Hot on
the heels of the pro-secular movement in Turkey
over the past few weeks comes news of a less
tolerant variation in the case of Malaysia, where
a court this week struck down the request of a
Muslim woman to convert to Christianity, ruling
that her only option is to appeal to the sharia
(Islamic law) courts. The incident occurred barely
two weeks after a Muslim woman married to a Hindu
man was forcibly separated from him and jailed. In
both cases, the courts have played to the
galleries of the Islamic bumiputera (ethnic
Malay) contingent.
Anyone wishing to
dismiss the importance of the above news
must
bear in mind that Malaysia is a role model for
most developing Muslim countries, especially given
its record of generating employment for millions
of Muslims in areas far removed from oil
extraction - a feat that deserves closer
inspection, but we will come to that later.
In light of Malaysia's rejection of the
religious rights of its own citizens in a
supposedly democratic society, the incident raises
broader questions with respect to the assimilation
of Muslims, as well as the right socioeconomic
model that underpins development. In a previous
article, I wrote about the economic reasons for
the Taliban's failure in Afghanistan. [1] This
article explores the subject in greater detail,
albeit within a broader context.
Deja
vu From time immemorial, nations have been
founded on principles akin to unity against
diversity. As I wrote in the aforementioned
article, economic structures have always played a
big part in constructing social organizations,
which in turn dictated the most appropriate
political form for the state. The structure of
ancient Greek states, for example, shows the
difference between states with poor resources that
necessitated pyramidal societies organized on
military lines (Sparta) and the freewheeling
societies formed by the plenty provided by trading
(Athens).
Western scholars have been
habitually critical of Islam as a political
movement, criticizing the cohabitation of state
and religion. I reject woolly notions of Islamic
backwardness that are based on a false
understanding of secularism, but do recognize the
points made by the likes of John Gray [2] that
dwell more wholesomely on the subject. To study
this in more detail, though, perhaps a diversion
away from weighty religious matters to more
mundane matters of economics is called for.
For most people in Asia, perhaps the
epitome of such differentiation as a matter of
history is the Japanese nation, albeit for reasons
more negative than positive if you happen to live
outside Japan. As a country faced with an economic
decline due mainly to its inability to adjust its
social organization to new realities, Japan
appears perennially drawn toward nostalgia, as the
recent success of books exhorting the precepts of
nihonjinron [3] elucidate.
Does the
notion of an Islamic Nation merit more than a
casual examination? The most commonly used word to
describe the notion is ummah, an Arabic
word meaning "community" or "nation". The Arabic
origin of the word underscores the notion that
Islam has been abused for many decades as an
extension of Arab nationalism, and consequently
failed to absorb the essence of other modern
societies that it seeks to overrun.
The
notion of radical Islam being a modern movement
that attempts to organize the state on
authoritarian lines makes both historical and
economic sense. This is why the first thing
apologists for tyrannical Arab regimes do is
repeat the saying that a year of anarchy is worse
than a hundred in a tyranny. However, that is not
the central problem with the arrangement. Rather,
it is the potential disconnect with the underlying
economy, which presents greater potential for
discord over the medium term. In other words,
secular societies "work" because underlying
economic organization allows them - indeed, forces
them - to separate religion from state.
It
is here that radical Islam fails to make the case.
When removed from its agrarian or military origins
and plonked into the modern world requiring
frequent interactions with other communities,
competitive industries and innovative thinking, it
is secular countries that outrun their
unilateralist counterparts. The difference between
the economic performance of South Asian states
highlights this view, and emphatically so. As an
example, Wahhabi notions of restricting the
economic participation of women simply do not work
in resource-poor states [4] and thus cause the
maternalistic societies of Bangladesh
significantly to outperform Talibanized parts of
Afghanistan.
Going back to Arab societies,
we can see the rampant failure of such countries
in generating employment for their citizens,
despite billions of dollars secured in oil
revenues. Because of the disconnect between
economic realities and political organization,
Arab states have had to focus on keeping alive
external threats purely for their own sustenance.
Thus a system that may have worked well before has
failed to stand the test of time in its countries
of origin. Instead of responding positively to the
problem, Arab states have largely chosen to go
down the Luddite path, ie, to disengage from the
rest of the world.
That context is useful
in examining the most recent events with which I
started the article, in Malaysia. That country's
politics are increasingly characterized by
discord, as economic realities have cast gloom on
assertive-action programs. As I wrote previously,
[5] the national car companies in Malaysia are
economic failures, but the government's decision
to award plum management jobs and dealerships to
ethnic Malays has perversely concentrated the
adverse impact of the failure on the very people
who were supposed to benefit from its success.
With similar stories abounding, the country needs
to recognize the value of its minority groups if
it is to achieve economic progress. That is a
bitter pill to swallow for anyone brought up on a
steady jinron diet, which explains the most
recent backlash against social "contamination" of
the Malay dreams.
Sticky end to
nihonjinron Muslims who still hanker
after the Islam-jinron school of thought
must stop and think about how their intellectual
forebear fared. nihonjinron was stopped
dead in its tracks twice, first by an external
conflict that saw two of Japan's biggest cities
being nuked, and the second time by a rapid
decline in stock and property markets during the
1990s that spelled the end of the country's
economic miracle.
Today's multifarious
movements such as al-Qaeda point the way to the
first outcome, namely a military conflagration
that threatens to wipe out millions of Muslims in
years to come. The failures of Malaysia's economic
system of favoritism toward its Muslim majority
portend exactly the same kind of market decline
that the Japanese confronted 20 years ago due to
the inefficient organizations that they created as
showcases of how Japan worked differently.
Perhaps another way exists, as shown by
the 1868 Meiji Restoration that saw an end to the
code of the Samurai and in turn unleashed the
forces of modernization. That it was centrally
directed with an objective to prevent a takeover
of Japan by colonial forces is almost beside the
point for today's Muslims. That it ended the
wasteful ways of the Samurai and brought in its
wake rapid industrialization that helped to lift
millions of Japanese from servitude and poverty is
the main point.
As with all good deeds,
though, it also carried its own punishment, namely
the increasing militarization that was
necessitated by Western responses to Japan's
search for resources, in turn leading to the
participation of the country in World War II.
Muslims fearing that outcome can, however, rest
assured in the knowledge that other countries,
including China and India, stand before them in
the development queue, and would bear the brunt of
Western "retaliation" - and perhaps do so with
greater success than the Japanese managed.
Notes 1. It's the money, honey,
Asia Times Online, December 22, 2006. 2.
Al-Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern by
John Gray, 2003. 3. Eg The Dignity of a
State by Masahiko Fujiwara, 2005. Simply put,
nihonjinron is a theory based on the
uniqueness and homogeneity of Japanese culture and
society. For a more detailed explanation, click
here. 4. See Love your children, those little
terrors, ATol, November 4, 2006. 5.
Lifting the hood on the car
industry, ATol, May 19.
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
