1. CNS(Cybercast News Service)News.com (http://cnsnews.com)
Islamist Party Downplays Shari'a Ahead of Malaysia Election, 26 February 2008
by Patrick Goodenough (CNSNews.com International Editor)
(CNSNews.com) - An Islamist party in Malaysia that has drawn attention in the past for supporting controversial shari'a corporal punishment has changed tack ahead of general elections next weekend, in a bid to regain waning support.
The opposition Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), which controls one of Malaysia's 13 states, is instead highlighting social issues and simmering dissatisfaction with the United Malays National Organization (UMNO)-led moderate Muslim coalition that has ruled for half a century.
But the place of Islam and the rights of non-Muslims in a modern democracy are nonetheless high on the agenda in Malaysia, where about 60 percent of the population are ethnic Malay Muslims, with the remainder comprising sizeable Christian, Hindu and Buddhist minorities of Chinese and Indian origin.
Religious and racial tensions have been on the rise over the past year. In the most recent incident upsetting Christians, customs officers late last month confiscated 32 English-language Bibles from a Christian who returned to the country from a visit to the Philippines.
Government officials subsequently said the confiscation was a mistake, but Malaysia's Council of Churches said it wasn't a one-time event. "No authority on earth should deny Christians the right to possess, read and travel with their Bibles," said council secretary-general Hermen Shastri.
Just weeks earlier, officials confiscated from bookstores Christian children's books because they included illustrations of biblical prophets and could offend Muslims. (Islam frowns on images of prophets. According to the Koran, key biblical figures, from Adam onwards, were Muslim prophets.)
"The Christian children's books are not meant for Muslims, so how can it be offensive to them?" Shastri asked in a Jan. 17 letter.
Tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims have also been stoked by prominent court cases involving religious freedom, the destruction of non-Muslim places of worship, especially Hindu temples, and disputes over whether Malay-language Christian publications can use the word "Allah" in referring to God. (The government worries that this will "confuse" Muslims, and Islamic theologians note that the Koran says Allah has no son, so cannot be the triune God of the Bible.)
Political stability in Malaysia is important because of the leading role the country plays in South-East Asia, and in the Islamic and non-aligned blocs at the United Nations.
Malaysia is also America's largest trading partner in South-East Asia, and negotiations on a bilateral free-trade agreement began in 2006. Relations with the U.S. have improved since incumbent Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi of UMNO succeeded Mahathir Mohamad - a veteran, anti-Western populist - in 2003.
Up for grabs in the March 8 election are 222 seats in the national parliament and 505 seats in state legislatures. The UMNO-dominated National Front coalition in 2004 took 91 percent of parliamentary seats and is expected to dominate the new parliament again.
But key battlegrounds include northern Kelantan state, which has been governed by PAS since 1990, and neighboring Terengganu state, which PAS controlled from 1999 to 2004.
In previous elections, the Islamist party won headlines with its opposition to nightclubs and alcohol and its aggressive promotion of shari'a-associated "hudud" punishments such as amputations and stoning -- and saw its support slide as a result.
In 2004, PAS hoped to expand its hold from two states -- Kelantan and Terengganu -- to three or four. Instead it lost Terengganu, and only just managed to hold onto Kelantan.
This time around, with an eye on holding onto Kelantan, retaking Terengganu and perhaps even adding a third state, Kedah, PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang is focusing on such issues as affordable health care, lowering fuel prices and a minimum wage.
"We offer equal justice to all, justice in economy opportunities and freedom of religion," he told reporters at a launch of the party's manifesto.
Other moves aimed at widening PAS's appeal include a slate of fresh candidates, including an ethnic Chinese Muslim and 13 female candidates. One of the women is the party's first non-Muslim candidate, a law graduate who is standing for a seat in a stronghold of the governing coalition.
But because PAS isn't highlighting shari'a this time doesn't mean it no longer wants to see it implemented in Malaysia; Hadi said PAS supporters know the party's position on Islamic law without having to have it spelled out for them.
"The party realizes its mistakes" in past elections, the New Straits Times daily quoted him as saying at the manifesto launch. "The party wants to keep with the changing times ... one way is not to openly back the Islamic state."
Hadi said PAS's main pillar remained Islam, but that there would be "justice for all."
Referring to unhappiness over the "Allah" issue and destruction of temples, he said non-Muslims "can use the word Allah freely and get assurance on freedom of language ... places of worship will also not be destroyed without permission."
The more open image being presented to voters by PAS contrasts with a call last week by a loose coalition of some 100 Islamic organizations in Malaysia for shari'a courts to have greater powers and for Islam's primacy to be upheld.
