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Wed, 27 Mar 2002 18:49:59 -0800
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PAS : KE ARAH PEMERINTAHAN ISLAM YANG ADIL
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http://members.tripod.com/pemantau/artikel/18Nov1999farish.html
Islam Vs Secularism? The New Political Terrain in Malaysia and Indonesia. By Farish A Noor The results of the recent Indonesian elections were quite a surprise for many observers of Indonesian politics. Up to the last minute, there were those who felt that victory for either the liberal democrat Megawati Sukarnoputri or the conservative B. J. Habiebie was certain. Megawati's strength lay in her claim to be the inheritor of her father's populist politics, while Habiebie's claim to power was based on the fact that he was the man of the establishment, backed up by the formidable political machinery of the GOLKAR party. It was expected that the Muslim parties in the middle would have made strong gains, and that popular Muslim leaders like Abdulrahman Wahid and Dr. Amein Rais would eventually rise to take up the role of king-makers in the new government. But few could have guessed that the mantle of state would fall onto the leader of the Nahdatul Ulama, one of the biggest Islamist movements in Indonesia, Abdulrahman Wahid himself. Observers, experts and laymen alike, are now stumped to give adequate answers and explanations for this radical turn in Indonesian politics. For years, the Indonesian state has tried to ensure that Islamist organisations and parties would never be allowed to mobilise strongly enough as to be able to challenge the status quo. Islamist parties and movements like the Masyumi were banned by both Presidents Sukarno and Suharto. Islamic organisations were 'depoliticised' (which in many cases meant that their leaders were arrested, detained, sent into internal exile or conveniently made to 'disappear'). The Indonesian army (ABRI) played its part in keeping the so-called 'threat' of political Islam at bay, even when the appearance of Islamic groups such as the Islamist separatist movement in Aceh, North Sumatra, actually represented the genuine grievances of poor and alienated Indonesians who felt that their rights had been trampled on by the political elite based in Jakarta. But the signs were there for those who were able to see them: From the late 1980s, the Indonesian elite began to accommodate itself to the changes in the public's mood. President Suharto made his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1991. The government opened up Islamic think-tanks and research centres, and began to patronise Islamic conferences and intellectuals. It was clear that the powers-that-be in Jakarta could not afford to neglect the demands of this massive constituency outside the corridors of power. When Dr Amein Rais declared that he and his movement, the Muhammadijah, would no longer support the Suharto government in 1998, it became clear to all that the Islamic consensus had been broken and that the Islamist movements were no longer going to tolerate the excesses and corruption of the Suharto clique. The rest is history. Today in neighbouring Malaysia, a similar scenario seems on the verge of unfolding. After decades of uninterrupted rule, the Malaysian government which is made up of the ruling National Front (Barisan Nasional) alliance and led by the Conservative-Nationalist UMNO (United Malays National Organisation) party, is facing the worse crisis of its history. In the elections that are about to be held on the 29th of November, the ruling coalition will face the strongest challenge yet at the polls. Few doubt that the ruling alliance will win once again. (It has been doing so for the past nine elections, since Malaysia became independent in 1957). But this time round, the mood of the public has turned against the government so much that it may well lose the two-thirds majority in Parliament that it has enjoyed for so long. This would, in effect, be interpreted by government and opposition politicians alike as the public's criticism of the Barisan's poor handling of the economic and polit! ical crisis of 1997-1999. And for UMNO in particular it will mean a sound condemnation of the leadership of its president, the nation's Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. The most likely gainers in the coming election will be the Islamic opposition party, the Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS). PAS has been the major nemesis of UMNO since the 50s, and its tactic has been to slowly whittle away support for UMNO from the Malay-Muslim constituency that happens to be the main supporters of both parties. (Because of the polarised nature of Malaysian race-centred politics, voters tend to vote along racial, rather than ideological lines. The Malays have traditionally split their votes between the conservative UMNO party and the Islamist PAS party). PAS is set to regain control of the state of Kelantan in the north of Malaysia, which has been under PAS rule for nearly a decade now. But what is worse for the UMNO-led government is the fact that the Islamic party predicts that it can, and will, take over at least three other states in the north as well: Perlis, Kedah and Trengganu. This would split the country into two, creating an 'Islamic bloc' in the north where the majority-Malay states have come under the power of the Islamist party and its supporters. PAS will then become the biggest and most powerful opposition party in Malaysia, marginalising the other leftist and liberal alternatives. The net result would be the division of Malaysia into two distinct socio-cultural and political arrangements, with the north being in the hand of the rural-based Malay Islamists, while the wealthier and more advanced South and West coast remain in the hands of the conservative Malays and the non-Malay communities. Should this be the outcome of the upcoming elections, the ruling elite in Malaysia (like their counterparts in Indonesia next door) will have to ask themselves some serious and penetrating questions, the answers to which may not be all that palatable. Why is it that the Malaysian government and the UMNO party in particular has managed to lose so much support in so short a span of time? To compare Malaysia to Indonesia would be unfair, for the simple reason that the two countries are literally worlds apart. Malaysia has always been a constitutional democracy, run according to a liberal-democratic capitalist developmental model. Indonesia, on the other hand, gave up with its experiment with democracy in the 50s when Sukarno declared it impractical. Indonesia has, since then, been governed by a complex assembly of military elites, businessmen and feudal lords. Malaysia's human rights record remains heads and shoulders above that of Indonesia's, where the army was de facto in charge of practically all public services. Yet both the Malaysian (and Indonesian) political elite have miscalculated on several major points: Malaysia and Indonesia remain essentially Islamic countries where the majority of the populations are