Islamic victory goes sour from KL's vengeful prime
Islamic victory goes sour from KL's vengeful prime
By Jasbant Singh
KUALA TERENGGANU, Malaysia (AP): The owner of the Scissors Comb hairdressing salon expects to be out of business soon. Women and men may not cut each other's hair, the local Muslim authorities have decreed.
"All my workers are females and 80 percent of customers are men. I might as well close shop," said Lim Eng Keong.
Like the owners of pubs, movie theaters, pool halls and betting shops, Lim is tasting the bitter aftermath of a voter uprising a year ago that threw out Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's party and elected a puritan Muslim government in eastern Malaysia.
Not only are the 1 million people in Kuala Terengganu being squeezed by Islamic restrictions, they are also being punished by Mahathir's government which has cut off the state's earnings from offshore oil, the foundation of its prosperity.
Until November last year, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, or PAS, controlled only one Malaysian province. The rest were mostly run by Mahathir's United Malay National Organization, which governs Malaysia as a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society where Islam is pre-eminent but religious militancy is firmly discouraged.
In 1998, the iron-fisted Mahathir stirred sweeping discontent by jailing his popular deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, and in elections the following year he paid a price. Although his coalition retained two-thirds of the 193 seats in Parliament, the Islamic party tripled its strength and captured its second state government, Terengganu.
Since then, Mahathir has tried to crush the opposition party by threatening its leaders with prosecution, shutting down its publications and choking off oil royalties.
In Terengganu, men and women line up separately at supermarket registers. Muslim women have to wear headscarves. Muslims are banned from working in the few restaurants that are still allowed to sell liquor. Those jobs can only be held by people of Terengganu's 5-percent Buddhist and Christian minority.
Chief Minister Abdul Hadi Awang, who heads the state government, is also an Islamic preacher. He holds weekly classes to make sure government employees keep the faith.
The burden is heaviest on services, tourism and entertainment, largely run by non-Muslims like hairdresser Lim, an ethnic Chinese, and Gopi Chand, an ethnic Indian grocer.
"No one comes here any more," says Chand. "I thought with Terengganu under PAS, we could become another Brunei, but now there is no oil money, just more strict laws."
Terengganu's white sandy coastline boasts some of the best tourist attractions in Malaysia. But few tour operators are advertising because they fear that Islamic restrictions will put tourists off.
Over the last 22 years, under the rule of Mahathir's party, the state received billions of dollars in oil royalties from the federal government. This year it was expecting 810 million ringgit (US$213 million) from Petronas, the national oil company run by the Prime Minister's office.
But in September, Mahathir's government abruptly announced the money would instead be used to fund infrastructure projects in Terengganu. Which projects? A federal agency would decide, the government said.
"The federal government fears that with the oil money, we can deliver what we promised to the people. They want to cut the lifeline so that we can't move. That is the strategy," Mustafa Ali, Terengganu's economics minister, said in an interview.
Federal officials say the Islamic government cannot be trusted to administer these funds for development. Two other oil- producing Malaysian states, controlled by allies of Mahathir's party, continue to receive royalties.
Salleh Abas, Malaysia's former top judge and now a minister in the PAS government, questions Mahathir's adherence to the federalist principles on which Malaysia is built.
"By denying oil royalties to the Terengganu government, the federal government is showing that it does not recognize the existence of the Terengganu government," he said.