Where is Malaysia after decades of Islamisation?

By Zainah Anwar

COMMENT | After decades of Islamisation, where are you Malaysia? I guess the easy answer is: lost. We have lost the dominant national narrative of who we were, who we are, who we want to be, and what we believe in.

What we are seeing today is the willful and destructive tearing apart of Malaysia’s social fabric by politicians who only care about getting or staying in power.

I was a political journalist from 1978-1984, witnessing the rise of political Islam globally, and in Malaysia particularly.

I covered the rivalry between Umno and PAS for the hearts and minds of the Malays, and travelled into the deep kampungs in Kelantan, Terengganu, and Kedah, documenting the impact of this rivalry on the Malay community in these conservative Malay-dominated states.

I wrote my Master’s thesis on the rise of the dakwah (preaching) movement among students in Malaysia.

I co-founded Sisters in Islam (SIS) with seven other friends and eventually Musawah at the global level - to challenge the ways governments, politicians, religious leaders, and Islamist non-state actors use and abuse Islam to justify discrimination against women and resist the demands for change towards justice, equality, democracy, and fundamental liberties.

As a journalist, I witnessed the radicalisation of PAS when the ‘Young Turks’ in 1982 overthrew the more nationalist leadership of Asri Muda.

And, ideologically led by Abdul Hadi Awang, pronounced the Malaysian Constitution as an infidel constitution, Umno an infidel party, and began demanding an Islamic state with the Quran and Sunnah as the Constitution of the country, and Hudud laws as the criminal law for Muslims.

Umno’s subsequent reaction to the changing political and societal landscape was to increasingly turn to Islam for political legitimacy. And at the Umno general assembly in September 1982, it launched its own Islamisation policy.

Thus, began a headlong holier-than-thou battle of who is more Islamic, and the precipitous use and abuse of race and religion for political gain that has led us to where we are today.

Basically, I feel then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and the man he chose to deliver his Islamisation policy, Anwar Ibrahim, lost control of their Islamic agenda to the Islamists within their own bureaucracy, in the opposition, and in society.

And this has led to today’s depth and breadth of conservatism, intolerance, ignorance, and bigotry within society.

Unchanging understanding of Islam.

The government’s Islamisation policy was in fact taken over by the very Islamists they sought to challenge. There was in the end not much difference between the religious leaders in the BN government and those in PAS.

They went to the same schools and the same universities, and graduated with the same obscurantist ideas that deny the realities of living in a modern democratising multi-ethnic society.

On the critical issues of justice, equality, and fundamental liberties, they were on the same side on critical issues that included women’s rights, dress and modesty, ijtihad (effort, endeavour, diligence) independent reasoning to arrive at a legal principle), freedom of expression, punishment for apostasy, Hudud laws.

Neither the religious leaders in government nor in PAS believe that how we understand Islam and how we use it as a source of law and public policy can change and must change with changing times and circumstances to ensure that justice is done.

They willfully refused to recognise and acknowledge the difference between what is divine and infallible and what is a human effort at understanding the infinite message of God, and therefore fallible and changeable.

They refuse to believe there are differences between rules that govern the believers’ relationship with God - ibadat - and the believers’ relationship with other human beings - mu’amalat.

On mu’amalat laws, jurists of over 1,000 years ago have favoured human reason, human experience, and discretion to serve the well-being of society, depending on time and place.

We all know the famous example of Imam Shafi’i who changed his legal rulings when he moved from Iraq to Egypt - because of different circumstances and social conditions.

This was a principle established over 1,100 years ago. It is not a new invention of so labelled “Westernised” feminists. It is our own Muslim tradition that we shunted aside.

Lack of progressive Islamic figures

In responding to the PAS challenge, Umno in fact became hostage to the PAS agenda and framework of Islam because it did not have the intellectual capital, the political will, nor the courage to deliver a truly alternative progressive, democratic Islam to meet the needs of a modernising, multi-ethnic society like Malaysia.

Unlike Indonesia, Malaysia did not have progressive authoritative figures within politics, academia, or society who had the will and courage to publicly define and strongly speak of an Islam that is compassionate, inclusive, democratic, and just.

Indonesia had giants like Gus Dur at the religious and political level, Harun Nasution at the academic level who led a progressive reform of the curriculum at the Islamic university network in Indonesia, and Nurcholish Majid, a formidable public intellectual who believed in Islamic reform, in the need for Muslims to embrace democracy and pluralism and who coined the popular slogan “Islam yes, Islamic state no” that gave courage to young democracy and human rights activists to stand up to the intolerance and dogmatism of the political Islamists.

Alas, in Malaysia, the main players who defined Islam were political actors who used religion to stay in power or to get into power. Islam for them was a political project.

This use and abuse of religion for political gain has had a corrosive impact on Malay society caught up in the throes of Islamic revivalism. The damage was made worse, not least because there wasn’t any dominant counter-narrative to challenge the orthodoxy and intolerance being preached.

