Whither, baby blue?

Going by articles like 'Keadilan needs to reinvent itself' and 'Don't cry for me reformasi', it seems like the party is nearly over for the newest kid on the political block. To borrow a line from that old Dylan song, is it all over now, baby blue?

Well, I still think it is the party of the future if it can ride the present storm and pull itself together. It is unlikely to share the fate of Semangat 46, given the extraordinary circumstances that led to its birth and the passionate embrace by a wide cross-section of Malaysians with a new-found belief that a new politics that transcends race and religion is possible, if only it can get back on its original groove.

But baby blue has aged very considerably, hemmed in between the locked horns of Umno and PAS, battered and ravaged by the consuming politics of the two traditional Malay parties. It makes one look with nostalgia on that sunny day in April 4 years ago when its birth was greeted with great optimism and hope.

It was like a newborn baby full of innocence and promise born into this murky world of Malaysian politics. It lost some of that innocence in the open feud between its deputy president and a vice-president, and again later when its deputy president resigned in a storm of controversy and insinuations.

The two episodes just go to show that even a party that is purportedly the vehicle of new politics is not free of clashes of egos among its leaders and the emergence of feuding factions which weakens it from within.

Great as these internal convulsions might have been, I think what has really aged Keadilan and sapped its vitality today is not quite so much its internal clashes, but an external factor which is quite beyond its control, that is the protracted battle between Umno and its ally PAS to win over the souls of Malay/Muslims.

Treacherous storm

This is the treacherous storm that in the end proves very difficult to weather. Not long ago, when Keadilan was asked to join the fray over the 'Malay unity' issue, it acquitted itself admirably.

We breathed a sigh of relief that a mounting racial tension had somewhat been defused. But this time it seems unable to extricate itself without erosion of its support among its important constituents the non-Malays who no longer have faith in Barisan Nasional, civil-society NGOs and educated urban Malays unenamoured of PAS's brand of politics.

There are no polls to indicate objectively the degree of this erosion of support, but there is plenty of indirect evidence from commentaries, analyses of the recent by-elections in Kedah, and letters on this website. My own personal exchanges with non-Malay friends and sympathisers of Keadilan did seem to lend validity to this observation.

It has been more than a year that Keadilan has to bear the cross of its coalition partner's puritan Islamist ambitions, goaded, prodded on and provoked by Umno to shift its Islamic programme into high gear, the latest being the plan for hudud implementation.

When DAP decided to leave the coalition over the irreconcilable stance of the Islamic state, spurred on by post Sept 11 hysteria, Barisan Alternatif, especially Keadilan, should have taken stock and repaired the damage.

Very little in the way of intellectual debate took place and the agenda then moved on from Islamic state to hudud implementation. And after being prodded on to state its stand on the issue, Keadilan came out with a confusing statement over hudud implementation that appeared wanting to appease both the Islamists and non-Muslims in one go but in the end convinces neither.

Trying to win back support now among its urban and educated constituents may well be an impossible task, and the clock is ticking. The statement's contradictory stands have not escaped the notice of one of its vice-presidents who wrote a reasoned plea from Kamunting to remain true to its original ideals.

Odds stacked

It must be conceded though that the odds are stacked against Keadilan. It is unfortunate that some of its charismatic leaders are held in preventive detention. The authorities, knowing the general attitude of Malaysians on matters of liberty and fundamental rights, took a gamble and won.

Umno/BN government's stifling of the democratic process though the subjugation of state institutions like the Parliament, the judiciary and the security apparatus has severely hobbled Keadilan's ability to move forward. And after Sept 11, the world has decided that global war on terrorism should take precedence over justice and democracy.

Would things have been much different otherwise? It is very hard to say. Frankness in sensitive matters of religion and race does not rank high in Malaysian political discourse and the race-based parties in BN have developed this to a high art.

Does Keadilan know what its members' views are, who are overwhelmingly Malay/Muslims, on the issue of Islamic state and hudud? If they don't happen to share the views of PAS, would it be able to express them with frankness while remaining allies, and at the same time reassure the non-Muslims that it is a multi-racial party committed to constitutionalism?