The grouping, calling itself the Defenders of Islam, said racial and religious tensions in the country were the result of attempts by certain groups to challenge Islam's role.
In a list of election demands to be given to candidates, it called for more Islamic study in schools, new laws to prevent proselytizing of Muslims, and the outlawing of Western entertainment on television.
The Islamic initiative came shortly after Christian organizations - Protestant, Catholic and evangelical - began circulating a document entitled "Vote Wisely," urging Christian voters to support parties' whose platforms and track records support religious freedom.
Apart from the ruling National Front coalition and PAS, the only other party with sizeable representation in Malaysia's national parliament is the secular Democratic Action Party (DAP), most of whose supporters are ethnic Chinese.
Aside from PAS's ambitions to win control of three states, party leader Hadi said opposition parties at a national level hope in next week's election to deny the National Front a two-thirds majority in parliament.
National Front parties and the government own or control most mainstream media in Malaysia, and positive press coverage for opposition parties is rare.
2. The American Muslim (http://www.theamericanmuslim.org)
(1) The Threat to Secular Democracy In Malaysia , 23 February 2008
by Farish A. Noor
AS far as complex plural societies go, Malaysia has to be one of the most complex and plural societies in the world at the moment. There are few countries with a racial, ethnic, linguistic and religious mix like Malaysia’s and I have to confess that I am more than annoyed when I meet Middle-Eastern friends who occasionally offer me nuggets of wisdom when they pontificate about how religious pluralism can and should be managed in Malaysia.
An Egyptian colleague once opined that Malaysians can and should be more tolerant of each other; until I pointed out to him that in Egypt – which is 98% Muslim – the Catholic and Coptic minorities are in a rather sorry state despite the fact that as such a small minority they could not possibly threaten the Muslim identity of present-day Egypt. If some right-wing conservative Egyptian Muslims cannot abide by the idea of having a tiny 2% Christian minority in their midst, then how would they cope with living in a country like Malaysia where the non-Muslim population is nearly 40%?
This pluralism is perhaps one of the greatest assets Malaysia possesses and is blessed with. It is certainly not a problem and thus should never be pathologised as such. Religious diversity is not an illness that infects the body of the state or nation; nor should it be seen as a handicap.
But what the state has to do in such a context is to play the role of honest broker and to create those vital common public domains where interaction, cooperation, respect and recognition can develop. For any state to appeal and cater to the demands of only one group, and in particular the majority, reeks of bias and uneven compromise; which in turn can only lead to further majoritarianism dominating the arena of national politics.
Thus, it is with these considerations in mind that we look at the election campaign in Malaysia today. Over the past few weeks, a host of religious lobby groups and NGOs have called upon the government to take up the concerns of their respective members and constituents.
We are all familiar now with the demands of the Malaysian Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), that were couched in terms of a somewhat sectarian communal demand for the respect and protection of Hindu temples, among other things. The Malaysian Council of Churches have called on Malaysian Christian voters to vote wisely; while the Malaysian Consultative Council on Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism have called on the members of their respective faith communities to pray for the nation’s betterment and for election candidates who will uphold freedom of religion in the country. At the same time a coalition of Muslim NGOs and lobby groups have likewise issued their demands, calling on the political parties that are contesting in the elections to address their sectarian concerns which include the rejection of the idea that Malaysia is a secular state and of religious pluralism if it implies that all faith and belief systems are equal.What do these developments tell us about the state of Malaysia’s populist politics today?
Firstly, it would indicate that there is the emergence of an increasingly vocal, visible and powerful parallel civil society that operates along the basis of particularist religio-communitarian demands and which advocates the concerns of their specific targeted constituencies only.
With the rise of religious-based consumer groups, workers groups, professional groups, etc. it would seem that the space of secular civil society seems to be shrinking on all fronts. Issues such as workers rights, gender equality, environmentalism et al. that were once neutral issues in a secular public domain have now been “claimed” by exclusive religious groups instead; and we may eventually end up with the rather absurd situation where instead of having a universal (and secular) lobby on environmental concerns, we are left with Muslim-based, Christian-based, Hindu-based and Buddhist-based sectarian environmental groups instead.
The second observation is that Malaysian society itself seems to be splitting apart, thanks to these centrifugal forces let loose by five decades of divisive sectarian politics that was initially race-based and now increasingly religion-based. If this trend continues, and Malaysian Muslims think they can only find security among fellow Muslims, and the same trend takes hold in the other communities (made evident in Hindraf’s call for Hindu solidarity), then what will happen to the very idea and ideal of a universal Malaysian citizenship that equalizes all of us?
