The trials and tribulations of Malaysia’s former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim continue, and history seems to be repeating itself time and again in this country. Ten years after the infamous trial where he was accused of sexual misconduct and abuse of power, Anwar Ibrahim is once again being investigated for charges of sexual misconduct with a man who was a member of his party, the People’s Justice Party (PKR) of Malaysia.

On 16th July Anwar was arrested just after he had given his testimony before the country’s Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA), and on his way to give yet another testimony at the Police Headquarters in Kuala Lumpur. A deadline had been set at 2.00 PM for him to show up at the police office, and though he was already on his way there he was apprehended near his home before the deadline had expired.

Anwar has since been arrested under the laws of Section 377a of the Malaysian constitution that stipulates that ‘abnormal sex’ is a crime. Yet Malaysians have grown somewhat weary of the use of this law as the last time it was put to work was in 1998, when Anwar was also accused on ‘abnormal sex.’ The trial that followed his arrest in 1998 was a sham that brought low the reputation of the Malaysian judiciary and security services. The icing on the cake, as it were, was the assault on Anwar that led to his being produced in court with bruises on his face and the infamous black eye that has been captured for posterity by the world’s media. Malaysia’s legal institutions suffered the biggest blow to their credibility as the court case that followed was scrutinized in detail by Malaysia-watchers the world over.

Today, things have changed and moved on. In 1998, Malaysia’s political crisis was sparked by Anwar’s arrest and the mobilization of the masses by his political supporters who used tools like the Internet and alternative media. Malaysia then had less than a million Internet users, and Anwar’s nemesis Dr. Mahathir was at the peak of his popularity.

Malaysia today has moved on with nearly 12 million registered Internet users and the creation of the most well-connected, well-informed, and politically savvy electorate in its history. Furthermore the present government does not have half of the support that Dr. Mahathir enjoyed in 1998, with the ruling coalition being badly weakened after the 2008 elections. Anwar, on the other hand, is at the peak of his career and popularity; and many feel that this arrest was yet another attempt to prevent him from leading a popular movement to change the government.

On the night before his arrest, Anwar was seen on TV in a live debate about oil prices with a senior politician, Shabary Cheek. For Malaysians all over the country, this was perhaps the first time they had seen Anwar live on TV and allowed to speak his mind freely since his fall from grace in 1998. And the results of the debate were as expected. Local polls suggested that the Malaysians saw Anwar as the winner of the debate and that his arguments were convincing.

Anwar’s arrest could therefore not have come at a worst time for the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi. The question on everyone’s lips is: How will this latest scenario play itself out in Malaysian politics, and what will be the results in the near future?

For a start it is unlikely that Anwar will be released anytime soon as there are fears that he will once again mobilize his supporters and call for massive demonstrations all over the country. But in jail Anwar is as effective an icon for the opposition and a magnet for those disaffected and disillusioned with the government of Prime Minister Abdullah.

Prime Minister Abdullah has in turn given assurances that the investigations into Anwar’s case will be done fairly and Anwar will be safe. Such assurances are, however, going to be held to account by a Malaysian public that is no longer prepared to accept the irregularities of the earlier trial of Anwar in 1998. This time round, every single step of the investigation will be watched by discerning Malaysians and the wider international community. The expansion of Malaysia’s civil society and the Internet means that every minute detail of the investigation will be made public.

Perhaps the only thing that can save Anwar, Abdullah, and Malaysia in the long run is an investigation and trial that is absolutely objective, transparent, and accountable. For even the slightest hint of bias or irregularity will add credence to Anwar’s claim that the accusations against him are part of a political plot to prevent him from returning to politics; a fact that was stated in his closing remarks during his televised debate where he stated that he intended to contest at a by-election soon.

For now the ball seems to be in Anwar’s court and it is he who stands to gain the most from his arrest. Whether in or out of jail, Anwar has resumed his status as a martyr and public hero. While this may work in the favor of Anwar and other politicians in the country, other serious issues like economic and institutional reform have been sidelined once again. But this time it is not just Anwar and his reputation that is on trial, but also that of Malaysia and Malaysia’s legal and judicial systems as well.

Dr. Farish A. Noor is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; and Affiliated Professor at Universitas Muhamadiyah, Surakarta, Indonesia

Financial Intermediaries

A modern economy requires an efficient system linking owners of capital with its users, or to quote the Canadian Management Professor Reuven Brenner, “matching talent with capital, and holding both sides accountable.”18 There will always be those who have capital but unable to use it (or use it efficiently) and those who lack capital but have the expertise to use it efficiently. If we could link the two, we would have an arrangement that would benefit both parties as well as society.

Such arrangements have been part and parcel of human society. I may own land, but if for some reason I were unable to till it, I would get someone else to do it for me. He would get some of the harvest, a marked improvement in both our positions than before we entered into the arrangement. Society too would benefit from the excess of our harvests.

Such “tenant farming” is a feature even in primitive societies. The concept may be simple and unsophisticated, nonetheless such tenant farming has been the subject of modern analyses, and many an elegant insight of economics have emerged from such studies.19

Financial intermediaries like banks link owners of money (savers) to its users (investors). Imagine that I have some excess money. If I hide it underneath my mattress, I risk it being stolen or chewed by moths, and that money is not doing anyone any good. If I were to deposit it in a bank, the bank could use my otherwise idle money.

Consider that my neighbor wants to start a taxi business, but he has no money to buy the car. So he goes to the local bank to negotiate the loan. The bank manager, after assessing the applicant’s creditworthiness (essentially his ability to repay the loan), gives him the money (that it obtained from me and other savers) to buy the car. The bank expects the taxi business would generate enough revenue to repay the loan plus give the driver a decent income (in that order!) to make it worthwhile for him to get into the taxi business. For that service the bank would charge him a fee in the form of interest on the loan. To entice the likes of me to put my money in that bank, it offers interest on my savings.

As a result of this simple transaction, my neighbor gets to start his taxi business, the bank earns a fee for the loan, and I receive interest on my otherwise idle money. All parties gained. The greatest beneficiary of all is the community: it now has a taxi service. This benefit cannot be quantified; it may mean the saving of a life in getting someone to the hospital quickly.

Multiply such transactions a million times, and you would have a vibrant economy.

Imagine if there were no banks. My neighbor, knowing that I have some extra cash, would approach me directly for a loan. As I have no expertise in assessing his creditworthiness, I may be reluctant to lend him my money, remembering Shakespeare’s immortal admonition, “Neither a borrower, nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend.”20 The end result is that nobody benefits; my money remains idle under my mattress; it stays as “dead capital.” While its impact on me would be simply that I could not earn interest on my idle money, the impact on society would be much more consequential. My neighbor would remain without a job and the town without a taxi service.

An efficient banking system is indispensable to a modern economy. By being efficient the bank could reduce its costs and thus could pay its depositors more interest thereby encouraging even more people to save. It could also then charge lower interest rates so that more people could borrow more money to start even more businesses. With less interest to pay, the taxi driver gets to keep more of the fares he earned from his passengers. With the greater earnings and lower interest rates, he would want to buy more cars and expand his taxi service, thus providing even better service to the community, quite apart from creating more jobs.

