Malaysia: Multicultural Society, Islamic State, or What?
One central issue in Malaysian politics is the contestation over Islam's political role. It has given rise to two forms of statist Islam sponsored respectively by the dominant ruling Malay party, UMNO, and the oppositional Islamic party, PAS. This chapter will delve into the history and politics of this contestation and examine its ramifications on Malaysian multicultural society. At the peak of this contestation, leaders of the ruling UMNO have declared Malaysia to be an “Islamic state.” This is, however, contested by secular political actors and constitutional experts. Contestation over the role and place of Islam in society has also spilled over into civil society, with the surfacing of numerous ethnic altercations over cultural rights issues such as apostasy and religious conversions. This chapter will examine the aborted attempt by civil society actors to form an Inter–Faith Commission in 2005 and explore its social and political ramifications. The chapter argues that the route to a multicultural secular practice of recognizing the “equal worth” of citizens remains stymied in a contested political moment with democracy serving as the most significant and enabling conditionality for progressive change.