Recently, I’ve attended IDEAS (Institute of Democracy and Economic Affairs) event, i.e. Liberalism Conference with a tagline “Can Liberalism Save Malaysia?” The event was held in the 5-star Pullman Bangsar.
I attended the forum to support my colleague from Wanita ISMA, Dr Hazlin Chong who was one of the panelists for the forum “Liberalism and Multicultralism – Does freedom unite or divide?”
The excerpt from IDEAS’s website describing the forum was:
“The liberal attitude towards multicultural society has always been one of live and let live. Liberals reject forced assimilation, believing that respect of individual liberty is better to promote harmony. This was the spirit of our Rukun Negara.
On the other hand, opponents argue that the government needs to restrict freedom in order to impose harmony and to prevent conflict. Is it necessary for Malaysians to give up our freedom to achieve unity?”
In ISMA, we are trained to get information and get to know people from first hands experience. On top of researching topics direct from the source. We are not confined to just read “kitab kuning” as some people think.
And in fact, it is not surprising also when Suriani Kempe of Sisters In Islam (SIS) gave us a remark that “ramai juga Wanita ISMA dari golongan profesional ya.”
For the record, IDEAS had its funding almost 70% coming from international sources with British High Commission being the top funder. I guess it is the same entity whom its envoy, Vicky Treadell cautioned Malaysians that multiculturalism and inclusivity in any country can be very fragile.
She advised Malaysians that if we manage properly, diverse opinions and beliefs can be embraced. Treadell said that in 2015’s “The Great Debate: Everything in Moderation”.
However British themselves in reality are intolerant towards multiculturalism. A spate of hate crimes becomes evident of British failure to manage diversity back in their own homeland all these while.
Since the United Kingdom referendum to leave the European Union, i.e. BREXIT, several arson attacks, excrement shoved through letter boxes, physical assaults, and most commonly, verbal abuse suffered by many “non-English-look-like” residents in the United Kingdom. And what good do we get to seek consultancy (and funding) from a party that promoted something of themselves failed to achieve.
About the forum, I was not satisfied from the outcomes from the panelists. Other than hearing lots of Islam bashing especially from Khalid Jaafar and Suri Kempe, I did not get any answer from the liberal representatives whether liberalism can promote unity to multicultural society. It seems that I have to dig the answers myself.
I take the liberty to share my thoughts about the forum to expose the real liberal attitude towards multicultural society.
1. Does liberalism really suggesting “live and let live” to multiculturalism?
Liberalism is incepted from the idea of respecting personal liberty. This means that the standard conception of liberalism is characterized by a certain kind of individualism.
This individualism entails that individuals are ends in themselves to be viewed as the ultimate units of moral worth. Hence, letting anyone to “live and let live” is only possible if every human being lives in bubbles that no one else can trample inside their personal sphere.
However, human being are naturally societal creatures. We interact with each other, and everything we do will be the cause and effect to other beings. If we try to incorporate multiculturalism into the liberal framework, we seem to set ourselves up for some difficulties, as individualism and multiculturalism are just incompatible.
For example, in 2009, there was a spat between PAS’s Dr Hassan Ali and DAP’s Ronnie Liu, when Ronnie Liu protested Shah Alam Municipal Council’s seizure of beer sold by a convenience store in Shah Alam, a Muslim majority area.
Long story short, finally alcohol can be sold in any Shah Alam convenience store. It is known that a Muslim does not tolerate intoxicants, but a non-Muslim wants to drink alcoholic drinks anywhere and everywhere he likes.
The request from the Muslims are simple, they just want the alcoholic drinks accessibility limited to premises that are opened to non-Muslims only. For instance, licensed liquor shop, restaurant or bars with permit to sell alcoholic drinks, or special closed section for liquor like in the supermarket.
France, the epitome of liberalism who has endowed the Americans with Statue of Liberty.
France also awarded Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan with its highest honour, the Chevalier de Legion d’Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) for her human rights movement works. Fair enough. However, what about the rights of French Muslim women who wants to wear niqab, hijab and burkini? What sort of rights are France actually fighting for?