In truth, the issues of the Islamic state and the more problematic one of hudud implementation are difficult for the Keadilan leadership to resolve alone and therein lies its greatest predicament.

Debate Islam

In retrospect what it should have done was perhaps organise a series of open forums around the country instead of closed door meetings of its supreme council leaders, inviting interested individuals, academics, civil society NGOs, even parties from the ruling coalition, in fact anyone who feels they have a stake in this country to air their views on this sensitive issue.

Its women's wing did organise one such forum but it missed the point, jumping too many steps ahead in that it discussed the specific provisions that seemed unjust to women rather than addressing the fundamental question of the appropriateness and viability of a theocratic state in a multi-religious, modern nation-state.

Perhaps what all this has starkly revealed is that we Muslims in Malaysia today are ill-prepared to confront and debate how Islam is to play a role in the public life of a modern nation-state in this post ideological era where pluralism is more the norm than the exception.

Do educated Muslims feel that Maududi and Syed Qutb have done all the thinking there was to do and Islamic thought begins and stops with them? Looking at Malay-Islamic NGOs, popular among young educated Muslims and whose members found a natural home in Keadilan, the main concerns in the prosperous 1990s seemed to be charity and relief work, Islamic schools, religious propagation as well as getting a finger in the economic pie.

It is all very good, but what has been badly neglected is developing our own home-grown Islamic thought and responses to a whole host of challenging issues that modern societies in today's inter-dependent world are confronted with.

These are certainly much more complex in a plural society like ours and shouting simplistic slogans about Islam will not take us anywhere.

Perhaps this intellectual abdication among educated Muslim has something to do with the ascendancy of the religious scholars in the leadership ranks of political Islam inspired by the success of Iranian Mullahs.

With this changing face of political Islam, the ulama (Muslim scholars) are not just providing moral and spiritual leadership in society and stay above the fray, but they are supposed to be the only people qualified to take direct control of the day-to-day affairs of public life, politics and the state.

Unpalatable realities

Is Keadilan now paying the price of this intellectual lethargy of secular-educated Muslims outlook who are suddenly required to provide answers and reassurances to their non-Muslim friends that Islam is compatible with justice, democracy and religious-cultural pluralism?

It may be that we are afraid of being frank, but it might also be that we have never interrogated these questions with great seriousness since the 1970s and 1980s. The international media and human rights organisations have been highlighting in recent weeks the deplorable human rights situations in Pakistan, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia that they feel to be directly linked to the application of the syariah.

The media attention and pressure from western NGOs and EU parliamentarians seemed to have helped overturn the conviction of the Safiya Hussaini, the Nigerian woman accused of adultery who has become a cause clbre in Europe. No matter how Muslims look at it, these are real challenges that we need to grapple with and the allegations of human rights abuses cannot be simply brushed off as western prejudice towards Islam.

Is the hudud component of the Syariah, admittedly a small one but the most sensitive, the overarching priority of Muslim societies over things like good governance, poverty eradication and education? Should we not build libraries, universities and research centres instead of syariah courts if they, by our own weaknesses, cannot provide justice?

It is astounding that the ardent proponents of hudud implementation choose to remain silent in the face of the unpalatable realities of the Islamic law as it is applied in these countries. Is this the only way that Islam is supposed to manifest itself in the public affairs of Muslim societies?

Back to the streets

Keadilan was born on a wave of popular demand for reforms in the wake of new-found political consciousness, spurred on by the extraordinary events of September 98. It gave a new meaning to participatory democracy and held the promise of a new politics, and that includes how we conduct politics with frankness, boldness and a dash of spontaneity.

In an issue as protracted and grave as the Islamic state and hudud, it should go back to the streets and take the pulse of its sympathisers and well-wishers. It should have been able to come up with a clear, well-reasoned stand without hurting its ally and move on to the issues that really matter.

Otherwise it is well on its way to political irrelevance for in the heavy silence of the ballot cubicle, voters tend to listen to the whispers of the devil they know. Its planned merger with PRM might just be the opportunity to strike its last match and start anew.