Since the fall of communism a new world order is emerging in which political Islam develops into one of the major players: Islam not only provides a new stimuli for the re-definition of political models as well as social and cultural identity but also constitutes a crucial part of globalization as one of its most outspoken critics. It does the latter by highlighting the uneven development inherent in Western concepts and challenging the social/moral impetus of a largely growth-oriented approach to capitalism. At the same time, Islam tries to present alternative social and cultural models that arise from its own perception of an all-compassing belief-system that in practice is heavily fragmented along social and cultural lines. The particularistic answers arising from various Islamic backgrounds, however, emerge from an increasingly global setting of policy-making that is similarly multi-faceted. In the case of Malaysia, these ambiguities of modernization have become more focused than in many other Islamic countries. As one of the most outstanding examples of rapid development, Malaysia provides a showcase of how a society can undergo both political and cultural change while trying to construct a non-Western modernity centring on Asian and specifically Islamic traditions and values. At the same time its political system provides for a relatively higher level of participation, at least compared with many other Islamic countries, thus enabling opposition parties to come up with alternative social models.
In this context, the Islamic Pard Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) provides an interesting example with its attempt at constructing and enforcing a system of "Islamic democracy" in the two east coast states of Kelantan and Terengganu. PAS has governed these states since 1990 and 1999 respectively. Islamic governance in these states will be examined politically, economically, and socially by assessing PAS' background and development. It will be asked how PAS' Islamic administration differs from the Islamic mainstream policies proposed by the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) (1) coalition and to what extent PAS is hampered by constitutional as well as political considerations in a multi-ethnic society.
Paradigm Shift within PAS
>From Nationalism to Islamic State
Burhanuddin al-Helmy, the founder of PAS, had already in the 1960s explicitly voiced the dilemma in which his party had been caught by incorporating two positions into its political programme that are hardly compatible: representing Malay nationalist interests while at the same time defending universal Islamic principles (Burhanuddin al-Helmy 1964). Unlike UMNO, the leading nationalist Malay party in the ruling BN, PAS has always defined itself through Islam and has therefore been in a permanent conflict between nationalism--condemned as assabiyah by Islamists (2)--and the universality of a religion defining itself by the total submission to divine principles. With the emergence of the dakwah movement in the late 1970s--the call to go back to the "roots" of Islam--and an ensuing Islamization of the public sphere, the nationalist-Islamic ambiguity has become even more apparent and has led to frictions within the party. Resistance particularly emerged after PAS joined the ruling coalition in 1974, which was seen as a betrayal of the Islamic cause by the ulama in the party who opposed the rather nationalist-inclined leadership under Mohamad Asri.
Its failure to function as a component within the BN government in late 1977 considerably changed the profile of PAS. Leaving nationalist Malay politics behind, the party openly confessed its Islamic identity. Several steps were taken to "Islamize" the outlook of the party: through establishing a Majlis Shura as the highest decision-making body within the party, the religious leadership of the ulama was secured. At the same time the PAS General Assembly in October 1982 decided to limit the influence of the party president in favour of the Islamic principle of musyawarah, which is based on common consensus (Pushpa 1984, pp. 205-28). The position of the more secular-oriented leadership of Mohammad Asri was further undermined by the results of the April 1982 general election and the failure of PAS to attract non-Muslim voters. The newly elected leadership of Haji Yusuf Rawa and Fadzil Noor favoured the Iranian model of an Islamic state and suggested it as a viable political alternative for Malaysia. The implications of an Islamic government led by ulama, however, brought PAS into serious conflict with local traditions, which, among others, consider the sultan as the main representative and protector of Islam and Malay customs (adat), a perception rejected by Islamic fundamentalism as contradicting the principles of the shari'a. Islamic initiatives of this kind having been announced with great fanfare, often led to PAS backtracking soon after in view of the realities of the Malaysian politics. The country's political system does not provide for constitutional principles such as the position of the rulers, to be questioned or changed easily. Thus, the political game of using Islamic issues often turned into a farce, such as during the so-called kafir-mengafir exchanges between PAS and UMNO in 1984 when both accused each other of being un-Islamic. At the core of this debate was the mainly populist attempt by both parties to rally the conservative Malay working class mostly in the rural areas to its side. For both UMNO and PAS, playing the Islamic card did not succeed in the long run. It deprived PAS of the support of the non-Malay populace whom it tried to win over from the 1980s. However, since PAS did not have the support of the non-Malay populace in the first place, it was UMNO that risked losing more by alienating its non-Malay voters and coalition partners with a more Islam-based agenda. To counter this strategic weakness, PAS started to woo the Chinese minority in 1985 by arguing that Islamic universalism could actually supersede the narrow nationalism of UMNO. Nevertheless, PAS was not able to attract large numbers of the non-Muslim electorate, even by stressing the rights minorities had enjoyed during early Islam because in the final analysis, PAS failed to produce a social contract that would suit the present condition of Malaysian society (Stark 1999, pp. 63-70).
Starting with the PAS General Assembly in 1989, the party has gradually adapted to the political realities in Malaysia. The only way to gain access to power could be by pursuing a universalistic approach in a more realistic attempt to carry out fundamentalist policies in a multiethnic society.