How liberalism would suggests a win-win to situation like this? It seems that the liberal attitude towards multicultural society has not always been one of live and let live. In the Hassan Ali vs. Ronnie Liu case mentioned above, the Muslims have to give in. So is this the kind of tolerance that liberalism is expecting?
2. Does liberalism really reject forced assimilation?
Quoting from Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI) debater, Zara Faris, she shared that political theorist, Judith Shklar, explained that the overriding aim of Liberalism is “to secure the political conditions that are necessary for the exercise of personal freedom.
Every adult should be able to make as many effective decisions without fear or favor about as many aspects of her or his life as is compatible with the like freedom of every adult. That belief is the original and only defensible meaning of liberalism.”
This seemingly foundational concept of equal freedom already reveals cracks by highlighting that it is not that every adult should have an equal right to any freedom, but rather that every adult should have the right to an equal type of freedom. What this actually translates to is that every adult should have the right to an equal set of freedoms, rendering them really freedoms no more, but simply pre-approved options.
Referring to the Shah Alam alcohol spat, it seems that the pre-approved option that the liberals want is to let alcohol be sold and be drank at anywhere and anytime. Hence, the Muslims must submit to it.
The end result is finally one party has to be forced to assimilate in the other party’s option. So in reality, liberalism does not actually reject forced assimilation but promoting it. Liberalism is suggesting is just acceptance on the “pre-approved options”.
Zara Faris continued, “the concept of forced assimilation is liberalism’s method of hosting different cultural or religious groups. Rather than striving for the highest moral values, all belief systems under liberalism must be reduced to the lowest common denominator.
Thus, liberal societies struggle to cultivate truly plural societies – what we end up with are simply secularized versions of Christianity or Judaism, [or any other religion] for example, existing under liberal democracies as just another iteration of liberalism.”
3. Does liberalism really respect individual liberty and hence to promote harmony?
Liberalism values have always been inconsistent in terms of definition and practice, even by the liberal sponsors such as United States, Britain and France. Hence the “pre-approved options” is so pragmatic Martin Kettle, a columnist in Britain’s The Guardian said, “Liberalism is a Hydra-headed and extremely resilient creature.
There are also few words in the political dictionary that mean so many different things in different contexts. Most of us consider ourselves liberals in some respects but not in others. Adherents of 60s social liberalism are not necessarily adherents of 80s economic liberalism, or vice versa.
Nor is either liberalism quite as absolutist as is sometimes claimed. Most people are somewhere on a spectrum of views, whether on social issues or economics.”
Rather than respecting individual’s liberty to practice their own recognized set of values, all individuals are now forced to accept the values pre-determined as accepted values by liberalism.
Basically in liberalism, there is a mysterious arbiter who decides what is “good”, “bad”, “worthless”, and when it is “required” to intervene in the “personal freedom” of an individual or a group. According to these formulations, “personal freedoms” are therefore simply reserved for some to exercise over others.
In Malaysia, despite of liberals accusing the Muslim authority as disrespecting individual liberty by trying to act like God, the liberals themselves are actually acting to be greater than God. Unlike Islam which has specific reference, i.e. the Quran and the Sunnah, the liberals arbitrate their own values on what they want a society to have or to do.
Despite asking all religions to limit their roles in society, liberalism now wants to be THE religion, with the liberals as the theocratic ruler.
For example, Muslims as per Islamic teaching and Christians as per Bible should denounce the act of promoting LGBTQ lifestyle. However liberals now dictating the Muslims and Christians to tolerate the LGBTQ lifestyle. How is this respecting individual liberty?
Another case, liberals in Malaysia also supported the Christian Herald to use the word Allah in a context as Trinity when even the Pope in Vatican is not using it. Where is the respect for the Muslims as individuals in this case?
Harmony can only be achieved if every people of different background strive to the highest moral values, and willing to subscribe to the nation’s identity.
Liberal societies struggle to cultivate truly plural societies – what we end up with are simply secularized versions of any religion, i.e. religion that is only limited to personal space and worship. But when it comes to the whole way of life, liberalism wants to give the order.
4. Will a liberal government provide total freedom to the people of any nation, to impose harmony and to prevent conflict? Do we need to give Malaysians or any people in any nation freedom to achieve unity?
