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Article Excerpt
During the lengthy tenure of Dr Mahathir Mohamad's premiership (1981-2003), the formal political scene of Islamism (1) was dominated by the incessant rivalry between the ruling United Malays' National Organization (UMNO) and Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS: Parti Islam SeMalaysia). The Islamist civil society, on the other hand, witnessed the blossoming of independent Islamic movements such as the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM: Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia), the Society for Islamic Reform (JIM: Jamaah Islah Malaysia), Darul Arqam and Jamaat Tabligh. These movements were distinctive in their utilization of dakwah (missionary effort) rather than overt politics as a means of struggling for Islam. Except for the Indian-originated Jamaat Tabligh, the other movements' programmes, structures and aspirations had political content and significance in their various ways and configurations.
Since the new millennium, notable Islamists have opted to shift organizational affiliations and strategies in the face of closer state scrutiny and effective portrayal of the state as an Islamic entity in whatever form. While the main movements continue to exist in mellowed forms, the expansion of civil society has sparked the formation of new groupings and alignments which, while owing their existence to new undercurrents in Malaysian society, are not necessarily detached from the older movements. The new groupings and alignments, albeit smaller in actual membership from their precursors among the larger movements, have struck a chord among the urban Malay-Muslim masses by vocally addressing issues which are seen as essential to Muslim identity formation and development as the post-New Economic Policy (NEP) generation gradually establishes itself at the helm of national socio-political affairs. The provisional impact of these new groupings will hopefully be made clear in the course of this paper, which narrows down to an investigation into metamorphoses that have affected and transpired in one of the most influential civil society movements of contemporary Islamism, viz. ABIM.
The Phases of Islamism in Malaysia
Post-independence Islamism in Malaysia may be divided into five phases. Firstly, the formative phase (1971-81), beginning from the enunciation of the NEP following the ethnic riots of May 1969. Although the aims of the NEP were spelt out in inclusive terms, in terms of implementation, it proved to be essentially a policy of affirmative action to redress the economic grievances of Malay-Muslims via preferential policies and creation of trust institutions to manage corporate wealth on their behalf. The NEP created an environment in which Islam was given greater prominence in the basic search for Malay and national identity. The state established official Islamic institutions and sponsored the tertiary education of thousands of Malay-Muslim students at home and abroad, where Islamism proved to be a powerful socializing force. Coinciding with a period when PAS was in the ruling National Front (BN: Barisan Nasional) coalition (1973-77), Islamic resurgence as an alternative voice to the dominant polity was steered by new movements such as ABIM, the Islamic Representative Council (IRC) and Darul Arqam.
The formative phase was characterized by intense galvanization of young people through publicity campaigns and dakwah activities. The abrupt transformation in worldview and lifestyle among young urban Malay intelligentsia was manifested in radical approaches in confronting the un-Islamic status quo. ABIM used extrovert methods such as a vocal pressure group to fight for social causes on behalf of the downtrodden masses. IRC utilized secret cells in close alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Muslimun). Darul Arqam favoured introvert methods of reviving an Islamic society free from the clutches of secularism, hedonism and materialism. While ABIM and IRC dominated Malay-Islamist discourses in local and overseas campuses respectively, Darul Arqam founded economically self-sustaining villages throughout the country in an effort to reinvigorate the ideals of Islam as din al-hayah (a way of life) within a spiritually protective environment. (2)
Secondly, the maturing phase (1981-91), corresponding to the ascendancy of Dr Mahathir Mohamad as Prime Minister and the dominant figure in all key aspects of socio-economic and political contestations. After a brief liberal streak in his engagement with the populace, Mahathir responded aggressively to rising disaffection with his leadership by minimizing democratic space for actual and potential contestants for political influence from among non-state actors. Venerable state institutions such as the royalty and the judiciary were emasculated. Rival UMNO factions were purged, leading to the formation of the splinter party Semangat 46 (Spirit of 1946), headed by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah who was narrowly defeated in his attempt to unseat Mahathir as UMNO President in 1987. At the receiving end of the state's heavy-handed treatment were opposition party figures, non-governmental organization (NGO) activists, trade unionists, dissenting academics and Islamists, culminating in the notorious Operation Lalang of October 1987 when 106 dissidents from a wide range of political persuasions were detained without trial under the Internal Security Act (ISA). (3) Mahathir's state neutralized the Islamist challenge by a shrewd combination of coercion, cooptation and Islamization. (4)
