MAY 13 — In a global environment that reveres economic parameters more than the living condition of the human beings behind them Malaysia’s steady fall into a spiral of religious fundamentalism has successfully dodged serious international condemnation for years. A strong economy, particularly when compared with its Asean neighbours, has provided the government in Putrajaya with the necessary leverage to ignore fundamental human rights and continue to truncate what is left of them. Anwar Ibrahim’s recent conviction based on a law that must not exist in the first place might have been a slight temporary hiccup as hardly anyone doubts that it was more than a political campaign to weaken the opposition. Soon, however, it will have left the international conscience and at its current rate Malaysia’s societal and humanitarian decline will further accelerate.

Perhaps more than ever before the political elite surrounding Prime Minister Najib Razak are incapable of representing the population of Malaysia as a whole and in many instances reluctant to even try. Najib’s constant reminders that Islam is the official state religion often feel awkward and forced as if this regular reiteration of his litany was required to keep a dying patient alive.

They also expose the underlying quandary of the Malaysian government: if there somehow were a magical solution, it would not hesitate to change Malaysia from its current multi-ethnic, multi-opinion nature into a monolith of pious Muslims who blindly follow their religious and political leaders. When former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi recently said — in the context of a commendable advice not to give in to the threats of extremism — that in his eyes Malaysia was “still a model of how a multiracial, multi-religious and multicultural country should be”, it might have felt like a failed attempt at humour if the topic at hand were less serious. In fact, the recent announcement by the Pew Research Centre that Muslims can be expected to constitute 72.4 per cent of the Malaysian population in 2050 must have been good news for many a policymaker across the states of Peninsular Malaysia: it would appear that things are going to become much easier for them.

However, at least two caveats need to be considered in order to evaluate this prognosis. Firstly, it seems to imply that average ethnically Malay citizens, the heart of Malaysia’s Muslim population, will remain comparatively poor, a factor classically associated with higher fertility rates. As the government has already succeeded in partly eradicating the economic disparity across ethnicities with controversial laws for decades, it can be assumed with some careful optimism that this aspect might further lose its relevance for demographic prognostications.

Secondly, the prognosis relies on the assumption that the currently religion-fuelled legal and political environment of Malaysia will not change during the next thirty-five years; concretely, that being a Muslim will continue to be an obligation, rather than a choice for those who happen to be born into a Malay family. In fact, it is this second caveat that exemplifies a factor that might determine whether the thin ice underneath the feet of open-minded Malaysians — regardless of ethnicity or religion — will break or not. To be born to Muslim parents in Malaysia means to live outside a modern world where individuals freely choose their religion or lack thereof — and this has serious implications on an individual’s social and personal life. The looming possibility of an implementation of hudud law, a Sharia-related piece of sexist and antediluvian jurisdiction encompassing corporal punishment for “crimes” like consensual sex between unmarried people or apostasy, two personal decisions that must never be penalized, in Kelantan, which has long been Malaysia’s most reactionary state in the political sphere, corroborates fears of an emerging Islamic state. The fact alone that such a policy can enter the political landscape as more than just a nightmarish phantasmagoria shows the negative potential for Malaysia to sink deeper and deeper into fundamentalist quagmire. The hackneyed argument that this is “what people want” seems to be at odds with the high number of laws created to ensure that what said people “want” perfectly coincides with what benefits the interests of the ones holding political and religious power.

The assurance that hudud — just like other laws affecting personal life decisions – will only apply to Muslims does not attenuate the severity of the problem in the slightest given that Islam is not a choice. Those who believe in Allah, but disagree with the increasingly overwhelming intrusions into their lives become ostracised or see no other way than to leave their homeland altogether. In a country as prosperous as Malaysia it is a strange anachronism that such a large percentage of the population appears to be blindly following the religious institution of Islam.

Yet, stabilising such a religious climate is crucial to those currently in charge of the country’s future not only in Malaysia: the truth that many individuals are essentially bullied into government-sanctioned versions of Islam might be one of the main reasons for the religion’s growth rate around the globe and the way by which several ideology-driven governments seem to be purposely isolating their respective populations from an increasingly interconnected world in the social and cultural domain. As it is always the case when religion enters politics, whether or not somebody believes is not at all a relevant question.

The religious institution is merely an instrument to enforce the continuation of the given power structures within a society. While policymakers struggle with unimportant questions like whether Muslims should be allowed to drink beer or touch dogs, the real problem lies at the very core of the political system: in the fact that Malaysia is a country with a state religion, namely Islam; and that said religion has been meddling with politics since the nation’s inception.

Although Islam is by far the most politicized religion of our times, the problems of political Islam do not derive from the specifics of this very religion, but from the simple fact that religion and politics never work well together. Any attempt to align an ancient institution that is out of touch with modern times with the specifics of contemporary democracy, which oppose many fundamental concepts of Islam or any other religion, is doomed from the start.

Basic psychological models have shown for decades that religious institutions will always lead to ostracism of those who do not comply and by definition this would be every non-Muslim and also every Muslim who questions the status quo alongside, due to the deeply engrained patriarchy and misogyny at the core of any institutionalized religion, women in general. The fact that, if anything, political Islam has become stronger in government and opposition in recent years is a red flag for everybody who still hopes that Malaysia can turn around and truly embrace its diverse heritage, making “1Malaysia” more than just a cringe-worthy propaganda campaign.

The political elite of Malaysia have created a nation unsettlingly resembling Apartheid South Africa or the pre-Civil Rights Movement United States. Instead of using its economic strength in order to realise its potential as a catalyst for open-minded, inclusive and humanitarian development within Asean — a role that now perhaps falls on the shaky shoulders of the new Indonesian president Joko Widodo (Jokowi) – Malaysia appears to be on a dangerous path toward a future more reminiscent of contemporary Saudi Arabia where rich and oppressive father figures have created what is essentially every misogynist’s wildest dream come true.

Although it is hard to imagine given the most recent manoeuvres in government and opposition, which both receive most of their legitimacy and power from Islamic drivel, maybe it is not too late yet for a political U-turn. A functioning and just society can only be created if religious institutions are kept out of politics and awareness of the inadequacy of political Islam seems to be on the rise within certain parts of the intellectual elite. Without fundamental change the religious and ethnic divide across the country’s population will only worsen and even literally tear the country apart as the dissatisfaction with the federal government keeps growing in the eastern states of Sabah and Sarawak.

Malaysia might for now continue to be a nation with a promising economic future, but with regard to its societal, humanitarian and cultural development its outlook remains depressingly bleak.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or organisation and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.