By winning the elections in Kelantan in 1990s, however, PAS could afford to take a more uncompromising line again. As the leading party in the newly emerging Islamic opposition alliance Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah (APU), (3) PAS had to shape an even more decisively Islamic profile to counter Mahathir's Islamic policies, which had been proceeding on a largely symbolic scale since 1981. (4) The announcement to introduce the Islamic penal code in Kelantan (hudud) again showed the disproportion between PAS' political aspirations and its feasibility in a secular state, which only used Islam for legitimacy purposes. Therefore, the hudud debate has been a watershed in the Islamic policies pursued by PAS. Even though religious laws are under the jurisdiction of the states, the federal government possesses various tools to bring non-conformist state governments into line, such as the delay or blocking of official funds or the domination of the legislative bodies, through which it can exercise control. (5)
As a whole, after shifting its focus from nationalist to Islamic policies in the late 1970s, PAS had not been able to define what its aims really were and how it intended to achieve them. It could neither clarify how an Islamic state based on the shi'a principles of governance--for example, the dominant position of the Islamic clergy--could be established in a sunni-dominated state such as Malaysia, where strong pre-Islamic traditions of governance and equally strong non-Islamic cultural identity hamper any attempt to establish orthodox Islamic rule. While PAS has accused UMNO on numerous occasions of introducing merely symbolic Islamization policies with a populist motive, it remains unclear how far Islamization should go to satisfy the PAS ulama. Until the leadership change in 1995 and much more since the Anwar affair in 1998, which finally provided PAS with the necessary arguments to turn its back on the traditionalisms of the Islamic state-ideology, PAS had not been able to react flexibly to social-political developments in Malaysian society. (6) By insisting on the Qur'anic principles of an Islamic state and an orientation towards a political system that is deeply rooted in the past, PAS has provided its political adversaries with a lot of easy ammunition. Compared with Al-Arqam, which was quickly banned in 1994 by the UMNO government on allegations that it was a deviationist movement, PAS did not make any effort to reconstruct Islam in the sense of a specific "Islamic modernity" that had been calling for the Islamization of modern science and technology (Tibi 1992). (7) PAS had been too preoccupied with rejecting UMNO's concept of a moderate secular-oriented approach to Islamic modernity in a highly politicized contest of defining Malay-Muslim identity and consequently missed out on the debate over a "third way" of modernization that had been ongoing among Malaysian intellectuals since the 1980s. Mainly focusing on a new approach towards the Islamization of the social sciences and literature, debates such as between Kassim Ahmad and Shahnon Ahmad (1982-84) and Mohammad Affandi Hassan and Muhammad Haji Salleh (1993-94) emerged against a background of a much wider debate on the Islamization of thought as a distinctive frame of reference (almarji'iyya al-Islamiyya) in the Islamic world, represented by Islamic thinkers such as Muhammad Iqbal and Sayyid Qutb.
In the Malaysian debate on Islam, the traditionalist terminology of PAS was matched by a similarly inflexible attitude of the ruling BN coalition. Basically, this was a political competition for power and domination. The articulation of dissent against the UMNO-led government, often formulated in Islamic terms, was met with authoritarian responses once it did not conform to the official concept of modernization. (8) Islamic policies remained the domain of the state as a programme of cultural orientation to serve economic development. However, the fervour of catching up with developed nations, as laid out in Mahathir's Wawasan 2020 (Vision 2020), has further aroused dissenting opinions. (9) The case of Anwar Ibrahim's arrest further exposed the authoritarian nature of Mahathir's administration that had managed to use Islam, modernization, and Malay cultures to gain popular support. The late 1990s witnessed the departure from conventional political perceptions of PAS as the "Islamic traditionalists" and UMNO as the "protector of Malay interests" (Muzaffar 1992, pp. 89-215) but the events of September 11 have again resulted in PAS turning back to its conservative roots. While backing the Taliban in Afghanistan and announcing the introduction of hudud style capital punishment in Terengganu, PAS has failed to consider the swing in public opinion after September 11. This has made it easy for UMNO to accuse PAS of having "terrorist connections" and to question the sincerity of PAS' 1999 campaign for a liberal Islamic civil society. In response, PAS has reverted to its conservative Islamic state discourse and by doing so, has alienated its remaining partner in the Barisan Alternatif (BA), KeADILan, as well as the majority of non-Muslim voters. (10) By insisting on the implementation of the shari'a, PAS could hope to question the Islamic credentials of the government, which it had already accused in the early 1980s of merely "cosmetic" policies in its attempt to Islamize the country. Furthermore, after the numerous political scandals of the 1980s and 1990s PAS could use the hudud argument to highlight the failure of secular governance and the need to replace it with an Islamic one. (11)
>From Islamic State to Islamic Democracy
Considering the overwhelming victory of the ruling coalition in the general elections of 1995, PAS had to acknowledge that Mahathir's approach towards a moderate Islam in a modernized, open, and mainly secular society enjoyed considerable backing among Malaysians. So far, despite frantic efforts to prove UMNO's approach wrong, PAS had been on the losing end, being relegated to a peripheral role in Malaysian politics. The opposition front APU (see endnote 3) had largely failed because of PAS' uncompromising stand on establishing an Islamic state that was unacceptable to non-Muslim voters. While Islam as a strong force of cultural identification had helped a new Malay middle class to shape their own urban identities, the divide between rich "Umnoputras" and less fortunate rural Malays had grown bigger in the 1990s. So it was not so much Islam as a religious/cultural system, which had already been successfully explored as a "vote-puller" by UMNO, but its social/ philosophical aspects, which could provide PAS with new opportunities of Islamic discourse by linking it to the evolving wider framework of "Islamic democracy" and its main characteristics such as "clean governance", "moral values", and the rejection of "crony capitalism" discussed above. The general shift among Islamic fundamentalists towards a more democratic, participatory approach in the 1990s (Ghadbian 1997, pp. 87-116) (12) has