This book discusses the Islamist movements in Malaysia in order to explore questions about the global impact of the Arab Uprisings phenomenon beyond the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). In particular, it will examine the connection between the 2011 Arab Uprisings and the Islamist movements in Malaysia from the perspective of Malaysian Islamists, considering how the phenomenon impacts and influences the movements’ ideology and activism. This book will look at the post-2011 Arab Uprisings to determine how these events played a decisive role in influencing the Islamist movements in Malaysia; it will also contribute useful insights into the Malaysian Islamist experience. However, there have been strong opinions voiced by the Malaysian authorities and various scholars, claiming that there was no basis for presuming that the Arab Uprisings have had an impact on Malaysian politics. The involvement of several Islamist movements in a series of mass protests against the government, popularly known in Malaysia as ‘BERSIH’, along with strong relationships with Islamist parties in the countries involved in the Arab Uprisings, might suggest a link with the Malaysian experience. Moreover, the Malaysian public has followed the events of the Arab Uprisings with deep concern since the beginning. This raises the question of whether the previously ‘semi-democratic’ state of Malaysia will follow the same paths of regime change witnessed in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya in 2011, and topple their respective autocratic rulers.
Furthermore, the rise of Islamist parties in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco in the aftermath of the Arab Uprisings is suggestive of the potential future of Malaysia’s Islamist movements. The central concern that should be highlighted is the extent to which the Islamist movements in Malaysia are influenced by the Arab Uprisings or the ‘Arab Spring’ before coming to any conclusions about the polemics and possible future of the ‘Malaysian Spring’. This brings us to the core questions of this book, regarding the influence and impact of the Arab Uprisings, which can be gauged through the reactions of selected Islamist parties – the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) and the National Trust Party (AMANAH) – and civil society organisations – the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM) and the Malaysian Muslim Solidarity Front (ISMA) in Malaysia.
During the late 1970s and 1980s, several Islamist movements in Malaysia, particularly the PAS and the ABIM, were greatly influenced by the Iranian Revolution of 1979 (Mohamed Osman & Saleem 2016: 2). This transnational influence on Islamism and Islamist politics in Malaysia took a further turn with the downfall, after 58 years, of Shah Pahlavi’s monarchy in Iran (Liow 2009: 35). The impact of the revolution, although primarily indirect, stimulated Islamic political ideas and ideology, and led to an increased emotional attraction to a greater degree of Islamist political activism for Muslim communities in Malaysia (Esposito & Piscatori 1990: 11–33; Bramsen 2012: 197; Müller 2014: 55–56). Following the 1979 Revolution in Iran, a number of other Islamist movements such as Jemaah Islah Malaysia (JIM) were formed in Malaysia to embrace the success of the new so-called ‘Islamic Republic’. The efforts of the Iranian Islamic community to overthrow the Shah were also found to resonate with the views of many Islamist activists in Malaysia, compelled to struggle to achieve a stronger Islamic society (Von Der Mehden 1990: 249).
Nearly four decades after the 1979 Revolution, which influenced the development of Islamist movements in Malaysia, the world has witnessed a new dramatic political scenario in the MENA, with the fall of several long-serving autocratic rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen via a massive revolution known as the ‘Arab Spring’. In a domino effect, popular uprisings became widespread across the region, from one country to another, until a huge part of the Arab region was involved. 2011 was undoubtedly a turning point in the history of modern Middle Eastern politics.
Malaysia and the Arab-Muslim world
In the meantime, as a moderate Muslim state in Southeast Asia, Malaysia has significant economic, political and diplomatic ties, as well as social relationships, with the MENA nations, given their shared ‘Islamic values’, which indirectly unite the countries. Long-established and strong relationships between Malaysia and the Arab world are undeniable. Historically, the penetration of religious thought from the Middle East is part of a centuries-long legacy of relations between Muslims in Southeast Asia and the Middle East (Von Der Mehden 1990: 235). Malaysia has developed and cultivated multi-dimensional relationships with the Arab world for more than 500 years, and these can be traced to the establishment of the first Muslim state in the Malay-Archipelago in the thirteenth century. These ‘bilateral’ relationships subsequently led to published news and information regarding the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Algeria, Yemen and Syria flooding into Malaysia and being widely discussed by Malaysians via social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. As pointed out by Osman Bakar (2012: 743), the Malaysian public in general, and political observers and academics in particular, have been observing the unfolding of events in the Arab world with great interest, if not with deep concern. Osman’s statement is supported by Abdul Hadi Awang (PAS president), who admitted that even Malaysians with no season called ‘spring’ were passionately following the ‘Arab Spring’ development. There was great interest among Malaysians because the phenomenon was unexpected and extraordinary. They felt that the Arabs deserved a real change for the better, especially in the political sphere. On the other hand, civil groups and academics, as well as the majority of Internet users at that time, were debating whether Malaysia would be the next victim of regime change and democratic transition after they witnessed Tunisia, Egypt and Libya toppling their respective autocratic governments.
For Abdul Malek, the Arab Uprisings, specifically the 2011 Egyptian uprising, were significant for Malaysians for two major reasons. First, the majority of Muslims in Malaysia held Egypt in high regard as the sanctuary for Arabic and Islamic knowledge. Thousands of Malaysian school leavers flocked to Egypt every year to enrol in numerous Egyptian higher education institutions, with Al-Azhar, Mansoura, Zaqaziq and Cairo Universities their most popular destination. Second, the majority of Malaysian Muslims were concerned by the role of Islam within the revolution because they knew that the Muslim Brotherhood was a dominant force in the Egyptian opposition. Thus, they were interested in whether political Islam and the Egyptian Islamists would triumph over the autocratic rule of president Hosni Mubarak (Abdul Malek 2011: 75–76). The rise of Islamist parties, Tunisia’s Ennahda Party and Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party shortly after the collapse of the incumbent regimes in Tunisia and Egypt seemed like a beacon of hope and provided an early direction for the future of Islamist movements in Malaysia. According to Peter Mandaville (2014: 369):
The success of Islamists in the wake of the 2010–2011 Arab Uprisings seemed to confirm the dominance of political Islam as a socio-political force in the Middle East. Combined with the rise of Turkey’s AKP and routinized participation of Islamist parties in electoral politics across Southeast Asia, there seems to be strong evidence that religiously based parties have become a firm fixture in Muslim politics.
The thinking of Rachid Ghannouchi (the leader of the Ennahda Movement) and Mohamed Morsi (Egypt’s former president) have inspired majority of the Islamist movements across Malaysia. Many academic discourses and student forums were held to discuss their political philosophy and strategy. Rachid Ghannouchi was well known in Malaysia by members of the Islamist movements. His thoughts, speeches and writings on the issues of political Islam, social justice and governance were widely viewed and read.1 According to Muhammad Najib, Ghannouchi’s concept of ‘Faraghat for ijtihad’ heavily influenced the Malaysian Islamists.2 Many Muslim activists expressed support for Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution and the new Ennahda-led government, merely because they were associated with al-Ghannouchi (Bakar 2012: 745). The PAS delegation, led by their president Hadi Awang, had gone to Tunisia in July 2012 and February 2015 to pay a visit to Rachid Ghannouchi and several members of the Ennahda Movement; in August 2014, Ghannouchi’s daughter, Intissar Kherigi, and a number of representatives from Ennahda came to Kuala Lumpur to join an event organised by the PAS Youth Wing and Asian Federation of Muslim Youth entitled ‘Survival of the Ennahda Party After Revolution in Tunisia’.3 Speaking about the political relationship between Malaysia and the Arab world, particularly Tunisia, Naoufel Eljammali,4 a former Tunisian Minister of Employment and Vocational Training, and member of the Ennahda Political Bureau, further commented that:
I think the Malaysian (political) experience is also near to us . . . and I think the Muslim world in Asia is much better compared to the (development of) political parties in the Middle East for instance, which are still stuck in the old mindset and practice of the 50s and 60s of the last century. That is why we feel ourselves to be nearer to Malaysian politicians than for instance Egyptian ones. So, I think Tunisia in this way finds itself as a Muslim political party with a lot more affinity with the Asian Muslim ones than many other Arab Muslim political parties.