Imagine where the banking system is inefficient. First, savors would not trust it with their money. If banks were inefficient and had to employ thousands to do chores that could be done efficiently and cheaply by computers, they would not make much profit. They could not then pay much to their depositors, thus discouraging them from saving. To cover the added costs, the bank would then have to charge more for its loans, thus cutting out many more potential borrowers. High interest rates would quickly snuff out economic activities.

Banks can be inefficient in many other ways. If they dole out loans indiscriminately without paying close attention to the commercial viability of the projects they are funding (and thus the ability of the borrower to repay the loan), that would impact their profits. Loans to insiders, cronies, and the politically powerful without the usual rigorous credit checks or through corrupt and criminal activities are particularly dangerous.

Then there are imprudent practices. Bankers are humans, susceptible to the herd mentality. Often they help create speculative bubbles by encouraging over investments in particular areas. Strict rules preventing such over concentrations are useless unless they are fully enforced. The central bank must be vigilant, nabbing early those bankers who would be tempted to stray. Prior to the 1997 economic crisis, Malaysian banks were dangerously over exposed in financing the glut of real estate, margin stock buying, and lending to political cronies.

It is criminal that only seven or eight principals were responsible for over 80 percent of the non-performing loans of Malaysian banks during the economic crisis of 1997. Obviously these people had powerful connections such that the bankers could not say no. Either that or Malaysian bankers are a reckless lot, oblivious of their fiduciary responsibility in protecting their depositors’ assets. One also wonders of the oversight role of the central bank.

Next: Strengthening Financial Intermediaries

In announcing his resignation so far ahead, and thus ensuring a long drawn-out transition, Abdullah ignored a fundamental element in human (and also political) relationship. That is, long goodbyes are only for lovers! Abdullah should ponder the lyrics of the chorus line in Ronan Keating’s song, “The Long Goodbye.”

Come on baby, its over, let’s face it!

All that’s happening here is a long goodbye!

[For an accompanying music video, please click the play button below:

While it may be sentimental (and hence tolerable) for lovers breaking up to have long goodbyes, such a protracted political transition would be disastrous for a nation. Far from clarifying the leadership crisis, it only compounds the uncertainty.

Let’s face it. This belated ‘love’ between Abdullah and Najib will not last; neither will they, politically. The world of politics is like the animal world. When you are seen as weak, your predators will quickly pounce in for the kill. While it would be obscene to celebrate such an outcome, nonetheless it would be therapeutic for UMNO, Malays, and Malaysia.

I am uncertain of what a standing ovation after Abdullah’s announcement means. Perhaps they wanted to hear yet another statement reaffirming the same, only this time for him to make the date much earlier. They would then continue giving him ever more enthusiastic ovations – thus calling for even more announcements – until he declared his withdrawal right away! At which point he would bring the house down!

The Limp and the Crippled

As perverse as it may seem, Abdullah’s announcement was meant to reassure UMNO members as well as the public. The result was anything but; the speculations continue, only more intense and interesting!

In truth, the party and country would be better off without these two top leaders. This pact, conveniently arranged by the pair and purportedly “endorsed” by the party’s Supreme Council, was meant to strengthen the top leadership by portraying a public picture of seeming unity.

The limp and the crippled clutching each other would not result in a steady ambulating couple. Far from giving strength to each other, the pair would succeed only in bringing each other down. No marks for guessing who is who here!

That Abdullah is a limp leader is now obvious; made more so by his coalition’s recent electoral thumping. Yet there are still otherwise perceptive pundits who feel that if only those UMNO warlords and ministers would let him lead, Abdullah would do wonders!

If Abdullah had not shown his leadership talent by now, especially after he received the massive mandate in 2004, rest assured there is no talent, hidden or otherwise. Abdullah just does not have it; two more years would not miraculously produce one. The sooner he, UMNO, and the pundits accept this reality, the better it is for Malaysia.

Previously the pair was consumed with neutralizing each other. This desperate last minute union of convenience is brought on by fears that both would be wiped out by a third element.

Before that, Najib Razak, egged on by unconcealed endorsements from former Prime Minister Mahathir, had been making some uppity remarks on challenging Abdullah. Mahathir however now seems to be changing his tune; he has openly chided Najib for not standing up to Abdullah.

Najib’s trajectory was also rudely interrupted by sordid revelations relating to the murder of the Mongolian model. One has it that Najib allegedly had an illicit sexual relationship with the victim; another, Najib’s wife Rosmah was somehow involved in the murder itself. She has denied the allegation, but curiously has not seen fit to sue Raja Petra who made that serious allegation.

Najib denied “knowing” the model, a proclamation of innocence reminiscent of and equally unconvincing as President Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with that woman!” statement.

Perhaps Najib, a consequence of his early British education, was using the word “know” in its narrow biblical sense as, “Joseph knew his wife, and she conceived.” There was earlier false speculation that the murdered model was pregnant, with the fetus’s paternal origin the subject of intense gossip.

Anwar Ibrahim has as usual read the political situation well. He has shrewdly aimed his guns not towards Abdullah but at Najib. He knows that Abdullah will implode sooner or later. Besides, Anwar’s nemesis Mahathir is doing a pretty good job demolishing Abdullah. It is not that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” rather if my enemies are bent on destroying each other, sit back and relish the scene!

Abdullah also faces a more formidable challenge from Tengku Razaleigh. The Tengku has been getting some traction in his attempt to secure nominations to challenge Abdullah.

Malaysian Politics Hit New Bottom!

With the series of sordid sexual allegations involving senior political figures, Malaysian politics seem determined to hit new bottom (pun intended). The authorities and the public have been distracted by the salacious details, real and fantasized. Indeed, the police are now consumed with this useless investigation, at the expense of fighting crime and corruption.

Malaysia’s political problem is clear: it’s UMNO, specifically its leadership, or lack of one. It is a problem because UMNO is the biggest party, in Parliament as well as in the ruling coalition. UMNO is now rotten to the core.

It is instructive that the only fresh young talent attracted to UMNO these days are such characters as that college dropout Saiful Bukhari Azlan and the lost soul (politically) Ezam Noor. Saiful received an endorsement from no less than Najib Razak, while Ezam was feted by Abdullah himself! Such low standards!

Saiful was the pretty boy who hitherto successfully passed himself off (at least to the gullible) as a “personal assistant” to Anwar Ibrahim. This young man is determined to bring Malaysian politics down to new bottoms, literally and figuratively!

Ezam Noor meanwhile successfully (he thinks) passed himself off as a pretentious warrior against official corruption. He also fancies himself as possessing an oratorical gift matching that of Barack Obama, but minus the intellect. Ezam’s brain, judging by his utterances, could only be slightly bigger than that of a grasshopper, which may explain his frequent political hopping. Nonetheless that was enough to impress UMNO’s top echelon.

Like Saiful, Ezam is threatening to reveal other presumably equally sordid details involving Anwar Ibrahim. Rest assured that when Ezam does that, his standing in UMNO would be significantly enhanced. Such is the rot in UMNO.