contributed to PAS rethinking its own position on Malaysian politics. But the crucial stimulus came from within the country. Returning to its criticisms made in the 1980s of corruption, social injustice, and suppression, PAS started to move away from its previous fundamentalist image to advocate Islamic moderation, clean governance, reliability, and transparency in contrast to what it perceived as a despotic regime of the "Firaun" (Pharaoh) Mahathir (Hj. Fadzil Md. Noor 2000, p. 17). By embracing the goal to establish a just and democratic Islamic society without the "money politics" of UMNO, the new PAS leadership received an enormous boost to its credibility and popularity. Also, more than any political event before, the sacking of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and his treatment during the court proceedings gave PAS the strong symbol it needed to turn its quest for a more transparent democratic approach into a mass movement; a movement that addressed a growing demand for more social justice and participation and for less restriction and patronage as Malaysia entered the "global village". To this end, UMNO has provided PAS with the arguments it needed to portray itself as the political alternative using the same Islamic principles that UMNO had appropriated for the latter's economic-centric cause. The new Islamic concept of PAS, like that of UMNO, projects Islam as a modernizing force, which is capable of instilling such positive values as work ethics, diligence, and compassion in a fast-changing society, as stipulated in Wawasan 2020. In fact, PAS' answer to Mahathir's Vision 2020 was the so-called Wawasan Akhirat, which accentuated the human aspect of what both PAS and Mahathir have dubbed the "caring society" (Masyarakat Penyayang) (Manifesto Pilihanraya 1990; Mahathir Mohamad 1991). Both parties are caught in a similar dilemma now: While UMNO has to maintain a moderate approach to Islam, also by incorporating "Asian values" and common virtues in it to satisfy its non-Muslim coalition partners in the National Front, PAS has realized that only the same multi-ethnic approach can enable it to gain political power in the foreseeable future (thus the move from the radical "Islamic state" towards the more moderate "Islamic civil society") (Hj. Fadzil Md. Noor 2000, p. 22) (13) The democratic facelift of PAS' Islam since 1995 is tailored exactly to fit into the multi-ethnic composition of Malaysian society and aims mainly at luring the Chinese to vote for the BA coalition front, which was set up in 1999. PAS' declared intention to give equal rights to all citizens, promote transparency in government and abolish crony capitalism based on group interests, is a bid to re-establish the social contract between a future PAS-led government and two constituencies the party wants to woo. They are the lower-income classes of the Malays (burniputera) who have lost out to the well-connected burniputera-entrepreneurs, as well as the non-Malays who see their economic domain encroached upon by this same class of privileged burniputera.
While UMNO has focused on the modernizing aspects of Islam, PAS managed to be one step ahead by using the "Islamic democracy" argument to accuse the government of mismanagement, corruption, and dictatorial practices (Hj. Fadzil Md. Noor 2000, pp. 29-34). Since these accusations contained a certain amount of truth and were a perception shared by a large number of Malays in the 1999 general election, UMNO could not just shrug it off with a business-as-usual attitude. To this end, PAS had temporarily gained an advantage in defining the terms of debate. After the split of the BA in September 2001 over PAS' uncompromising stand on the "Islamic state" issue, it may be argued that PAS has failed politically: The way PAS is ruling the two east coast states of Kelantan and Terengganu since 1990 and 1999, respectively, provides us with some insights into PAS' political, economic, and social programme and its potential for reform.
Ruling Kelantan
Aspects of Political Governance
Immediately before the general election in October 1990, PAS formed the opposition front APU. Both APU and Gagasan Rakyat were the first attempts to achieve a common election platform among the opposition parties (see endnote 3). Islam, despite its universal bearings, which PAS always tried to put forward since the 1980s, however, was not able to provide the same unifying appeal as the strong integrative symbols of "modernization" and "development" did for BN. As such, the opposition front was not able to challenge seriously the government's ideology of rapid growth. Worse yet, PAS' insistence on establishing an Islamic state further alienated non-Muslim Chinese voters. Differences over the Islamic state concept were also the main reason for Gagasan Rakyat to break up in late 1996.
PAS with the help of Semangat 46 captured Kelantan from the BN in October 1990. In governing the state, the party had to negotiate various obstacles that stood in its way to establish an Islamic government based on the shari'a. In the long run, it could not introduce policies that were not supported by the majority of non-Malays or the more secularized urban Malay middle-class voters. The 1993 hudud controversy underlined another check on PAS prerogative as a state government. PAS also could not rule against the federal constitution and the federal government, nor could it risk being cut off from government funds if it openly defied the Malaysian political structure.
Politically, PAS soon found itself in a similar situation as the government when it came to the implementation of Islam: bound by constitutional and multiracial predicaments, PAS had to abide by the same standards as Mahathir whom it had often criticized for introducing Islamic symbols into politics without thoroughly changing the system. The degree of Islamization in Kelantan is significant because it provides an example for Islam being a viable alternative to Western models of governance. Immediately after taking over the government in Kelantan, PAS introduced the programme Membangun Bersama Islam (Developing Together with Islam) as an attempt to strengthen the role of Islam both in politics and in economics (Hi. Mohamad Daud et al. 2000, pp. 119-20). Based on the three principles itqaan (ability), ubudiah (submission), and mas'uliah (responsibility), it intends to implement the shari'a as an alternative socio-economic model which replaces the capitalist system with a more balanced approach giving priority to the role of man in a more spiritual and just society. In its attempt to find an alternative to the destructive forces of capitalism and Western democracy, PAS policies end up sharing many similarities with Mahathir's Vision 2020. While PAS speaks of the necessity to replace the individualistic and hedonistic aspects of capitalism with the spirituality of Islam, Mahathir has focused on the so-called Asian values as a means of social engineering to avoid the social ills of rapid development (Mahathir Mohamad 1999, pp. 79-92).