The ‘Malaysian Spring’ polemics
During the post-2011 Arab Uprisings, the Malaysian authority strongly believed that there would be no basis for Arab Uprisings protests in Malaysia.5 However, a series of large-scale mass protests had taken place in the capital (Kuala Lumpur) prior to the 2013 general election, during which the protesters and opposition parties (including PAS and several other Islamist movements and NGOs) had mainly demanded political and electoral reforms from the government. Nevertheless, the demonstrations were a far cry from what had been seen in the MENA, where there had been a countless number of violent incidents as well as intimidation and brutality as a result of government action to suppress and undermine protesters. Quite a few Malaysian political observers interviewed by the Malaysian National News Agency (BERNAMA) established that Malaysians would reject the possibility of an Arab Spring-style Revolution because there were no concrete justifications for them to imitate it, especially after seeing its terrible and appalling repercussions. As Kaisan Abdul Rahman (2013) emphasised, the reason for people’s rejection of such an idea was Malaysia’s proven track record of democratic practice: general elections had been held every five years without fail, and this had ensured the nation’s progress and well-being.6 Another reason was that people could choose their government, and the voice of the majority was always respected, as proven by the three states (Selangor, Penang and Kelantan) currently under opposition rule. Furthermore, Kaisan believed the National Front Party (Barisan Nasional or BN)-led government to be transparent and constant in making efforts to enhance the welfare of its people through various programmes.
Similarly, Abdullah (2013) was of the opinion that the Arab Spring phenomenon would not spread to Malaysia because the government was constantly making changes for the better. Meanwhile, in an interview with the BBC in London, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak (2013) believed that there was no reason for his country to mount a protest similar to the Arab Uprisings because the country had enjoyed 55 years of peace and stability, and witnessed good economic progress. From these statements, it was clear that the Malaysian authority rejected the possibility of an Arab Uprisings phenomenon among its citizens (including any Islamist movements in the country). However, these debatable statements were only subjective views, either from the authority or from individuals. On the other hand, Larry Diamond, a leading contemporary scholar in the field of democracy studies, claimed that the effect of the Arab Uprisings might spread to East Asian countries, including Malaysia. According to him:
With the eruption of mass movements for regime change across the Arab nations, scholars and analysts of democratic prospects have focused attention on the Middle East and North Africa. But if a new regional wave of transitions to democracy unfolds in the next five to ten years, it is more likely to come from East Asia since this region has been strangely neglected in recent thinking about the near-term prospect for expansion of democracy.
Diamond’s views are also in line with those of Welsh (2011), who points out that7
Largely driven by ordinary citizens, often connected through the social media, Southeast Asia is experiencing important and substantive political change. In this year of the Arab Spring, attention has centered on developments in the Middle East. With street protests and elections, amidst violence, there is no question that the region has experienced a profound political upheaval. Yet, 2011 has been extremely significant in Southeast Asia as well. The ripples of change are here. Largely driven by ordinary citizens, often connected through the social media, Southeast Asia is experiencing important and substantive political change, with the balance clearly in favour of greater empowerment of citizens, human dignity and promise.
Shedding light on the performance of the previous government under the leadership of Najib Razak, many issues concerning financial crises, corruption, power abuse and the implementation of unnecessary taxes, as well as internal conflicts among the ruling party members, had tarnished the regime’s reputation. These issues have ultimately affected the legitimacy of the administration. According to Case (1993, 2007), Means (1996), Abbott (2009, 2011) and Diamond (2012), Malaysia is considered as a semi-democratic state or ‘quasi-democracy’, and some elements of a ‘soft, competitive and electoral authoritarian’ regime remains due to issues relating to human rights, news and media censorship, and certain laws/acts that limit the freedom of political activity as well as the movement of opposition parties. Levitsky and Way (2002: 52) explained the concept of competitive authoritarianism:
In a competitive authoritarian regime, formal democratic institutions are widely viewed as the principal means of obtaining and exe...
