Longing for daylight in Malaysia

Dr Mahathir Mohamad will step down as prime minister of Malaysia in October after more than 20 years in power. His former deputy Anwar Ibrahim has to remain in jail for another nine years. Or does he?

Rumours are circulating about a possible reconciliation with the ruling party, if not with his ex-boss. As 'evidence', people have jumped on the premier's recent statement that Anwar's fate does not depend on him anymore but on the 'new leadership' of the country.

It may seem odd that Malaysians have to feed on scraps like this to sustain our political imagination, but this is how this country works and how it has always worked. Malaysian politics have always been built around personality cults - whether in the ruling party or in the opposition.

More often than not, this is how the Malaysian public performs intellectual analyses by synthesising political rumours with officially sanctioned information centered around various public personalities.

Nearly five years after Anwar's sacking and subsequent jailing, many things still look the same in this country. The ruling party and the opposition remain engaged in a project of mutual excoriation, calling each other infidels.

The Malaysian government is still pursuing its aggressive and authoritarian policy of modernisation. The Islamist opposition is denouncing all these efforts as 'unIslamic'. Public debate is couched in language that appeases Malay and Muslim sensitivities.

Some things have changed, though. But what, exactly?

In 1998, I was not in Malaysia. I was studying in Australia for my Bachelor in Engineering. While Malaysia was gasping and stuttering under the tidal wave of the regional financial crisis, I was getting quite dazzling results at university.

I endeavoured to be a model student focused and successful in my academic studies, with a respectable social life on the side. True, the Malaysians overseas knew we had to tighten our belts a little, but we felt extremely lucky that we did not have face what our Indonesian friends were going through.

When Suharto stepped down in May 1998, we felt a little bit nervous but still could not see anything like that happening in Malaysia. And then came Anwar's sacking in early September.

I was doing an assignment that night, and was also logged on to the Internet. I remember a Malay student friend in Melbourne informing me of this through an online message. She was in utter despair. Her hero had been sacked.

I was more curious than anything else. I was never really a fan of the former deputy premier, and I wanted to know exactly why he was sacked.

It turned out that he was dismissed for corruption and sodomy. I remember that I tried to continue with my assignment after reading this. I remember being hurt and unable to imagine how anyone could be publicly humiliated in such a manner. I found myself in a difficult position.

I never really liked Anwar, and I never thought much of his Islamisation programmes when he was in power but some of my friends were his ardent supporters.

However, I also could not imagine how such horrible laws could be used to silence and humiliate anyone but I could not share this view with a few of my other friends who were staunch supporters of Mahathir.

Most of my friends refused to discuss the subject. I was scolded whenever I tried to bring it up. There was definitely fear in the voices that rebuked me. It was alarming, how people just started aligning themselves behind either leader, or buried their heads in the sand.

Soon, I began to feel as though every inch of my scalp was in flames from trying to make sense of this all alone.

Anger and disgust

And then we started to read reports of a reform movement - which called itself reformasi and was aligned to Anwar - taking shape in Malaysia. The Australian media gleefully predicted the eruption of violence and disorder in Malaysia.

Watching the news in Australia, I felt that the Australian journalists were behaving no differently from their Malaysian counterparts; they were playing into each camp's personality cult instead of engaging in some much-needed analysis.

It is fair to say that I was disgusted with just about everyone at this point in time. I was disgusted with the ruling party for so publicly and proudly attacking someone's human rights in this way.

I was angry with Anwar and his supporters for their slick manipulation of the Western media and for hijacking human rights language to suit their own agenda.

I was angry with the reformasi movement for being so shortsightedly personal in its agenda and the Islamic extremists for so cunningly manipulating the situation to their own advantage.

I was angry with the Western media for its smugness and shallow journalism and the Malaysian media for its cowardice and shallow journalism

I was angry with ordinary Malaysians for keeping quiet and with myself for everything I could possibly be angry about.

I was also incredibly disgusted at and frightened of two particular sections of the Malaysian Penal Code that were used to discredit Anwar.

Section 377 B states that "whoever voluntarily commits carnal intercourse against the order of nature shall be punished with imprisonment of a term which may extend to 20 years, and shall also be liable to whipping".

And exactly how does the Malaysian constitution define "carnal intercourse against the order of nature"?

According to Section 377A, "any person who has sexual connection with another person by the introduction of the penis into the anus or mouth of the other person is said to commit carnal intercourse against the order of nature".

Interesting, isn't it? I am sure heterosexual couples occasionally engage in fellatio and anal sex, too, but this law was used specifically to demonise a very particular community a marginalised community, already voiceless and living in the shadows of society.

It is also interesting that the constitution has nothing to say about women not about oral sex performed on women and not about non-heterosexual women.

Not only that, it appears as though every Malaysian has to worry about the state suddenly barging into their bedrooms during moments of great intimacy.

The most amazing thing about all of this is that hardly anyone came to the defence of the gay community in Malaysia. The ruling party was already happily engaged in the demonising of homosexuals, especially men.

