Islam in Southeast Asia: A Summary

Transcription

1 Islam in Southeast Asia: A Summary Professor Susan Russell, Anthropology and Professor Eric Jones, History Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University With the assistance of Suharto Ambolodto December 2004 Southeast Asia is home to many examples of state failures and a number of state successes. Some of the most spectacularly successful as well as intractably difficult relationships between ethno-linguistically and religiously diverse groups on the periphery and distant state centralized power are found here. In mainland Southeast Asia, the brutality of the Myanmar military junta s policies toward its ethnic and religious minorities are paralleled by those of communist Vietnam. In insular Southeast Asia, where semi-democratic regimes prevail, recent history is more complex. Here, individuals have greater freedom to define and express themselves politically in ways they cannot under authoritarian regimes, and many are doing so in ethnic terms. On the successful side, Malaysia has developed an enviable and cooperative relationship between its Muslim Malay, Hindu and Sikh Indian, and Buddhist and Taoist Chinese (among other) populations. The most ethnically plural country of Southeast Asia, Muslims and indigenous people comprise 58% of the population of Malaysia; Chinese 24%; Indian 8%; and others 10%. Tracing its pluralistic legacy back to the pre-nineteenth century age of commerce, Malaysian ports such as Melaka emerged as Southeast Asia s most important trading entrepots. Chinese, Arab, Indian and Southeast Asian merchants flocked to Malaysia, attracted by its impressive port facilities, fair legal system and heavily trafficked waterways. Under British control, predominantly Muslim Malaysia saw an increasing number of non-muslim Indian and Chinese peoples imported to work its tin mines and rubber plantations. Violence racked the history of the 1

2 British colonial state and these ethnically plural communities at times prior to World War II and after. In recent decades, however, the dispersed location of these displaced new citizens of diverse and transplanted origin prevented outright rebellion against the state, and relative peace has prevailed. Since independence in 1963, Malaysia has had the most stable and continuous democracy of any Southeast Asian state. A middle-income country today, Malaysia transformed itself from 1971 through the late 1990s from a producer of raw materials into an emerging multisector economy. Multicultural Malaysia s political and socio-economic success has hinged on a multifaceted, interactive working relationship among its various religious and ethnic groups, marked by an on-going and pro-active dialogue. The Philippines, in contrast, is an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country that has struggled with a 400 year armed rebellion in Mindanao, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi and Sulu. The country s largest concentration of Muslim peoples are in this region, which has an alarming poverty incidence of 82%, compared with an overall poverty rate of around 40%. The poor infrastructure, lack of schools, books and qualified teachers, and the on-going land conflicts of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) are startlingly paralleled by the fact that Muslims are a majority in this region, which was established in 1996 through peace negotiations between the Moro National Liberation Front and the government of the Republic of the Philippines, but only a 5-10% minority in the larger nation. While scholars and knowledgeable journalists all argue that the causes of conflict in this region are very complex, most recognize that the ethno-linguistically diverse Muslim, or Bangsamoro, and other indigenous peoples have been marginalized by the larger Christian majority due to their religious distinctiveness. 1 Historically, 1 John Sidel, Other Schools, Other Pilgrimages, Other Dreams: the Making and Unmaking of Jihad in Southeast Asia, in Southeast Asia Over Three Generations, ed. James Siegel and Audrey Kahin Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University; Abinales, Patricio N Making Mindanao: Cotabato and Davao in the 2

3 they have been dealt with erratically both by the Spanish and American colonial states, and more recently by the Manila-centric independent Philippine state. Since World War II, state-sponsored schemes to relieve population pressure in the central and northern Philippines led millions of Christians to migrate to Mindanao, creating a lopsided inversion in the ethno-political and religious landscape. The history of what are currently classified as less developed and developed countries is testimony to the failure of many pre-colonial, colonial and modern independent states to arrange their ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse populations into loyal subjects that would pay taxes and in turn receive some symbolic, protective, or concessionary demands. In the modern era and before, the state seeks to rationalize and standardize complex social landscapes into transparent, legible and administratively simple units that are hopeful, but often disastrous, experiments that fail their local residents. Political scientist James Scott has written of the fiascos that have followed from these well-intended efforts of states through time to instill discipline and prevent rebellion among their ethnic, religious and linguistically diverse groups so as to turn them into loyal subjects. 2 He notes that the most tragic state-engineered schemes have four characteristics: 1) the administrative ordering of nature and society; 2) a high modernist ideology predicated on the simplistic assumptions of a controlled micro-order, and promoted by powerful officials and entrepreneurs allied with the state; 3) an authoritarian state apparatus willing and able to use their full coercive power to enforce their plans, typically in times of war and Formation of the Philippine Nation-State. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University; Thomas McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels Berkeley, Ca: University of California Press; Cesar Majul, The Contemporary Muslim Movement in the Philippines Berkeley, CA: Mizan Press; Peter Gowing and Robert McAmis, eds. The Muslim Filipinos: their History, Society and Contemporary Problems Manila: Solidaridad; Patricio Diaz, Understanding Mindanao Conflict Davao: MindaNews Publications; Marites Danguilan Vitug and Glenda Gloria, Under the Crescent Moon; Rebellion in Mindanao Quezon City: Ateneo Center for Social Policy and Public Affairs and the Institute for Popular Democracy. 2 James Scott, Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 3

