Complex Network Manifolds

The issue of integration within the Malay Muslim camp is an ongoing internal problem for them. They believe that conflicts should not occur, for they weaken the people and affect unity.²⁷⁹ Conflict is seen mainly in politics, where there are two main political parties which represent the group within the Malay community, the United Malay Nation Organization (UMNO) and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS).

UMNO is currently the ruling party of Malaysia in coalition with the other political parties, namely the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) and several parties in East Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak. UMNO was founded in May 1946 by Dato’ Onn bin Ja’afar in Johor, in response to the objections of the Malay leaders to the proposal for a Malayan Union by the British government, after the British took over when the Japanese were defeated in World War II. Forty-one Malay associations from all over the peninsula later agreed to form this political party, representing the voice of the Malay community. Meanwhile the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, known as PAS, originally developed from the religious bureau of UMNO. It broke away in 1951 and formed its own

279 Mohamad Abu Bakar, ‘Islam and Nationalism in Contemporary Malay Society’ in Taufik Abdullah and Sharon Siddique (eds), Islam and Society in Southeast Asia, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1986, p 155.

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group, led by Ahmad Fuad Hassan.²⁸⁰ They left UMNO due to their dissatisfaction with UMNO’s neglect of the issue of Natrah’s apostasy,²⁸¹ the launching of fun fairs and gambling by the government and the dominance of UMNO by secularist figures.²⁸² This party was gradually established under the leadership of Dr. Burhanuddin Al-Helmi and at first promoted the idea of a Melayu Raya (Greater Malaya) in establishing a land of Muslims.²⁸³ Nowadays, PAS continues to be one of the main opposition parties to UMNO and its alliance, the National Front (Barisan Nasional).²⁸⁴

UMNO are not merely doubtful, but perhaps reject the applicability and validity of Islamic teaching in modern Malaysia and the fact that Malaysia is a multi-racial and multi-religious

280 Before PAS was formed, there was an Islamic movement in Malaya known as Hizbul Muslimin established in 1948. This lasted for less than five months, however, as some of its leaders were detained under the Emergency Regulations in August 1948 and it was later banned by the British government. Hence, when the religious bureau split from UMNO, a meeting was held among the local religious scholars, including those previously involved in Hizbul Muslimin. The meeting decided to form an Islamic political party, known as Pan Islamic Malaysian, or PMIP, and currently known as PAS.

281 This was a custody issue which later turned into religious antagonism. Natrah or Maria Hertogh was a daughter of Dutch Catholics living in Tjimahi, near Bandung, Java. She was raised as a Muslim under the care of Aminah binti Mohamed, a close friend to Natrah’s grandmother, Nor Louise. Aminah claimed she had permission from Nor Louise to raise Natrah as her foster daughter. Due to the situation created by World War II, Aminah brought Natrah to her home town in Kemaman, Terengganu, Malaya. When the war ended, Natrah’s father wanted to take her back, searched for her and found that she was living in Terengganu. As Natrah herself refused to return to her family in the Netherlands, Aminah appealed to have the legal right of custody of Natrah and won. The issue was again brought to court when Natrah at the age of 13 was married to a Malay man of 22, called Mansor Adabi. According to Dutch law, the marriage was invalid, since girls are under the guardianship of their father until the age of 16.. This time Natrah’s Catholic family won the case. As a result, Natrah had to be returned to them. Thus, the issue became a focus for religious antagonism. A riot occurred on 11 December 1950 in Singapore due to the anger and frustration of the Malays with Natrah’s conversion to Catholicism.

For details, see Nadra Tragedy (Nadra Ma’arof or MariaHertogh), see http://nadra-natrah.blogspot.co.uk/

(accessed September 28, 2009)

282 ‘Sejarah Parti Islam Semalaysia (PAS)’, Parti Islam Semalaysia (PAS), see

http://pas.org.my/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=180&Itemid=438 (accessed November 21, 2008)

283 One of the purposes of Melayu Raya (Greater Malaya) was to unite the Malays “...wherever they might be...”

(Means, 1970: 229). It was believed that this movement would include Malaya, Singapore, the Borneo states, Indonesia and possibly the Philippines.

284In the general election of 2008, PAS with Parti KeAdilan Rakyat or People’s Justice Party and Democratic Action Party (DAP) under a coalition known as Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Pact) defeated the National Front (Barisan Nasional) in several states and won Kelantan, Kedah, Perak, Penang and Selangor.

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society where implementing Islamic law would not be appropriate.²⁸⁵ The first Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman, strongly opposed the interposition of Islam within the state administration. He stated, “…I would like to make it clear that this country is not an Islamic State as it is generally understood, we merely provide that Islam shall be the official religion of the State.”²⁸⁶

UMNO, in contrast, has not completely ignored the elements of Islamic teaching. They have concentrated on various activities in religious matters such as “...supporting the construction of mosques and other prayer houses, continued to administer the established practices of marriage, zakat collection, prayers and fasting...”²⁸⁷ Furthermore, the former Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir, instilled Islamic values within the government and introduced programmes which related to it, such as the expansion of an Islamic Sharī‘ah court, the establishment of an Islamic insurance company, the foundation of the International Islamic University of Malaysia and the introduction of “...interest-free banking facilities in conventional commercial banks...” due to the influence of the Islamic resurgence and demands from the da’wah movement in the 1970s.²⁸⁸

285 Deliar Noer, ‘Contemporary Dimensions of Islam’ in M.B Hooker (ed), Islam in South-East Asia, Leiden:

E.J. Brill, 1983, p 204.