States that have been prominent bastions of multiculturalism, such as the Netherlands and the U.K., have gradually or suddenly ceased to pursue policies that affirm the differences of cultural minorities and retreated from the discourse of recognition of cultural identities.
Joppke (2004) presented evidence that multiculturalism was already in retreat in policy and in theory.
Again, no government in the worlds are heading towards giving total freedom to their people. All are heading towards unifying people into a set of identity determined for the country.
ISMA as an NGO, holds the opinion that is in line with Islam. Islam guarantees its citizens individual freedom but unlike liberalism, it balances that with the societal needs, i.e. maslahah ummah or in other words reaching common good/public interest/welfare.
SUARAM which is one of the well-known platforms in Malaysia to promote Liberalism, supported freedom of expression to the extent of calling laws like The Sedition Act 1948, The Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984, State-based religious law governing Islamic publications and Film Censorship Act 2002 as restricting freedom of expression and repressive.
The hypocrisy of the liberals are obvious when despite of their critics on The Sedition Act, they seem to welcome the act when it was imposed on ISMA’s President. Suri Kempe and Khalid Jaafar at least, do welcome this in the forum.
ISMA on the other hand, welcomes some form of control being imposed on the society, including The Sedition Act. Read ISMA’s stance on The Sedition Act here: http://www.ismaweb.net/2014/10/pendirian-isma-terhadap-akta-hasutan-1948/
In whatever system, you can’t escape from having an authority to exert some control over trouble-making individuals to prevent conflict and instil harmony. We don’t only see this from dictatorial regimes, but any system needs to have both the individual and the state to make it work.
In Malaysia, our identity is that, Islam and multiculturalism is made possible by Article :pensive:1) where Islam is recognized as the religion of Federation. Article :pensive:1) should be read together with other provision of the Federal Constitution such as:
o Article 11 (1): Every person has the right to profess and practice his religion and, subject to Clause (4), to propagate it.
o Article 11 (2): No person shall be compelled to pay any tax the proceeds of which are specially allocated in whole or in part for the purposes of a religion other than his own.
o Article 11 (3): Every religious group has the right –
(a) to manage its own religious affairs;
(b) to establish and maintain institutions for religious or charitable purposes; and
(c) to acquire and own property and hold and administer it in accordance with law.
Portal Islam dan Melayu
Pendirian ISMA terhadap Akta Hasutan 1948 – Portal Islam dan Melayu
Kesolehan pelaksana undang-undang Undang-undang yang baik jika dikendalikan oleh orang yang jahat, boleh menjadi tidak baik, tetapi jika undang-undang…
o Article 11 (4): State law and in respect of the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur and Labuan, federal law may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the religion of Islam.
o Article 12(2): Every religious group has the right to establish and maintain institutions for the education of children in its own religion, and there shall be no discrimination on the ground only of religion in any law relating to such institutions or in the administration of any such law; but it shall be lawful for the Federation or a State to establish or maintain or assist in establishing or maintaining Islamic institutions or provide or assist in providing instruction in the religion of Islam and incur such expenditure as may be necessary for the purpose.
o Article 121 (1A) : The Federal Constitution which provides that the civil court cannot interfere in the shari’ah court
Other documents like the Social Contract, the Oath taken by Yang Dipertuan Agong should be the source of reference. And in fact, despite of critics towards our nation’s Affirmative Actions, there have been studies shown that Affirmative Actions does not necessarily bad for a country. (http://www.understandingprejudice.org/readroom/articles/affirm.htm)
In conclusion, all Malaysians must understand the identity and the heritage of this nation that is dated since the inception of Malay’s Sultanate and not of during the British colonization only. I believed that unity and understanding can be achieved as long as we recognize the identity of this nation.
a. The position of Islam
b. The position of the Malay Rulers and Malay ownership
c. The position of the Bahasa Melayu as the national language
d. The position of the Malaysian Constitutions and laws
e. The historical facts and heritage of the land
www.understandingprejudice.org
UnderstandingPrejudice.org: Ten Myths About Affirmative Action
A concise article describing several key misunderstandings of affirmative action. Well worth reading!
Nurhidayah Ismail
Wanita Isma Activist
