[nasional_list] [ppiindia] Faith on trial in Malaysia
- From: "Ambon" <sea@xxxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 00:03:37 +0100
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Nov 24, 2005
Faith on trial in Malaysia
By Clive S Kessler
Since September 11, 2001, the struggle between militantly radical and
progressive or democratic tendencies - "ungentle" and "gentle" Islam - has
become a matter of urgent importance not only among Muslims but to others
beyond their faith community.
Some observers suggest that the course taken in Malaysia may be of more than
local significance because Malaysia has demonstrated singular success among
Muslim-majority nations in achieving economic growth and the various worldly
attainments associated with it; and because, in opposition to the new militant
Islamism, its rulers have promoted and identified themselves with modern,
progressive and liberal forms of Islam.
Islam Hadhari
During his 22 years as prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad opposed the Islamists
with conviction and a stridency that often served their political objectives
more than his. With more convincing religious credentials, his successor,
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, has, in a less contentious manner, pursued the same
objective, now embodied in the project of promoting what his government terms
"Islam Hadhari".
This approach not only sees how the Islamic faith has shaped the character and
ethos of Islamic civilization. It also recognizes that, as it exists today, the
Islamic faith itself, rather than having been given once and for all time in
immutable form, has been shaped in its historical evolution by that of Islamic
civilization generally and in which the faith's human history has been couched.
Such recognition of the "historicity"of faith (the human history of whatever it
is that a community of believers has received, or believes it has, from divine
revelation - and therefore of the fact and legitimacy of continuing religious
change and innovation faithful to the original divine inspiration) is the
essential foundation in all religious faith traditions of any coherent and
persuasive "modernist" position.
So far, so good, and so encouraging, perhaps. Yet the outlook for modern
understandings of Islam and their champions in Malaysia is not bright. Several
disquieting indications and developments are undeniable. Malaysian Islamist
activists have long targeted religious modernists and progressives, seeking not
so much to argue with or against them as to stigmatize them as un-Islamic,
apostates and renegades. This is now the fate, too, of the proponents of Islam
Hadhari.
Attacks from without and within
Attacks against this latest official restatement of Malaysian Islamic modernism
have been mounted not simply by the militant Islamist radicals inside and
beyond the Islamic opposition party PAS (Partai Islam Se Malaysia or Islamic
Party of Malaysia). Nor have the attacks only come from the legions of
sympathizers inside the bloated federal and state Islamic affairs
bureaucracies, which have swelled in size and pretensions over the last 20
years as UMNO (United Malay's National Organization) under Mahathir and PAS
engaged in unrelenting competition to outbid each other in what has become an
escalating "Islamist policy auction".
Attacks have even been mounted from within UMNO, the dominant Malay-based party
in the governing Barisan Nasional coalition, and by members of the prime
minister's own ministry.
These attacks have been carefully directed not against the prime minister but
against certain less "protected" and secure surrogates, such as the courageous
and principled women's and human rights non-governmental organization, Sisters
In Islam.
These onslaughts do not come only from the supposedly "backward" and
"regressive"elements in Malay society situated well beyond the communicative
reach of the prime minister's party and the UMNO's middle-class appeals.
In September an organization known as the Muslim Professional Forum held an
all-day event to give unbridled rein to such criticism of the prime minister's
religious orientation and supporters under the banner "Liberal Islam: A Clear
and Present Danger".
Meanwhile, driven by righteous local and state-level zealots and vigilantes,
the hand of government was forced into official action in the state of
Terengganu against the Sky Kingdom cult, a fringe syncretist community led by
Ayah Pin, an amiable and apparently harmless old eccentric. Yet the underlying
issues involved here are not of fringe but central concern for the nature of
the modern Malaysian state and its citizenship. Some of these issues, long
unresolved, are now before the courts due to the arrest of Sky Kingdom
adherents.
Does the constitutional protection for freedom of religious belief and worship
apply to all individuals? If so, how is this to be reconciled with the
constitutional view that all Malays are by definition Muslims, subject to
ensuing legislation placing all Muslims, their manner of life and inner beliefs
under the supervision of the religious (Sharia) courts and religious
bureaucracies? Can one cease to be a Muslim, freely choose to leave the faith
community of Islam? A recent court decision held that a person who purports to
do so, renouncing Islam by deed poll, does not have the right to have the
designation "Muslim" removed from their national identity card or in the
National Citizen Registry System.
Freedom of religion
Here lie profound yet long-unresolved issues. Does the Malaysian constitution
recognize, and do the state's multifarious government departments respect and
are they obliged to uphold, freedom of, from and also in religion? Long
obscured, that question is now before the courts. Civil, not religious, court
judges will have to decide in cases involving Sky Kingdom followers whether
people are first of all citizens and only then Muslims or in the "special" case
of citizens from the majority population, whether they are in the first
instance Muslims and only subsequent to that also citizens. The religious
authorities understandably take the latter view; but presumably the view of the
constitution, its laws and its courts is, or ought to be, the former.
Will the judges see things that way and have the courage to say so? How far
might any decision they make be appealed? And what will be the implications of
the ultimate decision for Mahathir's most fateful, yet ill-advised innovation:
his decision to raise the status of the Sharia courts to a "co-equal" status
with the civil law courts, and so to make their decisions, in their own area of
jurisdiction, unappealable in, and irreversible by action of, the civil court
system? (His decision was carried out via a constitutional amendment in 1988.
It was hoped the move would enhance Mahathir's own standing in the eyes of
Islamists eager for further state-mandating of Islam.)
Interesting times lie ahead, not least because faith itself, or rather the
government's ambiguous and even vacillating management of it, is now arguably
on trial.
Clive S Kessler is emeritus professor, School of Sociology & Anthropology, at
The University of New South Wales, Sydney. He has been researching and writing
on Malaysian affairs, especially on Islam and politics, for more than 35 years.
(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus )
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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