Some sympathetic commentators (or perhaps they are just eager to ingratiate themselves to Abdullah) lay the blame for UMNO’s problems on the party’s “warlords” and its essential conservatism. If only the party would accept Abdullah’s “reforms” and the warlords get out of his way, these pundits insist, why there would be a renaissance of the party and wondrous things would magically happen!

These pundits missed the point. Those warlords flourished precisely because of Abdullah’s ineffectiveness. Far from embracing reform, Abdullah is the greatest obstacle towards it.

One badly needed reform is for the party to open up its election process by doing away with the current onerous nominating process. Do away with nomination quotas and you would invite more candidates. That would be the only way to discover new talent.

Abdullah however, is determined to keep this barrier, in fact anything that would help keep him in power. He is a Malaysian Mugabe in the making, if we let him be.

UMNO’s Abscess

There is a malignant abscess in UMNO; it needs to be lanced soon lest it metastasizes and kills the party corpus. The nidus of this putrefaction is the limp Abdullah and the crippled Najib. Both have to be lanced and the associated pus around them flushed out. The sooner this is done, the less complicated the surgery would be and the earlier the healing could begin. The more swiftly the process is accomplished, the less pain (and mess) there would be.

The scalpel is now in the hands of UMNO Supreme Council. If it fails to exercise its solemn responsibility, then the tool would be quickly taken out of its hands and then given to the membership. If they too fail to use it, as by giving candidates like Tengku Razaleigh and others the necessary nominations to contest the party’s elections or doing away completely with the quotas, then they would also lose the privilege of using that knife.

The dye would be cast long before the party’s elections in December. During July and August the party divisions will be selecting their delegates and choosing the party’s nominees. If the members too become limp and crippled by the directive from above, and if they fail to exercise their independent judgment, that would seal the party’s fate. This month and next will be their last chance to redeem the party they love.

Keadilan’s Wan Azizah’s “no confidence” vote against Abdullah scheduled for tomorrow [July 14] has little chance of success. Nonetheless it would serve as a warning thunderbolt, signaling the coming of a severe storm.

The sound of a lightening bolt is a much more reliable predictor of upcoming events than that of a standing ovation.

It t has become the common blight of many a postcolonial state that the discrepancy between political idealism and the realities on the ground grow wider by the day. It has also been my singular misfortune that the nature of my work as a political scientist who studies the uneven development of many such nation-states means that I have grown somewhat jaded by such contradictions that are all too evident when one is distant from the country in question.

Over the past decade I have travelled across South and Southeast Asia looking at the painfully slow pace of development in countries like Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia. The political elite of these countries talk on and on about development, progress, emancipation (both economic and mental) and yet remain beholden captives to the racialised ideologies of the colonial past. Their feeble attempts at deconstructing the legacy of Empire often dwindles down to little more than a vulgar pastiche of reversed Orientalism at best, (as if the racism of Asians is somehow better than the racism of the European colonialists who came before); and their steadfast refusal to adapt to changes around them is irritating and infuriating to witness at close range.

In India and Pakistan I watched as my fellow academic friends who play the role of public intellectuals and who have been calling for peace and reconciliation between the two countries have been systematically denounced as ‘race traitors’, ‘cowards’, the fifth column within, etc. Some of the best minds that secular democratic India has produced have been pilloried and harangued by right-wing Hindutva fundamentalists who have called them ‘traitors’ to the great Hindu cause, labelled them ‘Muslim-lovers’ or worse still, apologists for the great Western conspiracy against the motherland.

The same level of puerile non-debate can be seen in Southeast Asia too: Thai pacifists who have called for a settled end to the hostilities in the Muslim south have been denounced as apologists for Muslim extremists; in Malaysia academics who have called for the re-working and re-negotiation of the social contract have been labelled ‘race traitors’; in Indonesia moderate Muslim intellectuals who have defended Indonesia’s plural society and culture have been branded enemies of Islam. So what gives?

The country that is closest to my heart is, of course, Malaysia. Recent developments in the country have given me reason to be worried about its future. Religious and racial sectarianism remain the dominant features on its political landscape and there is the apparent need for some form of national reconciliation and healing.

Yet events over the past two weeks have made a mockery of Malaysia’s claim to be a developing country with first world ambitions: Despite the skyscrapers that claw at the heavens above Kuala Lumpur, the mega-malls that devour their consumers by the thousands, the massive highways that are crammed with cars; the state of Malaysian politics today beggars belief.

At a time when all of Asia is on the brink of a global recession sparked by the rising costs of oil and gas and the collapse of the American dollar, the issues that count ought to be structural-economic ones instead. But what has transpired over the past two weeks have shown that despite the flashy suits and corporate videos broadcasting the bold and brazen image of Malaysia Inc., the country’s politics remains trapped in the swamp of the banal and ridiculous.

For a start, sodomy season has returned to Malaysia with a vengeance, with allegations of sodomy leveled against Anwar Ibrahim, the de facto head of the Peoples Justice Party (PKR) and advisor to the Peoples Alliance opposition coalition. Not to be outdone, those close to Anwar have also made disclosures about the alleged sexcapades of Malaysia’s ruling elite and senior politicians in the country; but only to have the very same allegations withdrawn a day later. The rally to protest the rise in oil prices on 6 July that was aiming to gather a million Malaysians only managed to bring together 25 to 30 thousand, and was marred by an equally embarrassing incident when conservative Islamists stormed the stage during the performance of a punk rock band, the lead singer of which decided to moon the crowd. In the midst of this, have we forgotten our economic essentials? And the real reason behind this global economic meltdown which happened to be the skewered uneven global economy we have all inadvertently created thanks to our dependency on the US economy? Or has politics been reduced to bottoms and sodomy for now?

All of this has made it increasingly difficult for me to explain the nature of Malaysian politics to my European colleagues where I am currently on the seminar circuit. How, pray tell, does a global economic crisis degenerate to the level of sodomy allegations, and why on earth does the personality of politicians matter more at a time when the overbearing global economic structures have taken on a life of their own?

Voodoo politics was a term once fashionable in the 1970s and we seem to have returned to our political myths and ghost-stories with relish. As oil and gas prices are set to soar across Asia, the manifestations of public outrage and frustration is bound to spill into the streets. But in Malaysia, as in the case of Indonesia, the results are freaky and unpredictable at best. Why, in Indonesia the ones who seem to have benefited the most are the Islamist parties that have been scoring hits at all the local elections. So once again, what gives?

Politics has always been influenced by elements that are variable and sometimes even irrational; but this time round the weird and wonderful manifestation of collective anger and frustration may take us to the end of politics itself, and with that our aspirations for development, progress and political maturity can be dumped into the bin as well. How terribly sad!

Dr. Farish A. Noor is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; and Affiliated Professor at Universitas Muhamadiyah, Surakarta, Indonesia.

Chapter 9: Institutions Matter (Cont’d)

Judicial System

The decline in foreign investments in Malaysia is in part attributable to the fact that investors lack confidence in the integrity of the judicial system. Investors feel they would not have a fair shake especially when the other party to their dispute is someone well connected politically.

