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Chapter 8 “Ordinary Muslims” and Muslim Resurgents in Contemporary Malaysia NOTES ON AN AMBIVALENT RELATIONSHIP Michael G. Peletz Recent scholarship on Islam in Malaysia has focused on Malaysia ’s Islamic resurgence and the ways in which Malay Muslim reformers and modernists conceptualize their moral communities and visions of and for the future (see, for example, Kessler 1980; Shamsul A. B. 1983; Nagata 1984; Chandra Muzaffar 1987; Muhammad Abu Bakar 1987; Zainah Anwar 1987; Banks 1990; Nash 1991; Jomo and Shabery Cheek 1992; and Husin Mutalib 1993). Such scholarship has clearly enriched our understanding of the theology of the resurgence. It has also shed light on the organizational activities, cultural identities, and life experiences of the resurgents—the vast majority of whom are associated with the urban middle class—as well as their doctrinal and ideological stances vis-à-vis state policies bearing on national development and Malaysia’s ethnic mosaic. Unfortunately , however, recent scholarship on Malaysian Islam has largely ignored the experiences and voices of “ordinary Muslims” (or “ordinary Malays” —the two terms are used here interchangeably),1 who are not in the forefront of contemporary religious or political developments and who are in many cases far more ambivalent about the resurgence than we have been led to believe. As a consequence of the neglect of what K. S. Jomo and Ahmad Shabery Cheek have recently dubbed the “silent constituency” (1992, 104–105), the existing literature provides limited and ultimately skewed perspectives on the religious and political landscapes of contemporary Malaysia, and we are left with the impression that the entire Muslim community in Malaysia is either centrally involved in the resurgence or at least squarely behind it. Such triumphalist impressions are strengthened 232 | Michael G. Peletz both by media coverage of Islam in Malaysia, especially that afforded by international media, and by the accounts of celebrated novelists (for example , Naipaul 1981). More generally, the available literature provides little sense of the range of variation within the Malay community as regards what it means to be a (Malay) Muslim in present-day Malaysia and certainly does not address the comparative and theoretical implications of such variation. This essay deals with the experiences, voices, and cultural identities of Malaysia’s ordinary Muslims—the majority of whom are Malays living in rural areas—particularly as they relate to the discourses of Islamic resurgence . Drawing on data from different regions of the Malay peninsula, I examine rural Malays’ styles of religiosity, and I investigate their perceptions of and attitudes toward the resurgence and the various organizations, state policies, and agents centrally involved in its spread (and containment). I am especially interested in the implications of the variable and at times contradictory ways in which symbols and idioms of moral community, modernity, and progress are invoked in the discourses of activists and their ordinary Muslim counterparts. Of equal concern, however, are issues and arguments that are not voiced publicly and that are in many cases “unthinkable ” for political or moral reasons. One such issue is that, while processes involving the reformulation of some traditions and the suppression or elimination of others may well be a prerequisite for modernization and religious development, they also entail a certain deracination or cultural impoverishment for local communities and the “Malay race” in its entirety. A central objective of the essay is thus to examine the production and consumption of contrasting discourses on Islam and Malay cultural identity in contemporary Malaysia. The broader goals of the essay are to further our understanding of Islamic constructions of identity in Southeast Asia and to contribute to the comparative and theoretical literature on the political economy of contested symbols and meanings. The material presented here is organized into four sections. The first provides background information on some of the political, economic, and religious variables that have given rise to the resurgence as well as some of the legal and other initiatives associated with it. The second deals with the religious climate (including manifestations of and reactions to the resurgence ) in rural areas and among ordinary Muslims generally. The third expands the scope of inquiry by examining some recent dynamics and dilemmas related to the institution of feasting, an institution that is held in low regard by resurgents but is nonetheless of central importance as far as most ordinary Malays are concerned. This part of the essay includes a discussion of a hastily arranged—and heavily stigmatized—“shotgun wedding ,” the ritual streamlining of which corresponds in many respects to the [3.137.183.14...

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