On the other hand, in any part of Federation others religion can be practiced in peace and harmony. For an example, as Muslim people the Al-Quran and As-Sunnah as the guideline for Muslim to practice Islam. The Islam religion practice the moderation in the lifestyle to avoid the unethical behaviors. Religion serve a guide for the universal of people the solid basic that every person need and ethics need. Every religion has restraint for every person to avoid doing bad behavior or thing and back to the ethics for every wrongdoing. In Islam, the Prophet Muhammad as a good role model to follow. Islam every good deed has a good deed or reward and every bad has their own punishment.

A study by Stanwick and Stanwick (2009), integrity borrowed from Latin word integrity. The integrity refer to the person noble values such as transparent, honesty, accountability, truthful, sincerity, and good character. The integrity is need religion as a person has a believer of the existence of God the person action, behavior and intention will in a good way as obey to the God command. In the organization such as the public servant responsibly carry out their duty and also shown a good image to the public. It will enhance the trust of the public towards the organization. Integrity is a part of responsibility of the worker and every action will refer back to the God concept. According to the Weber(1958), the religions have strong influences person ethics as create a good noble value in individual and as an advantages to lead rewarding lives. According to the Transparency International (TI) Malaysia (2017),

Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) in 2017 was the three country that lowest compare other Asean countries. A case scenario incident in Malaysia regarding the integrity and religion is split up and distress the people. According to the Faris Mokhtar (2018) radically the politics charged on the multi-ethnic nation regarding this issue is not a new issue that appear. Former premier and previous prime minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad used the Malay people in the rural area to vote them. A study of Sukumaran (2017) the Politician used the Bumiputra policies to help the Malays people as Malays people consider themselves as disadvantaged and in need of assistance. But, it is the trick from the politician to gain the trust from the people. The incident such as the PAS’ President Hadi Awang (2019) the assemble held in Dataran Merdaka,Kuala Lumpur declared that the Non-Muslim people should be grateful as themselves been accepted in this country. The character of the politician that not have any element of integrity as did not respect other religion by throwing curse word.

Reason of incident is the voter of Barisan Nasional (BN) dissatisfaction with the ruler of BN that involve with the corruption issue. Due to this issue, the voter increasing in vote the Pakatan Harapan the opposition parties during that time. According to the Faris Mokhtar (2018), after the election the opposition United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) used the race and religion to won their mind and heart of the majority Malay population. It is will become long-term issue the politician will extend to politicize the race and religion from the various of the political parties. The incident related with the ethics as the religious set a good path to practice and the religious never taught about the bad morality as the noble value. According to the Malaysia Kini (2008), religion and integrity should continue person liable of an individual. Plus, the government duty is to administer the country to ensure a peaceful and harmonious atmosphere throughout. Every race must treat equal and justice and also the religious issue must been solve by well-learned religious leaders.

BODY OF DISCUSSION

i) Topic chosen and relevant issues

The incidents highlight about how the country steps towards national integration with integrity. This article stressed that one of the steps towards the national integration is one of them mention about the religion. It shapes that “religion got to be dispensation out from the treatise”. It was because, the religion was misuse among the politician. Religion being used to follow their interest and make religion sound difficult and bad to others races. Politician take advantage to divide and separate the nations. It must be handle with the professional or rulers the power of religion. The Federal Government has no interfere in the religion except their main focus is to ensure the nation was being protected and business run smoothly such as establishing commerce and strong trade externally to assist farmers and working class and providing effective defence against external threats (Ismail, 2019).

It can be related with the issue in Kuantan last year. It becoming hot topic among citizens as this issue is about the Malaysian opposition Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) that say “integrity without Islam is not accepted by Allah, and a person with faith who has no integrity remains better than someone with integrity but no faith”. In academic perspectives, it like the leader is bias because it mentioned that the leader must be choose or elected from Muslim first even that person have no integrity. Integrity is very important to choose a leader as it can lead to corruption and can lead to immoral image to become a leader. It must be balance for both as even the character of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) have been famous with titled him as “Muhammadul-Amin” which mean person who represent trustworthy and honesty (Daryal, 2010).

It can be related with ethics, topic one that mention the ethics and religion. Religion is the one of the oldest human institutions. Religion is as the believed for every person to behave morally. All religion has a moral component and religious approaches to the problem of ethics. In Islam especially, the harmonious conformity to natural human disposition. It means that Islamic ethics recognized the true nature of man as its maintenance of harmonious balance between the physical and the spiritual, the worldliness and non-worldliness. Islam not encourage people to become bias. It can be related as the leader must be balance with have faith and have integrity. In academic perspective, the bias among races was being mention as it only wants the leader who is Islam to be prioritise even that person have no honesty. The prioritise for good ethic is not on the first place. Leader must show the good ethic for him to become respected and role model to the followers. To gain followers, good morale need to be show as it also responsibility for the leader to perform the best and with integrity.

There is also another issue which is ‘Gabungan Bertindak Malaysia (GBM) or also known as Civil Society Organisation. This organisation members is among the non-partisan, multi ethnic and multi-faith that reform to raised awareness to people that need to reclaim the basic right of justice, freedom and solidarity. On 2016, their leader, Tan Yew Sing highlighted that Malaysia is suffering from the escalation of ethno-religious exclusion and deterioration of politician’ integrity and credibility. The case is 1MDB scandal that make Malaysia become the second among the five worst countries plagued by corruption (Admin, 2016). This prove that integrity still lack in the Malaysia administration. Ethic implement in very low and show bad reputation in the worldwide.

It can be related with ethics, topic on four that mention the principle of ethics in public administration in Malaysia. Although for public sector entities the financial profit motive might not be paramount, good or reasonable financial performance, in line with agreed budgets or other authority which is important both to continue service delivery and to demonstrate good stewardship of public money raised from taxation or charges for public service. Thus, the Malaysian public serve had gone through various changes in its style of administration. Starting with the traditional public administration. For example, New Public Management (NPM), the National Integrity Plan (NIP), and Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

This issues also being raise by GBM about the concern of disharmony since General Election 2013 among politician. Religion was being used to separate the races in Malaysia. Malaysia that being know in as multi-cultural is very sensitive about this issue as the introduction of “halal” trolleys that makes the separation between Muslims and non-Muslims (Admin, 2016). The products at supermarket was in the packaging or containers beside there is no harm in using it. This should not be introduced as it makes the gap between other religion huge. Islam is easy to practice and it depend on people to measure it.

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Furthermore, this issue shows that the integrity and religion is inseparable from ethics where it can be relate in topic one. In academic perspectives, people get ethical values from their religion and cultures. As from religion moral based from religion and ethic from the culture itself. From GBM issue, both concern is related as politician and person who introduce the “halal” trolley also have religion and believe. Religion is as the ultimate sources of morality and the god provide the ultimate sanction that works under all conditions and setting. People need to behave carefully and smart when making decision. So, the religion will not misuse and good morale can be maintained.

It also can be related with ethics, topic five that mention the challenges to ethical decision making. According to Michaels 2011, Psychologists divide the challenges of ethical decision-making into three critical perspectives which is faulty reasoning about the external environment, other people and themselves. In faulty reasoning about the external environment, in terms of misjudging causes. When leaders debrief a disappointing situation, they first have to manage their inclination to assign blame. Personalizing complex issues cloud the bigger picture of cause and effect. Rather, embracing the systems view can boost a more realistic platform from which leaders can better understand their realities and their lesson learned. Next is faulty reasoning about others in exaggerating differences. Clear decision-making criteria and processes will help bolster leadership teams against unfair judgements based on group identity. One way to protect against personal bias is to put strong policies in place that are explicit commitments to fairness and individual assessment. Besides, under faulty reasoning about ourselves. In inflating a perception of fairness. Leaders tend to be goal-focused, with a good understanding of what achievement will bring to the association. Leaders work hard and can readily speak to all their effort that forward the association’s success. A faulty sense of entitlement can ensue, biasing the leader’s sense of fairness. A willingness to solicit feedback, particularly from third-party partners or advisers, can guard against this tendency.

This issues also being raise by urged the citizens of Malaysia to work hard to forge consensus on two major issues, namely Islamisation and affirmative action by further called on civil society and the business community to provide leadership when and where politicians have failed. As an examples among GBM members in Negeri Sembilan and Sungai Petani, Kedah, where Chinese schools and schools run by a Malay man name, Ikram have come together to hold dialogues and joint cultural activities (Admin, 2016).

It can be related with ethics, topic eight that mention the ethics and leadership on transformational and servant under types of leadership. Transformational leadership is a grace in which leaders embolden, motivate and cause employees to modernize and build change that will help develop and contour the future victory of the company. Besides, servant leadership is a leadership philosophy in which the main goal of the leader is to serve. This is diverse from traditional leadership where the leader’s core focus is the flourishing of their firm or organizations. For examples of servant leadership can be found in certain religious and political leaders.

