Malaysia at a Crossroads
Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007 By HANNAH BEECH
A HOUSE DIVIDED: The battle over the true spiritual beliefs of Kaliammal's
late husband reflects Malaysia?s widening religious fault lines
TARA SOSROWARDOYO FOR TIME
How well do you know your husband? For Kaliammal Sinnasamy, a Hindu
married
to a member of the first Malaysian team to scale Mt. Everest, the answer,
she thought, was obvious. "I married a Hindu man, lived with him as a
Hindu,
bore him a Hindu child and watched him die as a Hindu," says the now
32-year-old office cleaner. But when Kaliammal went to the hospital in
December 2005 to claim her spouse's body after he died of a protracted
illness, she received another shock. Her husband, Maniam Moorthy, had
secretly converted to Islam before his death, said Islamic authorities.
According to Islamic law, he would be buried in a Muslim cemetery. No,
insisted Kaliammal, he would undergo Hindu rites. Both sides headed to
court. But Malaysia-a multiethnic nation composed largely of Muslim
Malays,
Hindu Indians and Buddhist and Christian Chinese-employs a dual legal
system. Muslims are subject to Shari'a law for issues such as marriage,
property and death, while non-Muslims use civil courts. First, the Shari'a
court ruled that Kaliammal's husband was a Muslim. Then, the civil court
refused to intervene. "This court cannot undo, vary or overrule any
decisions made by the Islamic Shari'a court," said Judge Raus Shariff to a
packed courtroom. "We have absolutely no jurisdiction over Islam."
Kaliammal's case, along with several other high-profile legal challenges,
are roiling a nation that has struggled to strike a balance between the
aspirations of its Muslim majority and significant minority populations.
As
Malaysia celebrates a half-century of independence this year, faith-based
politics is further dividing the nation's ethnicities. The new mood was on
display at the November party conference of Malaysia's ruling political
party, the United Malays National Organization, during which one delegate
spoke of his willingness to bathe in blood to defend the Malay race and
religion. By December, the atmosphere was so tense that Malaysia's usually
understated Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi called race relations
"brittle"-even though a few weeks before he had defended his nation's
reputation, telling TIME: "At the end of the day, Malaysia is still well
regarded internationally as an advanced Muslim country." Indeed, earlier
in
the year, Abdullah appeared so confident about his homeland's spiritual
diversity that he rejected a plea by the non-Muslim members of his Cabinet
to more strenuously protect religious freedoms. "We are at a crossroads as
a
nation," says Tian Chua, spokesman for the opposition National Justice
Party. "The extreme religious rhetoric is threatening what we worked so
hard
for 50 years to accomplish."
Like Indonesia, Malaysia is struggling to determine how Muslim to be.
Unlike
Indonesia, which is governed by a secular constitution, Malaysia already
counts Islam as its official faith-although the constitution also
guarantees
freedom of religion. Each state has a fatwa committee that makes religious
decrees applicable to Malaysian Muslims, most of whom are Sunni. In
Kelantan
state, Muslim women must wear headscarves in public, while several states
have made forsaking Islam a crime that can result in prison time. "We
should
not limit Islam to a few rituals," says Sulaiman Abdullah, former
president
of the Malaysian Bar Council. "Malaysia would be better served if it were
under Shari'a law."
But what happens when the state's definition of Islam differs from its
citizens'? The Islamic Development Department, which governs Muslim
practices on a federal level, deems Shia and Baha'i interpretations of
Islam
deviant faiths worthy of forced "rehabilitation. " Controversy also
surrounds
Malays who wish to convert to another religion, thus defying the
constitutional clause specifying that all Malays must be Muslims. That
issue
is being tested by the case of Lina Joy, a Malay who has been barred from
converting to Christianity by Shari'a courts. Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, a
lawyer
who has received death threats for representing Joy, hopes the case will
be
heard by the Supreme Court in the next few months. "How can we say there
is
freedom of religion in Malaysia," says Malik, "if a person who has
practiced
Christianity for years is not allowed by the state to make that personal
choice?"
As for Kaliammal, her husband's ultimate choice will never be known for
certain. He was buried as a Muslim, but she wants to move the remains to a
Hindu grave. Kaliammal's appeal, one of several involving alleged
conversions to Islam, is pending before a higher court, though no date has
been fixed for judgment. "My husband never once told me he had secretly
converted to Islam," says Kaliammal, showing off a wall in her apartment
dedicated to her husband's mountaineering achievements for the glory of
the
Malaysian nation. "He was always a Hindu and drank alcohol and ate pork
right up to the time he died." His final resting place, though, will
depend
upon what the court decides-yet one more challenge for a country caught
between mosque and state.
With reporting by Baradan Kuppusamy/Kuala Lumpur
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