Asia Times: Islamic ante raised in Malaysia


	May 27, 2000	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Islamic ante raised in Malaysia
By Anil Netto

PENANG, Malaysia - Malaysia's last general election was more than six months ago, and the next is still a long way off. But two political parties - one of them the dominant ruling party - are nevertheless still campaigning for the hearts and minds of the country's people.

Then again, it may be more accurate to say that the United Malays National Organization (Umno), the dominant party in the ruling coalition, and the Islamic Party (PAS) are battling over support from Muslim Malays, who make up more than half the electorate.

The country's ethnic Malays have traditionally been Umno's reliable source of support. But during last November's polls, Umno took heavy losses in the Malay heartland. It was PAS - which had been seen as aiming to establish an Islamic state - that emerged as the major beneficiary from Umno's political misfortunes. Now, analysts are pointing to a convergence of positions between PAS and Umno as both parties step up their respective campaigns to win more points, particularly with Muslim Malays.

''PAS and Umno are turning to Islam as a means of mobilizing political support,'' says political science professor Johan Saravanamuttu. ''Both parties are fishing for the Muslim votes.'' But, he says, there is a slight difference. ''While PAS wants to maintain its votes from Muslim, [it is] also trying to win the support of non-Muslims,'' says Johan.

As an organization that has long been identified as a conservative Islamic party, PAS had been shunned by non-Muslims. Johan says, though, that the party now realiazes that without the support of non-Muslims, its aim of taking over power at the federal level will remain a dream.

Umno, meanwhile, appears not too worried about its appeal to non-Muslims. Rather, the challenge before it is how to remain relevant to younger Malays who are enamored with the Islamic ideals that ousted deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim represented. This is why analysts see great significance in Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad leading 2,000 Umno delegates in public prayer at the end of his opening speech at the party's general assembly on May 11. Mahathir asked Allah to protect Umno from its enemies, to bless the party's struggles and to give Umno victory in this world and hereafter.

Rather than praise the premier's piety, analysts described Mahathir's action as a sign that Umno was upping the Islamic ante to ''appear more Islamic''. Comments Johan: ''He seems to be turning to religion to lift the flagging fortunes and spirit of Umno. He realises that Islam is still very much a primordial force especially within Malay society.''

The problem with Umno, said political analyst Maznah Mohamad in a recent commentary, was that ''Umno has not quite had a distinct ideology''. Instead, she said, it successfully manufactured ''Malay-ness'' by claiming its mission to be defending the Malay race, religion and nation. But as the Anwar Ibrahim episode and the ensuing social and political unease have shown, Umno has reached the limits of its monopoly of Malayness, said Maznah. ''The party,'' she noted, ''had finally reached a quandary as to how to keep on reinventing this Malayness.''

Umno's need for a new game plan has become urgent in the face of PAS's own moves to gain more political ground. Earlier this month, PAS's spiritual leader, Nik Aziz Nik Mat, addressed some 400 Christians in the capital and said that existing civil laws that are parallel to Islamic laws would be maintained in an Islamic society - though, he added, amendments would have to be made if the two contradicted each other.

Nik Aziz, who is also chief minister of the east coast state of Kelantan, told his audience that more dialogue sessions would be organized to clear up misconceptions and dispel the image of Islam as an extremist religion.

Political commentator M G G Pillai says that when Nik Aziz insisted that PAS believed not in an ''Islamic state'' so much as in an ''Islamic community'', the surprise among many in the audience was evident. But more than anything else, he says, ''for the first time in living memory, certainly since independence in 1957, an Islamic party [came] before a non-Islamic audience to explain its vision''. In contrast, says Pillai, ''Umno has refused to explain its Islamic policies before any audience, including PAS, rejecting any attempt at ecumenical meetings of Islam and the other religious faiths''.

To be sure, though, Umno does have its own Islamic credentials. For years, in fact, Umno has been promoting an ''Islamization'' policy, albeit often quietly. It has introduced, for instance, Islamic banking parallel to traditional banking. Umno has also set up an International Islamic University and promotes religious education.

But analysts say it has a credibility problem. ''Many of the Malays certainly don't see Umno as having the mantle of Islam,'' says Johan. He notes that Mahathir himself has taken a hardline stance against ulama, religious teachers, for supposedly promoting backward views. This, says the analyst, has undermined the premier's appeal somewhat among more conservative Muslims.

Experts say that as political realities, including coalition politics, tear down the ideological dividing lines in Malaysian politics, the party that will emerge triumphant will be the one that best presents a credible image of Islam, consistent in rhetoric and practice, without alienating the non-Muslims at the same time.

(Inter Press Service)

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