I have been asked by many Malaysians on how to respond to the lies and unfounded accusations of Hadi about non-Muslims being corruptible, and also the cause of his fictitious idea of Malay suffering.

For many years, Hadi had fought Tun M on being a racist and a corrupt nationalist, but I am afraid Hadi has become exactly and even worse than Tun M himself.

Hadi now should be declared Malaysia Enemy Number One.

Many Malaysians want the police to arrest Hadi and imprison him, but I have a much better and more effective way than that.

In this article, I will explain how we should fight Hadi and PAS and eliminate them from Malaysia’s politics.

However, before that, let me explain why Hadi will never be arrested by the police.

Hadi Awang is not like Muhyiddin. Why? Because of religion.

If the police were to arrest Muhyiddin, no riot would occur. Why do I believe that? Look at Najib’s case of being sent to prison. No riot. But if the police were to arrest Hadi Awang, then there may be a repeat of the Ibrahim Libya-Memali incident but multiplied 100 times.

Ibrahim Libya did not command a national following like Hadi Awang.

I remember once many years ago, in one election, there was a rumor on SMS in the early days of the handphone, that Hadi was arrested in Terengganu.

Many of my friends and I at the universities were concerned but many more were angry. Luckily, I called Dr. Hatta Ramli, at that time one of PAS strongmen, and asked for verification.

He verified that it was a fake news probably to incite rioting and thus declare Hadi’s seat in Marang being suspended.

At that time, Umno was losing to PAS due to PAS’ strong support of the Reformasi movement of Anwar Ibrahim.

So, forget about any notion of Hadi being arrested, as the police do not want to solve one problem by creating a thousand others. No, this is not the way.

In fighting PAS and Hadi, we must do so with patience, wisdom and strategy.

First and foremost, we must have patience. Patience. Sabar!

Let Hadi say whatever the hell he wants but we must stay peaceful and respectful.

Yes, we hate whatever lies that he says but this being patient and not reacting will cause Hadi’s venom to slow until it returns back to its owner.

If we react by calling him out and using bad language on him, we will be playing into his trap.

Hadi no longer knows what Islam is from the Prophet Muhammad. He is consumed by a desire for absolute power and fools his followers by saying this is the Islamic thing to do.

To him, to be Islamic is to lie, lie and lie and support corrupt and immoral people as long as PAS and he gain control of Malaysia.

Hadi is willing to do anything and everything and so we must be patient.

Like a mad predator, Hadi is looking to provoke a fight and so…simply…we don’t fight.

Firefighters fighting forest fires know that the most effective way to fight a raging fire is to cut off its fuel of forest and trees. And so, the firefighters will cut down trees or even burn off sections of property and forest so that the raging fire has nothing to feed.

Napoleon’s army was thwarted not by the Russians fighting him but by burning the villages and removing farm produce like cattle and burning wheat so that the army will be starved.

Hadi is dangerous and lethal politically. We cannot fight him and PAS in an open warfare or on the battlefield. We must use a retreating tactic of starving him of food and fuel by eliminating his support base and not accepting his provocation and challenges.

We Malaysians must starve Hadi by not engaging in his baiting tactics.

If there are some individual Chinese, Christians, Indians or Malaysian civil society personalities stupid enough to answer him, we must renounce these individuals by saying that he or she does not represent Malaysia.

I have seen political figures and civil society personalities who are courageous but are completely incompetent about battle strategies in politics.

Secondly, Malaysians can show support to madrasahs and tahfizs as well as sekolah agama by donating supplies like stationery, fire extinguishers and helping to fix up the buildings while making a show of it on social media like TikTok.

Again, Hadi’s support comes from these tahfizs and madrasahs and that’s why Anwar is pouring money there and we Malaysians can call Hadi’s bluff by being good Samaritans to these religious schools.

Again, this is how we silence Hadi and politely tell him that he is wrong about all good Malaysians.

Thirdly, we must ask the media to not publish or focus too much on Hadi’s statements. Give him page number 5 and not the front page. Of course, I leave this to the wisdom of the media people.

Fourthly, we Malaysians must never tolerate any bad languages used on social media against people like Hadi Awang.

Please remember, to many ignorant Malays, Hadi is a religious leader at the same level as muftis and learned clerics. Any rude remark on him will be an attack on Islam.

Thus, we must chastise and renounce anyone making rude comments on PAS and Hadi.

Fifth, we Malaysians must send a memorandum to all our political parties that if any of them are even seen with Hadi and PAS, we will renounce that political party.

When GPS wanted to work with Hadi, I was proud that Sarawakians came to the rescue of Malaysia and reprimanded the leadership of GPS.

If Gerakan still claims that Hadi’s statement is his own personal opinion, then Gerakan must think we Malaysians are stupid.

Hadi is not only the leader of PAS, he is the de facto leader of Perikatan Nasional. Muhyiddin or Hamzah is zero compared to Hadi in influence.

If Muhyiddin does not have money, then like Najib, no one will give him the time of day. But Hadi has influence of tens of thousands without having to dish out any cash because of his religious call to political war.

Hadi is dangerous and lethal politically. We cannot fight him and PAS in an open warfare or on the battlefield. We must use a retreating tactic of starving him of food and fuel by eliminating his support base and not accepting his provocation and challenges.

Let him shout all he wants until he is hoarse and can shout no more.

Sixth, we must meet with good Islamic NGOs like ABIM and IKRAM to forge a united answer if Hadi attacks other faiths and races. Do not answer him alone, for that is what he wants.

Seventh, Malaysians can form groups in each state to write and present a memorandum to the sultans and regents to ask their help in getting the Islamic departments to answer Hadi’s lies in using the Qur’an and the Sunnah to attack innocent Malaysians within their faiths and races.

The muftis are the counterpart to Hadi Awang and they must be asked through the sultans and regents to intercede because Hadi is not only a politician but he is also a religious scholar and teacher and so a religious response must be made. If not, the Malays will be thinking that Hadi holds the Islamic moral ground with his use of the Qur’an and the Hadith.

Finally, as a last method, we, Christians, Chinese, Hindus, Indians, Dayaks, Kadazans and many Malaysians should invite Hadi Awang and his generals to an open and public forum where we can politely ask him to justify his accusations.

We must treat him with respect; we must keep him safe and above all we must speak with dignity from one human being to another and from one Malaysian citizen to another Malaysian citizen.

Be polite, be respectful and be dignified in dealing with Hadi and PAS.

Our freedom of speech will kill us if exercised senselessly like what some civil society individuals are doing.

We must fight Hadi and his toxic messages with wisdom, patience and cunning strategies.

Don’t give in to emotions. We must hold our emotions, for the greatest warrior is not the one who can overcome foes, but the one who can control his emotions and self while plotting silently the enemy’s downfall.

(Prof Dr. Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi is Professor of Architecture at a local university and his writing reflects his own personal opinion entirely.)