4 revolution; and 4) a weak or inactive civil society that is susceptible to alternative, sometimes radically different visions of their future. In the southern Philippines, the history of failed state schemes to map a homogenous ethnic and administrative plan testify to the strength of resistance by indigenous peoples who once ruled Mindanao through various independent Sultanates and federated states allied with local tribal groups in enormously complex and evolving ways. Since the 1970s, Bangsamoro outrage over the loss of their original political autonomy and ancestral lands has grown, and a chaotic situation wherein cattle-rustling, illegal logging, drug trafficking, kidnap-for-ransom gangs, separatist and communist movements among the many indigenous, or Muslim and Lumad peoples, flourishes. Tragically, the 1996 establishment of the ARMM has not led to peace or development, and the area is in desperate need of humanitarian aid. Since the 1970s, more than 120,000 people have died in this long-running conflict. The leadership of the 12,000 members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is set to resume peace negotiations with the national government soon, while an international monitoring team composed of members of various Muslim states (including Malaysia) watch over an uncertain military situation in Mindanao. Corruption abounds at both local and national levels, and the resilient desire of the Bangsamoro people for self-determination speaks to the limits of state power to forcibly transform diversity at the periphery into a homogenous, desired, and compliant conformity. The fear over the loss of cultural identities, the lack of trust, and the feeling of unconnectedness to the national regime among the peoples within the Bangsamoro social mosaic suggest that complexity and open-endedness will be the hallmarks of any sustained peace in the region. In this kind of impoverished, alienated and neglected environment, as well as throughout similar areas of Southeast Asia, externally funded or educated Muslim missionaries that propagate a religious 4

5 ideology promoting hate, intolerance and other human rights violations toward non-muslims and moderate Muslims have found an audience. Domestic mutations of international terrorism, from Abu Sayyaf to the Al Qaeda-affiliated Jemaah Islamiya, have developed that threaten peace and stability in the entire Southeast Asian region. 3 Mindanao is not alone in its stormy historical relationship between its diverse minority Muslim peoples and the Roman Catholic-dominated state at large. Southern Thailand faces a centuries-old, Muslim minority and Theravada Buddhist majority ethnic and religious rift that threatens to undermine Thailand s amazing story of economic success and growth. Unfortunately, economic success in this country is mostly a Thai Buddhist story, not a Thai Muslim Malay story in the poverty-stricken south. Narathiwat, Yala, and Pattani particularly have seen recent violence that pits Thai Muslim Malays against representatives of the larger Buddhist state, Sangha, police and military. Ethnic difference, economic neglect as well as religious minority status can persistently concretize separatist movements on the periphery over long periods in situations of governmental repression and internal fragmentation. Pattani once was home to one of the most important Sultanates in the Malay world, and here the historical loss of power and the difference in cultural identity between Muslim Malays and the Thai Buddhists bear striking resemblance to Muslim Mindanao. 4 Southern Thailand s long tradition of separatist movements, such as the Pattani United Liberation Organization and the Pattani National Liberation Front, have once again 3 Zachary Abuza, Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror Boulder, CO: Lynne Reiner;. Kit Collier, A Carnival of Crime : the Enigma of the Abu Sayyaf Paper presented at the 56 th annual Association for Asian Studies conference, San Diego, CA.; R.J. May, The Moro conflict and the Philippine experience with Muslim autonomy Paper for CCPCSAP Workshop, Canberra, Australia. 4 W.K. Che Man, Muslim Separatism: the Moros of Southern Philippines and the Malays of Southern Thailand Singapore: Oxford University Press; Chaiwat Satha-Anand, Islam and Violence: a Case Study of Violent Events in the Four Southern Provinces, Thailand, Florida: University of South Florida Monographs in Religion and Public Policy; M. Ladd Thomas, Political Violence in the Muslim Provinces of Southern Thailand Occasional Papers No.28. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. 5

