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How political Islam is gaining ground in Southeast Asia despite the fall of Islamic State
Derwin Pereira says the battlefield defeat of Islamic State should not be cause for complacency as political Islam makes inroads into Southeast Asia. Upcoming elections in Indonesia and Malaysia are test cases for the rise of the religious right
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The results of upcoming elections in Malaysia and Indonesia will provide a scorecard for the inroads made by political Islam in Southeast Asia’s two key Muslim-majority countries. In Malaysia, which will hold a general election this year, the standard-bearer of political Islam is the Parti Islam SeMalaysia. In Indonesia, which will have its presidential election next year, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) represents Islam in the political mainstream. But also powerful is the Front Pembela Islam, a vigilante group which registers its presence mostly through demonstrations and intimidation.
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Political Islam has been on the rise outside the electoral sphere as well. The Indonesian province of Aceh, which implements sharia law as part of an autonomy deal that ended a secessionist movement, has become a model for groups in other regions. The Sultanate of Brunei has declared itself an Islamic state.
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The religious insurgency in the southern Philippines, which saw the capture of Marawi by fighters aligned to Islamic State last year, revealed the violent power of political religiosity. Given that Southeast Asia is home to a large proportion of the global Muslim population, transregional alliances formed between Southeast Asian terror groups and IS represent the possibility of religious warfare in the Middle East spilling over into Southeast Asia. The battlefield defeat of IS should not lull anyone into complacency. As a guerilla group, its scattered warriors remain a threat to nations, particularly the home states to which they are expected to return.
The growth of political Islam is undermining the very vocabulary of the public sphere in Southeast Asia
What unites the different manifestations of political Islam, ranging from electoral participation and street politics to outright terrorist war, is the idea of the capture of state power and its use to implement religious law. If there is a tussle, it is between the parliamentary and insurrectionary paths to power. However, the political outcome would be similar in both cases: the establishment of confessional states that could be expected to disenfranchise not only non-Muslims but also Muslims who owe national allegiance to secular democratic polities.
Indeed, what is frightening is how the growth of political Islam is undermining the very vocabulary of the public sphere in Southeast Asia. Words such as “liberalism”, “pluralism” and “democracy” have become suspect among even mainstream politicians, to say nothing of “secularism” or “socialism”. Liberals, pluralists and democrats are finding themselves in the defensive position of having to work their way delicately around the discursive space that the religious right has captured.
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The rise of political Islam has generated countervailing forces in other religions. The popularity of a Thai Buddhist monk is a case in point. He rose to prominence after urging Buddhists across Thailand to burn down a mosque as punishment for every monk killed in the insurgency in the country’s south. He has made common cause with a monk in Myanmar famous for his anti-Muslim views. Given the violent dispossession of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya population last year, the potential of religious intolerance to dismantle the known order is immense.
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