MGG Pillai Commentary View

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UMNO uses Islam without thinking to continue to remain in power

THE GATHERING OF THE converted met yesterday (12 March 2006) to discuss the inexhorable move in Malaysia to be an Islamic state. No governmnent or official representative was there to give its view. That is not to say no UMNO representative was there. He was, but to chart his own support base outside UMNO, after his suspension as an UMNO member. Would he have said what he did had he been in the good books of the party? He got claps and cheers but did he mean what he said? Would his speech have been different had he been an official UMNO representative? No official explanation is given at the best of times for moves taken about Islam and its role in Malaysia. Every one shies of discussing it, is presumed not to discuss it, especially by non-Muslims. So, Malaysia becomes Islamic by default. The non-Malay political parties in the National Front will not discuss, even with UMNO, and will agree with any moves on Islam that UMNO takes. As they did, as they would do if pesky questions about it are asked by opposition members of parliament.

So publicly, the non-Muslim parties in the National Front agree with UMNO's move to make Malaysia an Islamic state – they would not be in the cabinet otherwise – but privately look to NGOs and others to persuade them to oppose it. What was discussed then was not new, but it came too late for it to be useful. But is this how the position of religion should be discussed? It is now an issue even with the Malay-Muslim community. But the National Front government keeps mum as it turns the country Islamic. The constitution is turned upside down, with the Malay version made the primary version, although it was translated into Malay more than 20 years later, and the words have a different meaning when translated into Malay. At the discussion yesterday in Petaling Jaya, one example was given: precepts have been translated into Malay as order. In a dispute, the Malay version holds supreme, so the English meaning is ignored, although that was not the intention of the framers.

At the same time, the Malays, constitutionally Muslims, have accepted as untouchable by the non-Muslim any moves to make Malaysia more Islamic, not on legal principles but on what they think it should be. They may decide otherwise in private, but in public they show a different face, that of the mob, to force Islam and its precepts on the non-Malay. This is challenged by Malays and non-Malays alike, but usually in secret. The speakers at yesterday's forum, including Muslims, said the Malay ground had this fixation that Islam was not allowed to be discussed by the non-believers, who must accept what is given them. History is suspended – whatever the struggle for independence, Malaya would not have got it had not the Malaysian Chinese Association and the Malaysian Indian Congress joined with the UMNO. Today, officially the non-Malay is a lesser breed, and their leaders accept it.

But such gathering as yesterday's would not matter as it is of outsiders in Kuala Lumpur. Some speakers said that similar groups in the state should be enouraged to agree with their views. That is dangerous. There should already be such groups there, in tandem with the capital, that could be brought together to form a united bloc. Any attempt to form it will play into the National Front's scheme of things. This gathering was allowed because the people's problems are put into constitutional focus. It was academic, at best, and what was discussed would never see the light of day. People like to hear contrary views, especially on what the government does, and this was one such. It would not be surprising if the government used the gathering to prove their case.

There is however no discussion on what the man-in-the-street is worried of. He suddenly finds he has no recourse to the courts because of his religion or some other matter. The judiciary, which is his arbiter when he has a problem, now deserts him. The narrow interpretation it gives is mixed up with his religion, and usually denies the relief the non-Muslim asks for. The critical voices have developed now because enough citizens deny the National Front has a right to continued rule. The National Front and its government do not explain, and announces its decisions, as if from Mount Olympus. That is now questioned – by UMNO members and non-Muslim and non-Malay members of the National Front.

Even Islam says there should be discussion before a decision is reached, especially if it affects non-Muslims. So first the government should welcome criticism of its plans, even of making Malaysia an Islamic state, and adopt some of it into its laws. But that would be difficult for a start because it has acted, certainly for more than 35 years, as if its electoral victories gave it the right not to discuss with others what they had planned. This has resulted in passing laws that were soon amended because of the opposition. The Islamic Family Laws Bill is one such. The Muslim women protested. The bill is held in escrow. Plans are afoot to amend it, but the minister in charge, a woman, thought it fit to discuss with the Islamic authorities first before amending it. The question of asking the women is out in the present system.

UMNO has tied itself in knots over Islam. It is pushed by UMNO as a counterweight to the non-Malays, who denied their place in the government and uniformed services, make hay in the private sector. Some of whom get what they want by being close to the prime minister. Since all Malays in Malaysia are by constitutional definition Muslim, this march into an Islamic state would keep out the non-Malays. When it makes laws affecting only Muslims, it finds opposition from the Malays. Out of the blue, Malaysians are told that Islamic Hadhari, an ill-thought politicial version of Islam accepted only in Malaysia, takes precedence over Islam, which Prophet Mohamed had founded in the 7th century. There is a move in Malaysia to judge Islam by its punishments not on what it stands for. There is no attempt to explain Islam, and this is also PAS's fault, to the non-Muslim, whose doubts are ignored because he is not a Muslim.

Islam is seen narrowly by the courts, by Malay judges, who unfortunately confuse precepts in Islam as orders, and their judgment is often not by logic but by their subconscious memory of Islam. This is why there is no avenue for the non-Muslim in seeking justice over a spouse, usually a husband, who has become a Muslim. She cannot go to the civil courts, nor to the sharia courts, which will not entertain her because she is not a Muslim. The confusion has come about because Islam has been introduced into the mainstream unthinkingly. Islam is more than what UMNO or PAS say it is. But UMNO, as head of the National Front, takes a narrow interpretation so that it can better PAS politically, and that spreads to the federal government, and those states it controls. It is confusion today because the non-Malays in the National Front agreed with UMNO on this.

The public forum yesterday brought this out. But the speakers are not in the mainstream of UMNO politics, and those present were mostly non-Muslims. That represented the divide over Islam, even if most of the speakers were Muslim and Malay. If the government continues to keep mum over explaining its policies to the general public, then these views would dominate. The people get their information from other than government sources, and are angry. Continuing to keep quiet and sitting on its high horse will not work, even if Islam is discussed. The importance of this forum is that more Malaysians are interested. But is this debate taking place elsewhere in the country? Perhaps. But unless that also happens independently of Kuala Lumpur, the National Front is safe, and not only on Islam but the government as well.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com