Malaysiakini, Aug 10, 07 6:16pm
Malaysians are drifting apart from one another and are increasingly
identifying themselves by race, religion or ideology.
Due to communal politics, Malaysians are also losing a national
identity that supersedes race or religion, said an academic at a
affirmation of the Merdeka social contract today.
Dr Farish A Noor, a political scientist and historian at the Centre
for Modern Orient Studies, Berlin, said that Malaysia runs a risk of
turning into a "Pakistan" should political leaders continue to
reinterpret the Federal Constitution by calling Malaysia an Islamic
state.
He said Malaysia politics "is increasingly becoming right wing" and
is following the paths of many former British colonial states, where
societies "regressed" into communal and sectarian politics.
Using Islamisation as an example, Farish said leaders "fall back on
core religious" rhetoric when there is "deterioration in the
management" of a country.
"I cannot find any justification or pretend to understand some of the
statements by Malaysian leaders over the past decade," he said during
a Parliamentary Roundtable to reaffirm the Merdeka social contract
that Malaysia is a secular state.
The sectarian politician
Present at the launch in Parliament were Opposition Leader Lim Kit
Siang, DAP national chairperson Karpal Singh, All Women's Action
Society (Awam) representative Honey Tan, National Human Rights
Society (Hakam) president Malik Imtiaz and Parti Sosialis Malaysia
pro-tem chairperson Dr Mohd Nasir.
Also present were Bar Council Malaysia Human Rights Committee
representative Andrew Khoo and Malaysian Consultative Council of
Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST)
president Dr Harcharan Singh.
"Any scholar of Islam will tell you that there is no basis in
traditional orthodox Islamic jurisprudence that could possibly
support or justify something like the Internal Security Act."
"Centuries of Muslim legal scholarship have argued against detention
without trial, and yet we have politicians summarily applied Islamic
ethics to which we cannot, beyond any stretch of the imagination,
reach the even minimum basic ethical requirement of any Muslim
theology," said Farish.
"So what is really underlying this process of Islamisation in
Malaysia, I can only point to the sectarian politician and argue that
what we are seeing today is the communal political interest of one
specific ethnic community in the country at the detriment of the
other communities," he added.
Farish said the dangers of Malaysian politics is to "the extent that
communitarian politics have become normalised."
"We are becoming like Americans now, white American, black American,
Asian American and all that. And we have enough divisions in our
society. This whole attempt to present Malaysia as a multi-cultural
Malaysia somehow emphasises not our diversity but our differences.
"That's why when there's a national day parade, we're all suddenly
wearing our traditional dress which of course we don't wear when we
go to KLCC. You don't dress up like this in real life. But once a
year, we all have to wear all this to be very ethnic to express how
different we are from everyone else. Everyone reverts back to his
suku-suku mentality and even among the Malays it's broken down to the
Kelantanese and Minangs and we just continue to divide ourselves."
Communal demands, reactions
Referring to a recent decision by the Fatwa council to allow the use
of indelible ink in elections, Farish said: "It says two things.
First this particular religious community is making a community
demand, ie 'We don't care what the rest of you do, you can dip your
finger or your foot in the ink, we don't care. We are special, we
have to consult our experts. Our experts can tell us we can dip our
fingers in the ink or not.'"
"Second is that, by recognising the authority of religious scholars
of that community, you are basically saying, this religious authority
supercede the states, ie 'I'm Muslim first and a Malaysian second.'
If this pattern is repeated across the board (with people practising
other faiths)... what happens to Malaysia?"
Farish also said reactions to such decisions were also communal:
"When faced with problems like these, that cut across the board, the
Malaysian reaction is to (create organisations) that represents
everyone.
And these organisations have very long names because everyone single
suku has to have to be represented in it. And when you do that, in
political sociology terms, you have bonding capital, not bridging
capital.
Farish said there is a lack of space or occasion "where our personal
private sectarian differences become secondary."
"What this country needs is not more organisations with ten different
alphabets but rather organisations that bring us together on a shared
common interest.
"I would be much happier to see more football clubs in Malaysia where
everyone can come not because you are Malay, Indian or Chinese, but
because you like Chelsea or Manchester United or whatever. Then your
personal racial biography becomes secondary, rather than being pushed
to the front," he said.
"If you notice in the urban geography of Malaysia, you may notice
that there is a competition for turf. One community wants a mosque,
the other wants a church ... a temple. But nobody says let's have a
playground for all kids to play. That's what we are losing in
Malaysia today. The bridging capital. The neutral spaces that there
can be interaction where, frankly, people don't care about race or
religion."
"That is something we are missing out in this rush to make sure we
are all represented and to produce more and more organisations where
there are 20 alphabets in the name that we can't even pronounce," he
said.
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