It looks as if the proposal for the establishment of an Inter-faith Commission (ICF) of Malaysia has run into choppy waters. And why are we not surprised at all?

The proposition is an attractive one.

For over half a century, the undercurrents of ethnic and religious volatility have wounded and scarred our national soul. There are bound to be those who would either believe that such latent heat of communal strife is inevitable, and that nothing can be done about it, or be so profited by it that it is in their interest to see such tension sustained.

But I do think that most Malaysians of all races and religious faiths are reasonable people. With better education and greater exposure to the outside world, many of them must be sick and tired of all those political outbursts that generate more heat than light. The religious affliction inflicted upon the soul of Malaysians feel like a kind of original sin, and it makes people unhappy.

In their heart of hearts, many Malaysians must surely dream of the day when national reconciliation and mutual healing shall begin in earnest, with the help of, and especially in spite of the politicians. I do.

Some kind of organised inter-faith dialogue is precisely what we need. Anwar Ibrahim's favourite paradigm of a kind of "civilisational dialogue" is nowhere more urgently needed than in his homeland in the form of a continuing conversation between people of different faiths, even though the term "civilisation" might" suffer somewhat from Huntington's hasty reductionism.

At first glance, the proposed ICF would appear to be a useful conduit for inter-faith dialogue. One can envisage the possibility of religious differences being articulated within the framework of an institution. Hoping against hope, one might even expect some consensus to emerge out of this meeting of religious minds and hearts, towards an understanding of the minimum standards that would serve as the civilised rules of inter-faith relation.

If the proposed IFC should succeed in that sense, Malaysia would indeed be a model for this strife-torn world, as a newly emergent nation that has managed to live with religious differences beyond mere condescending tolerance. It would prove that Malaysia Boleh, more so than baking the world's largest cakes, or sewing the world's largest national flag.

It is appropriate too, that the Bar Council should be the body to institute this grand initiative in jostling for the formation of the Inter-faith Commission. Despite their occasionally stormy history, the gentlemen (and gentlewomen) of the Bar have proven their prestige as one of the leading professions in the country. The burden on their shoulders to burst open workable space for civil society in Malaysia has become all the more pressing, after the ruthless assault on the independence of the judiciary two decades ago.

Inclusive results

By now, we know the fuzzy outcome of this audacious project. The national inter-faith conference went ahead with inclusive results. It was largely ignored by the mainstream media. Some participants complained about procedural glitches. Others raised radical objections to the content of the draft bill tabled at the conference on various grounds. The debate continued for a while on malaysiakini, and then simmered down to an uneasy silence.

On first glance at least, a body blow had been dealt to the conference organizers, when Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi pronounced ex-cathedra that he would have to put this matter on hold, because he needed time to study the many vocal objections to the idea of an Inter-faith Commission of Malaysia. Sustained and hostile opposition to the proposal from a band of Muslim NGOs and some prominent PAS officials seemed to have tolled the death knell of this noble idea in its gestation stage.

I suspect the no-longer-brand-new PM, putting on his hat as the homo major of our polyglot and multi-faith citizenry, probably favours the idea of some sort of inter-faith conversation, at least in the privacy of his skull. It is one of his many political possibilities, though an unlikely one. It would fit his public image and private persona. Besides, he also has to begin to think about the kind of enduring legacy which he will leave to posterity.

Unfortunately, the PM is also the president of Umno, the backbone, the muscle and the flesh and blood of the ruling coalition. Umno is locked in a dead-serious struggle with PAS in a battle for the mind and heart of the Malay/Muslim constituency. Any Umno president cannot be seen as a less zealous defender of the Faith than PAS or Islamic NGOs, when the premier political status and the dignity of Islam have been an issue.

There is another obvious reason why the PM had to pour freezing water on the proposed ICF, against some people's expectations of his very deeply-hidden potential for great statesmanship in rising above petty sectarian squabbles.

