Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times Read online

  Although Dr. Mahathir claimed that the leaders of the coalition component parties were "comfortable" with his concept, his declaration caused an uproar throughout the country, which the mainstream press consciously ignored. Much of the concern was expressed in closed-door meetings or anonymously on the Internet. Senior government officials insisted it was a matter of semantics, that nothing had changed in terms of policy or law, and nor would there be any change.[112] In reality, Dr. Mahathir's announcement increased UMNO-PAS friction and made life more problematic for Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and other religious minorities, comprising 40 per cent of the population. The Information Department distributed a booklet, "Malaysia is an Islamic State", giving four supporting definitions by ulama which the government mistakenly assumed would end the debate.[113] Instead, the publication inflamed the situation by clearly relegating non-Muslims to a secondary position, and eventually was withdrawn.[114] Government officials sought to reassure non-Muslims that they were protected by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of worship, but that was cold comfort in view of Dr. Mahathir's frequent amendment of the Constitution for political reasons.

  Under pressure to produce an operational blueprint for its own proposed Islamic state, PAS released a document at the end of 2003 that reinforced the party's hardline image. Until then, PAS had been able to tiptoe around the subject by pointing to its constitution, which identified the party's objective as a vague and more benign "Islamic society". Any chance of persuading the public that PAS's Islamic state would be moderate was lost when Fadzil Mohamad Noor, the party's accommodative president, died in 2002 and was replaced by the conservative Abdul Hadi Awang, chief minister of Trengganu. While the PAS plan did not specifically mention a theocratic state, the press portrayed it otherwise,[115] and Hadi's advocacy of hudud and death for apostasy in Trengganu gave the party an uncompromising face. Although PAS condemned the "September 11" attacks, a party initiative to declare non-violent jihad against the United States after its invasion of Afghanistan, together with its support for al-Qaeda's Osama bin Laden and the Mullah Omar-led Taliban regime, further battered the party's reputation as a responsible, democratic movement dedicated to gradualist change.[116]

  Confusing matters, Dr. Mahathir started referring to himself as a "Muslim fundamentalist", somehow identifying with the Islamists against whom he had long waged ideological war. Of course, Dr. Mahathir had not changed his outlook. His facile explanation, "I follow the fundamentals of the Muslim religion", betrayed a tactical objective. By describing himself as a fundamentalist, Dr. Mahathir was taking a jab at the West over its preference for "moderate" as opposed to "fundamentalist" Muslims in the "war on terror", and displaying his unhappiness with the West's negative portrayal of Islam generally. It helped get his tough message across in the Muslim world and afforded him some political protection in Malaysia against the stridently anti-American PAS.

  Most non-Muslim Malaysians ignored such rhetoric and rallied behind Dr. Mahathir as the extent of the global terrorists threat became apparent and the government's policy of detaining Islamic extremists appeared vindicated. But the Malays remained as divided as ever over Dr. Mahathir. As soon as he retired in October 2003, his successor did what was required to win an imminent election: Abdullah Badawi waged rhetorical war on corruption, cancelled huge infrastructure projects and acted as if Reformasi was his natural platform. His greatest assets were his agreeable personality, his Islamic scholarly background and the fact that he was not the demonized Dr. Mahathir. In lieu of further concessions to PAS, Abdullah produced a new formulation called Islam Hadhari, or Civilizational Islam, his own vehicle for showcasing Malaysia as a moderate Muslim country promoting economic development, progress and harmony. Abdullah's crushing victory, capturing 199 of 219 parliamentary seats, was achieved mainly at the expense of PAS, whose representation dropped from 27 seats to 6, while the party also lost control of Trengganu and held Kelantan by a thread. Although PAS actually recorded a slight increase in the popular vote from 1999, the election was a significant setback for the party.

  Yet neither Abdullah's huge majority nor Islam Hadhari's stress on universal values would arrest the advance of a strict Islamist ideology, which had built up momentum over a couple of decades and taken on a life of its own. Righteous officials in bloated federal and state religious bureaucracies raided homes in the name of moral policing, splitting families where spouses were of different faiths and separating children from their parents.[117] Non-Muslims who sought legal redress were stymied by Dr. Mahathir's 1988 constitutional amendment giving sharia and civil courts mutually exclusive jurisdiction. Civil courts generally refused to hear cases involving family and Islamic matters, even where non-Muslims were trying to free their wives from rehabilitation centers or recover their children. In what amounted to a rebuke to the Mahathir administration, Judge Abdul Hamid Mohamad said in a ruling in the Federal Court, Malaysia's highest court, that Parliament should act to define jurisdictions clearly, rather than expect the courts to resolve the issue.[118]