Since the government is a major player in the marketplace through its myriad GLCs, there is a high probability that in any commercial dispute, the government or its proxy would be the adversary in litigation. The lack of confidence by foreign investors directly impacts Malaysia’s economic performance, and the government ignores this at its peril.

Malaysia inherited its judicial system from the British. For some time following independence, Malaysians could still appeal to London’s Privy Council, but nationalistic pride soon put an end to that. The immediate practical impact was minimal as judges then had impeccable integrity and scholarship. They were also highly respected. The nation’s first “native” Chief Justice, Tun Suffian Hashim set demanding standards. His successors for the most part fell far short.

In normal times such a gradual deterioration would hardly be noticed, or could be self-correcting. In the 1980s however, Malaysia faced a constitutional crisis over Prime Minister Mahathir’s attempt to clip the powers of the sultans. What should have been a mature political debate, with the judicial system acting as the arbiter between what was essentially a power struggle between the crown (the sultans) and the executive branch, quickly degenerated into an ugly public broil. The justices themselves were entangled in the dispute. The already weakened judiciary could not hold up to the stress.

The upshot of that and other crises (specifically the deregistration of UMNO) was that a few senior judges, including the chief justice, were fired. That in turn precipitated uproar. Judges, unlike ordinary mortals, apparently are immune from such a human fate. An eminent body of chief justices from fellow Commonwealth countries was empanelled to review this sordid affair and, much to the surprise of everyone (especially the fired judges), found for the executive.

A reflection of the caliber of the fired chief justice (Salleh Abbas) was his post-bench career. He tried politics and was soundly trounced by a woman lawyer decades his junior in age and experience. The humiliation did not end there; it was also her first try at elective office! The judge is now a junior functionary with the opposition Islamic Party PAS. When that party won the oil-rich state of Trengganu in the 1999 elections, it sued the federal government over the suspension of payments of oil revenues. That former chief justice was a mere ceremonial appendage to the party’s legal team that lost.

That embarrassing episode should have been the impetus for Prime Minister Mahathir to be more careful in selecting senior judges. On the contrary, the reverse happened. Mahathir, chastened by this bitter experience (and a man who does not think highly of lawyers, a trait common among physicians), decided to nominate only judges who were sympathetic to his views. That is nothing radical; I would not expect President Bush to nominate a flaming liberal to the Federal Bench. Mahathir’s error was not that he picked judges who shared his political views (that was his prerogative), rather that he chose mediocre ones. Perhaps he reasoned that an incompetent but pliant judge was better to a competent but independent one. Thus the rot in the judiciary accelerated.

Surveys confirmed this decline.17 Locals do not need such an affirmation. An encounter with the system will confirm it. Savvy local lawyers are known to shop around for sympathetic judges, and brazenly brag about it. While there are no blatant exchanges of cash, as seen in some neighboring countries, such shopping around nonetheless erodes the integrity of the system.

There is not much deliberation in the selection of senior judges. The Prime Minister does not seek the views of practicing lawyers, fellow judges, or legal scholars. Judges are almost exclusively drawn from within the civil service, rising up through the ranks as magistrates, public prosecutors or some administrative positions. Few have significant private sector experience. They are essentially civil servants in experience and mentality. They follow orders only too well, unable to think independently, the very opposite qualities needed to be a good judge. In reviewing the backgrounds of senior judges, this is what strikes me—their narrow and shallow experience.

Their work reflects this. These judges complain that their judgments are not cited enough. That is like asking why someone does not quote your articles. If you have something sensible or important to say and have said it well, your peers will quote you. Their judgments do not have precedential value because they are poorly written, lack solid legal reasoning, and worse, delivered late, very late. Judges’ working conditions and pay are such that the talented would not be attracted. For a successful lawyer, it would be quite a financial sacrifice to be “elevated” to the bench.

Visit a Malaysian court. There are no court recorders; judges have to scribble furiously to record everything. They do not have time to assess the demeanor and credibility of witnesses. As trials in Malaysia are not by jury, these judges are missing an important element in judging. Judges, including senior appellate ones, do not have legal clerks to help them with their research and writing. The courts are also way behind in ICT applications.

All these problems are obvious, yet there is minimal attempt at rectifying them. The government has yet to acknowledge the importance of a fair, functioning and efficient judicial system in a modern economy. Malaysia needs to improve both the system and personnel. There are a few judges who on their own initiative have modernized their courts by putting their judgments and schedules on the Web and otherwise make their work transparent. They are the exceptions.

There are minimal steps that can be taken, like providing court recorders, legal clerks, and computers. Legal clerks are usually recent law graduates who help judges research and write judgments. The pay scale of judges would have to be substantially upgraded to attract experienced lawyers. Senior judges should be earning as much as cabinet ministers, and the chief justice on par with the prime minister. Judges should be selected from the widest possible pool, not just from the ranks of the civil service.

Never underestimate the importance of personnel. When Mahathir appointed Dzainuddin Abdullah to replace the crisis-prone Eusoff Chin as Chief Justice, the sense of relief was palpable. Even junior judges picked the cue immediately; they suddenly had the courage to be more assertive in rendering their judgments. The October 2005 successful appeal by former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim over his sodomy conviction was to many an affirmation of this greater judicial independence. The task of rejuvenating Malaysia’s justice system however is still very much work in progress.

Next: Financial Intermediaries

Prime Minister Abdullah and his civil servant accountants delude themselves into believing that the government could actually “save” RM2 billion merely by reducing ministerial allowances. The only way to effectively and substantially reduce the cost of government is to first rationalize its function.

As for any savings, Abdullah would achieve considerably more by getting rid of his luxurious Airbus corporate jet. If he were to do so, the jet would become a revenue producer instead of at present, a costly expense item. He would effectively move it from the liability to the asset column.

The British Prime Minister does not have a private jet, despite leading an economy and nation considerably larger. To think that this Imam of Islam Hadhari, only a generation away from the poverty of the kampong, having such an obscenely extravagant taste, at public expense!

In the wisdom of the kampong, Abdullah, his ministers and senior officials are tak sedar ekor (lit: not aware of their tails; fig: oblivious of their greed).

Proper Role of Government

The government should focus on doing only those things that are properly within its purview, and do away with extraneous activities. This would streamline its machinery, reduce its size, and trim its costs. We would also have a more efficient government that could serve the citizens more effectively.

In this Age of the Internet, the government has no business owning a television station or news agency. Dispense with the Ministry of Information. Likewise we do not need a ministry trying to produce athletes or encourage sports. About the only champions that ministry could produce were profligate spenders of public funds, as evidenced by the ministry’s recent debacle over its training facility in London. That now-abandoned project cost the government hundreds of million of ringgit.

Then there is the Ministry of Entrepreneur Development. The pretensions of these civil servants to think that they have the competence to select or train future entrepreneurs! Get rid of that ministry and we would see a blossoming of entrepreneurial activities.

In the same vein, do Tourism Ministry officials really think that they are responsible for tourists visiting our country? The operators of Club Med and Hilton hotels do a far more credible job. They have to as the success of their businesses depends on these tourists. As for those civil servants in the Tourism Ministry, all they can think of is their next posting abroad, or when they would undertake a “promotional” trip overseas.