Last but not least, from the main incident, there also have many issue that relate to the same things. Ethics can be teaching from early and become habit if parents teach in the early age to become a morale person. The religion is the belief that keep the ethics maintained and control behaviour as there is a punishment by god if breach the order. In short, people who have faith and religion can become an ethical person for the example to the new generation and future.

ii) Expected implications from the incident

The first expected implications from the incident above is it could be hindering the nation’s chance to achieve unity as multi-racial and multi-religious country (Sukumaran, 2017). Due to the politicians are using races and religious cards, there is rise of racial and religion hatred in the nation today. In order to win the support of people, the politicians trying to manipulate the people to divide and rule by using the religion. It is hard for nation to achieve unity since the politician always arise issue that are sensitive to be heard when they are arguing, debating and manipulate the races and religious issue in parliament (Komas, 2019). They are also bickering and fighting among themselves by making statement, which make the people to hate the ethnic in that party being criticized. This can cause people to be involved in political toys to make them being hate each other. This have shown that our government, which is our leader are not showing the good manner or good ethics to the people when they are debating among themselves in parliament. They are lack of integrity to manage the people because they itself do not honest and likes to plot twist when manage the country. The government either the opposition party should to behave with maturely enough to show a good ethics to the society, not just for their political survival because they have be given the responsibility to leading the people in a country.

The second expected implications from the incidents is it also can give bad images to the religions. It means that, the behaviour of an individual or politician will determine whether that person is educated with the right religion or not. This is because the religion is essential to help the person to make a choice what is right and what is wrong. The religion also taught human to act with integrity when handle something in their life. Therefore, if someone lack of integrity, the people will related he or she with their religion teachings. For an example, Tun Dr Mahathir has voice out that he do not agree that Tan Sri Muhyiddin to become as Prime Minister as Tan Sri Muhyiddin did not receive an official mandate from the people (Chan, 2020). However, Tan Sri Muhyiddin claims that he already had meeting and ask the permission from Tun Dr Mahathir when Yang Di-Pertuan Agung choose him to fill up the prime minister position. From this situation, the people will judge that Tun Dr Mahathir is lack of integrity and as a Muslim, this should not be happens. I t will give a bad images to Islam as the official religion in Malaysia.

Besides that, if this incident left unchecked, it could cause a national tragedy (Channel News Asia, 2019). It means that if this problem are not solve or cope in long-term, it will causes the 13 May Tragedy will be occur again in Malaysia. The contributed to the spread of religious and sensitive racial issues is because the increasing of tension made by among of politician. For an example, during the Pakatan Harapan era govern the country, the president of PAS, which is Abdul Hadi Awang claims that Pakatan Harapan is disorganized and dominated by non-Muslims where the majority is Chinese who are misuse the power by putting Chinese rights at the first place. He supported that Malaysia is a country with the majority of Malay Muslims where Malay-Muslim political power should the one who are manage the Putrajaya by establish the Pakatan Nasional and the rights of Malay should be given back. (Malaysia Kini, 2020). This situation is tense when the president PAS arise the issue of Muslim and non-Muslim, which make the citizen from Malay and Chinese also fight where the Chinese want for equality of rights in the country as same as the Malay. It can conclude that the politician in Pakatan Harapan do not have integrity where before they become government, they promises to changes the fate of citizen under the administration of Barisan Nasional. However, after they sit in government they broke the promises because they want to give the fair and equal rights to with their same races, which is Chinese.

CONCLUSION

The incidents highlight about how the country steps towards national integration about religion which was misuse among the politician. Next, the incident is Malaysia is suffering from the escalation of ethno-religious exclusion and deterioration of politician’ integrity and credibility which become the second among the five worst countries plagued by corruption. Besides, issues on being raise by urged the citizens of Malaysia to work hard to forge consensus on two major issues, namely Islamisation and affirmative action by further called on civil society and the business community to provide leadership when and where politicians have failed.

To sum up, all the incidents can be reduce by having a campaign to promote good ethics. This is the way in creating awareness among Malaysians and to encourage the practice of good ethics via a month-long nationwide “Doing the Right Thing” i-Pledge Campaign which is introduce by ACCA (The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) Malaysia in celebrating the 2018 Global Ethics Day. This has been include by applying a series of interactive activities and events that will be focused on creating and building awareness on ethics and to reinforce that understanding by asking fellow Malaysians to make their own personal pledge on doing the right thing to shine a spotlight on all things ethical. According to Chair of ACCA Malaysia Advisory Committee Datuk Merina Abu Tahir said: “Being ethical is about doing the right thing even when no one is watching. Upholding good ethics is the responsibility of all, and together we can make a difference in the world, starting with ourselves and our country” (Anonymous, 2018).