  In a closely-followed case, a Malay convert to Christianity was denied the right to switch religions. After converting at 26 and being baptized in 1998, Azlina Jailani applied to have her conversion legally recognized. Although her name change to Lina Joy was accepted in 1999 and noted on her identity card, her change of religion was not. Hoping to live openly as a Christian, she filed suit in the Federal Court, but in 2007 it rejected her appeal to have the word "Islam" deleted from the document. Two judges said in their majority decision that "a person cannot, at one's whims and fancies, renounce or embrace a religion".[119] Unable to remove the legal barrier to marrying her Christian fiance — he would have had to convert to Islam — Lina Joy is believed to have gone abroad to start a new life.

  Despite Abdullah's enthusiasm for Islam Hadhari, one of whose ten principles is "protection of the rights of minority groups", he showed little interest in defending religious freedom. Unlike Dr. Mahathir, who at least slapped down those extremists he considered a threat to his interests, Abdullah governed passively and let religious zealots mock his claim to be heading a moderate Muslim administration. He seemed unable to resist pressures to increase the pace and range of Islamization. All policewomen, regardless of race and religion, were required to wear the traditional tudung head-covering for official functions. Mainstream books were banned, among them three by British religious writer Karen Armstrong described by Chandra Muzaffar, a public intellectual, as "intellectually illuminating and fair in their treatment of Islam".[120] When Islamic militants demonstrated against attempts to hold an inter-faith dialogue organized by "Article 11", a coalition of 13 religious and human rights groups named after the constitutional article that guarantees religious freedom, Abdullah backed the extremists. He shut down "Article 11" in 2006 in the interests of peace on the streets.

  The extent of the morass bequeathed by Dr. Mahathir and aggravated by Abdullah, with Islam defining and dividing Malaysian politics, was clear by the firestorm ignited by Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak's comment on 17 July 2007. He said Malaysia was an Islamic state and had never been secular.[121] It contradicted the historical record and split the Cabinet and the community.[122] Abdullah expressed his opinion, that Malaysia was neither a theocratic nor a secular state but a parliamentary democracy, implicitly repudiating both his predecessor and successor.[123] After 50 years of independence that included 22 years of Dr. Mahathir trying to reinvent Islam and out-pray PAS, Malaysia's record of religious and racial tolerance was under serious threat.

  Notes

  Patricia Martinez, "Perhaps He Deserved Better: The Disjuncture between Vision and Reality in Mahathir's Islam", in Bridget Welsh, ed., Reflections: The Mahathir Years (Washington: Southeast Asia Studies Program, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 2004), p. 28.

  Ibid., p. 30.

  Farish A. Noor, "How Mahathir Became 'Mahazalim'", in The Other Malaysia: Writings on Malaysia
's Subaltern History (Kuala Lumpur: Silverfishbooks, 2002), pp. 142-144.

  Patricia Martinez, "Perhaps He Deserved Better", p. 36.

  John Funston, "Malaysia", in Greg Fealy and Virginia Hooker, eds, Voices of Islam in Southeast Asia: A Contemporary Sourcebook (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2006), p. 54.

  M. Sufian Hashim, "The Relationship between Islam and the State in Malaya", Intisari, vol. 1, no. 1, 1962, pp. 7-22.

  John Funston, "Malaysia", in Voices of Islam in Southeast Asia, p. 54.

  Ibid., p. 51.

  Ibid., p. 54.

  Ibid., p. 58.

  Ibid., pp. 55-56.

  Chandra Muzaffar, Islamic Resurgence in Malaysia (Petaling Jaya: Penerbit Fajar Bakti Sdn. Bhd., 1987), p. 3.

  R.S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy, Malaysian Politics Under Mahathir (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 83.

  John Funston, "Political Careers of Mahathir Mohamad and Anwar Ibrahim: Parallel, Intersecting and Conflicting Lives", IKMAS Working Papers (Institute of Malaysian and International Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia), no. 15 (July 1998): i-iv, 1-32.

  Ibid.

  Ibid.

  Mahathir bin Mohamad, The Malay Dilemma (Singapore: Times Books International, 1999 edition).

  Mahathir Mohamad, Menghadapi Cabaran (Kuala Lumpur: Pustaka Anatara, 1976).

  Mahathir Mohamad, The Challenge (Petaling Jaya: Pelanduk Publications (M) Sdn Bhd., 1986).

  Mahathir bin Mohamad, The Malay Dilemma, p. 173.

