|dev|null wrote on Sep 1
st, 2014 at 11:04am:
FD will duck every question on this topic apart from reported Malaysian attitudes towards apostacy.
But yes, a survey of 38,000 people from all over the world does raise questions. What was the sample size in Malaysia?
Politically, I find Malaysia a bit of an enigma. Malays are generally a very laid-back population, but they've followed a political message about global Islam for years. This message was cleverly exploited by Mahatir, and this makes political sense in a country where the majority Malay population is only about 60%.
Malaysian business is run largely by the ethnic Chinese. The courts are run by ethnic Indians and Sri Lankans. The Malays in parliament wedge their position with a call to global Islam, and in a country where the majority ethnic population is not that big, it's a question of identity politics.
Some Malaysian states take a hard line on Islamic rules, but this generally doesn't effect non-Muslims. I've heard that some local governments punish Muslims for drinking alcohol, for example, but beer is freely available in convenience stores for everyone else. Mind you, it's taxed. Malaysia is probably the most expensive country in South East Asia to buy a beer - apart from Brunei.
Indonesia is quite different. There, Muslims make up the bulk of the population, so the call to political Islam is not so readily leaned on by those in power. Indonesians are not a single ethnic population, like Malays. There are over 300 different ethnic groups in Indonesia, and many languages. People speak their local language first, and Bahasa second. Federal politics in Indonesia have traditionally been run by Javans. With a viable system of political representation in Jakarta now, this is changing, but power is quite dispersed in Indonesia, and quite localized.
What Indonesian politicians do exploit, however, is anti-Chinese sentiment. All through South East Asia, ethnic Chinese princelings control the purse-strings. In some countries, this produces a good deal of resentment. When the water in your town is owned by a foreign company, or when your loan is managed by a foreign bank, or your job relies on foreign funds, people take issue - particulalry in the aftermath of a financial crisis where many lost their local services, savings and jobs. During the Suharto years, Indonesians had no choice but to suck this up. Now it's a demokracy, politicians must cater to the frustrations felt by the electorate, and in Indonesia, these frustrations are aimed largely at the ethnic Chinese - just as in the Sukarno era they were directed at the Western colonists.
In Thailand, the ethnic Chinese assimilated well - they were forced to change their names, etc, by the old Thai monarchy. They also assimilated in the Philippines, but almost everybody assimilated in the Philippines. There, the Spanish forced conversion to Catholicism, followed by the Amerikans forcing school kids to salute the Amerikan flag. Philippinos are quite unique in the region in that they often blame themselves for their problems - the endemic corruption, the foreign ownership, the lack of wealth. This lack of national self esteeem leads to many opting to get out. One of the biggest sources of revenue in the Philippines are the wages sent home by foreign workers.
I would hazzard a guess that Malays - like Muslim Thais - follow a hardline view of Islamic identity because they're a minority. Much of this has to do with security. Unlike Indonesia, Malaysia does not have a big armed force. Unlike Singapore, for example, there is no conscription, and no program of multiculturalism, despite a similar mix of ethnicities. Mahatir was active in global Muslim causes and multilateral organizations, and he did this for financial, trade and domestic political purposes.
It was also a huge success - many skyscrapers in KL were built with Gulf money. And herein lies the other source of hardline Islamification in Malaysia: petrodollars. Mahatir cunningly blended Islamic identity politics with trade deals with the old Pan Arab states.
Malaysia is one of South East Asia's success stories. It's hardline Islamic stance is a confluence of a range of factors, but it definitely hasn't held Malaysia back from economic development. Political development - certainly. Malaysia is one country where it's almost pointless reading a newpaper. Not only are they boring, they only tell you what the ruling party wants you to hear. Malaysia is not a real democracy. However, as a model of political-economics, it has far more in common with Confuscian states like Singapore and China than any Islamic state you can think of (and there's aren't many of them).
Malaysia has succeeded largely due to the willingness of its people to develop economically and let the government do what it does. The old Chinese analogy is to let the ruler hold the head of the cow while you milk it, and this is why the idea of stonings and beheadings and Hudud laws are so ridiculous in Malaysia. They're the sort of political fantasy Australians have when they talk of deporting Muslims and bringing back the death penalty.
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Pew survey of Muslims' opinions (Read 56199 times)
