DAP AND SECULAR NGOS: LIBERAL RIGHTS AND SECULAR FUNDAMENTALISM

Sisters in Islam, Islamic Renaissance Front, and the Anwar Ibrahim–led PKR find strong support for their ideas of limiting the extent of state implementation of sharia laws, and encouraging pluralism and secularism, within DAP and non-Muslim liberal rights organizations.

So the party [DAP], we talk about secular Malaysia, a Malaysia for Malaysians. We don’t subscribe to the hudud law or the Islamic state. Because we still believe that the constitution is fundamentally a secular constitution. Islam is our official religion, and the practice of other religions is allowed in this country. So, even though PAS is in this coalition... we oppose the implementation of hudud law based on the sharia....

Although Dr. Ramasamy noted that Karpal Singh’s declaration was rather harsh in its opposition to hudud and the Islamic state, he felt that it was the correct position. DAP’s perspective is that the recognition of “Islam as the religion of the federation” in the constitution was intended, and should remain, within a secular format. They view the numerous cases of non-Muslims being sent to sharia courts when their spouses convert to Islam and subsequently convert their children to be contravening the secularism embedded in the Federal Constitution.

Secular NGOs such as SUARAM (Suara Rakyat Malaysia; Voice of the Malaysian People), Aliran Kesedaran Negara (National Consciousness Movement), and All Women’s Action Society actively advocate for liberal rights that are often at odds with current government policies and the views of Muslim activists. International studies scholar Meredith L. Weiss (2006, 17–18) points out that many of these civil society agents have formed a multiethnic coalition for political protest and reform in a context where racial and religious fears and racialized communalism remain salient.

The DAP Penang office

Well, we are for a secular state. That’s how Malaysia came into being. That constitution supports that kind of government. We support that. We also feel that there should be freedom of choice when you embrace a faith, and you should also have freedom of association if you want to move out. This comes into direct conflict with the sharia. In Ipoh, there is a kindergarten teacher whose husband just converted without her knowledge and converted the children. The court had given her the custody of the children but the husband has taken away an infant girl and is keeping her in hiding.... But when you go to the civil court they tell you this is sharia jurisdiction. So you have to go. But if you are not a Muslim, why would you want to go there? This guy has taken away the child. If they wanted they could have apprehended him at any time. But just because he is a Muslim, they are not doing anything that may be seen as going against Islam. They won’t push the issue.⁷

Like DAP, these liberal rights NGOs want to see greater secularization of Malaysian society and view the growing influence of Islam on the state as a threat to their liberal rights as guaranteed in the Federal Constitution. They oppose any rise in the jurisdiction of sharia courts and have mixed feelings about supporting the opposition coalition because of the persistent PAS commitment to establishing an Islamic state. P. Ramakrishnan told me that they have to set their disagreement aside on that issue for the time being in order to form a political coalition. According to Anil Netto (2007, 100), an Indian intellectual in Aliran:

In 1988, the administration of then Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad introduced controversial constitutional amendments to include Article 121(1A), which states that the civil courts (despite being federal level courts) shall have no jurisdiction in respect of any matter within the jurisdiction of the Syariah Courts (state-level Islamic courts that have jurisdiction over Muslims in specific personal law matters).

In concert with SIS, IRF, and the intellectuals in their respective networks, Aliran advocates for a secular and neutral state that would extend equal rights to all citizens of the nation-state and not adopt policies slanted toward the laws and ethical norms of any religious group, including the Muslim majority. They consider the slight tweaking of the jurisdiction of sharia courts under Tun Mahathir Mohamad as a move away from the proper elevation of the civil courts in the original 1957 Federal Constitution. Moreover, there remained conflicting areas in which both civil and sharia courts had jurisdiction, notably in relation to matters involving Muslim and non-Muslim parties.

Liberal rights NGOs’ anti-sharia projects stress liberal secularism and what they view to be the violations of “human rights” under current implementations of Islamic laws. Tan Seng, a young activist I interviewed in the SUARAM office in Petaling Jaya, told me that “freedom of religion is a fundamental human right for everyone and the state should not step into personal beliefs.”⁸ They also argue for the elimination of sharia criminal laws and highlight the violations of the principles of liberal secularism and multiculturalism in the current string of controversies over sharia family laws. They argue these cases reflect Malay and Islamic hegemony that must be transformed into a more “cosmopolitan” multiculturalism. In 2009 SUARAM (119–27), in its annual human rights report, criticized the impact of state implementation of sharia laws and ethical norms on the lives of Muslims and non-Muslims:

The codification of Islamic “norms,” “values” and “morals” into state legislation imposes restrictions directly on Muslims and indirectly on non-Muslims.

Likewise, in their 2014 human rights report overview, SUARAM cited continuing legal battles over the right to use the term “Allah,” the JAIS confiscation of Bibles, the Penang Department of Islamic Religion’s seizing a woman’s body at a Taoist funeral, the custody of children in conversion cases, the arrests of Shia for participating in banned religious activities, and the Kelantan state government’s fining of female traders not wearing tudung as some of the violations of religious freedom. These non-Muslim NGOs—embracing the dominant global culture of human rights with its emphasis on secular notions of the individual and personal freedom from state-enforced moral codes—interpret state enforcement of Islamic ethical norms and the special position of Islam as violations of human rights. Thus, these organizations are major nodes for the circulation of hegemonic global values of Western modernity, including a supposedly neutral secular nation-state, privatization of religion, and liberal pluralism.

Given the numerous and highly publicized conversion, child custody, and apostasy cases, as well as the kalimat Allah and “Inter-Faith Commission” controversies, there has been extensive interaction between liberal rights organizations and the UMNO-led government (and other proponents of sharia projects). However, this interaction has been more antagonistic and uncompromising than have those between the Muslim feminist and UMNO-led sharia projects. Rather than reflecting entangled and interpenetrating discourses, the debates between secular NGOs and Islamic agencies, parties, and organizations indicate rigid and hardening ideological positions.