Despite the conceptual similarities between the programmes of UMNO and PAS, there were important differences in implementation. The introduction of a new, more Islamic administration at the end of 1990 provided PAS with the necessary appeal to gather the rural, mostly conservative Malay electorate behind a programme, which largely intended to show the differences between the lavishness of the urban corporate society of "Umnoputras" and the humble and unassuming simplicity of the chief minister, Menteri Besar Nik Aziz Nik Mat. As a first step, cuts in the expenditure of government officials were introduced and these officials agreed to contribute 20 per cent of their allowances to a state welfare fund, the Tabung Kewangan Negeri (Mohammad Agus Yusoff 1991, p. 103). Nik Aziz announced that he would forsake his housing allowance of RM3,000 (approximately US$400) per month, since he stayed in his own house. Other cuts were made in the spending on public functions such as during the end of the Islamic fasting month, which is traditionally celebrated in grandiose style. By rejecting the extravagance of the huge gatherings held during "open house" receptions of national leaders in Kuala Lumpur, PAS conveyed two messages: it stressed the principle of moderation, which is a tenet held strongly by Islam; and it rejected elements of Malay traditionalism and culture that serve as an important cultural marker for UMNO. The characteristics of an Islamic leader being incorruptible and humble as apparent in the simple lifestyles of Nik Aziz provided PAS with the sought-after credibility in setting up a visibly new approach towards Islamic governance.
More symbolic in nature and subtly underlining the specific Islamic nature of its approach despite the constitutional limitations, PAS introduced several changes in the public sphere soon after. A guideline was set up to identify suitable male and female dresses for sports activities in order to create "Islamic sports" and the Kelantan football team was consequently equipped with the newly designed outfits, featuring long sleeves and trousers, which covered all body parts (Mohammad Agus Yusoff 1991, p. 106). Women were banned from participating in Qur'an reading competitions in the Kelantan state capital of Kota Bharu on the grounds that women's voices were part of their aurat and consequently could not be exposed in public, When compared with Mahathir's "Islamic toilet" installed in the Prime Minister's Department and the Putra World Trade Centre, Kuala Lumpur in 1984, these PAS tactics show how similar, even exchangeable, they were to the UMNO attempts at Islamization. At the heart of these manoeuvres by both sides to introduce Islam into the public sphere is a political motive to strengthen their respective legitimacy of "modernization" without "Westernization".
Similar to Bank Islam, introduced by Mahathir in 1983 and operating according to Islamic principles, which forbid the paying of interest (riba), PAS established an Islamic welfare fund, Tabung Serambi Mekah, to collect donations from the public to be used in rural development projects Both schemes shared a commercial function in paying returns on savings as shared benefits even though, strictly speaking, this is not acceptable in Islam. As Nik Aziz Nik Mat stated while launching the project, this scheme would provide the public with the opportunity to scrutinize closely how his government was taking steps to ensure the well-being of society as a whole (Nik Aziz Nik Mat 1991). PAS' criticism of the uneven development within Malaysian society, which--as a consequence of the UMNO government's New Economic Policy (NEP)--had resulted in the split-up of the Malay community into a class of well-connected corporate people (the Melayu baru, or New Malay) and the rural poor dating back to the 1980s. However, as much as PAS has been critical of UMNO's economic model, its own kind of Islamic financial system cannot run away from the basic principles of having to rely on "investments" and to provide "returns" on the investments.
The Asian crisis emerging in the late 1990s provided PAS with the political opportunities to highlight the shortcomings of economic development under UMNO. The slowdown of the economy and the handling of the Anwar affair allowed PAS to campaign for more transparency, citizens' participation, and human rights in the general elections of November 1999. Some of the demands of the BA to abolish such draconian laws as the Internal Security Act again illustrated the limits to opposition campaign because the ruling BN with its two-thirds majority in the federal Parliament can block any initiative by the opposition (Manifesto Bersama Barisan Alternatif 1999, pp. 22-24). As was made evident when the hudud debate in 1993 led to PAS shelving its plans to introduce Islamic criminal punishment in Kelantan, all moves requiring the consent of the federal government are bound to fail, thus leaving a very limited space for political manoeuverability. It may be that this obstacle has prompted the Kelantan PAS government to resort to prayers as a last spiritual remedy. It introduced solat hajat (prayer of intention) as a main feature of Islamic administration to address all kinds of political and social ills. This had widespread support. Solar hajat, involving the top level of the Kelantan government and joined by thousands of believers in Kota Bharu, was performed to counter the UMNO assemblies in 1993 and 1995. It was also performed during the 1995 general election, the 1999 Terengganu oil royalty crisis, and on various other occasions (Dinsman 2000, pp. 63-76).
