Novel tack to Malay-Muslim quest for concord

 A hitherto unknown thinker airs a deeply resonant pathway for Malay progress.

From Terence Netto

Many political observers would have felt a sense of de’ja vu when they heard that the Malay and Islamist parties were going to hold a musyawarah to forge common interests in promoting Islam, the Malays and Bumiputeras.

There have been several attempts over the years by Malay and Islamist parties to achieve concordance (the Arabic term does not lend itself to easy translation in English).

But these efforts have not borne fruit, testimony to the difficulty of the task.

Politics is an inherently divisive medium, so the forging of a common agenda based on commonalities of race and religion is more easily espoused rhetorically than brought about by deeds.

Nevertheless, it is not good cultural form to show a lack of earnestness in attempting to find concordance, even if that is difficult to bring off.

Accordingly, seven political parties, including Umno, PAS, PKR and Amanah, got together on March 5 at the Umno headquarters to talk about, among other things, Malay unity.

The unifying spirit of the fasting month (Ramadan) played a role in bringing disparate political parties to sit down and talk in pursuit of concord.

They were not going to achieve it overnight so the formation of a secretariat to explore the matter was the best bet under the circumstances.

That constituted acknowledgment that concordance, despite being difficult to achieve among similarly-motivated political entities, must continue to be pursued as a goal because of the necessity to advance the interests of Islam, the Malays and Bumiputeras.

Because of the failure of previous attempts to achieve unity, the latest effort must have played a part in eliciting fresh thinking.

This came from an unlikely quarter – Parti Amanah Negara.

Amanah, the splinter formed a little over 10 years ago by the professional wing of PAS, had not lived up to the promise it displayed when it was nurtured under the aegis of the conservative mother party by president Fadzil Noor (1989 to 2002).

Fadzil was sympathetic to the coterie of professionals who joined the party in droves from the late 1990s until 2015 when the cohort broke away to form a separate party (Amanah) after the rout of their candidates in PAS polls in 2015.

Fadzil’s death in 2002, more so Kelantan menteri besar Nik Aziz Nik Mat’s demise in 2015, had a shriveling effect on this professional wing.

Their decision to set up shop on its own in 2015 was inevitable but since doing so, the party, Amanah, has not flourished, most likely from an inability to carve out positions on the Islamic spectrum that distinguish it from PAS.

There was a brief intimation of an ability to do so in September 2018 when Mujahid Yusof Rawa, religious affairs minister in the then Pakatan Harapan government, asserted that the preaching style of Islamic evangelist Zakir Naik was “unsuitable” in Malaysia.

Mujahid did not spell out what this unsuitability was, but the very mention of it was sufficient grounds for expecting that Amanah was capable of new departures and initiatives.

However, Mujahid did not sustain the promise. He embraced Zakir Naik the following September at a breakfast meeting that disappointed his enthusiasts, who had until then viewed him as the most amenable link between Islamists and Malaysians of a liberal inclination.

Amanah has not recovered from the collapse of Mujahid’s long and painstaking efforts at building up his standing as an Islamist of moderate and liberal credentials.

But hope springs eternal.

A few days after the meeting of the seven Malay and Islamist parties on March 5, Amanah central committee member Zamir Ghazali aired what must be the freshest thinking among local Muslim minds on the question of Malay unity.

He said in a Facebook post: “It’s the political leaders who mobilise political sentiments that spook the Malays. As politicians, we often spread the notion that the Malays aren’t united. This is the real tumour within Malay society.

“So the best remedy to uniting the Malays in this area is for us politicians to stop riding on racial and religious sentiments. Let’s go back to values-based politics.”

He said Malay politicians needed to shift their political narratives to good values and ideas that would help the Malays progress.

Hence, the political battle should not centre on exclusivity or “who is more Malay”.

Bravo, Zamir. - FMT

 Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.