286 Official Report of Legislative Council Debates, 1 May 1958, Columns 4631 and 4671-2, cited in Ahmad Ibrahim, ‘The Position of Islam in the Constitution of Malaysia’, p 55.

287 Deliar Noer, ‘Contemporary Dimensions of Islam’, p 20.

288 M. Kamal Hasan, ‘Malaysia’, pp 37-38.

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However, from the PAS point of view, UMNO has not met all the requirements for becoming an Islamic government. PAS considers that Islam is “...an alternative on which society and the state should be built”²⁸⁹ and that there should be an Islamic state, meaning all that aspects of Islam should be implemented, though not that the state should be ruled by the ulama’.²⁹⁰ Furthermore, the teaching of Islam and the implementation of Islamic law is already practical and valid at all times and in all places because Islam is a universal religion. However, PAS approach in propagating these ideas is considered to be quite radical and is not accepted by some of the groups within the community. Hence, Mutalib argues that there is a long-established UMNO-PAS ideological divide in which each blames the other for not following the ‘right Islam’.²⁹¹ In 1987, there was open hostility between these two parties, accusing each other of being ‘infidels’, which is a serious accusation in Islamic teaching.²⁹²

It is interesting to note that this difference did not occur during the anti-colonial struggle. The Islamist and nationalist groups of the time shared the same view of Islam and fought for the same aim, to achieve independence for the country. To them, “Malay nationality and the Islamic religion were practically synonymous.”²⁹³ According to Abu Bakar, the Islamists and the ulama’ of the time believed that this fight for Malay nationalism had strong ties with the notion of Islam. Implicitly there was integration and unity among the Malay Muslims who had fought together in objecting to the proposal for a Malayan Union propounded by the

289 Deliar Noer, ‘Contemporary Dimensions of Islam’, p 204.

290 Ibid.

291 Hussin Mutalib, ‘Islamisation in Malaysia: Between Ideals and Realities’, p 164.

292 Ibid.

293 Mohamad Abu Bakar, ‘Islam and Nationalism in Contemporary Malay Society’ in Taufik Abdullah and Sharon Siddique (eds), Islam and Society in Southeast Asia, p 156

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British. As mentioned by Marican, the campaign “...brought together the divergent strains in the previous Malay nationalist movements of the twenties and thirties by including Islamic reformers, the Malay educated intelligentsia and Malay civil servants.”²⁹⁴ Perhaps the situation led them to fight together to release the country from colonial bondage.

A similar situation occurred after the ethnic riots of 13^th May 1969 where the National Operations Council (NOC)²⁹⁵ led by Tun Abdul Razak invited all the political, administrative and military elite, including PAS,to cooperate in helping the government to face the crisis.²⁹⁶ Consequently, some of them were offered positions in the government, such as ministers, deputy ministers and parliamentary secretaries. PAS agreed to join the coalition at the state level in 1973 and thus became the component party of the National Front (Barisan Nasional) in 1974.²⁹⁷ However the PAS-UMNO coalition lasted for only five years because of UMNO’s alleged interference in PAS’s internal political affairs. This led to a vote of no confidence against the PAS president, led by Mohamad Nasir, who was proposed by Tun Abdul Razak, the leader of UMNO and the National Front, as the chief minister of Kelantan.²⁹⁸ Subsequently, Kelantan was brought “...under the federal rule through emergency legislation

294 Y. Mansoor Marican, ‘Malay Nationalism and the Islamic Party of Malaysia’, in Islamic Studies, Spring, 1977, p 295 cited in Mohamad Abu Bakar, ‘Islam and Nationalism in Contemporary Malay Society’, p 157.

295 This council was an emergency administrative body which was launched after the incident of 13^th May 1969, acted as an acting Malaysian government until the new government was elected in 1971.

296 S. Husin Ali, The Malays: Their problems and future, p 34.

297 Ibid., p 37.

298 Tun Abdul Razak the leader of the National Front had named Mohamad Nasir as the chief minister of Kelantan instead of the candidate suggested by the PAS President, Asri. Mohamad Nasir refused to obey the order of the PAS leader; hence, the Federal government brought Kelantan under emergency legislation as mentioned above.

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passed in December 1977 pending a new state election.”²⁹⁹ As PAS refused to support the emergency bill, it ended its coalition with the National Front. Consequently, PAS was defeated in the March 1978 election, losing the state of Kelantan to UMNO.³⁰⁰

Nevertheless, UMNO have recently had discussions and expressed interest in forming a new mutual agreement with PAS. They are interested in a compromise regarding the issue of Malay Muslims because they lost Penang to the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and a majority of the seats in Perak were also won by the DAP in the Malaysia General Election in 2008. However, the PAS President, Abdul Hadi Awang, has clearly stated that there will be no coalition between PAS and UMNO whether at the federal or state level of government.

Thus PAS remains with Pakatan Rakyat³⁰¹ and continues to strengthen this coalition.³⁰²