The political agenda of the PAS government in Kelantan has not provided any tangible instance of thorough Islamization in the last ten years. Its introduction of the decision-making body, the Majlis Shura, as a feature of Islamic governance has not changed the government structure. Neither has it introduced Islamic jurisdiction on a larger scale. It remains on a mainly symbolic level of Islamic appeal, bearing striking resemblance with UMNO's Islamic policies in the 1980s and 1990s. PAS's initiatives in the cultural sphere sometimes place it in a dilemma of not living up to its model of a civil society based on equal rights and opportunities for all communities and races as the hallmark of the Islamic democratic principle of khilafat. For example, in its bid to woo the non-Muslim Chinese community by not interfering with their right to practise their traditions and culture, PAS is seen to be discriminating against its own Malay-Muslim constituents by allowing only Malay tradition from the Islamic period and banning folk beliefs and customs from pre-Islamic time. While the rights of women have been extended by introducing the five-day working week to curb the exploitation of female factory workers, women's active participation in society according to PAS' views stops short of the much more far-reaching demands for gender equality made by the women's rights group Sisters in Islam. While hudud is promoted by PAS as a vital means to establish inter-ethnic, inter-religious solidarity and equality through the application of Islamic jurisdiction for all, it has to reassure the non-Muslims that they will be excluded from it in the mean time to disperse their fears of an Islamic state.
Islamic fundamentalism in Malaysia is less restrictive than in some Muslim countries because it has to abide by constitutional rules that provide checks and balances. PAS' aim to establish a democratic and fair society based on Islamic principles is reduced to mere compromises as long as the legal framework of the federation cannot be changed by PAS and its political allies through a two-thirds majority in Parliament. Since this is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future, PAS' move to turn from the concept of an Islamic state to the one of an Islamic civil society is only the consequence of acknowledging political realities and the need to introduce Islamic rule of law in a more watered-down, compromising form.
In the long run, the emergence of a two-party-system in Malaysia would certainly put more pressure on PAS in terms of political competition to moderate its approach towards Islam, both to accommodate demands from within the BA as well as from non-Muslim voters. Since Islam is a strong pillar of Malay identity and part of Malay politics, a future model of Malaysian democracy will probably evolve around the competition of ideas, the opening-up towards political opposition, more political transparency, and chances to effectively control and evaluate politicians for the rakyat while still retaining a strong reference to Islam. This would not so much be an "alternative model" of governance, but rather a form of Asian democracy that incorporates both Western and Eastern values as Mahathir and PAS leaders have repeatedly stressed.
Economic implications
Kelantan has chosen a new approach to economics, which is based on the Islamic principles of collective benefit (maslaha), stipulating equal opportunities for all, avoiding monopolies and the consequent accumulation of power in the hands of a few, as well as framing capitalism in religious values to avoid the negative aspects of rapid development. One of the important pillars of "Islamic economics" is the belief that development should be in line with the spiritual needs of man, establishing a balance between material and non-material progress and rejecting "growth without limits". In his speech on the national budget in the Kuala Lumpur Parliament in October 2000, the chairman of PAS, Haji Fadzil Mohd. Noor, outlined PAS' economic perspective in contrast to that the ruling BN (Hj. Fadzil Md. Noor 2001). It calls for support for small and medium enterprises, creation of jobs by encouraging local companies to reinvest their profits in domestic development projects, the restriction of capital flow abroad by international conglomerates, which does not benefit the local job market, and the abolishment of preferential business relations between government and corporate leaders as a result of uneven development under the NEP. PAS' critique of the government's economic policies stems from the immediate consequences of these policies, which had initially been intended to improve the economic opportunities for the Malays and increase their stake in the public and private sectors. According to PAS, the emergence of the Melayu baru class of corporate leaders has contributed to an increasingly uneven distribution of wealth, providing a few with access to political and economic decision-making structures and denying it to the majority. PAS has criticized this so-called 3k economy (korupsi, kolusi, and kroni) and its role in the privatization programme of the government as too close an intermingling of political and economic interests: in short, as capitalism in its purest form (kapitalis totok) (Hj. Fadzil Md. Noor 2000, pp. 16-17).
As a result, the PAS government in Kelantan has tried to subject economic growth to the check and balance of a civil society (mujtama' almadani) under the overarching principle of Islam as an all-comprising lifestyle (syumul). To enact its belief, PAS has set up two supervisory bodies, the Perbadanan Iktisad Negeri Kelantan (PKINK) and the Yayasan Kelantan Darulnaim (YAKIN) (Hj. Mohamad Daud 2000, p. 124). These institutions function according to PAS' strategic economic planning, which was submitted to the federal government's Economic Planning Committee (Majlis Perundingan Ekonomi Negara) in 1990. Just as PAS believe that principles of Islamic governance have to be traced back to the scriptures of Qur'an and hadith, it also derives its socio-economic outlook from these sources. The three main responsibilities of an Islamic government--religious guidance, redistributing zakat (Islamic alms tax), and avoiding evil deeds (amar Maruf dan nahi Mungkar)--revolve around its attitude towards the individual, underlining the importance of personal achievement and thriving in Islam, linking progress and religion in a Weberian sense. PAS states one of the five pillars of Islam, giving zakat, as the reason for an Islamically inclined administration to equally distribute the benefits of economic activity among the poor (fakir), since only the preferential treatment of socially and economically marginalized groups ensures the future advancement of the society as a whole.
