pi-iota
Recently, there is much discussion and many a discourse on the emergence of Muslim Democrats in the pulsating Malaysian political environment (see the Rise of Political Islam debates and discourses on Malaysia prior to the GE13 and GE14 elections: https://monsoonsstorms.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/the-ascendancy-of-ethnocracy-and-rise-of-political-islam-in-malaysia/ ). There are also other narratives whether the country shall continue with present secularism as defined within the Federal Constitution or progress towards a post-Islamic undertaking (see Farish Noor Islam vs Secularism? The New Political Terrain in Malaysia and Indonesia, ISIM Newsletter 4/99, page 13) underpinning a Muslim society based upon Muslim Democratic principles, and if so, whether to adopt the Indonesian and/or Tunisian models.
This piece shall be a brief tour and subsequent exploratory journeys on the terrains ahead.
Within the Islamic cultural spheres, there are possibly 8 identities: the Arab and Persian varieties, the Indian sub-continent model, Nusantara of southeast Asia, the Sino-Islamic, Turkish, Sudan-Afrika besides amongst the diasporas migrants in “Western countries” where each has its distinctiveness within its own religio-socio and cultural conformation paradigm.
If one is to embrace the Indonesian model, a religio-political perspective with the difference praxis of Islam there is a need to be understood within the context that Indonesia ({Majapahit and Srivijaya} as historical and cultural background) in Benedict Anderson contention that Indonesians are an imagines’ community trying to build a nation. They do not have a significant “other” in the form of a sizable ethnic minority wanting to fortify themselves in a castle of race distinction; the politics of identity is less urgent.
Pluralism (ta’addudiyya), nationality (muwatana), upholding human rights (iqamat al-huquq alinsaniyya), democracy (demuqratiyya), public benefits (maslaha), and gender equality (al-musawa al-junsiyya) had been championed by Muslim democrats by different spectrum of Indonesian political parties.
Indeed, there are feminist groups who had advocated state’s guarantee of freedom of religion taking into an argument that pluralism in Indonesia’s multi-ethnic and multi-religious society is a sine qua non and that the state should not regulate matters of religion and beliefs.
From that angle, one can present that it gives room to the politics of economic distribution which is secular in nature. Not unlike Ennahda, political parties can no longer has a “significant other” to justify their struggle, their jihad. Neither can these entities claim that their fellow Muslims are all jahiliyah; nor can they label their home grown political opponents who started the Arab Spring as kafir.
The Indonesian model is one towards Reconciliation – tagrib al-madhabid – a culture of forgiving; a culture of having dialog strengthened with a culture of peace.
Secondly, wasatiyah Islam is to justify a balanced approach to nation-building with the tawazud adil tasamuh concept.
However, against the back-drop of changing geopolitical alignment, a post-Islamism had developed out of the decline of US imperialism and its pivoting strategy. Movements with Muslim Democracy like Ennahda and Indonesian parties have nationalist element in their aspiration in that respective country does not seek to form a Pan-Islamic movement unlike the Nasserite or the Baathist or the IS Caliphate models or the Wahabist-Salafist pan-Sunni in outlook.
At the centre of this Muslim Democracy discourse is the debate between the different forms of Muslim society and Muslim governance in our country, too. The momentum shifting from a Political Islam posture towards a Muslim Democracy positioning by emerging nationalistic political parties with a Malay Islamism ideology contrasted per the PAS exhortation which the latter Islamic Documents may well split our country. Whereas, a Muslim Democracy ideology maintaining some semblance to the current status quo could possibly unite the opposition under one banner; these could embrace the likes of Ikram, Amanah, the Bangi crowd, pious but apolitical and the silent majority in Setiawangsa and Shah Alam.
Already, the premier of Malaysia, Najib Razak had declared that Malaysia–Saudi Arabia relations have reached unprecedented heights (see the articles by the STORM Collective, The Radicalisation of Islam in Malaysia; and Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid The Extensive Salafization of Malaysian Islam, in ISEAS 2016, for instance), part of which has been summarised herein. There is a height of discomfort expressed in many a public forum about “Arabization” that is symptomatic of Wahhabi-Salafi intrusion which is defining the terrain of Malay-Muslim society in manners that are decontextualizing, de-historicizing and deculturating. Indeed forbearing a resurgence of traditionalist ulama who might yet provide another abrasive counter-narrative, and at the same time strategically attempt a capture of the commanding heights of Malaysia’s power centers, the roadmap towards a Muslim Democracy could be a better and, a safer route ahead.
Since consultative governance is the preferred form of governance in Islam, and a Muslim who stays true to his faith sources cannot but prefer a democratic structure that justice and well-being promised in Islamic sources prevails. Indeed, Islam is not a barrier to, but instead a facilitator of, democracy, justice, and tolerance in the Muslim society.
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POLITICAL ISLAM: ISLAMISATION OF POLITICS Islamism ○ Secular Nation ○ Secular State ○ The Islamic State ○ Islamic Law ○ Ethnocratic Islam ○ Islamic Violence ○ Hudud ○ Wahabbism ○ Salafism ○ Sayyid Qutb ○ Shar’iah Court ○ PAS Decline ○ Splinter of PAS ○ UMNO-PAS ○ Pop-Islam ○ Post-Islamism ○ Muslim Democracy ○ Indonesia Model 🇮🇩 ○ Tunisia: Ennahda 🇹🇳
New Left Malaysia 