6 been re-ignited and mobilized, and militaristic abuse has fanned the flames. As the bodies pile up, so too do the list of grievances. Borne out of the ashes of their smoldering discontent, more and more Thai Muslim Malays, who constitute less than 5% of the country s population, are seeking affinity with an outside, extremist Islamic message of violence while the urban, upwardly mobile, Bangkok-oriented Thai are finding fewer points of connections and sympathy with individuals who used to be seen as fellow Thai. State, ethnic and religious turmoil are endemic in Indonesia. The largest Muslim country in the world, it has a history of many moderate Muslim organizations such as Nahdlatul Ulama that engage in civil society and social welfare work. At the far corners of the country, however, separatist movements have developed in resistance to state control and continue to thrive and arise. It was only by means of a police state that the colonial Dutch were able to maintain any semblance of control over the fiercely independent and devoutly Muslim area of Aceh in northern Sumatra, and the new Indonesian state continues to rely on the old colonial approach. Recent years have witnessed bombings and violence by Muslim groups such as Laskar Jihad and Jemaah Islamiyah in different parts of the nation such as Jakarta, Bali and eastern Indonesia. The bloodshed between Muslims and Christians that erupted in recent years in places like West Kalimantan, Poso and Ambon, though often spawned by carpet-bagging radicals, has sadly become personalized and local. These brief examples show that Southeast Asia possesses many internal challenges between its different religious and ethnic populations and centralized state strategies designed to control and mold them by means of uniform and Western-derived policies of rational political authority. Resurgent ethnicity and the struggle between radical Islam and the West reflect evershifting alliances and present formidable challenges for policymakers, ordinary citizens, and 6

7 scholars alike. Long home to moderate Muslim peoples, economic dislocation and the unevenness of development have made the region susceptible to externally-derived and sometimes violent religious ideologies that exploit the different local and competing versions of state, morality and social justice. In the ARMM of the southern Philippines, far from the Tagalog-dominated capital of Manila, decades of war, rebellion and government indifference toward the plight of the indigenous Bangsamoro peoples have created a blueprint for human disaster. Despite the fact that the ARMM consists of the five poorest provinces in the entire country, the national government appropriates only a shocking 5.6 billion of the 980 billion annual Philippine budget to this region. The rehabilitation and rescue of the ARMM requires massive international and national assistance in the areas of religion, education, community development and political process. While the traditional and conventional approaches of the Philippine state to resolving conflict in Mindanao have failed, capacity building and the strengthening of public institutions, civil rights, and democratic political processes can assist in the rehabilitation process. Foreign and national funds for poverty alleviation, development and educational building blocks can help answer the Bangsamoro desire for social justice and national recognition of all that has happened and why, in ways that may help forge stronger majority-minority state relations in the future. In order for there to be a lasting peace in Mindanao, it is critical that the Bangsamoro peoples be given an opportunity to devise new ways to effectively and constructively interact with the Catholic Philippine government. Malaysia is a key player in the region and can take a leading role by providing specific and unique Southeast Asian solutions to specific and unique Southeast Asia problems. These problems, if not dealt with quickly, easily mushroom into global problems of concern. Malaysia s central importance in the region is not simply that it has tailored skill sets to deal with social and 7

8 ethnic problems in Southeast Asia. Perhaps more importantly, wisdom and advice dispensed from a regional actor carry much more weight than the same message delivered from the West. Historically and today, Malaysia was and is a regional hub in the world economy. It is again perfectly positioned to function as entrepot, this time in the marketplace of ideas for solving longrunning conflicts in the region. Its current leading role in mediating peace negotiations between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the government of the Republic of the Philippines is ample testimony to its desire to reach out more broadly as a political player committed to peace in the region and to serve as one potential model of an Islamic, secular and ethnically plural democracy in Southeast Asia. REFERENCES Abinales, Patricio N. Making Mindanao: Cotabato and Davao in the Formation of the Philippine Nation-State Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University. Abuza, Zachary Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Collier, Christopher (Kit) A Carnival of Crime : the Enigma of the Abu Sayyaf Paper presented at the 56 th annual Association for Asian Studies conference, San Diego, CA. Diaz, Patricio P. Understanding Mindanao Conflict Davao, Philippines: MindaNews Publications. Gowing, Peter and Robert McAmis, eds. The Muslim Filipinos: Their History, Society and Contemporary Problems Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House. McKenna, Thomas M. Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Majul, Cesar The Contemporary Muslim Movement in the Philippines Berkeley, CA: Mizan Press. 8

9 Man, W.K. Che Muslim Separatism: the Moros of Southern Philippines and the Malays of Southern Thailand Singapore: Oxford University Press. May, R.J. The Moro Conflict and the Philippine Experience with Muslim Autonomy Paper for CCPCSAP Workshop, Canberra, Australia. Satha-Anand,Chaiwat Islam and Violence: a Case Study of Violent Events in the Four Southern Provinces, Thailand, Florida: University of South Florida Monographs in Religion and Public Policy. Scott, James Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sidel, John Other Schools, Other Pilgrimages, Other Dreams: the Making and Unmaking of Jihad in Southeast Asia, in Southeast Asia Over Three Generations, ed. James Siegel and Audrey Kahin Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University. Thomas, M. Ladd Political Violence in the Muslim Provinces of Southern Thailand Occasional Papers No.28. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Vitug, Marites Danguilan and Glenda Gloria Under the Crescent Moon; Rebellion in Mindanao Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo Center for Social Policy and Public Affairs and the Institute for Popular Democracy. 9