The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| Posted: 05 Oct 2011 04:52 PM PDT OCT 6 — Students, place your writing instruments on the table, write neatly your name on the top right corner, and begin. You have an hour: Nik Aziz is inseparable from his Islamic beliefs, and Lim Guan Eng is not going to become a Muslim anytime soon. There is a country, and the only people in a position to form a government outside Barisan Nasional (BN) have a large gaping ideological divide. There are general elections every four years or so, and in first-past-the-post parliamentary system, voters will cast a single vote each to decide their support on 100 different issues bundled together with the hudud (Islamic criminal law/prescriptions). PAS and DAP — two-thirds of the opposition coalition — cannot form government without a complete unified position. Form a solution for Pakatan Rakyat (PR). Any graduate student asked to form an essay for their comprehensive examinations will spend more time staring at the paper, rather than pen an answer. It is a monster question, and in political terms a constant slippery slope. In terms of graduate study, something you skip. So, with that in mind, the column will address how any fair examination of the situation can proceed with PR in mind. Already the validity of hudud, and the strengths of a secular government are postulated often enough, and these will not be rebutted or embellished here. However they will be kept in plain sight, while the political question which is a different solar system altogether is approached. Theirs, as much as ours The false couching of the challenge is that it is a PR problem alone. It is not. BN has exactly the same conundrum. It too cannot formulate a clear position on the matter. Hudud is a Malaysian challenge, not just Umno's or PAS's, and their respective partners'. The matter really rises on PAS's outwardly theological credentials. Irrespective of all moves to moderate the party internally to a welfare state platform, the party's name keeps it psychologically two steps ahead of Umno in its overt commitment to Islam. So to the Malaysian electorate generally, hudud has more meaning to PAS than Umno. The increased Islamisation by Umno and constant encroachments into the country's secular Constitution are often overlooked. Which is fine. Even if PAS is more worrying than Umno when it comes to hudud, the voter cannot abrogate Umno's own stake in hudud. Leading the talking, not deciding Second, the level of maturity in Malaysian politics has been tightly regulated by Umno over half a century. The politicians are a reflection of the people in it. Since citizens are actively shunted from being political, political space constantly wedged, the level of political discourse therefore becomes limited. (In my days in UKM, the national university, only political science students with written permission from their lecturers can access the "contentious" books inside the restricted section. Stuff like Jean-Jacque Rosseau's "The Social Contract". Malaysians have been artificially forced to not have a political opinion. And since their leaders are surprise, surprise, Malaysians too, they too develop myopia. Which is why both sides of the divide, BN and PR, line up the same people to talk about all the issues facing all Malaysians. The usual suspects are probably a group of 50 politicians in total from both BN and PR. Even both coalitions don't trust the vast majority of their legislators and party leaders to champion specific issues, small or big. During the Perak Assembly bust-up, assemblymen from both sides were in pitched battle in their official wear, but after the dust settled the more "refined" leaders were seen to talk about all things Perak. Which means, the larger community of politicians itself is struggling to have a quality discussion over the place of religion in politics, because of the elite nature of Malaysian politics today. Most of us are too. For Malaysia to move forward on the contentious issues, not only hudud, more of us have to be co-opted into the politics that affect us all. A Malaysian voter must decide if the quality of the discourse, hudud in this case, will improve under a BN government. The country is at step four of a mile trek into a multi-layered issue. Will this government provide the platform for this multicultural society to democratically resolve the place for religion in criminal prosecution? Or will it politicise the matter to keep its own power-grip? There has been peace in Northern Ireland, the type generations have not known. Yet a vote to decide whether those in Ulster want to stay in Britain or join Ireland is delayed even though there are centuries of opinions on the matter, mostly drenched in blood. Because the issue is more than just being Protestant or Irish or European. Which is why real leadership helps the population address the issue over time. Debate, discussion, reflection and time. Because big questions are not just sorted by a show of hands at an emotionally charged moment. A nation of issues, mind the plural As much as religion holds great sway in the hearts and mind of most Malaysians, it is not the only issue Malaysians grapple with daily. There are not millions of Malaysians right now, young and old, graduates and high school dropouts, Michael Learns To Rock fans or not, who are grimacing at a wall at home or office trying to reconcile their religion with a secular state. They probably worry at times about lunch, paying the phone bill, checking out the latest prices in Econsave supermarket, planning their New Year and avoiding traffic during peak hours. Or the rising national debt, defence spending, policies to increase white-collar employment and public education. As much as abortion divides the United States, more practical concerns override voting patterns. The Republican party does not deride some of its more overzealous