The model character of a government, which portrays itself according to moral standards set down in the Qur'an and expects similar behaviours from its citizens in return, can only be upheld in the longer run, if abuse of power, authoritarian tendencies, and corrupt practices can be avoided. Since PAS has never ruled at the federal level and has been limited to ruling a mostly agrarian, sparsely populated state without major industrial output, it is difficult to establish whether the party's proclaimed principles are more than Islamic rhetoric. However, self-sustained growth has often been put forward as an instrument to check the profit-oriented policies of international corporations and PAS' globalization critique heads in that direction. The responsibility of local leaders to guarantee economic growth for the grassroots level of society is in stark contrast with the policies of omnipotent international companies in pursuance of cheap labour markets. PAS has certainly gained some popularity in Kelantan, which has some of the poorest people in the country, by calling for alternative forms of development bearing an anti-capitalist Islamic flavour, for example, by rejecting the impact of globalization on local markets, such as capital flow, exploitation of cheap labour, investment policies that do not benefit the rural population, the role of big Western companies in this process, and so forth. To check uneven development, especially kroni-ekanami in PAS' term, it has placed privatization under the control of its two supervisory bodies PKINK and YAKIN.
Until the late 1990s, the focus has been on enterprises using local resources as a means of profit. Since Kelantan is rich in natural resources and lacks heavy industries, PAS has focused mainly on marble and granite, cement and wood-processing and encourages local companies to generate profits in these sectors, which also benefit the Kelantan state government in terms of raising tax revenues. Meanwhile federal projects in Kelantan have focused on the improvement of infrastructure, especially to overcome the development gap between southern and northern Kelantan. Since these are federal projects carried out as part of national planning--Eighth Malaysia Development Plan (Rancangan Malaysia Kelapan)--and handled by the federal works agency Jabatan Pembangunan Persekutuan (JPP), PAS again has only limited control. For instance, government tenders are mostly given to the private sector, which is largely dominated by corporate construction companies, thus giving PAS little say in choosing contractors that conform to the party's principle of shared benefits (maslaha).
PAS reforms to promote equal distribution in the agricultural sector are more visible. Through its own agricultural redistribution agency, Kumpulan Pertanian Kelantan Berhad (KPKB), which is a subsidiary of PKINK, PAS has established a system of profit-sharing between government and local farmers, giving the latter direct access to profits from crops, mainly rice. Even though the federal government has introduced similar schemes, such as the FELDA (Federal Land Development Authority) programme, to alleviate rural poverty, the plantation sector has increasingly come under the influence of such huge corporate bumiputera conglomerates such as Guthrie, KL Kepong, or Sime Darbie. The major shareholder of these companies is the government, which controls them through the investment trust Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB). Redistribution of profits to the shareholders has been hampered by the direct involvement of the PNB in selecting bumiputera companies for reinvestment. This has turned a scheme initially intended to improve the economic situation of the Malay community as a whole into a profit-generating instrument of the private sector.
PAS has started to involve local and foreign companies in marketing agricultural products and increase the participation of local farmers in these projects under the supervision of the KPKB. Even though not specifically Islamic in nature, these programmes have certainly contributed to the image of a "clean government", which PAS tries to convey in Islamic terms. Considering the fact that mostly it was the lower-middle-class and working-class Malays (who have been at the losing end of Malaysia's rapid economic development) who contributed to the landslide losses of the BN in the general election of November 1999, the topic of a "just distribution of wealth" is certainly highly political in nature. As such, PAS' economic policies at least offer an alternative for those who are directly affected by the widening gap between rich and poor in Malaysia by addressing demands for change in the political as well as economic sector.
Cultural and Social Implications
It is perhaps in the cultural sphere that the PAS government in Kelantan shows its "Islamic face" most clearly. Ironically, it is here that the party comes closest to its political adversary, UMNO. Since the Islamic resurgence in the 1970s and 1980s, both parties have tried to "out-Islam" each other in a bid to gain Malay support. PAS has always been more vocal about establishing an Islamic state, but considering the constitutional and political obstacles in multiracial Malaysia, these plans have been shelved or turned into long-range perspectives, which are not on the actual agenda. To consider the extent of Islamization of the public sphere, one has to bear in mind that religious issues fall under the jurisdiction of the states, giving them a certain amount of space in determining religious policies as long as they do not collide with the federal system. As such, PAS' attempt to implement Qur'anic hudud laws in 1993 should be seen as an attempt to gain political attention, since it was clear from the very beginning that such a notion would neither get the consent of the government nor of most of the non-Muslim voters. On the other hand, PAS has also quietly moved to proscribe other activities that are obviously in contradiction with Islamic teachings.
In late 1992, all video and snooker parlours were closed down and no more permits were approved. Starting from 1993, nightclubs and all establishments serving alcohol were similarly restricted by the local administration on the grounds that they were encouraging drinking, dancing, close proximity between men and women, and "unruly, unrestrained behaviour". To further avoid the offence of "close proximity" (khalwat), separate counters were set up for the sexes in supermarkets and shopping complexes. The licences for shops to sell liquor were reduced from thirty in 1989 to six in 2000 (Dinsman 2000, p. 118-20). Prostitution was banned altogether and buildings where these activities were suspected to take place were torn down by the authorities. However, these are steps by no means different from those undertaken by UMNO or by states not being governed by PAS. Especially since the general election in 1999, the competition between both parties about the true face of Islam has gained momentum again. This is largely due to the fact that PAS' victory has been perceived by UMNO as proof of a new Islamic resurgence, which it tries to counter with "more Islam". Instead of returning to its own slogan "clean, efficient and trustworthy", which was propagated by Mahathir in the early 1980s, and thus countering PAS' accusations of corruption, nepotism, and corporate politics, UMNO again appeals to Malay Islamic identity. To foster Islam, UMNO has recently introduced new shari'a laws in the southernmost province of Johor for offences like sodomy, prostitution, incest, premarital sex, and lesbianism, which can be punished by caning and jail. Probably the states of Selangor, Kedah, and the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur will follow suit with similar enactments. The northern state of Perlis has been the latest one to introduce the new "Islamic Faith Bill 2000" which enables shari'a courts to prosecute deviationist Islamic teachings and detain offenders in rehabilitation centres for up to a year. Several steps have also been taken to ensure that only the "correct form" of Islam is propagated, a move aimed at curbing PAS from spreading the latter's interpretations of Islam. Mosque committees, which have so far been chosen locally, will be appointed by state governments to avoid infiltration by PAS. On a larger scale, two government bodies have been set up, the National Islamic Action Council and the Malaysian Islamic Welfare Council, whose main purpose is to explain UMNO's view of Islam to the people.