But the so-called reformasi movement hardly did anything to tell the state to butt out of our sexual choices.

Instead of asking the ruling party how any of this was relevant to the sacking of this man, they chose to put him higher up on a pedestal and deny that someone as religiously upright as Anwar would ever do anything so filthy.

But in Malaysia, hardly anyone would deny the fact that there are quite a few middle-class, educated and upwardly mobile gay Malaysian men around.

Whether or not the general Malaysian public is agreeable to this kind of sexual diversity is another question altogether. In fact, many Malaysians find it downright disgusting.

However, the more perplexing thing is that a lot of these middle-class, educated and upwardly mobile gay men chose very early on to throw their support behind Dr Mahathir, and not his ex-deputy. Either because of their fear for Anwar's brand of Islam, or their agreement with Mahathir's brand of modernism, or both.

Of course, these men could never come out and openly say they were gay. They know their place in Malaysia, but they are still happy to defend these little pockets of freedom that they can still enjoy, like keeping good jobs in exchange for invisibility something they did not think they would be able to enjoy under Anwar's brand of Islam.

Thus, it felt as though all my fears about Malaysia one day heading towards disintegration and destruction had finally hatched. I felt as though it had been utterly futile, trying to wrestle with the hands of time. It was finally, inevitably approaching midnight before the very day of destruction.

Anwar was arrested swiftly after igniting the reformasi movement. Everybody knows about the black eye he got while under police custody. Everybody knows about the trial that everybody (bar the government) called a sham. Everybody knows Anwar went to jail.

I am not quite sure, though, if everyone is completely clear about Anwar's Islamist past. In the 1970s, he was quite a prominent Islamist student activist. During this period, he was detained for two years under the Internal Security Act (ISA), a law that allows for detention without trial.

By the early 1980s, he was the leader of the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement (Abim). In 1982, after coming to power, Mahathir succeeded in getting Anwar to join the ruling Umno party.

In one swoop, Mahathir not only consolidated Umno's Malay Muslim identity, but also boosted his own Islamic credentials. The next 16 years would see the duet between Mahathir's ethnic Malay nationalism and Anwar's Islamism shape the nation.

Anwar ascended the political ladder rapidly. Before long, he was appointed the education minister. During this time, he aggressively pursued the Islamisation of knowledge in Malaysia.

When I was going to school at this point, the tudung (head scarf) began to gain prominence among Malay female students. More than ever, the emphasis on the public academic curriculum was on Islam. It was a peculiar phenomenon, though.

In public, the education minister talked about openness and democracy. In education institutions, however, the approach was far more dictatorial and this was by people who were firmly in support of Anwar's 'ideals'.

Soon after this, Anwar was made finance minister and then deputy prime minister by ousting Ghafar Baba, Mahathir's previous deputy. Many Malaysians, mostly urban Malay Muslims, rejoiced at Anwar's ascension to the throne.

But there were many of us who began to feel an unfamiliar discomfort in our bellies. The clock was already ticking loudly, counting down to the hour of midnight. But how can one hear the ticking of the clock when one has swallowed it all without question or objection?

Anwar was sentenced to two jail terms six years for corruption and nine years for sodomy to be carried out consecutively. Hence, in theory, he has to spend a total of 15 years behind bars.

It is important to note that when he was sentenced, the judge decreed that his jail terms would only commence from the first day of sentencing. This was the cause of some public outcry, because prior to sentencing, he had already been locked up for seven months.

Anwar lost his appeal on the corruption conviction, and is now in the process of appealing the sodomy conviction. This year, many Anwaristas began reminding people that he should have been able to walk free on bail on April 14, based on the completion of his first jail term.

However, he still remains in prison, with his bail application against the sodomy conviction set for July 14.

Two years ago, six reformasi activists were arrested under the ISA. All except one were members of Keadilan, the opposition party helmed by Anwar's wife Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.

In Malaysia, the Home Ministry can detain a citizen under the ISA up to a period of two years, after which the person is either charged in court, released unconditionally, or has the detention order renewed.

During previous administrations, the ministry thought nothing of arbitrarily extending detention orders, hardly even bothering to charge people openly in court for their 'crimes'. However, the reformasi six were all released last month.

Nobody really knows why Home Minister and premier-in waiting Abdullah Ahmad Badawi did not renew their detention order.

Could it be because of international pressure, chiefly from the parliaments of Denmark, Britain, the Netherlands and Japan? Could it be because Mahathir via Abdullah wants to look good before he finally steps down? Is it because these activists are "no longer a threat to national security"?

One bit of interesting trivia here is that the Home Ministry has never renewed the two-year detention order for any political prisoner arrested under the ISA during Mahathir's administration.

Mahathir's delegation of responsibility for the fate of Anwar to the incoming premier is also a reflection of the state of affairs in Malaysia a political prisoner's fate lies not in the hands of the judiciary, which according to all logic should be the ultimate body that decides on something like this, not the executive arm of government.