  Ibid., pp. 157-173.

  Ibid., p. 173.

  Patricia Martinez, "Mahathir, Islam, and the New Malay Dilemma", in Ho Khai Leong and James Chin, eds, Mahathir's Administration: Performance and Crisis in Governance (Singapore: Times Media Pte. Ltd., 2001), p. 221.

  Email correspondence with Greg Barton, Herb Feith Research Professor for the Study of Indonesia, Monash University, 4 June 2008.

  Mahathir Mohamad, The Challenge, p. 64.

  Patricia Martinez, "Mahathir, Islam, and the New Malay Dilemma", p. 223.

  Mahathir Mohamad, The Challenge, p. 74.

  Ibid., p. 82.

  Email correspondence with Greg Barton, 4 June 2008.

  Musa Hitam, "We Were Followers", Far Eastern Economic Review, 9 October 2003, http://www.feer.com/articles/2003/0310_09/p024region.html (accessed 19 January 2006).

  R.S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy, Malaysian Politics Under Mahathir, p. 85.

  Khoo Boo Teik, Paradoxes of Mahathirism: An Intellectual Biography of Mahathir Mohamad (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 161.

  R.S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy, Malaysian Politics Under Mahathir, p. 85.

  Patricia Martinez, "Mahathir, Islam, and the New Malay Dilemma", p. 218.

  Mahathir Mohamad, speech at UMNO General Assembly, 10 September 1982.

  R.S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy, Malaysian Politics Under Mahathir, p. 86.

  Patricia Martinez, "Mahathir, Islam, and the New Malay Dilemma", p. 219.

  Mahathir Mohamad, speech in London 2000, cited in Patricia Martinez, "Mahathir, Islam, and the New Malay Dilemma", p. 219.

  Mahathir Mohamad, The Challenge, pp. 105-106.

  Patricia Martinez, "Mahathir, Islam, and the New Malay Dilemma", p. 219.

  Khoo Boo Teik, Paradoxes of Mahathirism, p. 162.

  Shanti Nair, Islam in Malaysian Foreign Policy (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 91.

  Patricia Martinez, "Mahathir, Islam, and the New Malay Dilemma", p. 232.

  Ibid., p. 233.

  Ibid., p. 235.

  Mahathir Mohamad, speech at UMNO General Assembly, 8 November 1991.

  Zainuddin Maidin, The Other Side of Mahathir (Kuala Lumpur: Utusan Publications & Distributors Sdn. Bhd., 1994), pp. 119-120.

  Ibid., pp. 117-118.

  Patricia Martinez, "Mahathir, Islam, and the New Malay Dilemma", p. 224.

  Ibid., p. 222.

  Ibid., p. 219.

  Patricia Martinez, "Perhaps He Deserved Better", p. 34.

  Mahathir Mohamad, speech at UMNO General Assembly, 8 November 1991, cited in The Other Side of Mahathir, p. 114.

  Patricia Martinez, "Mahathir, Islam, and the New Malay Dilemma", p. 222.

  Mahathir Mohamad, The Challenge, p. 105.

  Patricia Martinez, "Mahathir, Islam, and the New Malay Dilemma", p. 242.

  Ibid., pp. 238-239.

  Ibid., p. 240. The role of such rehabilitation centres was publicized in 2007, when the opposition Democratic Action Party supported the case of an Indian, Revathi Masoosai, 29, the daughter of Muslim converts who was raised as a Hindu by her grandmother. When Revathi applied to a sharia court in Malacca to leave Islam officially, she was charged with apostasy and confined to an Islamic rehabilitation centre in Selangor for six months. Her baby, 15 months, was taken from Revathi's Hindu husband and given to her Muslim parents. Revathi said that during her detention in jail-like conditions, she was denied visitors and religious officials tried to force her to pray, wear a headscarf and eat beef, forbidden for Hindus. Claudia Theophilus, "Malaysian Family Split by Faith", AlJazeera.net, 7 May 2007, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2007/05/200852513390760277.html (accessed 9 April 2009). "Malaysia Woman Freed after 180 Days in Detention for Apostasy", Kyodo News, 6 July 2007, http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070706/kyodo/d8q70sq00.html (accessed 8 April 2009).

  Patricia Martinez, "Perhaps He Deserved Better", p. 37.

  Patricia Martinez, "Mahathir, Islam, and the New Malay Dilemma", p. 239.

  Patricia Martinez, "Perhaps He Deserved Better", p. 37.