The third observation is that the Malaysian government – which should have dedicated its time and energy to uniting these communities and forging a common public space and common universal identity based on universal citizenship – has singularly failed in this task; and has instead perpetuated the logic of racial, ethic and now religious compartmentalism by catering to the exclusive demands of the sectarians instead. The erroneous logic of racial divisions that underlies the Barisan Nasional (BN) formula has now come full circle, and the rise of religious communitarian politics in Malaysia is the nett result.
What we are witnessing is in fact the slow and calculated dismantling of the ideal of a Malaysian Malaysia itself, thanks to the growing ethnic and religious communitarian politics that we see in the country. The few groups that are calling for the Malaysian state to affirm its secular stand and identity are doing so for the simple reason that they know that only a neutral secular state that treats all the religious communities on an equal basis can in fact stem the rise of divisive religious sectarianism in the country. But does the state listen, and will it heed these warnings?
This leads us to the most alarming observation of all: It is clear that with the present set up of the BN – with Umno dominating the coalition and dictating the terms of BN’s normative politics – that this religious communitarianism is not about to be contained. Instead, we have seen the Umno-led government cave in time and again to the demands of the conservative Islamists who today are even calling for the state to reject any claims of being neutral and secular. Umno’s dependency on the Malay-Muslim vote bank (for fear of losing seats and votes to PAS), means that it will turn to the Malay-Muslims for support. Yet historically, the Umno leadership has cultivated the support of the Malay-Muslim vote bank without attempting to reform or open up the mindset of the Malay-Muslims in the process.
BN’s divisive politics and Umno’s narrow ethnic and religious-based appeal means that it is now stuck in an impasse of its own making: dependent on the Muslim vote, it cultivates that constituency while allowing the communitarians to dominate it at the same time; which in turn means that the tone and tenor of normative populist Malay-Muslim politics remains sectarian and communitarian.
Equally worrying are the signs that non-Malay and non-Muslim communities are losing faith in the Malaysian project itself, and likewise replicating the communalist race and religion-based politics of the majority. In this respect, Hindraf is merely a symptom of a deeper problem in Malaysia, that of communalism taking to the path of political mobilisation.
This then brings us back to the question of what Malaysian identity means today, and whether the very idea of a universal plural democratic Malaysia still has resonance in the country. The results of the 12th general elections in Malaysia may hopefully provide us with some clues as to whether the Malaysian dream of creating a Malaysian Malaysia that is truly plural, democratic and secular still holds, or whether we have passed that invisible line and are now living in a thoroughly divided and sectarian society where the notion of a national body politic is merely a mirage. As a secular democrat, I hope and pray that it is not too late for us to rescue the idea of a democratic and secular Malaysia that is home to us all and with a government that treats all communities with equal respect.
But we end with this one simple warning: The challenge that stands before any government of a society as plural as ours is to develop a national politics that is inclusive and accommodating to all, giving every citizen a space and a place in the national narrative and national identity. The safeguard that ensures that such a politics of universal representation can take place is a secular democratic system where the state remains the honest neutral broker between all communities, and does not favour one community over others.
Any attack on the very idea of secularism is therefore an attack on the value of universal equality itself, and those who condemn secularism as being “un-Godly” or corrupt are really the ones who wish to destroy the secular basis of a free and equal society where every citizen is accorded the respect that she or he is due. When the attacks against secularism come from the representatives of the majority ethnic-religious community (such as was the case with the rise of Hindutva supremacists in India, and Muslims communitarians here in Malaysia), what we face is nothing short of the rise of the tyranny of the majority.
For all its weaknesses, secularism remains the only safeguard we have to keep our country on a democratic track. And for that reason, the democrats among us must be prepared to defend our secular democratic and plural public domain at all costs, come what may.
Please visit Farish Noor’s site The Other Malaysia
Dr. Farish A. Noor is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University of Singapore; and one of the founders of the http://www.othermalaysia.org research site. This commentary first appeared on http://www.malaysiavotes.com
(2) Malaysia: Still Looking for an Islam to call Our Own?, 21 February 2008
by Farish A. Noor
The historian’s lot is a sad one in Malaysia. I say this as a historian who has been forced to witness the relentless murder of our history, enacted time and again, by those whose discomfort with the past informs their definition of comfort in the present. Our national symbols have been taken out of context again and again, so that the keris, which was once a symbol of transcultural hybridity has now become a symbol of ethno-nationalist exclusivism instead. The same has happened to our varied forms of architecture, that were once a blend of Malay, Minang, Javanese, Bugis, Indian, Chinese, Arab and European forms – all of which have been simplified according to the logic of racial-ethnic compartmentalisation.