An important factor in religious policies is the ethnic factor and PAS has repeatedly tried to convince the non-Muslim, mainly Chinese, electorate that it would not suffer any limitations to their religious and cultural freedom, citing the guarantees made for minorities in the early Islamic states. As a matter of fact, however, PAS has always been a Malay-based party which has never acquired any characteristic of being multiethnic in nature, not even in its earlier days, when it pursued a more nationalistic, Barisan-like approach. Apart from this, Kelantan is a mainly Malay-populated state, which has a much lower percentage of non-Muslim minorities than states such as Selangor and Johor, thus making it easier for the state government to accommodate Chinese demands (which number 4.6 per cent of Kelantan's population). For example, at various state administrative levels, Chinese have been elected as representatives and social programmes have been set up to provide housing for low-income groups among the Chinese, Indian, and Thai minorities.
Since PAS is lately reiterating its plans to establish an Islamic state, it can only be speculated what PAS' attitude towards non-Muslim minorities would be if it were to take over the federal government. After the failure of the multi-ethnic party coalition in the BA, PAS is actively seeking the conservative core support of Malay voters in the east coast states, alienating Chinese voters further who may have still supported the "clean governance" approach of PAS after the election in 1999 but do not see much future in a largely Malay-dominated project of Islamic governance.
Governing Terengganu
Terengganu is the latest state that has come under the rule of PAS after the general election in November 1999. Even though policy-wise there is not much difference between Kelantan and Terengganu, the latter presents the "new" PAS under the leadership of Haji Abdul Hadi Awang. Much more than Nik Aziz Nik Mat, the menteri besar of Kelantan, Awang represents the reformist wing within PAS (Nasir Awang 2000, pp. 25-32). The shift within the party had become apparent during its General Assembly (Muktamar) held in Kuala Terengganu in June 2000. The Islamic state rhetoric had gone and had been replaced by the challenges of the global economy, e-commerce, and a globalized world culture. To cope with these developments and to provide a convincing alternative to UMNO's modernization programme, the "new" PAS developed a more secularized approach, replacing the "Islamic State" with the "Islamic Social Order" (Hj. Fadzil Md. Noor 2000, p. 11).
Already after the election victory in November 1999 in Terengganu, PAS was confronted with the realities of putting its programme into practice. More than Kelantan, which had been under PAS rule for ten years, Terengganu had become a testing ground for PAS' neo-reformist policies, since the state has enormous offshore reserves of oil. PAS could use the oil revenue to propel its economic policy and demonstrate the viability of its "Islamic approach". If successfully carried out, PAS would prove its accusations of corrupt practices within the ruling BN and the inequitable outcome of UMNO's economic policy. However, PAS was denied the means to do so. Compared with Kelantan, oil-rich Terengganu holds much more economic value to the UMNO federal government for the latter to give up control of the state resources so easily. Less than one year after PAS took over the state, the federal government stopped royalty payments to Terengganu made by the state-owned Petronas oil company. The funds, around US$200 million per year, have been put under a central development fund administration, effectively cutting off 80 per cent of Terengganu's annual budget (Meyer 2000, pp. 23-24). Thus PAS' aspirations of economic reform and alternative development boosted by considerable oil revenues evaporated overnight. In such a situation, the spotlight fell on the party's new Islamic policies such as the shutting down of bars and liquor outlets, the banning of gambling, and the restrictions on socializing between the sexes. Focus on these things highlighted the fundamentalist inclinations of the party and raised public concerns about the Islamic state. One outcome was to see foreign investment and Chinese capital flow out of the state. Under such circumstances, PAS "Islamic experiment" would seem to have fallen short of the Wawasan Sihat ("Healthy Vision") project of the previous BN government in Terengganu. Wawasan Sibat had the aim of establishing the "first Islamic civil society" world-wide based on "rapid industrial growth, sustainable economy, low rate of poverty, emergence of local entrepreneurs and high productivity" and featuring "a balance between human and physical development, a balance between sectors and a balance of infrastructural development between areas" (B.N. Ghosh 1999, pp. 185-86). Thus the Terengganu experiment illustrates PAS' failure in its bid to offer an alternative to that of UMNO. Ultimately the party had to fall back on Islamic rhetoric. Even though the PAS administration tried to regain the trust of the Chinese business community by lifting the ban on pig farming, its policies of Islamic zeal such as the ban on karaoke parlours and pubs and the segregation into separate male and female lines in supermarkets and stores have inconvenienced the business community, which is well-represented by the Chinese community. The Terengganu state Parliament recently adopted the Islamic hudud laws even though PAS knew it would not be able to enforce them because of constitutional constraints at the federal level (Mustafa Kamal Basri 2002, p. 1). This is a replay of the 1992-93 PAS initiative in Kelantan.
