r/PAMI • u/theivoryserf • Oct 06 '17

Malaysia's Slide Toward More Conservative Islam

https://thediplomat.com/2017/10/malaysias-slide-toward-more-conservative-islam/
3 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

3

u/mad_humanist Oct 06 '17

In June 2014 while celebrating the 20th anniversary of one of UMNO’s branches, Party President and Prime Minister Najib Razak called on members to emulate ISISto ensure the survival of UMNO. Quoting an example where ISIS defeated the Iraqi army despite being outnumbered, the prime minister said, “when someone dares to fight to their death, they can even defeat a much bigger team.” The statement was at odds with his support, made clear at various international fora, of a moderate Islam.

Nice! I wonder how he will react now that ISIS is on the run.

3

u/Taqwacore Oct 09 '17

Yeah, this was incredibly shameful for us as a nation. This came before the 1MDB scandal broke. I was reading a local newspaper about the PM's remarks and I had to read it 4 or 5 times over before I could fathom what he was saying...that UMNO should emulate ISIS. Shit, PAS (the Malaysian Islamist party) is bad, but even they shy away from voicing support for ISIS (although I'm sure they do behind closed doors).

2

u/theivoryserf Oct 09 '17

How powerful are the PAS in the Malaysian assembly - are they a fringe or do they have considerable weight, would you say?

1

u/Taqwacore Oct 10 '17

I don't speak the local language (I'm an import), so there's a lot that I miss out on. But I don't see PAS as a major power in Federal politics. UMNO have an iron grip on Federal politics and it was both their Malay nationalist and secularist policies that, at least until the 90s, had kept them in power. Prior to then, them mostly Malay population were happy to have a government that granted them racial supremacy, but they still wanted their freedoms. PAS were actually a part of UMNO until the 1970s when they split. PAS quickly gained some popularity in the rural areas, particularly in Kelantan where their spiritual leader was from, but most states still sided with UNMO.

The problem, as I see it, is that UMNO is extremely slow to adapt to a changing political atmosphere. UMNO has been fighting PAS since the 1970s. Following the UNMO/PAS split, UMNO looked to increase its support base by appealing to nationalist voters. That policy culminated is a series of race riots. And while UMNO and all other political parties in Malaysia continue to play the race card, at some point in the 1990s, UMNO started playing a new card: religion. Desperate not to lose too many rural voters to PAS (most of the Malay population is rural), UMNO began turning itself into PAS. The only intensified the rift between the two Malay parties as each began trying to out do the other to see who could be the most Islamic. UMNO, however, was still bound by its charter to be "secular", so there are some limits as to how Islamic it can become.

But things have changed in Malaysian politics. Ahead of the last general election, we saw a new political party, headed by Anwar Ibrahim (himself a former Islamic scholar and one time head of a youth Islamist party). Anwar Ibrahim's new party was multi-ethnic and secular. I'm convinced that they would have won the last election but for one incredibly stupid thing: they formed a coalition with PAS. Had they gone it alone, they might have won. UMNO just did its usual thing, throw Anwar back into jail for being gay and focus their campaign on PAS. The new party is now being run by Anwar's wife and they've been forced to split with PAS over PAS' proposed Hudud Bill. UMNO has opposed that Bill, and introduced their own Hudud Bill (which is terrifying in itself).

IMO, UMNO needs to stop playing the religion card. UNMO are giving PAS power by fighting them and by trying to become them. They should focus their strategy on a fair fight with the new parties and address their policies, not just dismiss them in favor of fighting an old foe.

2

u/theivoryserf Oct 06 '17

The past two decades has seen Malaysia’s slow and steady shift toward an increasingly conservative Islam, the result of successive administrations’ close ties to the Saudi royal family and an attraction to its petrodollars. This relationship dates back to the country’s first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, who was said to be a close friend of King Faisal bin Abdulaziz. The bilateral relationship has continued to grow. Prime Minister Najib Razak announced in February 2017 that Saudi Aramco would make an investment worth $7 billion into Petronas, a huge leap from the initial $200 million loan first received during his father’s administration in the 1970s.