But what irks me the most, and pains me considerably, is the loss of what used to be referred to as the Indonesian-Malay mosque. The Indonesian-Malay mosque – examples of which include the Masjid Kampung Laut in Kelantan and the mosques of Malacca – was once the norm for all the mosques of Southeast Asia. Furthermore they demonstrate their transnational character when we compare them to the Sinhalese Buddhist image houses (known there as Davatages) that are almost exact copies of the mosques of Malacca, Demak, Palembang etc. Yet today the traditional mosques are being levelled to the ground, to be replaced by Arab and Persian-styled mosques, or worse still the huge (and ugly) ‘Petrodollar’ mosques that we see all over the non-Arab world as well.
Malaysia, and Malaysian-Muslims in particular, seem to have lost their historical bearings and do not know what sort of Muslims they want to be. The emergence of the dreaded moral vigilantes, of exclusive Muslim lobby groups and NGOs, the calls for more Islamic norms to be inculcated in the conduct of governance, the demands for Shariah to be made national law, and the calls for a further Islamisation of Malaysia all seem to stem from a new wave of Muslim political normativity that is so alien to the Islam that was first brought to this part of the world by the Indian-Muslim mystics and missionaries of the 13th to 15th centuries. If in the past Muslim preachers were happy to preach the universal values of Islam using an idiom and discourse that was replete with local cultural references, what we are seeing today is more than simply the Islamisation of Malaysia: it is the Arabisation of our Asian society.
Now I write this without any hint of anti-Arabism in mind. But in a global age where cultural nuances are being effaces and cultural particularities are being flattened out, I am just as wary of the Arabisation of Malaysian society as I am of the Americanisation of Malaysian society. Between Starbucks and MacDonalds on the one hand, and Wahabbism – with its fervent distaste for Sufi mysticism, eclecticism and pluralism on the other – we are lost and still looking for an Islam to call our own.
Malaysia needs an Islam to call its own. Just as it needs a Christianity to call its own, a Buddhism that is its own and a Hinduism that is its own. Why?
The reason is simple enough for anyone to see: Despite the demographic tilt that favours the Muslims of Malaysia, half of this country is made up of Christians, Hindus and Buddhists who are equally part of Malaysia’s social fabric and history. Any religion – Islam, Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism – in Malaysia has to reflect this plural complexity with justice and honesty, and be sensitive to the fact that there are other belief systems that deserve equal standing and respect as well.
Some of Malaysia’s Muslims may speculate about whether Malaysia can turn to Turkey, Pakistan, Sudan or Iran for models to study. But the Turks, Pakistanis, Sudanese and Iranians all live in overwhelmingly Muslim-majority countries where the politics of difference and respect for alterity hardly arises. Likewise the Christians of Greece, Rumania, Italy, Spain etc haven’t the slightest idea about how to live with the realities of religious pluralism as the religious minorities in their midst are equally small.
No, the unique thing about Malaysia is its ethno-linguistic-religious make-up which would baffle most politicians in any other country. Nobody said creating a country like Malaysia was going to be easy. And governing it ain’t a piece of cake either. But if this country is to be governed at all it will have to be a mode of governance that is inclusive, respectful of difference and balanced to all. Likewise the popular modes of religiosity would also have to reflect the diversity of our culture and history.
The recent controversies surrounding the case of Lina Joy, the destruction of Hindu temples, the dispute over Church-building permits et al. all suggest that this spirit of pluralism is wearing thin in the country. And that is why the Indonesian-Malay mosques of the past are so important in the present, with their manifold traces of Malay, Indonesian, Chinese, Indian and Sri Lankan influences: They were built at a time when the Muslims of this region were more comfortable with the idea that we are, fundamentally, a mixed, hybrid community of communities, all living at the centre of the crossroads of Asia.
If the fragile multiculturalism that is Malaysia’s is to be protected and allowed to flourish in the future, then we – Malaysians – will have to nurture the spirit of eclectic pluralism and inject that multicultural spirit into our politics and religious praxis as well. We can begin by learning to live with our complex past and to value the long tradition of cross-cultural and cross-religious borrowing we once had. And if there is to be a renaissance of religion in Asia, let it be one that is genuinely dynamic and inclusive of others too.
Dr. Farish A. Noor is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University of Singapore; and one of the founders of the http://www.othermalaysia.org research site. This commentary first appeared on http://www.malaysiavotes.com
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