Christian foot-soldiers, but that does not mean a gay person voting Republican think his vote will mean the end of his civil liberties. Neither the converse, that a gay person might vote for the Democrats because they are more inclined to inclusion. That gay person might be personally inclined to a party that cuts federal taxation and increases defence spending. And being gay is not the only thing about a person. And in the same not, being Muslim is not the only thing about a Muslim. PR has to be respectful to all voters' views, for they are the views of Malaysians, and the Malaysian must be respected by all political parties at all times. The parties are different today than they were in 1990 when religion always broke up non-BN coalitions. The voters are different than those in 1990. Just as it is noted that less than three per cent of those who voted in the first general election in 1955 are still in the electoral roll, it might be instructive to know how many per cent of those voting today were not voters in 1990. Electoral truths PR may not have to come up with a solution. No one expects political parties to resolve the question of the afterlife, or possible life in Mars. And parties need not pretend to have the solution. They are separate parties because their ideologies are divergent. They have to argue why it is worth keeping together. They might want to reiterate, that the reason BN keeps banging away at their differences is because the parties in PR have the right to act and speak of their differences. Can the same be said about Umno's partners in BN? But more importantly PR has to assert that its model is not a BN model. That whether it is in opposition or in government, the same process of consensus will prevail. That is really what the Malaysian voter needs to decide, irrespective of whether they are for hudud or not. They have to decide if the political process in PR is right or wrong, for the individual voter. That will decide the future of hudud and 99 other key issues affecting the future of Malaysia under a PR government. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. |
| Posted: 05 Oct 2011 04:42 PM PDT OCT 6 — The return of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China was imminent. After years of a hands-free approach taken by the colonial government, the citizens of Hong Kong were used to a liberal atmosphere. The prospect of a continuous liberal environment after the 1997 handover was unclear however. The uncertainty convinced many to fear the worst. Rather than suffer the uncertainty, they took action and sought refuge elsewhere. They applied for permanent residency and citizenship in other countries to escape the possibility of living in an oppressive society. The PRC, regardless of what it is now with all of its contradictions, was perceived as a repressive and decidedly communist country. The 1989 Tiananmen Square incident was still fresh in everybody's minds. Money is not always the only consideration in any decision regarding migration. There are other factors that are not necessarily less important than money. Security is one. Love is two. Freedom has often been cited as a factor. A way of life is another. The implementation of hudud or the adoption of more comprehensive Islamic laws will affect the way of life in Malaysia. Proponents of hudud argue that the implementation of such laws will be applicable to Muslims only. They guarantee it. Neither their argument nor their guarantee is good. The argument of exclusive application is unlikely to be true. Previous conflicts from child custody to death and burial have proven that even the milder version of Islamic laws as practised in Malaysia impacts non-Muslims. These proponents might have forgotten these episodes. They must be reminded of it because these conflicts do create a fear of creeping Islamisation in the hearts of non-Muslims as well as others who care for religious freedom. These past conflicts can tell us what to expect in the future. The likelier outcome of the wider implementation of Islamic laws is this: whatever affecting the majority will likely affect the minority. A more comprehensive version will not leave non-Muslims alone, even if the legal rights are discriminated among citizens so strongly. It is naïve to believe such an incredible guarantee. The minority will float along with the majority, whether they like it or not, for better or for worse. The wider implementation of Islamic laws will be a change in lifestyle for everybody. It will first affect the lifestyle of Muslims, regardless of their piety. The group will become more conservative, voluntarily or otherwise. Then through the interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims, the lifestyle of the latter will be affected. The rest will have to respect the new conservativeness. In the end, whatever is the way of life that prevails will change. Whatever openness and liberalness within the society that exists will gradually vanish to satisfy rising conservativeness. Whatever lifestyle that was will have to give way to the Islamic one, however the Islamic laws are defined by those in power. The outlook of Malaysian society itself will change. None will escape such a wholesome change unless they leave. There is a point where the religious and non-religious minorities along with Muslims who hold more relaxed religious positions will choose migration over further tolerance of growing Islamisation within their society. The potential lifestyle change can be too drastic to stomach. There is a point where enough is enough. If it comes, there will be those who will walk off to a more open society permanently. They have the means to do so, just like many former citizens of Hong Kong. That is how the pre-1997 Hong Kong experience is relevant to Malaysia. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. |
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