My last column in FMT generated some heat and a lot of noise! Heat because I received a copy in my social media even before I knew it was up. Therefore the electricity deployed may have been more than my energy to write that column. Noise because Malaysians are still too simple and superficial in their appreciation of God’s truth and the nature of real reality! They generated a lot of noise, because we talked without listening!

Therefore, this is my follow-up column. I now want to take my hypothesis to the next level of articulation. Please read my last column piece before you read this one. Otherwise, there will naturally be more disconnects and more noise and heat!

The concept of categories

Philosophical interest in categories may be traced back to Aristotle who, in his treatise Categories, attempts to enumerate the most general kinds into which entities in the world divide. He does not begin from a single highest kind, but rather lists the following as the ten highest categories of things “said without any combination” (Categories 1b25):

• Substance (e.g., man, horse)
• Quantity (e.g., four-foot, five-foot)
• Quality (e.g., white, grammatical)
• Relation (e.g., double, half)
• Place (e.g., in the Lyceum, in the market-place)
• Date (e.g., yesterday, last year)
• Posture (e.g., is lying, is sitting)
• State (e.g., has shoes on, has armor on)
• Action (e.g., cutting, burning)
• Passion (e.g., being cut, being burned)

Borrowing the brains and logic of these thinkers/philosophers, categories are conceptual categories, or idea maps, or mental projections about the nature of reality which we humans can realistically postulate. They may or may not be real, but we believe that they are an approximation about “what is real about life!”

I am not a philosopher but have an interest in what science calls units of analysis or categories of reality when we want to measure and evaluate what exists as real, especially its performance. Therefore the big question I had to pursue in my doctoral thesis was “if dignity, as a quality of life does exist or is it purely an imaginary ideal?” I held and argued that it is a categorical measure of reality of relationships itself.

Therefore, my argument is that if dignity is non-existence (as a quality of relationships) then the treatment of any other reality does not matter because the law of the jungle then prevails; the bigger bullies the smaller! Human dignity is a spiritual category of reality and life, which demands we treat each other as human beings and part and parcel of the same race! Every human being is an end in himself or herself and must be regarded with such respect!

Confused categories

One of the principles of logical reasoning related to definition of categories is that they must be both; mutually exclusive and be comprehensive in definition! For example, I have used the concept of ‘the spiritual’ to talk about this new category in life. The Aristotelian classification did not include such a category. Does that make it wrong or a non-reality? Not really.

In fact that was the very reason for the insistence by the methods of science we “go out there and conduct research in the nature of reality!” My research and my three-part definition of this spiritual concept which I called dignity; was then used as a variable to be measured and studied.

Federal Court’s confused judgment

First, let me define the various real categories that do exist and which the courts must recognize as categorical imperatives because our rule of law defines them. For example, there was the man and a woman; both Malaysian citizens. Secondly, there was their marriage by Hindu rites recognized by their faith system, and their community, and also by the laws of the land, and the world. Thirdly, there was the physical, material or biological, and spiritual product of their Hindu and culturally Indian marriage or union which we call their children. There is a son and a daughter in this case.

Fourthly, our laws do give equal recognition to woman as they do to man. Third, their marriage is a spiritual reality (to the community of believers) and a material reality also. Two men or two women cannot create a natural offspring such as theirs! Fifthly, therefore, the children are always and will forever be the children of both of them. Nothing in human life, including death can change that!

Sixthly, reality is that the marriage was conceived, conducted and consummated within their social and spiritual community of one specified group of believers. Can the Court of Laws change that? Therefore, for the Federal Court to assume the role of GOD ALMIGHTY is nothing short of sacrilegious!

Failure of due process and ignorance of jurisprudence

I am no lawyer; although that was my dream as a younger boy! Neither am I a philosopher, although I did study and met all requisites for a philosophy degree such that they now have awarded me a doctorate in my field of knowledge, i.e. organization and management theory.

Administrative law in Malaysia has been abused more than a few times. My good friend and fellow college mate UM’s Professor of Law, Gurdial Singh’s latest lament in the SUN is therefore very telling. Good administration is the procedural science of doing things in an orderly way such that every person who comes for that public service gets it, and is given the same quality of service from the public services officials. The role of Administrative Law is to guide and ensure this happens every time; and when this fails the judicial recourse is their only way out! In this instance the Syariah system failed the nation-state; and now the family pays the high price!

But, when all three Federal Court Judges (close one eye to such realities) and agree to make the same categorical error in judgment; they need to be adequately chastised! That is the object of my column, as there is no other legal recourse for the wife and mother in question. I should know, as my dear wife was explaining and expressing all the potential pains and hurts she vicariously feels for the lady in question!

May GOD ALMIGHTY offer this nation-state a way out of such quandaries, as this is not an isolated incidence and it is no point crying after the horses have fled the stable! Maybe we will find justice within our Constitution under existing system of checks and balances! Maybe the answer lies with the Conference of Rulers; as an institution of finding faith balances! Islam can have such grace; I believe!

KJ John was Director of Industrial Policy with MITI until 1996 before he moved to the NITC at Mimos Berhad to develop the National IT Agenda.

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