Political Thought of Malay Thinkers (Part 1)

*This is an assignment for Islam in Malay History and Culture class

Introduction

Politics are an important part in governing society and country. Without political system that was agreed among its citizen, a country will go into disorder and even dissolved. A political system usually was created in the onset of the founding of the nation. For example, United States of America was created as a republican system with president as the head of government. It was agreed by the founding fathers and banded it up with a constitution. 

Most of the times, a land and the people inhibit it had existed before a country or a political system ever existed. In African continent, tribes had existed a long time and have their own political system. After European imperialist come in the 19^th century, they created a new nation with their own border that was agreed not among the tribes, but among the imperialist powers. A political system of a country could also undergo radical change through revolution and desires of its citizens. This is what happened when Russia Empire undergone Bolshevik revolution in 1917 and changes its political system from monarchy into Socialist state.

Many lands in the world had gone through major changes because of the effect of colonialism. This had happened across America, Africa and Asia continents. After imperialism was forced to disband with Truman Doctrine after World War 2, a lot of new country created instead. Although a lot of these countries were called by the independence leaders as liberated and gained independence from the European, but their new country never actually existed before European come. When British and France come to the Indian continent, it was held by the Mughal Empires, Maharashtra and other small princely states. While British did give choices for these princely states to choose their independence, British colonials never gives the country back to the Mughals since that old kingdom already ceased to exist in 1945.

The Situation in Malay Archipelago

In the case of Malay Archipelago, after colonialism ended, several new countries were created. in particular Malaysia and Indonesia. Malaysia was a federation of several older Malay states that was existed before the British come. Meanwhile, Indonesia was unitary republic with provinces not related to any older kingdom in the past except several provinces such as Acheh and Jogjakarta. The new country that was created was a government based on democracy and elected by the citizens. In Malaysia the older rulers such as Sultan and Kings still maintain position, but their power had been redefined according to the constitution, which is not existed in the political system before British come. 

The political system of Indonesia and Malaysia was still very much inherited from the British and Dutch administration. Since the time of colonials, the higher ranking officer was from Europe. But after the independence, these positions were replaced by the locals. These locals were still educated in colonials’ education system. Although the rulers have not regained the sovereignty they have before, but they are still very much influential in the administration of the country. In Malaysia, the first Prime Minister is a prince of Kedah, which is one of the Malay states. The position of the rulers’ family and Malay nobility had given themselves a privilege to be educated and eventually elected to the higher offices. 

But the political system in the new country also allowed groups among workers and traders who before this never have opportunity to be in administration to join politics especially through political party. This is something unthinkable in the older system before colonialism where only the nobles that have relations to the royals can rise to the position of administration. 

One of the landmark evolutions of thinking among the Malays start after the British and Dutch colonials come to the Malay Archipelago. The ideas from European were translated to Malay language and help creating an emerging class of intellectuals. One of these ideas was political thought since the political structure of European and the Malay Archipelago is very much different. 

Under the colonial administration, the modern Malay thinkers recognized the paradox of time they live in. They understand that political powers lie on the colonial officers, not on the Sultan and local rulers. But the local rulers still being recognized their sovereignty by colonial powers especially on Islamic and Malay heritage affairs. Several political ideas such as liberalism and socialism from Europe had rejected the political structure of monarch. This structure is contradicted with traditional political structure in the Malay Archipelago.

To understand the evolution of political thought in the Malay world especially from the onset of anti-colonials struggle until the independence of a country, I pick 3 thinkers that were influential in shaping the thought of the Malays. The 3 thinkers were Syed Sheikh al-Hadi, Burhanuddin al-Helmy and Mohammad Natsir. Syed Sheikh al-Hadi is an important journalist and educator in the earlier 20^th century of Malaya. Meanwhile Burhanuddin al-Helmy is influential in creating several Malays organizations and political parties such as KMM, PKMM and PAS and help awakening the Malay nationalism. Mohammad Natsir meanwhile was an influential writers and politician from Indonesia that tries to infused Islamic ideology in the young nation.

Book Review Orientalism

Orientalist is the one who researchers, teaches and writes about the Orient. The Orient usually refers to the East, particularly Middle East since this is the object of research that European really like to focus on. It is also a style of thought that makes distinction between the socio-culture of the East and the West. Understanding the history and trend of Orientalism, we can understand how the West sees Asia and the effect of their policy in the former colonies.