Is it any wonder that what we get today is an Islam that has reversed the gains we have made as once the model progressive democratising country of the Muslim world and the Global South?

It has led to epochal changes to all aspects of Malaysian society, at the political, societal, and legal levels – all driven by political interests, rather than to bring about a more just, honest, and diligent society that was initially promised.

From Mahathir’s Islamisation policy, we then entered Abdullah Badawi’s Islam Hadhari phase, a civilisational Islam “to enable Muslims in Malaysia to become the vanguard of a new civilisation that can bring about progressive and comprehensive change.”

Yet again, without champions within the system to deliver on his vision, Islam Hadhari, like Mahathir’s Islamisation project, was hijacked and redefined in implementation by dogmatic ideologues and the traditionalist ulama that dominated the Islamic political landscape in Malaysia.

Islamists push back

Abdullah in fact opened up spaces for a more compassionate and inclusive Malaysia and a more compassionate and inclusive Islam to take root.

He spoke about the need to understand Islam in the context of changing times and circumstances, he believed in the need for reinterpretation to deal with the rights of women and changing realities in the context of the 21st century. But he had no buyers within his own government.

Instead, the Islamist ideologues within and outside the government saw Abdullah’s position as a threat to their political project to establish an Islamic state and supremacy of syariah law.

In the face of civil society’s mobilisation on issues such as moral policing, equality for women, and freedom of religion, PAS and its Islamist allies within and outside government began a nationwide campaign in 2005 against two manufactured threats: an external one called “Bahaya Islam Liberal”, an Indonesian ideology that they claimed was penetrating Malaysia; and the other internal, the threat of murtad (apostasy) in Malaysia, precipitated by court cases on freedom of religion and rights of non-Muslims in cases such as Lina Joy, Shamala, Kaliamal – all women who went to court because they felt their fundamental rights guaranteed under the Federal Constitution were violated in the name of an obscurantist understanding of Islam.

In the face of this growing public contestation against the dominant orthodoxy on this range of issues, the Islamists strategised and organised to demonise the NGOs standing up for women’s rights and human rights.

A plethora of new Islamist NGOs were set up to “defend” Islam, raining attacks on liberal Muslims and human rights groups. SIS was a major target of attacks.

What was most dangerous was the silence of the political leadership and the outright complicity of the government’s religious authorities with the Islamist NGOs.

A series of fatwas were issued against secularism, liberalism, pluralism, feminism, kongsi raya, yoga, and tomboys.

Islamist NGOs worked closely with various Islamic authorities at federal and state levels to denounce liberal Islam. Some of them received state funds to organise forums and demonstrations against the “dangers of liberal Islam”.

A new syariah section headed by a known Islamist was set up in the Attorney-General’s Chambers to ensure that all laws would be Syariah-compliant.

Islamic supremacy, Malay supremacy

The failure of the then-new prime minister to deliver his promise of change and the increasing assault on the rights of non-Muslims and against progressive Muslims and the barefaced racist and religious supremacist language at the Umno general assembly in 2006 was, I believe, the turning point in this headlong plunge towards intolerance and violation of the Constitution and rule of law in the name of Islam.

The Islamist cry of “Defending Islam” was now twinned with the slogan “defending Malay rights”.

By the time the 2008 elections came, Abdullah’s landslide victory in 2004 was transformed into a historic loss for the ruling coalition, when, for the first time ever, BN lost its two-thirds majority in Parliament and lost five of the 11 states in Peninsular Malaysia.

Abdullah was ousted in 2009, blamed by his own party for its losses. Umno was losing its legitimacy. The shrill battle cry of “Islam under threat” was now coupled with “Malays under threat”, “Ketuanan Melayu diancam” (Malay supremacy under threat), embedding deeper, the fear and hatred of the other. And that includes Muslims who think differently.

New Malay supremacist NGOs sprung up, joining hands with Islamist groups to attack liberals and non-Muslims in their campaign for “Keagungan Islam” (Islamic supremacy) and “Kedaulatan Bangsa Melayu” (Malay supremacy). There is no room for “others”.

2009, under the new leadership of Najib Razak who actually warned Umno to “change or perish”, brought no respite to the rakyat. Incident after incident piled up and we felt as if the country was going to implode.

Issues on whether a dead person was a Muslim or not, whether a father who converted to Islam had the right to unilaterally convert his underage children, the sentencing of Kartika to caning for drinking a glass of beer in Pahang... the endless sledgehammer of persecution in the name of Islam went on.

What I saw was a desperate dying ruling elite who chose to systematically identify and demonise progressive Muslims, human rights groups, minorities, and cultural practices, one by one, as threats to Islam, to Malay dominance, and to the rulers.

Religion used by the state

Instead of making friends, Umno created more enemies and manufactured more threats to maintain its shrinking political base.

Again, and again in Malaysia, those who defended the rights of citizens to exercise their fundamental liberties were treated as offenders, while those who incited fear and hatred and inflamed racial and religious sentiments were given the upper hand to dictate the agenda through compliance, support, or inaction by key state institutions.

