Let us start with a scenario.

Having lived in the country for many years, a group of ethnic minority wants to contribute to making the country stronger and more prosperous. They decided to speak up and contribute proactively to ongoing debates on policy matters by presenting the views of their ethnic group to policy-makers. Among the things they asked for was for the majority to treat them as equals, and to allow them to practice their religion freely.

How did the majority community respond? They responded by saying that the ethnic minority group:

- may have hostile agenda

- is ungrateful and divisive

- does not respect the majority community

- is trying to change the socio-demography country

- does not respect the feeling of the majority

One politician said that the ethnic minority group is a minority population and should not try and punch above their weight in changing the country’s culture or policy.

Where do you think the above took place?

It could easily have happened in Britain where the ethnic minority were Muslims, the majority was White British.

But, unsurprisingly, it could also be read as a Malaysian problem wherein the minority group was the Christians or Hindus or Buddhists or any non-Muslim groups, and the majority was the Malay Muslims in Malaysia.

As a Malaysian Muslim living in Britain, I feel that it is not easy being an ethnic minority, especially when the majority feels that you are threatening them.

Living as a minority

Speaking in London on Nov 15, 2007, Prof Tariq Ramadan called for Muslims in Britain to engage in a "post-integration discourse."

He said that Britain is home for many Muslims. Their parents may have come from other countries, but for the younger generation, Britain is home. And that is why the minority Muslim communities in Britain are being urged to speak up - because Britain is their home. Speaking up is not an option. But it is an obligation for them to work as hard as they can make the country better. I believe that the same arguments can be applied to non-Malay non-Muslims in Malaysia.

In the UK, the Muslim minority is demanding that they are treated as equals. That they are allowed to practice and to preach their religion. That they be allowed to pray and fast while at work or in school. That they be allowed to wear what they want to wear, where-ever and whenever they want to wear it. That they are allowed to build more places of worship in the areas where they live in. And so on and so forth.

Looking at Malaysia from abroad, I see non-Muslim non-Malays in Malaysia also asking to be treated as equals. I see some of the more religious non-Muslims asking to be allowed to practice and preach their religion. That they be allowed to build or retain holy sites, churches, temples and so on.

In short, non-Muslims in Malaysia seem to be asking for exactly the same rights as Muslims in the West are fighting for. In the West, Muslims are crying to be equals with the majority non-Muslims. In Malaysia non-Muslims want to be treated as equals too. But, in the West, some local non-Muslims are saying "Don’t challenge us, this is our country!". In Malaysia some Malay Muslims are also saying "Don’t challenge us, this is our country!".

It is not easy being a minority, is it?

It saddens me when I see and hear about how the majority tries to silence the minority. Only this time, it is the reverse of the situation on the UK. Over there the majority is the non-Muslim. Over here, the majority is the Muslims.

Confusing ethnicity and religiosity

That is, of course, a big over-simplification. I propose that there are actually two layers of the problem, and these two layers have been mixed into one, making the composite problem ‘thicker’.

The first layer is essentially the differences between ethnic groups. Since the early stages of the life of our nation, there have been rather visible differences between the socio-economic status of the different ethnic communities. They may live in one country called Malaysia, but they are oblivious to "the other". They live together, but in many sense, they are actually living apart.

Things like demands for the protection of ketuanan Melayu or recent calls for special privileges for Indians, only make this problem worse. So, if we dissect the problem, we will see that the first layer is the differences between ethnic groups who are grappling with the challenges of becoming a bangsa Malaysia.

The second layer is the differences between religious groups. There are obvious differences between one religion and another. Once again, we find cases where people of different religions find it difficult, and some even refuse, to inter-mingle.

Ethnicity and religiosity are supposed to be different issues. You cannot necessarily tell one’s religion based on one’s ethnic group. One ethnic group is not necessarily adherence to one particular religion. The Prophet Muhammad and Abu Jahal were both Arabs, but one was a Muslim and the other was not. Saidina Abu Bakr and Salman al-Farisi were not from the same ethnic group, but both were Muslim. So, in that sense, Malays are not necessarily Muslims. Chinese are not necessarily Buddhists or Christians. Indians are not necessarily Hindus. Ethnicity and religion are two separate things.

Unfortunately for us Malaysians, somewhere along the line, these two layers got mixed. That is when you start seeing Malay groups like Umno claiming to defend Islam; Indian groups like the MIC fighting for Hindu temples, but not saying much when mosques were demolished, even though there are Indians who are Muslims; and groups claiming to be the defenders of Islam like PAS and Abim seem to focus more on Malay rights when there are Muslims who are not Malays and Malays who are not Muslims. You also see a relatively new Hindu group - Hindraf (Hindu Rights Action Force) - claiming to act for all Indians when not all Indians are Hindus, and not all Hindus are Indians. Somehow, the two layers – ethnicity and religion - became blurred and the actions of these groups make the problem worse.

A disaster to mankind

So the question is, is Islam a blessing to Malaysians? Islam is a blessing to Malaysians if practised as it should be practised. The problem is not with Islam, but with Muslims, and with those who say they speak for Islam. In reality, some Muslims, and some groups who claim to speak for Islam, are simply disastrous.

Although Islam is a blessing to mankind, many Muslims (not all), and some Muslim groups (not all) are simply a disaster to mankind. They seek to impose their beliefs on others. They want to coerce others into living the way of life that they define as acceptable. Even within the Muslim communities - and note that I am saying Muslim communities in the plural because I do not believe there is only one interpretation of Islam - they say you must follow their interpretation because they know best what Islam is.

In short, we have living amongst us, Muslims who believe in coercion and imposition, not just coercing non-Muslims into living lives the way they say, but also coercing Muslims into subscribing to their version of Islam.

These people have forgotten that Islam is a non-hierarchical religion. We do not have a central religious body that decides what is Islamic and what is not. If we go back to the golden age of Islam, you will see that Islam was practised in different ways. I believe that age was golden because learned Muslims at different places were able to interpret Islam in different ways, and subsequently there was competition between the different schools of thought.

For example, when sufism became widespread in the Muslim world, there were various different orders of tariqah. When Islamic fiqh was being developed, there was not just one school but several. Even in the matter of aqidah, there was not just one school, but several. It was the competition among the various schools that allowed the flourishing of knowledge and wisdom among Muslim communities.

Part Two: Moving Forward

WAN SAIFUL WAN JAN is director-general of Malaysia Think Tank London. A life member of PAS, he was previously at the British Conservative Party Research Department and the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit. He moved from KL to England in 1993 and has been living there since. In May 2007, he contested in the English local elections as a Conservative Party Candidate.

The above is a speech he gave at an event organised by Malaysia Think Tank London and the Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) in Kuala Lumpur recently. Wan Saiful can be reached at wansaiful@malaysiathinktank.org