I have taken many vacations in Malaysia and have never found the Tourism Ministry or its many agencies useful. Canvass foreign visitors, or better yet, stay at one of Tourism Malaysia’s facilities, and you would reach the same conclusion. Abolishing the ministry would have no negative impact on the industry. On the contrary, freed from bureaucratic hassles, the industry would grow even faster.

Those impressive statistics the ministry puts out are uninformative. Millions of the “tourists” coming through Johore Baru or Padang Besar are nothing more than aunts and uncles visiting their relatives across the border.Eliminating these ministries and combining others would reduce by half the number of ministers, together with their accompanying Secretaries-General, Directors-General, and hordes of Deputies and Assistants. These savings would be instantaneous as well as cumulative. Think of the future savings in salaries, medical costs, and pension liabilities.

Bloated Public Sector

By any measure – relative to the economy, population, or labor force – the public sector in Malaysia is bloated. Being primarily a Malay institution, the impact of the civil service on the psyche, labor dynamics, and cultural values of Malays is disproportionately huge.

Young Malays are conditioned not to look beyond the civil service for employment. Our universities and colleges too are unresponsive to the demands of the private sector as most of its graduates are Malays whose career horizons rarely extend beyond government service. Perversely, the obsession with Ketuanan Melayu makes the civil service’s hold on Malays even more tenacious.

Civil servants enjoy considerable subsidies, from subsidized car loans and home mortgages to below-market rents on government quarters and paid pre-retirement vacation packages. Children of civil servants are also over represented among those admitted into our residential schools (again highly subsidized) and recipients of government scholarships. This makes ridding of the subsidy mentality among Malays that much more difficult.

To these civil servants, gyrations in interest or foreign exchange rates will not impact them. Insulated from the realities of the marketplace, it is no surprise that the policies they design and implement are similarly far detached from reality.

If we reduce the public sector, Malays would be forced to look into the marketplace. They would then have to prepare themselves adequately. That could just be the needed incentives for them to pursue relevant subject matters in schools and universities. Instead of looking forward to being a kerani (clerk) at the land office, they could instead take up auto mechanics for example, and in the process contribute more to the economy.

The public sector is nothing more than overhead, and a very expensive one at that. It does not add to the economy; on the contrary it is a burden. It is people, individually or through their enterprises, that produce the goods and services. Reducing the size of government would also discourage corruption and influence peddling. Plot the size of government (adjusted for population and economy) and incidence of corruption, and the correlation would be startling.

A large public sector inhibits the development of a vibrant private sector. The many government-linked companies (GLCs), far from stimulating new independent contractors and entrepreneurs, actively compete with and stunt their development. These GLCs have not nurtured their share of entrepreneurs. How many employees of GLCs leave to start their own enterprises?

More important is what the government does with its size and power. The Scandinavian countries all have large governments, but they use their power and resources to emancipate their citizens through providing superior education and healthcare. Mothers, for example, enjoy subsidized affordable government-run childcare centers.

In Malaysia, the government uses it size and power to snoop on citizens, making sure that they do not hold hands in public. Significant government personnel and resources are diverted to controlling what citizens read and view, all non-productive activities.

There is however, one good thing about Abdullah’s reducing his ministers’ holiday allowances. They will now know how much those fancy vacations cost. If Abdullah goes further and dispenses with his Airbus jet and uses Malaysia Airlines instead, he would experience firsthand the type of service it provides. Apart from saving the government a considerable sum of money, it would also help disabuse him of the “sultan syndrome.” Anything that would bring him closer to the real world is a good thing.

Civil society, and the actors who occupy that public domain, exists for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is to keep politicians and political parties in check. It would appear that the work of civil society actors in Malaysia today has been cut out, thanks to the murky goings-on within and between the political parties of Malaysia on both sides of the political fence.

Hardly three months have passed since the landmark results of the 8th March Federal elections, and already we see Malaysia transformed as never before. Despite winning 79 Parliamentary seats, the UMNO party that has been in power for more than half a century is showing signs of internal division and fragmenting before our very eyes; bringing with its collapse the very real possibility of change in the mindset of millions of ordinary Malaysians who were told for so long that the sun of the Barisan Nasional would never set. Well, with BN MPs running helter-skelter in all directions at the moment, it would appear as if that claim is about to be tested in no uncertain terms.

What is worrying, however, is the fact that the Pakatan Rakyat coalition is still in its infant stages and does not have the luxury of time on its side. Should the BN government fall, and that prospect seems more likely by the day, the PR should be ready to assume office at a moment’s notice. This can only be done if and when the PR gets its act together and all its component parties agree once and for all that they will abide by the terms they had set for themselves. These include the PR manifesto and the standards of the People’s Declaration which they had all assented to.

Now the problem that faces the PR is that for too long the component parties have grown accustomed to their own version of narrow communitarian-based politics, identifying specific and exclusive racial and religious communities as their target constituencies and primary vote base. What is even more worrying is the tendency for some of the leaders of the PR component parties to continue operating on the basis of the idea that their primary political constituency has remained unchanged; thereby making the fatal assumption that the Malaysian public and the Malaysian electorate hasn’t evolved over the years. Now the last time a right-wing politician worked on such a silly assumption he did something even sillier: namely taking out a keris in public and starting to waffle about racial dominance and the special status of his ethnic-religious constituency. And see what happened: the same politician’s party was thumped at the polls and lost every single Malay-majority urban seat on the West coast, thereby proving that the Malays were no longer susceptible to this sort of juvenile antics and emotional manipulation. Padan Muka! (Fig: Serves them right!)

Looking at the Pakatan Rakyat coalition today, we sadly see rather similar tactics being used by some of its leaders, and in particular, some leaders of PAS. First came the claim that the PR in Selangor should start ‘Islamising’ the public space of Selangor and promoting faith and piety among the Muslims of the state, which begs the question: Since when did the PR become a missionary pietist movement and who said that PAS leaders of the PR in Selangor were voted to become our religious mentors and moral guardians?

Now it would appear that there have been calls by some of the leaders of the Youth Wing of PAS for the PR to start Islamising the five states whose assemblies are under the control of the PR, with Kelantan to serve as the model.

Now let us repeat this for the umpteenth time: The vote for the PR at the recent elections was not a vote for an Islamic state, or an endorsement for any kind of communitarian or sectarian politics, be it on religious or ethnic grounds. The Malaysian public – who remain the real power brokers in Malaysia today – have signalled their utter disgust and frustration with the slow pace of reform that was meant to be the starting point of the Badawi administration but which ended with pointless projects such as an Islamic theme park and crystal mosque instead.

Nor is there any indication that Malaysian Muslims have called for any form of theocratic governance, for their rejection of the state’s Islam Hadhari project may actually suggest that many of them are fed up with the politicisation of religion by this stage.

So when is PAS – or rather some of the more vocal and hot-headed leaders of PAS – going to realize that for it to become a truly national party with national ambitions, it has to adapt to the reality of a plural, multicultural and multi-religious Malaysia where there are not only differences between Muslims and non-Muslims, but also – crucially – differences among Muslims as well? Who and what gave these PAS leaders the licence to assume that all Muslims in Malaysia want an Islamic state, and more importantly their version of an Islamic state? What on earth makes them think that the rest of Malaysia wants to be like Kelantan?

