MalayMail-Aug 7
The electoral growth of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) is read by most as reflecting the growing popularity of Islamism or religious conservatism. It might be more accurate, however, to term the ideology of many PAS leaders as Muslim nationalism. PAS is now the largest single party in Malaysia’s parliament with 20 per cent of its seats and presents a growing threat to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Harapan coalition. On 12 August, Malaysians go to the polls for elections in six states which will prove crucial to Pakatan Harapan’s hold on power at the federal level. In parliamentary elections last November, PAS and its allies confounded pollsters by sweeping four states in what was dubbed a ‘green wave’. Far from being a monolithic and rigid party, PAS has experimented with different positions, from inclusive Islamism to now hard-hitting Muslim nationalism. It has even welcomed into its fold Mahathir Mohamad, a vocal former foe, to gang up against Anwar and pluralism.
As the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), which dominated Malaysian politics until 2018, is now the junior partner in Anwar’s coalition government, PAS is the standard barrier of Malay-Muslim nationalism alongside Umno’s splinter party, Bersatu. Since the 1980s, Umno has found the need to compete with PAS on Islamization. In 1982, Anwar, then a firebrand Islamist, was co-opted by then prime minister Mahathir to embark on Umno’s own Islamization project. A year earlier, Anwar’s contemporary in PAS, Abdul Hadi Awang, delivered a sermon that changed Malaysia’s political history. Hadi is now the president of PAS, which has benefited from Umno’s cyclic schisms. In simple language, Hadi offered a radical vision of anti-colonialism: true independence means restoration of the pre-colonial past when Islam and Muslims reigned. Hence, the post-colonial Malaysian state cannot be truly independent if it preserves the infidel colonialist’s political structure. Read more at:
