March 24, 2004

JUST LIKE US:

Hard-liners take hard hit in Malaysia: Secular wins in national elections emphasize narrow appeal of strict Islamist politics. (Simon Montlake, 3/25/04, CS Monitor)

The sweeping victory of Malaysia's secular rulers in last Sunday's national elections emphasizes the narrow appeal of Muslim hard-liners in Southeast Asia, where strict religion-based politics run up against multiethnic realities.

Muslim voters dealt a potentially knock-out blow to the conservative Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), which slid to third place in parliament.

This message may resonate in neighboring Indonesia when it holds national elections on Apr. 5. Although several Muslim-oriented parties are expected to do well, their platforms mostly eschew calls for strict Islamic law in favor of vague appeals to Muslim brotherhood.

"[PAS's] loss will be felt across the Muslim world. They were seen as a future model for political Islam in a democratic context," says Karim Raslan, a political analyst and author. PAS has forged close ties in recent years with like-minded parties in Indonesia, Egypt, and other Muslim-dominated countries, he says.

For Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, a former Muslim scholar who took office last October and campaigned on a platform of rural development and anticorruption, the election was a personal triumph. His ruling coalition won 90 percent of seats in parliament and regained majority in one of two state legislatures formerly dominated by PAS. Adding to its humiliation, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang lost his seat by only 163 votes.

Noordin Sopiee, who chairs Malaysia's Institute of Strategic and International Studies, a political think tank, says this shows Islamic challengers to secular politics can be curbed at the ballot box. "There's a lesson here. You can democratically win over conservative, fundamental Muslim candidates if you have the right mixture of leaders and policies, and if you appeal to people with respect and humility," he says.

Poll-watchers in Malaysia give Abdullah credit for reaching out to rural Malays who deserted the ruling party at the last election in 1999. They say his soft-spoken manner, Islamic piety, and refusal to rise to the bait of his conservative foes played well among Malay voters, particularly first-time voters attracted to his reformist rhetoric.


The real blow it to the anti-religious and their claims that Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 24, 2004 10:31 PM
Comments

Islam is perfectly compatible with liberal democracy.

Just so long as you don't particularly believe in it.

Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 24, 2004 10:38 PM

Yes, you were one of the haters I had in mind.

Posted by: oj at March 24, 2004 10:46 PM

I beg your pardon.

If you believe in the inerrancy of the Quran, than you will be antagonistic to liberal democracy.

Just like some of Christ's preachings are very friendly towards Communistic thinking, scarcely a friend of liberal democracy.

Liberal democracy requires a dose of skepticism about some of what the Quran and Bible say.

Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 25, 2004 7:24 AM

You're very hung up on that Communism as Christianity deal--Christ said the opposite, we're personally obligated to share our wealth, not to structure a state that does it for us. If by friendly you just mean that both communism and Christianity believe the poor should be taken care of, then you're right and I too am Communistic.

Posted by: oj at March 25, 2004 7:50 AM

"The poor you will always have with you - but you will not always have me". A bit selfish from the Deity? Or perhaps a statement that other things are more important than social service?

Posted by: jim hamlen at March 25, 2004 10:46 AM

jim:

No, a statement that you can't get rid of poverty, only help the poor. Communists might have saved a couple hundred million lives if they'd only listened.

Posted by: oj at March 25, 2004 11:06 AM

OJ:

A fully involved believer would forcefully reorganize society to produce the Christ directed end, whether society wanted to, or not.

Just as a fully involved believer would not suffer witches to live, despite liberal democracy's position that witchcraft is not a punishable offense.

Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 25, 2004 12:15 PM

Yes. What's your point. The first refers to society, not the state. The latter is simply a matter of what's trendy--we persecute white separatists and Islamicists now instead.

Posted by: oj at March 25, 2004 12:23 PM

Well, I'm sticking to my prediction that Islam and liberal self-government will never co-exist stably.

Not because I hate (despise would be a better word) religion as such, but because Islam has a track record on governance.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 25, 2004 1:53 PM

I think that it is your co-religionists who are most active in doubting Islam's compatibility with democracy. Listen to Michael Medved sometime.

