Facing the fundamentalist most urgent challenge in Malaysia

Facing the fundamentalist most urgent challenge in Malaysia

Zainah Anwar, Executive Director Sisters in Islam,
The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

Malay-Muslim politics in Malaysia today is mired in many
uncertainties as the United Malays National Organization (UMNO)
and Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) grapple for an equilibrium to
meet the competing demands of a very fragmented electorate --
those who want a democratic, secular, modern Malaysia; those who
demand an Islamic state with syariah laws; and those who demand a
democratic, modern state but imbibed with Islamic values.

The 1999 general election, held at a time of political turmoil
following the sacking of then deputy prime minister Anwar
Ibrahim, saw PAS making historic inroads, especially in the
northern parts of the country.

The gains came after PAS embarked on a major makeover of its
image and strategies, including the formation of a multi-ethnic
Alternative Front, bringing together Parti Keadilan, the Chinese-
based Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the left-leaning
Malaysian People's Party (PRM). PAS knew it had to win over non-
Muslims if it ever hoped to rule Malaysia.

In public talks and press interviews, PAS leaders downplayed
the party's commitment to an Islamic state and enforcement of the
syariah as the law of the land.

For the first time, PAS talked about Islam through the
language of democracy and human rights, respect for rule of law,
freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, the right
to live free from fear and threat, protecting the rights of all
communities, and so on.

But these pronouncements of newfound democratic principles and
ideals were nothing but rhetoric for political expediency. PAS,
after all, is a party which has tried several times to introduce
a parliamentary bill demanding the death penalty for apostasy,
hardly an action supporting human rights and liberties.

In 1993, it adopted the hudud law in Kelantan which provided
for draconian punishment such as stoning to death and cutting off
hands and feet, and great discrimination against women.

Last year, the Terengganu state government under the
leadership of the radical PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang passed a
hudud law which was in its original draft even more draconian
than the Kelantan law.

One of its provisions stated that a woman who reported rape
would be charged with qazaf (slanderous accusation) and flogged
if she was unable to prove the rape through four Muslim male
eyewitnesses. The resulting outrage forced the PAS government to
amend the bill, but the burden of proof remains on the victim.

The PAS mindset is frozen in medieval jurisprudence, without
the ability or willingness to consider that the application of
Islamic teachings in the 21st century has to change with time and
circumstance.

If the PAS has genuinely changed its Islamic ideology to one
that recognizes differences of opinion, fundamental liberties and
democratic principles, and the social conditions and realities of
contemporary Malaysian society, then it could truly present
itself as a democratic alternative to this very flawed National
Front government.

But the language it speaks at the village level in its
traditional constituencies, and even in the Malay pages of
Harakah, is one of an intolerant and extremist Islam.

It is no different from other hard-line Islamic parties and
movements in the world for whom Islam seems to mean nothing more
than a set of punitive legal precepts, stripped of its ethical
values and world view of justice.

Where does this leave UMNO? The dramatic loss of Malay support
in the past elections has left it grappling with new challenges
for which it still has found no clear answers.

The conundrum for UMNO is that it doesn't have the machinery
nor the intellectual capital to deliver the progressive vision of
Islam of its leadership.

The government's own Islamic Affairs Department and the state-
level Islamic departments are dominated by traditionalist ulama,
most of whom, privately, do not share Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohamad's progressive vision of Islam.

In fact, they went to the same schools and universities as the
PAS ulama, and graduated with the same obscurantist ideas on
issues such as women's rights, dress and modesty, jihad, freedom
of expression, punishment for apostasy, hudud laws, and so on.

These ulema wield tremendous influence throughout society, and
the conservative message they spread churns out fresh fodder more
inclined towards an Islam as represented by PAS rather than UMNO,
but ironically delivered via the government machinery.

UMNO, in trying to prove its own Islamic credentials, has
become hostage to the PAS agenda and framework of Islam because
of its own dismal failure to deliver on a truly alternative
progressive, democratic Islam.

Unlike Indonesia, where the leaders of the two mass-based
Islamic movements have declared that Indonesia should not be an
Islamic state, nor governed by sharia, the Malaysian government
cannot depend on such a public constituency to support any
similar declaration. The political costs would be too high.

For example, during the 2000 attempt to introduce the Islamic
aqidah (faith) Protection Bill, which provides for a one-year
mandatory detention in a faith rehabilitation center for those
who attempt to leave Islam, the pressure to punish Muslims who
leave Islam came not just from PAS and its supporters, but also
from UMNO members and leaders.

The latter could find no enlightened and persuasive answer to
the PAS charge that this government could not be regarded as
Islamic as it provided no punishment for those who leave Islam,
and yet would fine a citizen RM500 (S$240) just for throwing a
cigarette butt on the market floor. PAS, as the true Islamic
party, had already introduced the death penalty for apostasy.

Traditionally, there are three juristic positions on apostasy:
The orthodox view of death to all apostates; the view prescribing
the death penalty only if apostasy is accompanied by rebellion
against the community and its legitimate leadership; and the
third view which holds that even though apostasy is a great sin,
it is not a capital offense, and merits no punishment.

This is the official position of Al-Azhar University, recently
adopted by its progressive Grand Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi.

PAS chose the most extremist juristic opinion to codify into
law -- death.

The government's religious authorities chose a compromise
position: One-year compulsory rehabilitation instead of death.
If, at the end of the detention period, the person still refuses
to repent, then the judge will declare that the person is no
longer a Muslim and order his release.

The irony is that the Koran is explicit in recognizing freedom
of religion, and the Islamic juristic heritage contains a
position that supports freedom of religion.

Therefore, the struggle for the progressive voice of Islam
must necessarily also be a struggle for freedom of expression, as
otherwise the struggle for freedom of religion and choice within
the Islamic framework cannot be sustained.

Civil society plays a very important role in this struggle,
providing alternative opinions and expanding the public space for
citizens to engage in debate and discussion on Islam.

Malaysians are a pragmatic, resilient and moderate people. I
think the PAS reached its peak in the 1999 general election, and
believe that a more progressive Islam in Malaysia will grow,
albeit slowly. I say this for several reasons.