Conclusion
The social and cultural manifestations of Islam throughout the world have led to perceptions that Islamic communities are gravitating towards a rigid orthodoxy when practising their faith. However, in the case of Malaysia, political realities have forced those who are proclaiming Islamic orthodoxy to be very flexible in adjusting to political and legal predicaments. No political party in Malaysia has reflected these dilemmas more drastically than PAS. From its nationalist origins, PAS has moved to the discourses of an Islamic state inspired by the Iranian revolution. "Islamic democracy" has been as much part of its ideological spectrum, as have been the ultra-conservative hudud laws or its rigid measures to ensure Islamic "morality" in the two east coast states of Kelantan and Terengganu. The overlapping of modernizing and traditional Islamic discourses has led to unexpected twists and turns, being influenced by political and tactical considerations rather than by an adherence to the orthodoxy of religious tenets. These political considerations have often taken the lead in the battle between PAS and its political rival UMNO for the hearts and minds of the Malay voters. Thus, the Islamic project of PAS has shown much less continuity than the dominant position of the religious dogma and the party's defence of Islamic fundamentalism would lead us to expect at first glance. The function of Islam in the competitive politics of PAS and UMNO is to serve as an indicator of unresolved social and economic problems in Malaysian society.
NOTES
(1.) Barisan Nasional or National Front is the ruling coalition in Malaysia. Seeking to represent the country's multi-ethnic communities, it is led by the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and comprises also the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), and various other smaller parties.
(2.) Assabiyah denotes narrowly defined interests of either ethnic or kinship groups but is also used by Islamists to condemn nationalism in general as being contrary to the Islamic perception of an universal bond uniting mankind regardless of racial, national, and social backgrounds in its submission to Allah.
(3.) The Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah (APU) was formed as a coalition of the Malaysian opposition in 1989 in order to challenge an UMNO that was weakened by a 1987/88 party split. The APU consisted of Patti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), Semangat 46 (an UMNO break-away led by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah), and some other smaller Islamic parties. In Chinese-dominated areas, Semangat 46 formed a coalition front--Gagasan Rakyat--with the Chinese-led Democratic Action Party (DAP). This was a tactic for the DAP to avoid being perceived by its Chinese supporters as buying into a coalition that had PAS' Islamic state proposal as its ideological backbone.
(4.) Mahathir, who was unwilling to make the shari'a the only basis of the constitution--contrary to PAS' model of a Malaysian Islamic state--had to rely on Islamization policies in the social and cultural sphere. He introduced Islamic banking (1983), an Islamic International University (1983), and other Islamic institutions. Qur'an reading competitions were held regularly and Islamic programmes were shown on television. These provided PAS with the argument that Mahathir's Islamic policies were merely cosmetic in nature to gain Malay votes.
(5.) PAS attempted to introduce hudud laws in 1992 in the east coast state of Kelantan, which it ruled since 1990. Hudud laws follow the Qur'anic code of punishment, which include stoning for adultery, crucifixion for murder, amputation for theft, and so on. This required amending the country's constitution and to do that, PAS needed a two-third majority in the federal Parliament, which it did not have. Thus the federal government in the hands of UMNO was able to block the introduction of hudud laws at state level. UMNO could also use federal prerogatives to order the police and judiciary in the PAS-controlled state not to enforce hudud.
(6.) In 1995 PAS elected a new leadership under Fadzil Noor and Haji Abdul Hadi Awang that pursued the aim to establish an Islamic state in Malaysia. In September 1998, in what was believed to be a power struggle in UMNO, Prime Minister Mahathir sacked Anwar Ibrahim from his post as deputy prime minister and arrested him for "corruption" and "sodomy". His treatment in jail and the following court proceedings contributed to the rise of a large protest movement known as refarmasi. The anti-UMNO feelings generated by this incident are believed to have contributed to BN electoral losses in the November 1999 election.
(7.) Al-Arqam offered an Islamic economic model run like a co-operative. For details, see Muhammad Syukri Abdullah (1992).
(8.) A number of laws were introduced in the 1980s to curb public dissent and to secure the hegemony of the government. The Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for unlimited detention without trial and had been initially introduced by the British, remained in place and was complemented by the Universities Act, the Printing Presses and Publication Act, and the Societies Secrets Act. See also Mauzy and Milner (1983).
(9.) Shortly after Mahathir had announced Vision 2020 at a meeting of the Malaysian Business Council in 1991, PAS came up with its own version, the Wawasan Akhirat ("Vision of the Hereafter"), which stressed human aspects of modernization. For details, see the PAS manifesto for the 1990 general election, Manifesto Pilihanraya 1990 "Masyarakat Penyayang" (1990).
(10.) The BA comprised PAS, the Chinese Democratic Action Party (DAP), and keADILan, a Malay-based multi-ethnic party established by Wan Azizah, the wife of the sacked deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, in December 1998, as well as the Malaysian Socialist Party, Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM). The DAP left the coalition in September 2001 after tensions with PAS over the Islamic state.
(11.) The constitutional crises of 1982/83 and 1991/93, as well as the UMNO split of 1987/88, the financial crisis of 1997/98, and Anwar's sacking in 1998 had led to an erosion of public confidence in the state and its institutions, police, Parliament, and judiciary, as well as in the ruling coalition itself.
(12.) Ghadbian particularly mentions the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as an example of an Islamic group that tries to change the political system by working within its institutions.
(13.) To justify its flexible adjustment to realpotitik, PAS has made a distinction between eternal Islamic principles (at-thawabit) and matters that are feasible given a certain political context (al-mutaghayyirat).
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Jan Stark is Lecturer at the School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia. He can be contacted at jan@usm.my.
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