Many Malaysians are still in a daze about all this. When Mahathir announced his resignation last year, we felt that we were being bombarded with a few midnights too many. But now, he is more adamant than ever that he will step down in October and that his successor will be Abdullah.

In 1987, if you told any Malaysian that our next prime minister would be Abdullah, they would have either exploded with laughter or run like crazy lest they be caught up in some politically triggered bloodbath.

During that year, Malaysia was going through an economic crisis a phenomenon that many younger Malaysians have started to assume as a given in our country's unfolding state of affairs.

Mahathir's leadership in Umno was challenged by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (photo) and among those backing the latter were none other than Abdullah.

While many claim that Mahathir managed to evade defeat, albeit narrowly, with the unwavering support of none other than Anwar.

Although Mahathir won the party battle, his challengers were still gearing up for his downfall. During this moment of immense darkness for Mahathir, Malaysians were suddenly stunned in October with mass arrest of fellow citizens under the ISA.

Not all of the politicians detained were from opposition parties some were from the ruling coalition and not all of the detainees were politicians some were arts practitioners, educationists, religious leaders and women's rights activists.

But the country was confused during this period. Whatever questions people may have had about these detentions were buried under the fear of racial riots. Why racial riots? Because somehow, somebody somewhere had started making the connections between the events of 1987 and the events of 1969, when the country was bathed in blood from 'racial riots'.

Strangely enough, until today nobody really knows what happened in 1969. And strangely enough, if you ask any Malaysian today about 1987, most won't be able to recall anything about it either. There could have very well been a midnight sun shining down on Kuala Lumpur in 1987. There's a good chance nobody would have even noticed it.

Will 1998 succumb to the same fate as 1969 and 1987? I think it is haunting that I find it much more poignant and immediate to say '1998' than 'the regional political and financial crisis', or 'the sacking of Anwar'.

Anyway, many people are now saying that the reformasi movment is expelling its last breath. Anwar will be released and he will rejoin Umno and Keadilan will be no more. Even the reformasi six are saying that the movement needs to be reinvented, implying that they too think it is becoming irrelevant to Malaysians.

But hang on. What happens if Anwar is released and rejoins Umno? What kind of farewell present would that be for Abdullah? Aren't the ex-deputy premier and current deputy premier 'enemies'?

What happens to the 'Islamic extremists', who have benefitted much from Anwar's sacking and imprisonment that they are now bold enough to have come up with a 'blueprint' for an Islamic state, which actually has the support of quite a few Malaysians?

What happens to the true reformers, who from day one were fighting for a just and democratic Malaysia?

And really, it is extremely difficult to dig up honest analyses on Malaysian history, let alone get the bare facts straight. Malaysian history, like any politically charged history, gets hammered quickly to suit the whims of the actors involved.

With all that said, however, I think 1998 will not end up like 1987 or 1969. This is because, unlike previous upheavals in modern Malaysian history, 1998 ambushed all Malaysians with every possible bit of ugliness in this country that we could ever have been confronted with lack of freedom of expression, no judicial independence, no media integrity, Malay ethnic chauvinism, Islamic religious obscurantism, denial of sexual diversity and freedom of sexuality, corruption, cronyism, political despotism, unregulated capitalism, and absence of participatory democracy.

You name it; we were hit by it.

Thus, 1998 managed to politicise even someone like me. Someone with everything to gain by playing by the rules. I am middle class, Malay, Muslim, male and I excelled in my studies. I do not gain anything by questioning the status quo. I could gain everything by supporting it.

But I have been forced to ask myself some difficult questions. True, I never counted myself as part of reformasi and I never will. It is too politically expedient for me.

And I would feel wretchedly uncomfortable shouting pro-human rights slogans alongside an opposition party whose ultimate dream is to set up a state where they can sentence people to death for apostasy, cut their hands off for committing theft and stone them for committing adultery.

But I cannot deny that I am now very much reform-minded. It was painful, the way I was wrenched from the national narrative that had shaped my consciousness. It was unbearable to finally realise that the events of 1998 were an effective rupturing of my country's history and, hence, my own personal history.

But I also realised that it was not 1998 when the hour of midnight struck. Really, the hour of midnight had struck the moment my country was born. We have been stuck in midnight all these years. 1969, 1987, 1998 were just moments in history when the sky opened up wide enough for us to see that we were consumed by darkness.

But the darkness has always been there. We have just been too afraid to bring ourselves to see it.

But this is what 1998 has done: it has made Malaysians like me long for daylight. Many more of us are afraid of the sunlight, like the Holocaust survivors who, upon being set free and having the harsh light of sun beat down on them, slunk back into the familiarity of captivity and darkness.

I yearn for the light, and I am now starting to find others who yearn for it, too. I have 1998 to thank for this.

This article first appeared in Muslim WakeUp! Online Magazine: http://www.muslimwakeup.com