How many times have I and other SIS leaders of that time been called to the police station or Bukit Aman for questioning?

I told them they were wasting their time and resources questioning us. They should instead be investigating those characters and groups who lodged all those dozens of police reports against us. They posed a threat to national well-being. Not Sisters in Islam.

All these relentless pummellings of what is good for the country, in the end, led to the epochal moment in May 2018 when a party that was in power since independence in 1957 eventually lost power.

The inevitable finally happened. My friends and I basked in hope and optimism that all good things were possible in this new Malaysia.

Alas…

What happened last year was so easily predictable. It is not the tahfiz school students who are the problem.

It is Umno and its BN partners who delivered an Islamisation policy, devoid of any strategies, any knowledge, any courage to deal with the impact of giving more power and money and legitimacy to the conservative political-religious forces within government and in society.

They had a political project and the government kindly and generously handed them a silver platter. They let loose this tiger on us, for decades, unchallenged except by civil society, not least the brave and courageous Sisters in Islam.

And yet, it is us, those who believe in a multi-ethnic, democratic, progressive Malaysia as envisaged in the Rukun Negara who get demonised and fatwa-ed.

The ‘green wave’

And now these politicians reap what they have sown. As one writer/historian said, where language leads, conduct follows.

Battle cries drown out democratic persuasion. By slow degrees, belligerence and self-righteousness make cooperation impossible.

Today, it is Umno that has been decimated. It is Bersatu and PAS and what they stand for that have reaped the most benefit from the relentless manufacturing of fear and hatred of the other.

And the chasm between those who believe in a more democratic, diverse, and just Malaysia and those who believe in the supremacy of Islam and the Malays has grown wider.

The man who led and initiated the Islamist movement in this country is now the prime minister. He owes this country a debt to redress the damage done.

He needs to summon the political will and courage to offer a new alternative narrative of a just, progressive, and inclusive Islam that embraces the diversity and richness of this multi-ethnic and multi-religious country.

The scholarship exists, and the legal concepts and principles for change towards justice and equality exist within the rich Muslim legal tradition. What is needed is the political will to translate this into action.

More conservatism, intolerance, discrimination in the name of Islam, more fear, ignorance, and cowardice to deal with this challenge will only lead the Pakatan Harapan government to where Umno is today.

Neither Harapan nor Umno can win playing a holier-than-thou game vis-à-vis PAS. Historically, PAS has been the main beneficiary of Malay disaffection caused by each Umno crisis. We have seen this repeatedly.

Even then, the gains PAS was able to make had always been when it was in alliance with another more moderate party. We saw this in the 1990 elections when it went into alliance with the breakaway Umno faction, Semangat 46, and swept control of Kelantan.

In 1999, amid the Reformasi movement, the PAS alliance with Keadilan and DAP in Barisan Alternatif gave PAS the leadership of the opposition in Parliament, with 27 seats.

And in this last election, PAS made its biggest gains in alliance with Bersatu, amid yet again an Umno in crisis.

So, I do not believe that a vote for PAS is necessarily a vote for an Islamic state, not in 1999, not in 2022. The fears of a “green tide” of Islamisation in 1999 were not borne out in the 2004 elections when PAS lost all but six seats.

The promise of Abdullah Badawi for a kinder, gentler, inclusive, more democratic Malaysia as the leader of Umno and prime minister of Malaysia won BN an unprecedented victory at the polls.

Ball in unity govt’s court

Can this talk of a “green wave” today once again prove to be ephemeral in the next general elections, as it did in 2004? The ball is in the court of Harapan and Anwar.

Can this government deliver on its promise of transforming Malaysia into a more democratic, progressive, inclusive, and socially just country?

Can this prime minister spearhead a new positive national narrative that will inspire confidence to counter the “Malays under threat” and “Islam under threat” destructive narrative that has shredded the social fabric of this country and poisoned its politics?

Can it jettison an Umno that still fails to see the writing on the wall, that actually would rather see the party perish than change its leadership?

Can it bring the majority of Malays back on the road that recognises that this country cannot survive nor can the Malays thrive if we don’t practice the politics of accommodation?

A zero-sum game where one community gains at the expense of another does not make for political stability and prosperity in a multi-ethnic society. Sharing power and sharing the wealth of the nation was the foundation on which our constitutional democracy was built.

The strategy is simple for this Harapan government. It must deliver. Who doesn’t want to live in a peaceful, democratic, prosperous, and socially just Malaysia?

This certainly beats living in a country where men and women are not equal, where Muslims and non-Muslims are not equal, where laws assert different rights for Muslim men, Muslim women, and citizens of other faiths, where any manner of fun is considered a sin and must be forbidden.

It’s not rocket science to figure out what kind of Malaysia we, the rakyat, want to live in. It is not rocket science to figure out how best to do this. It needs an action plan, political will, and courage.

ZAINAH ANWAR is a co-founder and former executive director of Sisters in Islam and the co-founder and director of Musawah, a global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family.