Whenever any leader or any party in the PR makes demands like these, it goes against the collective spirit of the PR, narrows the universalist scope of the PR manifesto and betrays the spirit of the People’s Declaration – which, need we remind them, they all signed and agreed to. The negative consequences of such unilateralism are manifold, and can be summed up thus:

Firstly, it reinforces the BN’s claim that the PR is at best an instrumental coalition that will break apart because there will never be any real compromise and co-operation between PAS and the other parties;

Secondly, it sends shivers down the spines of many non-Muslim Malaysians who – for better or worse – have their own misgivings about the idea of any religious state (Islamic or otherwise) in what they hope to see evolve into a secular, democratic, free and equal Malaysia;

Thirdly, it also alienates Malaysian Muslims who – this writer included – also have deep misgivings about the abuse of religion for political ends and who do not want to live in an Islamic state where our personal lives, private space, and right of speech and thought on religious matters are decided by Islamist politicians from a party we are not even members of;

Fourthly, it will provide ample materiel for Malaysia-bashers who would jump at the opportunity to rubbish the PR government (if it comes to power) and to make outlandish claims that Malaysia has fallen under the heels of PAS and is about to be transformed into some Iranian-like theocracy;

Fifthly, – and perhaps this is the most dangerous consequence of all – such unilateral moves on the part of this handful of PAS leaders will pave the way for UMNO to open its doors to PAS, and to invite PAS to abandon the PR and opt for joining the BN instead, ostensibly for the sake of ensuring Malay-Muslim unity, and more importantly Malay-Muslim dominance.

Of all the worst-case scenarios to contemplate, this fifth option is the most worrisome. During the election campaign of March 2008, UMNO’s posters in Trengganu were already paving the way for a PAS crossover to the BN, with slogans like “If you want to really promote Islam, then join the BN/UMNO.” Since March there has been speculation about PAS leaders who have been in negotiations with UMNO, a fact that some of them have admitted; and talk about a PAS hop-over to UMNO/BN should the PR be successful in winning over more MPs from East Malaysia or the non-Malay component parties of the BN.

Now if this were to indeed happen, then we would be left with two political coalitions: The PR that is more pluralist but with a significantly small Malay-Muslim component, and a BN that is less pluralist but with a strong Malay-Muslim component. This may suit the needs and interests of some of the more religiously conservative and racially-minded members of the PR, but it would spell disaster for the country as Malaysia would, for all intents and purposes, be split along both racial and religious lines: the teleological conclusion to five decades of divisive racial and religious politics finally playing itself out in the fragmentation of the nation as a whole. In such a situation, the PR would indeed break apart, but the highest cost (both political and ethical) will be incurred on PAS – that would henceforth be seen and justly condemned for betraying the People’ Declaration and selling themselves to serve their own short-sighted sectarian ends.

Tuan Guru Nik Aziz Nik Mat – who knows better for he was one of those who entered the BN in the 1970s when PAS was brought into the coalition by Asri Muda – is right when he reminds the members and leaders of his own party not to fall into the trap of the BN/UMNO, and to abide by the terms and agenda of the PR. Nik Aziz remembers how PAS was sold short, betrayed and ultimately hung to dry by UMNO; and how it took the party 12 years to put itself back together before they finally regained control of Kelantan in 1990.

The ‘Young Turks’ of PAS today would do well to listen to the wise counsel of the man who is, after all, their spiritual leader and guide, for Nik Aziz knows what he is talking about on this matter. Should PAS’s leaders continue to make such unilateral demands, they will only be helping UMNO/BN weaken the collective resolve and accommodative spirit that brought the Pakatan Rakyat together in the first place, and by doing so be helping further UMNO/BN’s objective of maintaining its hegemonic grip on the country. And so for all our sakes – the Malaysian people’s and for PAS’s sake as well – do rein in these wild horses and keep the PR convoy in line. The road to a plural, democratic, inclusive and equal Malaysia is and can only be a long one, and we do not need hot-headed unilateralists to take us off track. The March 2008 elections was an election for a new Malaysia, and not a theocratic sectarian state, be it in the communitarian mould of UMNO or PAS.

Dr. Farish A. Noor is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; and Affiliated Professor at Universitas Muhamadiyah, Surakarta, Indonesia.

Dr. Farish (Badrol Hisham) Ahmad-Noor, Senior Fellow, Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Research Director for the Research Cluster ‘Transnational Religion in Contemporary Southeast Asia’, Nanyang Tech Uni, Singapore. Tel (off) 6790 6128

Property and Contract Rights

[Note: This installment was initially posted on June 18, 2008 but it was lost, together with the accompanying readers’ comments, when my website was disrupted. I am reposting it here.]

If we plot the pace of economic development over time, the remarkable finding would be that economic progress within the last hundred years far overshadowed all previous developments over human history. Scrutinizing the graph further, we would note the paucity of economic activities during feudal times.11

If we were to plot the pace of development across societies within the last century, we would have an equally interesting finding. Countries that adopted capitalism or market-oriented policies (Western Europe, the Anglo Saxon world, Northeast Asia) made remarkable economic progress, while others (Africa, Latin America, the Soviet empire, Arab world) remained stagnant. The graphs of this second group of countries resemble those of medieval Europe.

Capitalism involves not only the trading of goods and services between people but also freedom and democracy. People are free to pursue trade. Medieval Europe did not progress because there was very little trading among the citizens, only among the lords. When the lords were not engaged in trading, they were preoccupied with trying to get by force what the other lords had, that is engaging in wars, a destructive and economically non-productive pursuit.

There was little trading among the peasants because they had no rights to their property or labor, hence they could not exchange or barter it. Even their bodies belonged to their lords. If there were some enterprising peasants who could engage in raising crops and animals on the side when they were not serving their lords, those peasants risked losing them all to their greedy lords. A definite disincentive!

For society to progress, its citizens must be free to engage in the exchange of goods and services. The farmer must be able to exchange his excess rice for a hoe from the artisan. In this way the farmer gets to cultivate more land and produce more rice, and the artisan now has the energy to produce even more hoes and other implements. Both benefit from the exchange. Multiply such exchanges a thousand times, and you get progress on a societal scale.

Before such exchanges could take place, another condition must exist. The farmer must have confidence that the hoe rightly belongs to the artisan, and the artisan in turn must be certain that the rice is rightly the farmer’s to sell. There must be clearly delineated property rights.

The Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto in his book, The Mystery of Capital, argues that capitalism fails in the Third World precisely because there is no respect for property rights, especially by those in power.12 In the old days it was the sultans who grabbed the peasants’ prized buffaloes; today it is a ruthless dictator seizing a flourishing enterprise. Even educated leaders are not free from this feudal lord mentality. Armed with their Cambridge law degree they would expropriate land belonging to the people without proper compensation under the precept of “eminent domain” or some other arcane legal doctrine, as happened in Singapore to land belonging to the Malay minority. Regardless of mechanism, the results are the same: the trampling of property rights.