Following its disastrous experience of expulsion from the BN, PAS reoriented its struggle under a rejuvenated "leadership by ulama (religions scholars)" driven by the ideals of a juridical Islamic state. But PAS's renewed challenge was brutally suppressed by the state's coercive apparatus, as witnessed in the bloody showdown between the police and PAS villagers in Memali, Kedah, in November 1985. (5) ABIM veered towards pro-establishment Islamism after the entree of its erstwhile leader, Anwar Ibrahim, into the ruling UMNO party and government folds in 1982. After repeated failures to disseminate its clandestine and radical approach by infiltrating existing Islamic organizations, IRC activists submitted to Malaysian realities by legally registering the movement in 1990 as the Society for Islamic Reform (JIM: Jamaah Islah Malaysia). (6) Darul Arqam, having successfully built the rudiments of an economically self-sufficient system independent of the crutches of the NEP, had to withstand pressure from religious authorities' implicating its sufi teachings with heterodoxy. In 1988, its leader, Ustaz Ashaari Muhammad, chose to relocate overseas after the widespread banning of Darul Arqam publications considered to have deviated from orthodox Islam. (7) For the Islamists, the 1980s was the decade of coming to terms with the reality of engaging with the state in its multi-faceted forms and approaches.
The third stage may be termed the pragmatic phase (1991-98), when the Islamists pragmatically considered differing options of arriving at a tolerable modus vivendi with the state. Within the context of a booming economy and an enthusiastic public response to Dr Mahathir's Vision 2020, outlining a blueprint towards accomplishing a fully developed and industrialized country whose national consciousness was formed around a united Bangsa Malaysia (Malaysian nation), Islamism as a dissenting cause was on the defensive. Yet internal splits within UMNO allowed PAS to maintain political control of the state of Kelantan which it had captured in 1990. Having been thrown into the reality of state administration within a BN-controlled federal structure, PAS negotiated its Islamist demands in more down-to-earth tones. For example, despite Kelantan's state legislature passing an Islamic Criminal Law Bill in 1993, PAS accepted that hudud (Islamic criminal punishments) could never be implemented without a constitutional amendment by at least a two-thirds majority in the federal Parliament. When its coalition partner, Semangat 46, rejoined UMNO in 1996, PAS's Kelantan government moderated its image further by forging closer ties with the federal government and acknowledging its financial assistance for development projects. (8) Central PAS figures publicly disavowed the party's past radicalism and affirmed its commitment to democracy.
ABIM, despite its publicly apolitical stance, maintained covert relations with Anwar Ibrahim, who swiftly rose in the political world to become by 1994, Deputy President of UMNO and Deputy Prime Minister. ABIM's conciliatory posture vis-a-vis the state was manifested in unflinching support given to programmes and institutions under Anwar Ibrahim's patronage, such as the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM). IRC activists, having been shunned by PAS in the late 1980s, maintained similar links with Anwar, although more on individual rather than organizational bases. Only Darul Arqam refused to toe the line of the state's Islamic agenda, preferring to maintain its own system and messianic worldview of Malaysia's future; recalcitrance which brought it into confrontation with the state. In 1994, the state passed fatwas (legal opinions) pronouncing Darul Arqam as deviant and declared it an illegal organization, paving the way for the widespread arrest of its leaders and a wholesale crackdown on its members and activities. Having reached an accommodation with the ruling establishment, Islamists from ABIM, JIM and PAS issued statements approving, though conditionally, the state's clampdown on Darul Arqam. (9) Between the demise of Darul Arqam and the oncoming re-radicalization phase which corresponded with a period of recession and intense civil unrest, the only dissenting Islamist voice came from freelance missionaries (pendakwah bebas) who bore sympathies or indirect connections with PAS. (10)
Fourthly, the Reformasi phase (1998-2003), in which Islamists experimented in street protests and demonstrations against the injustice meted out to Anwar Ibrahim, who was unceremoniously dismissed from all his government and party posts in early September 1998 for allegedly engaging in corruption and immoral sexual relations. Anwar was subsequently arrested under the ISA, manhandled during detention, convicted on what many suspected as trumped-up charges...
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