  Zainah Anwar, "Don't Let Moderate Islam Get Hijacked", Straits Times, 8 November 2006.

  John Funston, "Malaysia", in Voices of Islam in Southeast Asia, p. 58.

  Stephen Duthie, "Al-Arqam Sect Faces Wrath of Malaysia, Other Nations", Asian Wall Street Journal, 4 August 1994.

  Ibid.

  John Funston, "Malaysia", Voices of Islam in Southeast Asia, p. 58, fn 7.

  Patricia Martinez, "Mahathir, Islam, and the New Malay Dilemma", p. 232.

  Email correspondence with Greg Barton, 4 June 2008.

  Dr. Mahathir did, however, believe in the use of violence in certain circumstances. For example, he secretly provided the Muslim Bosnians with heavy weapons when war broke out in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.

  Interview with Dr. Abdul Rahman Aziz, deputy director of the Institute of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad's Thoughts, 26 February 2007.

  Patricia Martinez, "Perhaps He Deserved Better", p. 38.

  Karminder Singh Dhillon, Malaysian Foreign Policy in the Mahathir Era (1981-2003): Dilemmas of Development (Singapore: NUS Press, 2009), p. 255.

  Email correspondence with Greg Barton, 4 June 2008.

  Clive S. Kessler, "Faith on Trial in Malaysia", http://www.atimes.com/atimes/printN.html (accessed 24 November 2005).

  Zainuddin Maidin, The Other Side of Mahathir, p. 118.

  Harold Crouch, Government & Society in Malaysia (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1996), p. 172.

  Ibid., p. 172, fn 62.

  Email correspondence with Leslie Lopez, 3 May 2008.

  Shanti Nair, Islam in Malaysian Foreign Policy, p. 43.

  Email correspondence with Greg Barton, 4 June 2008.

  John Funston, "Malaysia", Voices of Islam in Southeast Asia, p. 55.

  Patricia A. Martinez, "The Islamic State or the State of Islam in Malaysia", Contemporary Southeast Asia 23, no. 3 (December 2001): 478.

  Farish A. Noor, "PAS Post-Fadzil Noor: Future Directions and Prospects", in Trends in Southeast Asia, no. 8 (August 2002), Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, p. 15.

  Farish A. Noor, "Pharisees at My Door", in The Other Malaysia, pp. 250-251.

  Farish A. Noor, "There Was Once a Religion Called Science: A Fable for Our Troubled Times", in The Other Malaysia, p. 319.

  Harold Crouch, Government & Society in Malaysia, pp. 169-170.

  Email correspondence with Greg Barton, 4 June 2008.

  Patricia Martinez, "Mahathir, Islam, and the New
Malay Dilemma", p. 247.

  Patricia Martinez, "Perhaps He Deserved Better", p. 32.

  Farish A. Noor, "'Malaysia Boleh?' — PAS and the Malaysian Success Story", in The Other Malaysia, pp. 127-128.

  Patricia A. Martinez, "The Islamic State or the State of Islam in Malaysia", p.480.

  Stephen Duthie, "Kelantan Chief Eschews Showy Trappings", Asian Wall Street Journal, 18 February 1991.

  John Funston, "Malaysia's Tenth Elections: Status Quo, Reformasi or Islamization?", Contemporary Southeast Asia 22, no. 1 (April 2000): 26, 38.

  Farish A. Noor, "How Mahathir Became 'Mahazalim'", in The Other Malaysia, pp. 144-145.

  Utusan Malaysia, 23 September 1998, cited in John Funston, "Malaysia's Tenth Elections", p. 37.

  John Funston, "Malaysia's Tenth Elections", p. 51.

  Patricia A. Martinez, "The Islamic State or the State of Islam in Malaysia", p. 480.

  John Funston, "Malaysia's Tenth Elections", pp. 56-57.

  Patricia Martinez, "Mahathir, Islam, and the New Malay Dilemma", p. 245.

  Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid, "The Islamic Opposition in Malaysia: New Trajectories and Directions?", p. 4, paper presented at a seminar on "Islam in Malaysia" at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 11 September 2007.

  Farish A. Noor, "PAS Post-Fadzil Noor: Future Directions and Prospects", p. 13.

  Shad Saleem Faruqi, "Removing the Confusion Between Radical and Tolerant Islam", in "Perspectives on Doctrinal and Strategic Implications of Global Islam", Trends in Southeast Asia, no. 11 (2003), Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, p. 19.

  Yukiko Ohashi, "Malaysia: The Elusive Islamic State" http://www.atimes.com/atimes/printN.html (accessed 31 March 2006).