Muslim. (60% in Malaysia, 90% in Indonesia). Thus it is clear from the start that the governments of both countries could not neglect the culturally-specific demands of their respective electorates. What made matters worse for the rulers of both countries was that the ruling elite were seen to enjoy a standard of life so radically different from that of the masses. The corruption of Suharto's family members and political cronies has since become the stuff of legend, and to a lesser extent, the accusation of corruption has also damaged the image of the Malaysian elite. Secondly, the governments of both countries made the mistake of neglecting Islam and Muslim concerns at the beginning, and later compounded the error by trying to domesticate Islam when it was seen as a 'threat' to their political and economic livelihood. In Indonesia, the rulers regarded many of the Islamist movements as essentially rural concerns run by backward peasants and village preachers. The Islamic party in Malaysia was likewise treated as a farmyard phenomenon. Later when these Islamist movements and parties grew more powerful, the governments of both countries tried to defuse the threat they felt by trying to co-opt the Islamists into the dominant power structure. In Malaysia, this happened when the UMNO party co-opted the leader of the Islamic youth movement, Anwar Ibrahim into the government. Anwar later rose to become the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia until he was removed and arrested last year. But by then the Islamists had penetrated into practically every ! adjunct of political, governmental, economic and educational life in the country. The co-optation of Islamists in Indonesia did not help the Suharto government either, as they later withdrew their support from him during the 1997-1998 crisis. Thirdly, the governments made the mistake of thinking that they could force their own Islamic agenda on a passive electorate who would follow them obediently. Malaysia experimented with its own version of 'official Islam' from the 1980s, as soon as Dr. Mahathir Mohamad came to power. Dr. Mahathir's own brand of progressive Islam seems rational and acceptable enough to most sensible people: He opposed the fanaticism and intolerance that can be found in other parts of the Islamic world and called on the Malay-Muslims to be open minded, worldly and practical in their orientation. In recent years he has attacked the more orthodox and intolerant sections of the Islamist opposition for their 'holier-than-thou' approach to politics and the spread of an increasingly parochial and narrow interpretation of Islam among Malays, particularly the young. But unfortunately for the government in Malaysia, Islamic discourse, like political discourse in general, is not something that is easily controlled and policed. Despite the many measures made to develop a progressive brand of modernist Islam in the country (via initiatives such as the International Islamic University, the Islamic Research Institute, the state's Islamic Centre, etc.), there has now appeared a more popular brand of Islamist discourse which is shaped by developments both at home as well as abroad. Developments in foreign lands such as the Gulf War, the continuing struggle in Palestine, the persecution of Bosnians and Chechnyans, the emergence of extremist Islamist movements in the Arab world, have all contributed to the formation of a new politicised Islamist discourse that has taken a life of its own and is beyond the control of the state. This is why the political and economic crisis that began in 1997 that affected Malaysia and Indonesia were quickly reconfigured on Islamist terms and turned into a religious struggle against the incumbent political leadership of both countries. It is ironic that Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who first introduced the Islamisation programme to Malaysia, is now being attacked by young Islamists on the grounds that he is 'secular' and 'unIslamic'. Unflattering comparisons between him and the Shah of Iran, the Pharaoh of Egypt and the devil himself have become the norm in the Islamist jargon of the streets. The prevalence of this popular Islamist discourse will shape the terrain of political struggle in the years to come, and undoubtedly create new political frontiers and political identities in the process. In the past, political struggles in the Malay archipelago have been configured along the lines of secular politics where the main objectives were winning control of the state and distribution of resources. But today the struggles have been injected with an ethical and religious dimension as well, colouring the actors and agents concerned and upping the stakes in the contest itself. The Malay political world made up of Malaysia and Indonesia will now be battling for more than control of governments and the machinery of state. What has become the objective of political struggle is the soul of the people themselves. Trying to grapple with this new development will be a task in itself. Michel Foucault once said that "the question of political Islam will remain with us for the years to come. The first condition to be met when approaching this debate, even with the minimum of intelligence, is not to approach it with hate". This is true not only for the governments of non-Muslim societies but also (and perhaps especially) for the governments of Muslim societies as well. Sadly, the record of many governments in the Islamic world today is not all that impressive when one looks at it critically. The governments of countries like Turkey, Algeria, Pakistan and others have tried to respond to the Islamist challenge by either attacking these movements head-on or brushing them aside. For increasingly obvious reasons, neither option seems probable these days. The governments of Malaysia and Indonesia therefore need to address the rapidly changing socio-cultural terrain of their own communities in order to make sure that they will not be wrong-footed in the future. With Islam now firmly planted on the political map as one of the most important (and unpredictable) variables, the elite in Malaysia and Indonesia need to be conscious of how they proceed. The cost of failure will be great, for it will have serious implications for the creation of democratic space and civil society in both countries. End. Dr. Farish A Noor is a Malaysian academic who is currently a research fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg of Berlin. He is also the Secretary-General of the International Movement for a Just World, a Malaysian based NGO which campaigns for human rights while working with and within religious communities. Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ( Melanggan ? To : [EMAIL PROTECTED] pada body : SUBSCRIBE HIZB) ( Berhenti ? To : [EMAIL PROTECTED] pada body: UNSUBSCRIBE HIZB) ( Segala pendapat yang dikemukakan tidak menggambarkan ) ( pandangan rasmi & bukan tanggungjawab HIZBI-Net ) ( Bermasalah? Sila hubungi [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Pengirim: "Mas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>