Edward Said elaborates that Orientalist creates an idea of Orient that differs from their actual reality. This is because the Western scholars themselves did not involve with local society and this creates misunderstandings. This supposedly academic venture is actually important for political hegemony of the West towards the colonies. The discovery made by those academics strengthens the perceptions of the West that the West is better than people in the East. This book also shows that the West had learned about the Orient very systematically with huge investment in institution. It is not just a fantasy created by certain people. 

The study of Orientalism had been done primarily by the British and France. They have the best network of academic studies pe-20^th century and their ideas continue to influence American foreign policy. Their research has amassed huge historical work on the Orient, and eventually being used by the modern Asian countries to understand about their own history. 

The study of Orient also undergone changes since it was very dependent on the Western intellectual development. Sometimes their object of studies, which is Orient itself does not undergone changes and their society still remain the same. The author also acknowledges that there should be alternatives of how to learn from other cultures since Orientalism is a way of learning other cultures but in a repressive way. 

In relations to my research which is political changes, I would like to understand how Orientalism had affected the political structure in the East. Are there any leaders in the East that engage with any Orientalist in the past? Did we learn anything from Orientalist when they come and study about our society or we just dismiss them as insignificant? We should also try to unravel the influences of Orientalist in our local academic university especially older university such as Malaya University. Our own teaching of history in schools and university should be examined to make sure that it is not influenced by Orientalism.

Malaysian academics should appreciate the works of Edward Said since he writes a lot about the history and influence of British Empire to the colonies. Since he himself come from British Mandated Palestine, the area that still in conflicts decades later because of the British foreign policy after World War I. Malaysia society and nation had greatly influenced by the political and economic structure that being left by the British colonization in Malaya and Borneo.

Book Review Islam Dalam Sejarah Dan Kebudayaan Melayu

This book was written as a response toward historians who obsess on trivial facts. In the learning of a history of a nation, we need to separate between what events that change the course of a nation. There were a lot of facts in learning history. If we take account all of it, then it will be hard to learn about the history itself and we can’t determine which event or changes that help shape this nation.

This book talks about the arrival of Islam in the Malay Archipelago. Islam that spread from Arab peninsula had change the center of the world. At that time, two biggest empires which is Roman Empire at Constantinople and Sassanid Dynasty at Persia was at war with each other and contesting territory. Roman Empire also at that time had been in declined because of the incursion made by the Germans. But although they are the conqueror, they eventually adopted Roman culture and the religion of Christianity. This is one of the evidence that culture is more important than strong military and technology. 

Even though Hindu-Buddha had arrived at Malay Archipelago before Islam, only Islam remained embedded in the Malay culture. Hindu religion was only embraced at surface level by the locals. They are not interested with the philosophy of the religion. They only interested with art that offered from India. The art and literature was used by the upper class in the palace as amusement. Meanwhile, a great intellectual works such as Nagara Kertagama by Prapanca has only one copy in Javanese Keraton. Not only that, the Hindu-Buddha religion was not practiced by the common people. 

Several western scholars such as Van Leur and Snouck Hugronje had said that Islam is not influential in the Malay society. Their parameter is that only in the time of Hindu-Buddha the Malays had built a great architecture such as Borobudur. But the writers argued that we can see the influence of Islam in the language and the way of thinking of the Malays. This influence is much more embedded in Malay psyche. Meanwhile all the buildings was actually abandoned by the Malays for hundred years and only excavated later by the British.

My studies will be focusing on changes especially on political changes. From this book, we can see that changes can only be done through mind and hearts, and not surface level. Changes also will take years to be rooted on the society. It also must be accepted by all strata of society, not only the upper class in palaces. The religion of Islam is the only religion that continued to be practiced by Malay society across Archipelago, from the north in Pattani until southern Islands of Indonesia. Even though the colonialism by Dutch and British had changes the political structure, but society still holds on to Islam, and Christianity could not break into the Malay society.

Review Buku The Future of Islam by Prof John L. Esposito

The prominent intellectuals from United States, Professor John L. Esposito had written about a way forward for Muslim and the West relationship in his book title, The Future of Islam. It was published in 2010, around the time when President Barack Obama visited Egypt and promised to mend the relationship between the US and the Muslim world. The relationship had been tarnished by 9/11 attacks by Al-Qaeda that destroys New York Word Trade Center and Pentagon. It was escalated by President Bush when he decided to attack Afghanistan and Iraq unilaterally as a response to destroy Al-Qaeda and the so-called Weapon of Mass Destruction that is being built by Saddam Hussein.