We can appreciate property rights when they apply to tangible assets like land and property. Before you buy a piece of land you must be sure that the owner really owns it, and that after paying, the land would then belong to you. There must be reliable institutions to record these transactions to prevent that land from being simultaneously bought and sold by different parties. There would be unending chaos were that to happen. Resources would be consumed untangling the mess instead of devoting to economic activities.

Malaysia’s land office, the agency responsible for recording titles, is a mess. The process of transferring title that would take a few days in California would consume months if not years in Malaysia. There have been cases where the transfers were never recorded, giving rise to unending conflicts.

Property rights extend beyond tangible assets. If I were to discover a new way to plant rice efficiently, I should reap the gains of my discovery. Others who wish to benefit from it should compensate or at least share with me their added bounty. This is not only fair but would also encourage others to partake in new discoveries. If others simply sponge off on my discovery without compensating me, the damage would be as if they had stolen my property.

In the Third World there is rampant stealing of intellectual property. When Sheila Majid records her beautiful songs, and others freely bootleg them, they too are stealing from her.

Intellectual property rights and patent laws are especially important in the K-economy. On one hand are the concerns of innovators and creative talent that their contributions be adequately rewarded; on the other are the scientists and intellectuals who fear that too rigid enforcements would stifle innovation and research. New knowledge and technical innovations do not arise out of the blue; they are incremental, building upon existing knowledge, products and processes. Too restrictive a protection of intellectual rights would inhibit the diffusion and creation of new knowledge, and thus progress. The challenge is in striking a balance.

Property rights should also extend to the rights we have over the fruits of our own labor. Slavery and indentured labor represent the ultimate loss of these rights, and those practices are rightly condemned in civilized societies.

One would think that if we use slaves—free labor—costs would be lowered and profits correspondingly increased. Not so! China seems determined to resurrect the economics of slavery by using forced prison labor. Thus far none of the Chinese enterprises are world leaders either in quality or price. Companies like Microsoft and IBM that pay their workers handsomely produce premium products.

There is another economic aspect to paying workers well. Henry Ford intuitively knew this when he set about to lower the prices of his cars and simultaneously raise the pay of his workers so they could be among his best customers.

One aspect of property rights often overlooked is what ecologist Garrett Hardins termed the “tragedy of the commons.”13 He used the example of the free grazing of cattle on public land, a common practice in western United States. If every rancher were to think only of maximizing his own profit, he or she would simply increase the number of cows. That would not involve much additional cost, as the land is communally owned. However, if every rancher were to do likewise, soon the whole land would be overgrazed to the point of ecological disaster. Everyone would then lose—hence the tragedy of the commons. As the land belonged to everyone (publicly owned), it did not belong to anyone, and no one took responsibility caring for it.

The fallacy of socialism is exactly this. With the state owning everything, no one bothers to take care of anything. If something does not belong to you, you do not have the sense of pride of ownership, and behave accordingly. This is encapsulated in the pithy wisdom that no one ever washes a rented car. The wisdom of capitalism is this recognition of private property.

I recently visited a senior civil servant living in one of the old-style palatial government bungalows in a secluded area of Kuala Lumpur. He had been there for decades, yet in all that time he did not plant a single flower, fruit tree, or in any way tried to enhance the landscaping. The reason? The property was not his, even though he would get to enjoy the fruits of his labor. As for cutting the lawn, he depended on the Public Works Department even if that meant enduring overgrown weeds!

That civil servant’s behavior is no different from the tenant dwellers of the Council flats of Liverpool or public housing projects of Southside Chicago. They have no pride of ownership. Margaret Thatcher tried to eradicate this destructive mentality with her policy of selling those units to their dwellers, that is, encouraging private property ownership.

Related to and an integral part of property rights are contract rights, the freedom of individuals to enter into a contract with one another.14 This does not mean anyone can enter into any contract with anyone to do anything. There are issues of ethics, religious norms, and public good to observe. The freedom to enter into a contractual agreement with my fellow citizen does not extend to allowing my selling my kidney to him. It is for society, and thus the political institutions, to set such limits. In India such contracts are apparently quite legitimate.

Regardless, when people trade goods and services, such exchanges are often transacted over days if not months or years. There is the element of promise and trust. A homeowner may enter into contract with a builder over constructing a new house. The contract may specify terms and conditions that have to be executed by each party. If there is no mechanism to enforce and honor such contracts, there will be chaos. No meaningful trade could take place under such circumstances. Even under the best of conditions, disagreements do arise; hence the importance of having a fair, honest and inexpensive system to resolve them.

The K-economy, with its global and instantaneous connectivity, have changed the dynamics of intellectual property rights and put a new twist to the tragedy of the commons. ICT has transformed markets with the democratization and decentralization of information. In the medieval era, information was the exclusive preserve of the clergy; that was also the way the clergy effectively controlled the flock. The printing press upended all that. With the masses now literate and reading materials readily available, the controls wielded by the clergy soon gave way. That did more to end feudalism and brought in democracy and capitalism.

Capitalism’s success brings its own problems. With news and information now increasingly controlled by big media corporations, we are reverting to medieval times with corporate chieftains replacing the clergy. Their stranglehold seems unassailable, as the economic barriers for new players are prohibitive. While it would take only a few thousand dollars to start a newspaper a hundred years ago, today that figure would be in the hundreds of millions.

The good news is that ICT, specifically the Internet, is again upending the status quo. Today I am reaching more readers through my website and other Internet outlets like Malaysiakini and Malaysia-Today than when I was writing for the mainstream papers.

ICT is challenging traditional economics and business models with its decentralization, diffusion (thus lack of control), open platform, and open-source software. Linux, started by volunteers spontaneously collaborating via the Internet, is fast challenging Microsoft Explorer. Google is offering its most important and most widely used product, its search engine, for free. Wikipedia, again free with its contents contributed voluntarily by millions worldwide, is more widely used than the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica. And the latter is a subscription service! Wikipedia is as reliable as the Britannica at least with respect to its science entries, according to the journal, Nature.15

Whether such successes would herald a new way of doing business to challenge or even complement the traditional capitalist model remains to be seen.16

Next: Judicial System

I am pleased to inform readers that my website is now back and running after some unexpected interruptions for the past few days.  I could not retrieve only the last few postings, which I will re-post in the next few days.

M. Bakri Musa

Guest Commentary:  Farish A. Noor

There are ideas, and there can be stupid ideas; but to ban an idea simply because of its stupidity seems to be a rather stupid thing to do in itself.

            Among the ideas that circulate in the congested bowels of Malaysia’s public domain is the somewhat nebulous idea of ‘Islam Hadhari’; loosely translated at times as ‘civilisational Islam’ or ‘societal Islam’.  Others of a less charitable bent have dubbed it ‘theme park Islam’, ‘Crystal mosque Islam,’ and even ‘Badawi’s brand of Islam’.  Branding aside, it would appear that this brand of Islam has come under close scrutiny and admonition of late.  In May the Pakatan-led state government of Selangor announced that henceforth the state would no longer promote Islam Hadari and this was later followed up by a similar move on the part of the Pakatan-led state government of Penang.

