You probably do not realise it, but the more important outcome of the upcoming six state elections is that the Malays will determine which brand of Islam they desire for Malaysia.
A win for Perikatan Nasional will mark a major watershed in how Islam is practised in the nation. Be prepared for an increasingly intolerant version of Islam peddled by the PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang.
However, a vote for Pakatan Harapan will allow the nation some breathing space, and the more moderate (for now) version of Islam will continue.
On the surface, the state elections may seem like the selection of the administration which will govern; but in truth, the state election is about religion, read Islam, in Malaysia.
Most of us consider Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism to be intolerant and rigid, but ask any die-hard PAS supporter, and he may say that Saudi’s version of Islam is too liberal and heathen. Fancy allowing women to drive, attend school or play football!
Many Malaysians, especially our youth, assume that the green wave in the 15th general election was a consequence of the nation’s first Islamisation process. No, it is not!
Older Malaysians have travelled on this journey before. The parallels between what happened four decades ago and now are worrying.
Four decades ago, we saw the first attempts at Islamisation, the challenges faced by the judiciary, tighter controls on the population, criticism of royalty and the initial cracks in Umno.
The first Islamisation process occurred with the dakwah movement of the mid-to-late 1970s to early 1980s.
The proponents sought to apply Islamic laws and values to daily living for social, economic and spiritual development. It was energised by the global resurgence of Islam and the Iranian/Islamic revolution of 1979.
The more visible effects of the Islamisation/dakwahism movement were experienced in schools, universities and the civil service.
At our convent, Malay girls came for netball practice, suddenly, in long trousers, long-sleeved tops and head coverings. It was alleged that women in the civil service who refused to conform to the new unspoken dress code were refused promotion.
For overseas students, dakwahism was more pronounced. Besides the obligatory religious classes, there was a spate of contract, short-term, or temporary marriages among Malay university students.
So whilst the rest of the Malaysian student population was busy socialising, making friends, enjoying student life, and sampling the delights of another culture, dakwah couples behaved like ordinary married couples.
The Malaysians who were mistaken about the Islamisation of the nation, also assumed that the first fragmentation of Umno-Baru began with the reformasi movement. No!
The first cracks in Umno started when Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah or Ku Li, challenged the then-Umno president, Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Ku Li’s actions resulted in a chain reaction which led to the constitutional/judicial crisis, Mahathir’s method of silencing his critics with Operasi Lalang, and the formation of Umno Baru when the original Umno was declared an illegal society.
History repeats itself in Malaysia. Four decades ago, two events probably made Islamic teachings in Malaysia increasingly extreme and uncompromising.
First was the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution when the clerics of Iran successfully overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty, the last Iranian monarchy.
Perhaps, both Mahathir and Hadi, who showed disrespect to the Malaysian sultans are emboldened by the actions of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Mahathir’s single aim is probably to hang onto power whereas Hadi’s reason is more chilling.
The second event was the siege of Mecca in 1979, when a young preacher staged an armed takeover of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, which led to a bloodbath.
Amongst the many aims of the rebel extremist and his fellow militants was to advocate a return to the original ways of Islam, and expulsion of non-Muslims. Does that sound familiar to Malaysians?
Both these events, the Iranian Revolution and the Mecca siege were the watershed in Islamic history and also in Saudi rule.
Brainwashed from overseas
The extremists who seized the Grand Mosque condemned the degeneration of social and religious values.
They said that oil money had transformed the nation into a consumerist society with men and women freely mixing. The aftermath of the bloody siege led to Saudi becoming ultra-conservative. Its women became almost “invisible”.
People like me returned from our overseas studies to a country that was different to the one we left earlier. Since then, we have seen the hardliners digging their heels in.
And it did not help that the Malay scholarship students who were sent to Egyptian and Jordanian universities, who were themselves brainwashed by the clerics in these far-away places, returned home to spread their warped ideology.
The graduates may be professionals but they confuse culture and religion. Many Malay forms of expression like dance, wayang kulit and music have been banned.
I was brought up on a diet of P Ramlee movies and bands like The Who and The Rolling Stones.
And it is disheartening to see the decline of a once happy multicultural nation to a disgruntled, artificial monoculture where we quibble over ownership of choice words like “Allah”, argue about certain “national dishes”, where discussion about our clothing takes precedence over the cost of living crisis.
In other words, we have degenerated from the golden days of P Ramlee to enter the dark days of PAS’ Hadi.
Malaysia’s upcoming six state elections may possibly mark a turning point in our history. - Mkini
MARIAM MOKHTAR is a defender of the truth, the admiral-general of the Green Bean Army, and the president of the Perak Liberation Organisation (PLO). Blog, Twitter.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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