LIBERAL PLURALISM AND MALAY AND ISLAMIC SOVEREIGNTY
There are numerous cases that indicate the sociopolitical tensions over liberal pluralism and Malay and/or Islamic sovereignty. Similar to public skirmishes over child custody, there has been long-standing public controversy over the requirement of non-Muslims to convert to Islam in order to marry Muslims.
Many secular human rights organizations and non-Muslims at large argue for eliminating any state-enforced requirements for these marriage-related conversions, in favor of facilitating greater national integration of Malaysia’s diverse social groups. Some even nostalgically invoke past historical epochs when local indigenous women “followed” their Chinese and Indian husbands in practicing the Buddhist-Taoist or Hindu religions of their ancestors. Non-Muslims also disagree with the intervention of Muslim religious authorities in the marriages and funerals of non-Malays registered as Muslims. However, normative Muslim forces are squarely opposed to any such contraventions of sharia family laws and some even resent non-Muslims fondly recalling past times in which Muslims were not attendant to the norms of their own faith, Islam.Likewise, disputes over the formation of an “Inter-Faith Commission,” the raid of a Methodist church in Selangor, and the use of the word “Allah” by a Catholic weekly publication indicate the interplay of sociopolitical projects over issues related to liberal pluralism and Malay and Islamic sovereignty. Malaysians from various non-Muslim religious backgrounds viewed the establishment of an Inter-Faith Commission as a vehicle for dialogue with political authorities in order to facilitate greater integration and mutual respect. Moreover, secular and Muslim human rights activists were in support of such an institution to negotiate inclusive resolutions to issues of religious freedom, Muslim conversion, and child custody in previously non-Muslim families.
The fact that many Malaysian Muslims, reasoning with various normative sharia models, interpreted Muslim reformers involved with the Article 11 movement for religious freedom to be “deviant” Muslims holding heterodox beliefs reflects the lack of interdependence between these opposing discourses. Furthermore, many Malaysian Muslims felt threatened by the perceived international support from foreign Christian organizations for these liberal rights forces. The initial move of Malay political elites to organize such a commission was reversed after a coalition of Islamic NGOs vehemently criticized this proposed institution as undermining the special position of Islam in Malaysia and threatening the faith altogether.Similarly, mediating Islamic NGOs pressured PAS to shift its initial “cosmopolitan” positions on the raid of a Methodist church event attended by several Muslims and the use of the word “Allah” by a Catholic weekly publication. In both cases, PAS joined the chorus of normative Muslim voices, ranging from UMNO and Malay rights organizations to Islamic NGOs, calling for an end to Christian proselytizing among Muslims and for the immediate passage of an apostasy bill. These skirmishes indicate that mediating Islamic NGOs, operating with a combination of Malay and Islamic sovereignty sharia cultural models, can check secular nationalist Malay political elites and the political Islamic party when they perceive them to be taking positions that weaken the dominant stature of Islam in the body politic. Thus, although UMNO and PAS often find themselves in conflict over control of religious institutions and the contrasting basis of their political parties, they are consistently pulled to unite with each other and Islamic NGOs to uphold the supremacy of Islam against the increasingly intense challenges from a phalanx of secular and Muslim human rights activists attempting to forward sociopolitical projects for civil liberties, liberal pluralism, and secular modernity. Analysis of the discourse of interacting sociopolitical projects related to several public debates and controversies facilitates elucidation of the character of discursive engagement, which is highly contentious, uncompromising, and lacking in significant interdependence.
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