Malaysia: Recent Trends and Challenges

2. The Emerging Politics of Islam Hadhari

Terence Chong 26 The Emerging Politics of Islam Hadhari t e r e n c e c h o n g Introduction Islam Hadhari was a key campaign issue during the 2004 general elections in Malaysia. Its message of a “progressive” Islam was popular with the electorate, resulting in a ringing endorsement of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi at the polls on 21 March. The idea of a “progressive” Islam, however, is not new and has been a recurring feature of the Malaysian political landscape since the early 1970s. “Progressive” Islam is part of a long history of contested interpretations of Islam between the United Malays’ National Organisation (UMNO), Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS) and Malaysian Muslim Youth Organisation (ABIM) for their respective interests.The ways in which “progressive” Islam is interpreted and contested can be analytically captured as the struggle for legitimacy within the modern nation-state. The modern nation-state is a relatively recent project in Southeast Asia that frames the multiple religious, ethnic and linguistic fissures in the region. The way in which “progressive” interpretations of Islam are emphasised and de-emphasised by different groups at different times reflects the on-going dispute over the character of the nation-state 27 2: The Emerging Politics of Islam Hadhari and its accoutring principles of democracy, notions of citizenship, and constitution. The nation-state, in turn, has also issued challenges to Islamic interests and powers in the region. According to Hefner and Horvatich, Its capacity to shape public affairs and intervene in the most intimate domains of private life has presented Southeast Asian Muslims with a historically unprecedented challenge. It has reduced the territorial fragmentation long characteristic of this region, undercut the autonomy of Muslim social organisations, and, at times, deployed forces to hunt down and eliminate Muslim rebels.1 Increased religiosity and demands for an Islamic state are thus, on the one hand, a result of the rejection of the modern nation-state and on the other, invariably shaped by its existing institutes and practices. Beginning from the dakwah movement in the early 1970s, this chapter looks at how different organisations, specifically ABIM and PAS, have espoused the message of a “progressive” Islam for their own interests. The concept of “progressive” Islam in Malaysia has been constantly shifting, to include a variety of characteristics such as social justice, human rights, civil empowerment, democracy, humanism, modernity, and modernisation. This ambiguity of meaning has allowed different organisations to co-opt it and is the very reason for its constant revival. The message of a “progressive” Islam has also been emphasised and deemphasised according to the prevailing political conditions. All this will demonstrate that the “progressive” spirit of Islam Hadhari is not new but a variant of political Islamic discourse in Malaysia. However, it is argued that global political shifts since 11 September 2001 have created an important role for Islam Hadhari as a political discourse. The politics of Islam Hadhari, it is suggested, is playing out on four different fronts, namely, as a counterfoil to PAS’s brand of Islam; as a struggle with “Islam Madani” for the “progressive” mantle; as a set of morals and ethics to accompany a “global mindset”; and, lastly, on a global level, as a means to construct Malaysia as a model Muslim society. Dakwah Movement of the 1970s The beginning of the dakwah (Islamic revivalism) movement is popularly traced to disenfranchised university students in the early 1970s.2 This Terence Chong 28 student-based revival was institutionalised by the establishment of ABIM in the University of Malaya, formed in 1969 and officially registered in 1971. Comprising a mixture of students from local and overseas universities with both religious and secular educations, ABIM’s antiestablishment Islam was perhaps informed by the progressive politics of social and civil rights movements in Western democracies of that period. ABIM’s wide-ranging, largely left-wing rhetoric and its shifting alliances, initially with PAS and later with UMNO upon Anwar’s cooption , allowed it to endow Islam with a variety of political meanings. Linked with PAS — both Fadzil Noor and Abdul Hadi Awang, former and present presidents respectively, were from ABIM — ABIM initially criticised UMNO for the latter’s superficial implementation of Islamic policies and openly questioned the ruling party’s Islamic credentials. ABIM’s challenge to UMNO also included demands for the cultivation of religious leadership, more Islamised foreign policies, an Islamic banking system, and an Islamic...