Islam and Civil Society in Southeast Asia

8. The Making of Civil Society Through Waqf Institution in Mindanao

CIVIL SOCIETY THROUGH WAQF INSTITUTION IN MINDANAO 117© 2001 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore 8 The Making of Civil Society Through Waqf Institution in Mindanao Michael O. Mastura Civil society — in a number of organizational networks apart from the nation-state — has become one of the most useful terms in our time. The early idea of “society” which at first represented the rulers and polity was associated with the conception of “nation”. The addition of “civil” has given it a contemporary context by linguistic development. As the title of this chapter may seem puzzling, I need to explain at the outset that the concept of waqf, or charitable trust, is well established and its institutional development has a structural pattern. As an embodiment of religious institution within a polity, the waqf is the only part of the siyasat shari’a (public policy) to recognize the dedication in perpetuity of property rights for any proximity to God as an ultimate aim. This prerequisite of “perpetuity” qualifies it as a public good. CONTRIVING CIVIL SOCIETY A recent national conference on “Civil Society Making Civil Society” has asserted that the Philippines is a strong civil society country compared to other countries where non-state organizations are found to be underdeveloped and/or controlled by the state.1 In this nation of 72 million people, the number of documented non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and people’s organizations (POs) totals 15,000. In the Philippines, civil society is as much a product of voluntary private organizations as an outgrowth of non-state mobilizations that hold the promise of the potent force of democratization. NGOs as such constitute the basic component of civil society outside the direct control of the state. ISEAS DOCUMENT DELIVERY SERVICE. No reproduction without permission of the publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, SINGAPORE 119614. FAX: (65)7756259; TEL: (65) 8702447; E-MAIL: publish@iseas.edu.sg 118 MICHAEL O. MASTURA© 2001 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore The emergence of civil society has been accompanied by a proliferation of NGOs and of rhetoric such as “transparency” and “empowerment”. In September 1999, in Manila, the Third Assembly of Civicus (a forum of 507 organizations from 92 countries) stressed the need to look for new relationships in the wake of changing roles of civil society organizations, business organizations, and government. The civic premise is that the business sector works to create civil society in partnership with government by taking upon itself the burden of “corporate citizenship”. The forum focused on corporate engagement — how best business can promote the public good — making it possible to encompass the non-state institution of markets in contriving civil society. A global-market expansion implies that with transparency there will be less inclination for graft in the government and the pursuit of profit at the expense of society in business circles. But the globalization movement introduces an idealized model of behaviour by intermediate institutions — those between the individual and the state — through which a pluralistic society can look to organizations for differing human needs and nonmaterial satisfactions. The use of an ideological idiom such as “the more enlightened segments of society” in reference to NGO partners, however, betrays a slant towards western cultural promotion of civil society. In the Third World studies approach, non-state institutions such as the media, the academe, religious institutions, or popular movements, including grassroots social organizations that exhibit a capacity to maintain autonomy from the state, are clustered as a part of that civil society. Still, the relation of that civil society to the sovereignty of the people remains rather ambiguous. It remains a dilemma as to how civil society paves the way to let other people retain their cultural identity while diffusing any ambitions to challenge the existing power structures. MUSLIM MOVEMENTS IN MINDANAO The interface between NGOs and ARGs (armed revolutionary groups) has raised the question: are they also part of civil society? Two movements exist among Muslim communities in the Philippines yet both are running parallel to the emergent civil society. At one extreme is the struggle of political Islam for a power relationship in which the embodiment of authority at the state level has to be made operational affecting social values. The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) represent this cause. To the extent that such revolutionary groups advance the cause of political Islam will be presented as public dissent regardless of governmental [18.217.84.171...