By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 17 2003 (IPS)

The division between moderates and fundamentalists among Malaysia’s majority Malay Muslims has sharpened dramatically, if not irrevocably, in recent weeks.

To many, a key issue is whether economic modernisation, liberal democracy and a secular constitution that has brought stability, racial peace and unparallel economic progress for most, are no longer compatible with the demands of ‘political’ Islam.

It is no longer a question of co-existence between secularism and resurgent Islam.

Increasingly, Malaysians are coming under pressure to choose between secularism and moderate Islam as espoused by the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), or an Islamic society as defined by the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party or PAS.

This pressure has emerged with trends over the years in this multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-ethnic country of more than 21 million people. While only a minority of Malays backed PAS in the past, today over 60 percent could prefer to be subjected to tenets of Islam if one went by the results of the 1999 general election.

At that time, the majority of Malays rejected the secularism and ‘western’ ways of UMNO and its former leader Mahathir Mohamad, who retired in October after handing over to his deputy Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Abdullah Ahmad, the editor of the government-controlled ‘New Straits Times’ newspaper and a consummate articulator of mainstream views, best described the choices in a speech to Malays last week: ”If you don’t take PAS seriously and battle it earnestly and craftily, do not say you have not been forewarned.”

”If the non-Muslims do not or refuse to see the dangers, if they can’t sense what it is like to be an enlightened, liberal and forward-looking Malay, then I say PAS will manifest its brand of Islamic radicalism sooner than you realise it,” he added.

Two recent developments have sharpened differences and placed opposing forces on a collision course.

The first: PAS has challenged the secular Federal Constitution by approving in two states it rules strict ‘shariah’ laws that criminalise and punish common offences like adultery, illicit sex, theft and consumption of alcohol with stiff fines and lengthy jail terms. The Terengganu state assembly passed these laws on Oct. 29.

The government has rejected PAS’ right to enact these laws and has refused to arrest, prosecute and jail offenders, opening itself to accusations by some critics that it is ”un-Islamic”.

It is also supporting an application filed Oct. 25 by a Muslim lawyer in the country’s highest court to strike out these Islamic laws as invalid and inconsistent with the Federal Constitution.

The pleadings and the outcome is set to sharpen divisions among Muslim Malaysians because some Muslims already question whether the court, which oversees man-made laws, can rule on the validity of Koranic laws which were revealed by God.

The second development is more contentious. Last week, PAS released its long awaited Islamic State Document, which was two years in the making and spells out what constitutes an Islamic state and how the party would realise this after it wins state power through elections.

”We reject western-style democracy because it only leads to endemic social decadence and rampant injustices,” said PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang when releasing the document. ”Under the present government Islam is ruled, we want Islam to rule.”

”We will let the power of Islam rule. We will not follow the narrow view of Islam where Islam is only one aspect of the country. . . we do not want a country which is only one aspect of Islam. Islam is all encompassing,” Abdul Hadi said.

The document states that rights and freedoms would be fully secured and guaranteed by the state, that there would be freedom to practise and express a person’s unique cultural and traditional heritage, that there would be no compulsion to convert to Islam, that there would be no discrimination based on religion, race and gender, and that it would aim for a society based on merit.

However it also states: ”Any attempt to say that it (Islamic state) is not just, is tantamount to saying that Allah is unjust in His injunction. . . it is divinely derived and not an option provided by PAS. Any contention in this regards, amounts to contesting the divine wisdom.”

Government leaders, the government-controlled media and most non-Muslims frowned at the PAS document, but in Malay villages across the country, many view PAS as a true champion of Islam.

Such acceptance is the culmination of a long push towards Islamisation that rose as a reaction to the ”westernisation and the development at any cause” policies of Mahathir over the past two decades.

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi faces PAS and a resurgent political Islam in an election widely expected early next year.

There are fears that PAS might gain ground. But there is also confidence that ethnic Chinese, who make up about 25 percent of the population together with Hindu, Christian and Buddhist minorities, would still back the government.

”The government is expected to win comfortably with the backing of non-Muslim voters, but the division between Muslims and non-Muslims will only widen,” a political analyst said, asking that his name not be disclosed.

The government strategy is based largely on using its control of the media to frighten non-Muslims by painting PAS as latter-day, Taliban-style fanatics bent on punishing offenders by chopping off arms and stoning to death.

Often too, PAS’ steps to convince non-Muslims that they have nothing to fear from their kind of Islam are completely muted. Independent scholars fear that because of the government’s propaganda, non-Muslims would see Islam as a fanatical and violent religion.

Already, apart from political leaders, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian leaders, rights and gender activists have also rejected the Islamic state blueprint.

”There will be no democracy if a Islamic leader has the final say on any law,” said the Rev Wong Kim Kong, secretary general of the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship in a statement. ”The blueprint not only deprecates the Federal Constitution but also belittles the multi-racial fabric of our society.”

Lim Kit Siang, the chairman of the Chinese-based opposition Democratic Action Party said: ”The Islamic state proposals divide citizens into Muslims and non-Muslims. This in effect means Muslims would rule over non-Muslims. The blueprint is also incompatible with democracy.”

Even PAS allies in the opposition – the National Justice Party and the Peoples Party – have said the PAS proposals are ”untimely” and give reasons for the government to attack the opposition.

Independent professionals who had welcomed campaigns by PAS against corruption are also unhappy with the party’s insistence on an Islamic state when it creates divisions within society.

”PAS is destroying the very fabric of our multi-racial society,” said Karpal Singh, a leading human rights lawyer.

But this is not how people like Abdul Halim Mazuki, who sells medicines from the Middle East at a night market near Karpal’s office in the north of the city, views things. ”PAS is right in wanting to set up an Islamic state…we are Muslims, so it is only natural for us to want to be ruled by Islam.”

”What is wrong with that?” he asked.

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