Ignorance of the West towards had always been there and the 9/11 attacks makes the ignorance even worse. This is because they only see Muslim as homogenous, backwards and only living in Middle East. They completely forget about the existence of Muslim in Africa and Southeast Asia that have different culture and image. Esposito also criticized those who only learn about the Holy Scriptures and history of Muslims in the past, but forgetting to understand the reality of Muslim living in the current world. They also have regular problems such as economics, politics and social that needed to be addressed. They also have identity crisis and problems with accommodating their religions with modernity. All of this contributing to diversity in how Muslims think and behave.

Chapter 1, which entitled The Many Faces of Islam and Muslims touched on the fact several Westerns paints Islam as the other. They prefer to regards relationship between Muslims and the West as the clash of civilization. They also have a very negative perception towards Muslims such as Islam is not a religion that can accommodate democracy and pluralism. This also reflected in the fact that a lot of Muslim majority country is authoritarian and has weak civil society. 

The image of Islam is also very intertwined with Arab, while ignoring the fact that Arabs only constituted one-fifth of Muslims. A lot Muslim can be found in the country such as India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Indonesia. Islam also started becomes the object of research and studies especially by American after the Iranian revolution. Because of the portrayal in the media that terrorist is usually Muslims, this makes 46 percent of American sees Islam in a negative view and the cause of terrorism, according to Washington Post/NBC News poll.

Islamophobia is the term introduced by Runnymede Trust in 1997 as prejudice on Muslims physical appearances as well as intolerance to their religious belief. Kofi Annan himself, then UN Secretary-General urged the world community to unlearn stereotype that media had helped propagate, and strives to accommodate different cultures in our own society.

Another aspect that is important to note about Muslims nowadays is their situation as a minority especially in America and Europe. Almost 50 percent of Muslims in America is on the age of youth, which is from 18 to 40. Investment on American Muslim youth could help nurture the future leadership of America. Muslims women are also very much educated and have wages as equal as Muslims men. But the downside is that African-American Muslims still left behind and have low incomes. This contributed towards the inequality between different ethnic of Muslims.

American Muslims also reportedly satisfied in their living, which is account for 41 percent. They believe that to have a good living, they need to work hard. But at the same time, because of the Islamophobia, they are being singled out because of their belief. There is also a sense of alienation and pessimism about the future. The political inclination of Muslims is very diverse, which 38 percent claims to be moderate, 29 percent liberal and 25 percent conservative. This resembles the political inclination among Jews in America. Although in 2008 presidential election, majority Muslims voted for Obama.

Prof Esposito also shared on his experience when starting his studies on comparative religion, he surprised that Islam has a lot of similarities with Judaism and Christianity. This is because a lot of biblical figures were also a prophet in the Quran such as Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses) and Sulaiman (Solomon). In fact they are revered among Muslims. Muslims sees that their religion is a continuation from Judeo-Christian and considered the Prophet Muhammad’s message as a final revelation from the same God. He also questioned why the West intellectuals don’t want to integrate Islamic history and tradition into European traditions.

In Islam, there are 5 pillars which most Muslims perform everyday such as prayer. But the most misunderstand concept in Islam especially by the West is Jihad. The literal meaning of Jihad which is struggle can refer to Muslims struggle to lead an honest and virtuous life. At times it can be violent if there are enemies that wanted to destroy Muslims. Which had happened in the times of Prophet itself.

Chapter 2 of the book discuss on God in Politics. The chapter focuses on the history of Muslims and United States from 20^th century onwards.  Two biggest conflicts between Muslims and American government is the Iranian Revolution on 1979 and 9/11 attacks. The fear of political Islam in the 1980s has contributed into United States trying to undermine anything named Islam. After the revolution, another conflict that happened such as the assassination of Anwar Sadat by Palestinian sympathizers. There is also a Lebanon civil war that effected the Israel-Palestine peace process.

The resurgence of Islam in the 1970s had also contributed into a new image and ways of thinking that differ from the West modernity. The revival had proposes an Islamic education, clothes and even financial institution. This idea eventually picks up by Islamic country such as Malaysia and Pakistan. The Muslim had become more religious and sees only Islam as strong identity, compare to Socialism or Liberalism. This also a continuation from the frustration of Muslims on the defeat of Arabs in 1967 war with Israel. Added to this is the fact that Muslim countries still behind in terms of education and economics and the repression of the dictators that cozy up with the West and abandoning their country people.