Mixed Repercussions in Malaysia
International Herald Tribune
October 30, 2001
Philip Bowring

The aftermath of Sept. 11 is having a profound impact on prosperous, predominantly Muslim Malaysia. The results augur well for the country's internal stability in the short term and its ability to keep religious radicalism marginalized.

The position of Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad, who is 76, has been strengthened. Six months ago his future was in doubt.

His unpopularity within the ruling United Malays National Organization was stark. Hostility to crony capitalism was rife. Opposition parties were maintaining an improbable alliance. And the jailing of opponents, notably former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, was earning Mr. Mahathir the distrust of many Malays and most liberals.

Before Sept. 11 he had already begun to recover his poise with housecleaning and repositioning. Now support among non-Malays, who have always seen him as a bulwark against Islamists, is stronger than ever.

Moderate Malays, frustrated by corruption and UMNO's autocratic tendencies, had been supporting the Islamic Party of Malaysia or Keadilan, the multiethnic party formed after Mr. Anwar's arrest and headed by his wife. But they have been drifting back to UMNO.

Keadilan is losing focus. The alliance between the Islamic Party and the mainly Chinese Democratic Action Party has broken down.

The eruption of extremism elsewhere has enabled the government to cast in a better light its arrests of Muslim (and non-Muslim) opposition figures, and its crackdown on local Muslim cults that were not connected to Osama bin Laden but whose existence appeared to support the official contention that extremist dangers were real.

The government's revived popularity has been seen in state elections in Sarawak.

Internationally, Mr. Mahathir has kept his balance, exhibiting his credentials as an opponent of religious extremism.

This consolidation around the political center does not mean that there are no negative effects from Sept. 11. The bombing has raised Muslim consciousness. The Malay press is full of denunciations of America.

Only a handful of Malays are likely to want to move from rhetoric to action, but any sustained increase in Malay self-awareness of Muslim as opposed to Malaysian identity cannot be good for relations with non-Muslims.

The non-Muslims may not like American policies, but they fear that the solidarity Muslims feel required to exhibit will damagerelations with the West and hurt the economy.For years Mr. Mahathir has pursued full-steam-ahead economic modernization driven by foreign investment but has balanced this with mosque building and social concessions to vocal Islamists and with periodic anti-Western rhetoric.

Compare Malaysia now with when he came to power 20 years ago and one sees a more prosperous and urbanized society but one with more outward signs of Muslim formalism and, consequently, a new divide between urban Malays and non-Malays.

Many modernist Malays close to Mr. Mahathir now feel that it was a mistake to have responded to the surge in Islamic consciousness which followed the Iranian revolution by giving freer rein to religious authorities. These have sought to impose their own restrictive interpretations of Islam on a Malay community that traditionally took a relaxed view of dress codes, alcohol and so on.

Lack of freedom of Malays to make their own judgments about religion and social mores is a blot on the nation's record of modernization and pluralism. The issue now is whether Malaysia goes further down this road of using political power to further Islam, as is happening in the states controlled by the Islamic Party of Malaysia.

Alternatively, Malays may consider that they are better served by reasserting their commitment to a secular Malay-led state in which Muslims can choose their own ways of relating to God. The Malay elite represented by UMNO favors this course but has been divided by the treatment of Mr. Anwar and damaged by the party's get-rich-quick image.

Afghanistan is increasing the emotional pressure on Malays for religious identification at a time when Malaysia needs to cultivate domestic harmony and good relations with non-Muslim Asian neighbors as well as the West.

A 30-year-old policy has given economic and educational advantages to the mostly Malay Muslim majority. Affirmative action has brought Malays into the modern economy. But, contrary to the usual impact of urbanization, religious commitment may have increased.

Has religious authority supplanted the feudal relationships of rural Malaysia? Or has affirmative action institutionalized dependency and a sense of inability to compete equally in the modern world?

Re-examination of this policy is due. For now, it is important for Malaysians to appreciate the plural underpinnings, political and ethnic, of their success.

Copyright © 2006 the International Herald Tribune