To Jeff's point, there is no reason that Islam cannot accomodate democracy, it just takes creative theology. Once Christianity was incompatible with democracy and capitalism, but times change, and so does Immutable Truth. As I've stated before, theology is an improvisational art form. Any good lawyer can find a justification for anything that his client did by a creative reading of the law books. So too, the theologist, starting with what he wants to justify, can approach his reading of the sacred texts in the same spirit.

Islam will accomodate democracy when enough Moslems want to live in a democracy. Where there is a will, they will find the Way.

Posted by: Robert Duquette at March 25, 2004 5:15 PM

Robert:

Jews, like Michael Medved, have obvious reasons for opposing Muslims. But it is worth noting that among those who are most passionate about democratizing the Middle East are other Jews, like Paul Wolfowitz.

Your point about Chriostianity is completely wrong--all democracy and capitalism are is the application of Christianity to politics and economics.

Posted by: oj at March 25, 2004 5:20 PM

Robert:

Thank you for doing a far better job than I of conveying the point I was trying to make.

Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 25, 2004 5:21 PM

Given Christ's divine authority, one would think Christians would follow His teachings on giving and lending to the fullest extent: "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell what thou hast, and give to the poor."

A truly Christian society would be one where no one owned or owed anything, and which would give any portion of its wealth to any individual or organization that asked for it.

A truly Christian society would be thoroughly adverse to capitalism. Unless, of course, Christians chose to believe the convenient bits, and leave out the rest. Kind of like Muslims are going to have to take a pass on signficant portions of the Quran if they want to take part in liberal democracy.

Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 25, 2004 7:23 PM

None of us are Christlike.

Posted by: oj at March 25, 2004 7:27 PM

Jeff nailed that one. Jesus was pretty vague about most things, but when it came to capital, he left no doubt about it -- if you want to spend eternity with him, you gotta die broke.

Robert's point is akin to saying that when black becomes white, it will be white. Bassam Tibi has stated what ought to obvious to anyone -- Muslims are not interested in democracy.

They have what seems to them a superior alternative.

The notion that our superior wealth will change their minds will work for a few but not for the many, since they already have subscribed to a system that disdains wealth.

I have said before, and everything that happens confirms it, that infidels always underestimate the satisfaction Muslims feel in being Muslim.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 25, 2004 9:18 PM

Time will tell Harry. Certainly if the majority have no desire for democracy, as you state, it won't happen. But I don't think you can look at the entire Muslim world as a monolith in this regard. I don't think that Turkish Moslems feel the same way as Saudis. And there is no reason that they need to give up their sense of satisfaction at being Muslims for democracy, they can have both.

Jeff, thanks! And as you point out that Christians pick and choose the bits that confirm their own views, Muslims can do likewise. There are several parables in the New Testament where Jesus alludes to capitalistic behavior, like the one where the master gives money to each of his servants - one multiplies the money many fold, and the other buries it in the ground. I think that Jesus was using something that his followers knew, business, to point them in the direction that he wanted them to go, towards spiritual development. He wanted them to be spiritual capitalists, not monetary capitalists. But someone who sees monetary capitalism as a good will interpret these stories that way.

Posted by: Robert Duquette at March 25, 2004 9:45 PM

Robert:

You are right about the Turks. I have spent a fair amount of time in Turkey. If all Muslims were like the Turks, we would be sunning happily smack dab in the middle of the end of history.

Of course, it took a secularist, Attaturk, to bring about that state of affairs.

OJ:

Given the extent Christians follow that teaching, not only are they not Christ like, they aren't even trying.

Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 25, 2004 10:03 PM

Jeff:

No, we are trying--God just overestimated us.

Posted by: oj at March 25, 2004 10:46 PM

Harry:

And, in fact, many Westerners who go there or study it end up going Islamic. But they don't stop being democrats. The two simply aren't incompatible in the long run.

Posted by: oj at March 25, 2004 10:53 PM

Mr. Eager;

Muslims may have ascribed to a belief that eschews wealth yet they seem to seek it all the same.

Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at March 26, 2004 12:01 AM

True enough. And they seem to get around the clear injunction against banking, just as Christians did.

Nevertheless, there are some places they won't go. At least, so far they haven't.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 26, 2004 7:26 PM
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