Communiqué
Malaise in Malaysia
Will Islamicization Become Its New Future
The Southeast Asian country of Malaysia, long regarded as a beacon of moderate Islam, is now in the midst of a bitter struggle over the future identity of the nation. The contenders are backward-looking Islamists and forward-looking Muslim modernizers and their Christian and other allies.
Election Shock
In May 2018, Malaysia was seemingly on the cusp of an exciting new era. Pakatan Harapan (PH), a dynamic, emerging political coalition of moderate Muslim, Chinese, and other ethnic parties, won the fourteenth national elections in a landslide, almost doubling its representation in parliament by winning 121 of 222 seats in the lower house and garnering 48.3 percent of the national vote.
The losing Barisan National (BN) coalition was reduced to 79 seats, down from 133 in the 2013 elections. The largest party in that coalition, the Muslim United Malays National Organization, had long dominated Malaysia’s political scene, leading the BN coalition to victory in every election since Malaysia became independent in 1963. Under the leadership of its long-serving prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, who led the country from 1981–2003, successive BN governments had pursued a top-down program of Islamicization of the bureaucracy. The aim was to instill and reinforce Islamic values throughout the government, at both federal and state levels, as well as across Malaysia’s multicultural and multi-faith society, of which 60 percent is Muslim and 40 percent adhere to other faiths, including the 9 percent who are Christian.
When the PH coalition won power last year, non-Muslims and many of the more liberal Muslims anticipated and celebrated an end to the relentless Islamicizing drive of the previous BN governments. But some of the more conservative Muslims were dismayed by the prospect of greater power-sharing with non-Muslim minorities and were fearful of a more secularized society in which the dominance of Islam-friendly policies would be eroded. By a strange twist of fate, the new PH government was led by none other than Mahathir Mohamad, now a nonagenarian, as prime minister. He had switched his party allegiances after becoming disenchanted with successive BN governments led by his successors.
Islamist Opposition to Racial Equality
Since last year’s general election, Malaysia’s hardline Islamist groups have triggered ongoing protests against the new government. Their aim is to undermine the nation’s stability and to re-establish the Islamicization process that had been underway since the early 1980s. Concerned that the new Malaysian government might ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)—a UN policy dating from the 1960s, which has received widespread support from world governments—Islamist lobby groups organized a massive protest rally against the ICERD on December 8, 2018. They feared that ratification might undermine the special privileges enjoyed by the all-Muslim Malay race in multi-racial Malaysia.
The Islamist protests were widely criticized both within and outside Malaysia. Prominent Turkish scholar and activist Mustafa Akyol commented: “I would recommend that all those in Malaysia who oppose the ICERD on Islamic grounds read the Ottoman Constitution of 1876,” which, in his view, accorded with ICERD principles. Pro-ICERD Malaysian Muslim lawyer Latheefa Koya observed that a large number of Muslim nations had already ratified ICERD. Nevertheless, under pressure, Prime Minister Mahathir announced that Malaysia would not ratify the UN convention. This climb-down on his part resulted in the menacing anti-ICERD rally passing off on December 8 without incident. Islamist pressure had paid off for the hardliners.
Islamist Championing of Special Privileges for Malays
In the midst of the ICERD dispute, some Malays found another creative way to swim against the world tide of racial equality. In November, some 53 Malay Muslim NGOs (non-governmental organizations) formed the G3 group, a “third force alliance” designed to champion special rights for the Malay race in Malaysia. Some G3 spokespeople expressed a longing for “the spirit of May 13”—an ominous reference to the 1969 riots by Malays against ethnic Chinese Malaysians, which was triggered by a controversial result in the national elections that year. Many were killed in those riots, a fact alluded to in expressions of “longing for blood” by G3 spokespeople. Islamist pressure was thus adopting a more menacing tone.
Peter Riddell is Vice Principal-Academic at the Melbourne School of Theology in Australia, and a Senior Fellow of Kairos Journal.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on culture from the online archives
35.2—Mar/Apr 2022
on Fatigued Christians Deciding to Engage the Culture by Keith Lowery
30.6—Nov/Dec 2017
Christ, Individualism & the Meaning of Cultural Diversity by Anthony Esolen
32.2—March/April 2019
Reality Shows, Even in a Popular TV Series by C. E. Smith
more from the online archives
29.5—Sept/Oct 2016
on Past & Present Atheism & the Invention of Happiness by Jordan Bissell
31.4—July/August 2018
Life & Love Are Real Despite Theatrical Illusions by Anthony Esolen
24.1—January/February 2011
How Planned Parenthood's Founder Played the Christians, and Won by Allan C. Carlson
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