Democracy evolves along very different paths on different soils. In this country, an unspoken practice has been entrenched over the past half century, whereby the government must be seen to monopolise all legitimacy and power in any initiative in instigating change, from launching a courtesy campaign to the eradication of corruption. This is the anatomy of various forms of hard and soft authoritarianism, and the quintessential self-image of Big Brothers all over the world.

The current PM has inherited this legacy from his predecessor, who, while he held the helm of state for over two decades, personified this myth of a Bog Brother cum Benevolent Patriarch par excellence.

No credit to the Bar

To break this tradition would require a bloodless revolution in the form of massive daily peaceful demonstrations on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, as has happened in the Ukraine and in Lebanon recently. Alternatively, it would call for the courageous folly of a Chiang Ching Kuo, or a Gorbachev, and look what happened to these tragic figures and their political organizations!

Father knows best. With this well neigh perfect truth in place, Malaysians have little room for civil society in their long engineered consciousness. The government, and by extension all the component parties of the ruling coalition, will simply not allow a civil society group like the Bar council to even compete for any credit in initiating such a monumental task as an interfaith dialogue, let alone the drafting of a bill for the formation of an IFC.

In fact, one could argue that an Inter-faith Commission is hardly a suitable entry point if one were to look at any long-term civil society effort in building inter-faith solidarity.

The IFC, like any commission, would be the product of the legislative process that will reflect the political will of the people, to some extent. When successfully legislated and established, the commission will be a fully-fledged institution, and God knows how badly this country needs to build democratic institutions, to steer away from the rule of man by decree.

In this case, however, an institution for the purpose of facilitating inter-faith relation will inevitably set down the rules affecting the power-relation between the various major faiths in the country. Once power enters into this relation, productive discussion on the formation of the ICM would only be possible if the participants adhere to the equality of all faiths in the eyes of the law.

Unfortunately, we have a constitution that was drafted to balance all claims from all interested party at the time of independence without thorough mediation. Today, we are left with seemingly irreconcilable contradictions on the power relations between Islam and other faiths, so open to the vagaries of interpretations that equality of inter-faith relations is the least self-evident truth.

Alternatively, participants had to adopt the principle of "veil of ignorance" advocated by John Rawls, when they gather to discuss the draft bill on the IFC. It will require them to imagine that they would not know how their decision is going to affect their interests, or the interests of their respective religious faiths. It may even require them to suspend their religious identity for the duration of the discussion by a great effort of the mind and heart. Those conditions for an ideal inter-faith conversation are far from present in present day Malaysia. They are far from present all over the world for that matter!

Doomed from beginning

Therefore, it would seem that the gallant effort to initiate the formation of the IFC by civil society groups has been doomed from the very beginning. Does it mean though, that the steering committee has failed in their task?

Well, I do not think so.

The question of religious rights for Malaysians of different faiths in their daily lives has everything to do with the maturing of democratic consciousness within our body politics. Inter-faith differences can only be solved by the democratic process of consultation and deliberation. Right now, the main obstacle that stands in the way of inter-faith dialogue is a political culture that thrives on the sectarian policies of race and religion. Race and religion have become the most potent instruments for political power.

Any civil society attempt to confront this obstacle in attempting any sort of inter-faith reconciliation will only accumulate the kind of bridging social capital needed to overcome this gaping chasm between followers of the different faiths.

The courteous and rational debate on malaysiakini by conference organizers, participants and commentators after the conference has ended has proven that the ICF initiative has not failed entirely. It is testimony that some Malaysians can engage themselves on an issue closest to their heart and soul without recourse to coarse emotional outburst. Twenty or thirty years ago, discourse of this quality would not have been in evidence in the media. Malaysiakini has done it again.

As long as we keep talking, there would be less risk of racial bloodshed and religious strife. It is hard; the whole world is still struggling with inter-faith relations without much success. Any new beginning is to be cherished.