While we may want Anwar to succeed, it must not be at the cost of our status as a secular state.
One of the questions I always get especially from non-Muslims when I question the policies and actions of the unity government is: what’s the alternative?
Often this question is framed as a choice between the moderate Islam of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim or the more radical Islam of PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang. As one columnist asked recently, “Which Islam do you prefer to govern Malaysia?”
But that, I submit, is a trick question. Why are we being asked to choose between different shades of an Islamic state when Malaysia was founded as a secular democracy?
The constitutional foundation of Malaysia as a secular multicultural and multi-religious state was well-established until Dr Mahathir Mohamad, with the connivance of Gerakan, MCA and MIC, assaulted it in 2001 with his insistence that Malaysia is an Islamic state. His opinion, rather than the constitution, quickly took on a life of its own; the lie was repeated ad nauseum to the point that the word “secular” has been dropped entirely from the national narrative.
But the historical record is very clear. In the very first document which preceded and built up what is now the Federal Constitution, known as the Reid Commission Report (1956-57), it was observed that in the ‘memorandum submitted by the Alliance it was stated that the religion of Malaysia shall be Islam. The observance of this principle (as conceded by the Alliance itself) shall not impose any disability on non-Muslim nationals professing and practising their own religions and shall not imply that the State is not a secular State.’
Our first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, echoed this when he noted in 1958, “I would like to make clear that this country is not an Islamic state as is generally understood, we merely provide that Islam shall be the official religion of the State.”
Tun Hussein Onn too said Malaysia should not be turned into an Islamic state. “The nation can still be functional as a secular state with Islam as its official religion.”
Until the DAP became part of the federal government, it vociferously defended this position too. As Lim Kit Siang noted in 2012, “The stand that has been taken by the DAP, that Malaysia is a secular state with Islam as the official religion, is the same and consistent with the public positions taken by the first three Prime Ministers of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak and Tun Hussein”.
Malaysia’s status as a secular state was also reiterated by the Bar Council. In 2007, Ambiga Sreenevasan, then president of the Bar council, noted that, “Respected Academics, and our own Supreme Court in 1988 have reiterated in one way or another that we are a secular State and not an Islamic State. Thus, for more than 40 years (until 2001), no one had suggested that Malaysia is an Islamic State.”
The real discussion we ought to be having, therefore, is how best to defend and promote Malaysia’s status as a secular constitutional democracy instead of arguing about which kind of Islamic theocracy is preferable.
In responding to concerns over his recent move to substantially empower JAKIM, the prime minister said that his government “never received any opposition from non-Muslims….” If this is indeed true, then non-Muslim members of his cabinet have clearly failed to adequately convey the growing unease that many non-Muslims feel about some of his policies.
While we may want Anwar to succeed, it must not be at the cost of our status as a secular state. If it’s just a choice between two shades of an Islamic theocracy, what’s the difference between Anwar and Hadi? The fear of PAS coming to power and imposing its version of an Islamic state should not stampede us into settling for a co-called milder version of an Islamic state. A milder version is, in any case, simply an illusion.
If the prime minister is true to his ‘reformasi’ ideals, he should fight to uphold Malaysia as a secular constitutional democracy rather than initiating policies that only push us further down the road towards an Islamic theocracy whatever it’s shade. – Dennis Ignatius