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.