A critical essay on Islamic freedom in ASEAN.

• Author: Hunter, Murray
• Position: Association of Southeast Asian Nations

Almost half of the 629 million people living within the ASEAN region are Muslims. Within the ten countries of ASEAN, three countries, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, and Malaysia have Muslim majorities, and the remaining seven countries host Muslim minorities, ranging from 0.1% in Vietnam to nearly 16% in Singapore. Due to the lack of any recent census data in many ASEAN countries, obtaining accurate figures of the Muslim population is extremely difficult, where estimates vary widely.

In the Muslim majority states of ASEAN, Islam provides a source of political legitimacy for government and its leaders. Within the Muslim minority states, there are increasing aspirations for an Islamic society which today is expressed through the demand for Shariah (Islamic law), Madrasas (Islamic schools), Halal practices (what is permitted under Islam), and most importantly religious and cultural recognition.

Centuries ago Islam promoted both an enlightened intellectual and socially progressive culture which brought many societies to the forefront of art, medicine, scientific discovery, philosophy, and creative civilization. However today we see a large proportion of the Ummah (Muslim community) living in poverty and isolated from the rest of the world community. Islam once the basis of a progressive society is now seen by many as backward and irrelevant. Most Islamic societies of today are struggling to keep pace with the rest of the world, creating a dangerously wide gap between Muslims and non-Muslims.

If we subscribe to Richard Florida's concepts of socially determined creativity, (1) then religious freedom would have great influence upon the level of a society's innovation, and ability to solve the problems it faces as a community in a socially and spiritually wise manner. Within the Islamic world this would hinge upon:

1. The freedom to practice Islam,

2. The freedom to express Islam, and

3. The freedom to produce new social intellectual output that will enable the evolution of a progressive Islamic society.

Thus Islamic freedom is an important determinant of how a society will fare intellectually, socially, and creatively in the future to enable that society to take a rightful place within the global community.

We must also assume here that the very nature of Islam itself encourages the Ummah to engage other societies as has been practiced through Islamic history by the prophets, including the Prophet Muhammad himself. Without engagement, Islam would have never come to the ASEAN region.

However, the idea of "social creativity" and the invention of new ideas for social imagination vis-a-vis Islam is a problematic area as the political-theological and strict fundamentalist interpretation of Islam is adverse to "innovations" and consider too much creativity as dangerous and even to be rendered forbidden. We saw that resistance in Malaysia with the Sisters of Islam, advocacy of gay rights, reinterpretation of Islam from feminist writers.

There is also much debate about the compatibility of Islam to concepts of democracy, usually defined in "?western ideological" terms. Islam is basically considered as a concept opposed to the principles of democracy when Islam is viewed from through the lens of 9/11 "Islamophobia." Insurgency in Southern Thailand and Mindanao has added to the beliefs of many non-Muslims that Islam is an anti-democratic force.

However these "radical extremist" stereotypes held by many non-Muslims ignore the true motivations behind the reassertion of Islamic identity within the ASEAN region, where there is an exploration to merge Islamic philosophy with modern economic development, with the accompanying tensions and stresses this process produces for any developing society. Non-Muslims also ignore other non-religious factors such as history, ethnicity, poverty, and repression when stereotyping Muslims as a homogeneous group. The rest of this article will look at the current situation of Islamic practice and expression in the various ASEAN states, before looking at some of the issues concerned with social output via potential new interpretations of Islam.

Indonesia

There are over 200 million Muslins in Indonesia, representing almost 90% of the total population. The Indonesian constitution guarantees a secular society under the principles of Pancasila, the philosophical foundation of Indonesian nationalism. Until very recently the practice of Islam incorporated many local cultural habits influenced by Hinduism and Animism. Up until around the fall of Suharto in 1998, religious conversion, proselytism, apostates, and inter-religious marriages were totally unrestricted within the atmosphere of a secular society. A large number of Islamic movements operated almost totally unheeded within the archipelago.

However Islamic practice of rites and rituals began to change as more orthodox interpretations of Islam were propagated. Through covert and clandestine means, some groups within government opposed to the secularization of society like the Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI) and Religious Affairs Ministry have been reshaping discourses about what constitutes acceptable Islamic practice over the last decade.

A number of fatwas against secularism and liberalism were issued by the MUI in 2005 which began shaping specific and rigid Islamic practices across the country. This was accompanied by a growing intolerance towards alternative views of Islam. In 2008, the Religious Affairs Ministry, Home Ministry, and Attorney General signed a joint decree known as the Surat Keputusan Bersama, limiting the freedom of the Ahmadiyyah Movement practicing in an open manner. Further evidence of this intolerance was seen in the savage attacks upon members of the Ahmadiyyah Movement in Pandeglang, in Banten Province back in February 2011, where the security forces were accused of having prior knowledge of the impending attacks and did nothing to prevent them occurring. (3) The failure of the government to take legal action and restrain vigilante groups that violated laws and attacked other groups represents further evidence of this growing intolerance.

One explanation is that the growing rigidity of Islamic practice could have been allowed to happen because of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's reliance on orthodox Muslim support in his cabinet.

Islamic coercion has also increased in a number of provinces where Sharia law has been implemented, particularly in Aceh after the 2004 agreement. This has given local mayors immense powers to enact local regulations based upon their "moral authority" in regards to Islamic matters like dress and modesty codes, and has often occurred arbitrarily without any shura or consultation, contrary to national laws made by an elected legislature.

There are a number of forces that look like restricting Islamic freedoms in Indonesia in the years to come. Conservative Islamic groups operating without any legal constraint are spreading the ideology of dividing the country into Darul al-Islam and Darul al-Harb, where Muslims are expected to strictly follow Islamic law. Many MUI rulings are contrary to the constitution, and consequently not legally valid. (4) However some provincial authorities are following these rulings stringently without any constraint. This is aiding the spread of an intolerant form of Islamic practice, evermore moving Indonesia away from being a secular state.

Malaysia

In Malaysia approximately 60% of the population are Muslim, who are predominately Malay with small numbers of Indian and Arab Muslims who migrated to the Malay Peninsula many generations ago. Article 11 of the Malaysian constitution guarantees freedom of religion, where Islam is the state religion.

Traditionally Islamic practice in the Malay Peninsula has been very liberal with many Muslim practices mixed with Malay customs dating back to the Srivijaya period, where superstition still plays some role in beliefs across some parts of the country, such as the symbolic circumcision of women. Many religious practices like the breaking of fast and Eid have turned into massive celebrations, taking on social rather than religious significance.

Islamic affairs are a state concern in Malaysia and strictly controlled. Women's dress codes are followed almost without exception, through both regulation and peer pressure that has developed. State Islamic religious enforcement officers have the authority to accompany the police on raids to private residences and public establishments to enforce Sharia law, with particular focus upon...