            The rationale behind this prohibition leaves us with some unanswered questions that might as well be raised at this point.  Who called for the prohibition of Islam Hadari and on what grounds?  And if Islam Hadhari is to be banned by the Pakatan-led state governments, what does this entail for the Muslims and non-Muslims of Malaysia?  What, in the final analysis, was the objective of this ban?

            Now this academic would hardly call himself a fan of Islam Hadhari, as anyone who has read these columns would realise.  Time and again we have pointed out the shortcomings, contradictions, double standards, and downright hypocrisy between the ideals of Islam Hadhari and what has been put into practice.  Islam Hadhari – as a broad statement of inter-related intentions crafted in the form of a statist religio-political discourse – promised us the opening of the Muslim mind, the creation of a more open civil space, the protection of pluralism and difference, and the promotion of gender equality.

            Yet what we have seen thus far falls short (and very short, mind you) of the abovementioned objectives.  In Trengganu, I walked into the Islam Hadhari theme park that seemed more like a vulgar imitation of Disneyland than a concrete affirmation of rationalism and the spirit of enquiry.  The famous ‘crystal mosque’ that accounted for the whopping price tag of the whole theme park failed to impress and was certainly a pale mimic of what Islamic aesthetics could achieve.  And one wonders how such grand and money-devouring projects would serve the ends of opening up the Muslim mind when all we see are posters and banners celebrating the ego and image of the man said to be the mastermind of the grand logic of Islam Hadhari itself, Prime Minister Abdullah.

            Criticisms like these, however, serve to keep the powers-that-be in check and to remind them of their public commitments to ideas and values that they fail to practice in office.  How, pray tell, can you open up the minds of Malaysians when the very same government that preaches Islam Hadhari remains as a passive witness to the spate of book-banning and the narrowing of discursive space in the country?

            This, however, should not be taken as the license to simply ban Islam Hadhari – or any other ideas or interpretations of Islam – outright.  For if we were to say that Islam Hadari is wrong in toto simply because the people who thought it up don’t even understand it themselves, then would we not also be rejecting some of the better ideas and values that have been inculcated into the general framework of the project itself?  Islam Hadhari, on paper at least, calls for the respect of difference and pluralism as well as the promotion of gender equality.  Are these ideas to be rejected too, simply because they have been brought within the ambit of Islam Hadhari?  For my part, I am quite happy to see any party or politician, be they of the ruling parties or those in opposition, endorsing pluralism, democracy, and gender equality any time of the day….

            Which leads us to the actors and agents behind the prohibition of Islam Hadari in Selangor and Penang.  According to reports, the calls for the ban on Islam Hadhari have come from those who claim to be representatives of the Muslim community, and this includes members of political parties, Muslim lobby groups, Muslim NGOs, and former Muftis.  The justification for the ban, we are told, is that some of these individuals feel that “the teachings of Islam are perfect as they are” and that “there is no need for supplements”.  Their calls for the prohibition of Islam Hadhari, it would seem, is fuelled by the desire to “return to the true teachings of Islam”.  But this immediately leads us to the obvious question:  Is defending gender equality, promoting openness, and recognizing pluralism and difference (both among Muslims and between Muslims and others) not essentially Islamic anyway?  How, pray tell, does promoting gender equality amount to ‘supplementing’ or ‘deviating’ from the teachings of Islam?

            Despite assurances that this move to prohibit the promotion of Islam Hadhari is not political, we find it ludicrous to suggest that the move is void of any political motivation.  Islam Hadhari itself began as a political project – to politically engineer the opening of Muslim discursive space, though this did not happen – and the reactions to it have been political as well.

            Those who claim that any modern revisionist attempt to re-think Islam is deviant or dangerous, and that Islam is perfect as it is, are obviously missing the point:  We all know that Islam in its essential, fundamental, literalist form conjoins and promotes equality, freedom, and justice.  But a cursory overview of the normative religio-cultural and social praxis of Islam in the daily lives of Muslims the world over today will show that the Muslim world is riddled with the problems of sexism, racism, feudalism, communitarianism, and sectarianism.  The appeal to ‘return to the Quran’ or the fundamentals of the Muslim faith ring hollow when we look around us and see how the politicization of Islam has served only the agendas of elites who manipulate the sentiments of the majority, who have organized and led pogroms against racial and religious minorities, who have been the first to accuse other Muslims of being ‘kafirs’, ‘munafikin’ and apostates.  Why, all this talk of Islam being singular and perfect makes me glance to our neighbors next door in Indonesia where at this very moment the Ahmadiya minority are being labeled as deviants, apostates, enemies of Islam, etc., while the self-proclaimed ‘true Muslims’ are calling for them to be banned, their mosques burned to the ground, and their members harassed, attacked and murdered.

            So let us not kid ourselves with the worn-out cliché that Islam has not changed over the past fourteen centuries, or that Islam does not require a modernist interpretation that meets the needs and reflects the realities of the modern age.  For Islam to remain a meaningful and dynamic belief and value system today, it has to undergo a process of serious, thoughtful, objective and critical interpretation that allows it to reflect the complexity of Muslim social life in the present.  This means evolving a contemporary theology and orthodoxy that reflects the strides that have been made in promoting gender and racial equality, the advancement in Muslim thought, the openness of Muslim society today.  We do not need some conservatives telling us to go back to the Golden Age of Islam 1,400 years ago, because frankly I would rather live in Malaysia in the present, thank you.

            And if Islam Hadhari is to be criticized – and it deserves to be criticized constantly, too – it should be for the reason that those who have tried to promote it have failed to meet the standards they have set for themselves.  Cakap tak serupa bikin, as they say.  I do not need some tawdry crystal mosque to impress me about Islam, Mr. Prime Minister.  Lift the ban on the Ahmadis and recognize other Muslim groups like the Shias, and maybe my opinion of Abdullah might be revised somewhat.

            The Pakatan-led state governments, on the other hand, would do well to focus on real issues such as governing this country well; as the previous lot obviously had no idea how to do that.  The banning of books, ideas, belief and value-systems and alternative cults and sects should be relegated to the past and the dark ages of the Barisan Nasional government.  The March 2008 elections was a vote for a new Malaysia, one where pluralism and diversity would be defended.  Let us not let this vote be misunderstood as an endorsement for an Islamic state shaped according to the mold of UMNO, PAS or any sectarian Muslim party or organization.  Banning should be a thing of the past, like the BN; and if Islam Hadhari is to be dumped into the dustbin of history, it should be relegated there on account of its contradictions and mis-application by incompetent politicians, and not because some Mullah wanted it so.

The writer Farish A Noor is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU, Singapore and affiliated professor at Universitas Muhamadiyah Surakarta, Indonesia. He is also one of the founders of the www.othermalaysia.org research site.

Dr. Farish (Badrol Hisham) Ahmad-Noor, Senior Fellow, Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.  Research Director for the Research Cluster ‘Transnational Religion in Contemporary Southeast Asia’, Nanyang Tech Uni, Singapore Tel (off) 6790 6128