MUSINGS by MARINA MAHATHIR

Marina Mahathir is the daughter of former Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad. As with her father, she is not used to mincing words and not used to being pushed around; not used to being reticent. She writes a regular column in the Malaysian newspaper, Star. She really set the cat amongst the pigeons with a recent musing:

No cheer for Muslim women
"IN 1948, one of humankind’s most despicable ideas, apartheid, was made into law in South Africa where racial discrimination was institutionalised. Race laws touched every aspect of social life, including a prohibition of marriage between non-whites and whites, and the sanctioning of “white-only” jobs. Although there were 19 million blacks and only 4.5 million whites in South Africa, the majority population were forced to be second-class citizens in their homeland, banished to reserves and needing passports to travel outside them, even within their own country. It was only in 1990 that apartheid began to crumble and South Africans of all colours were finally free to live as equals in every way.

With the end of that racist system, people may be forgiven for thinking that apartheid does not exist anymore. While few countries practise any formal systems of discrimination, nevertheless you can find many forms of discrimination everywhere. In many cases, it is women who are discriminated against. In our country, there is an insidious growing form of apartheid among Malaysian women, that between Muslim and non-Muslim women.

We are unique in that we actively legally discriminate against women who are arguably the majority in this country, Muslim women. Non-Muslim Malaysian women have benefited from more progressive laws over the years while the opposite has happened for Muslim women.

For instance, since the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976, polygamy among non-Muslims was banned. Previously men could have as many wives as they wanted under customary laws. Men’s ability to unilaterally pronounce divorce on their wives was abolished and, in its place, divorce happens by mutual consent or upon petition by either spouse in an equal process where the grounds are intolerable adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion of not less than two years, and living separately for not less than two years. Compare that to the lot of Muslim women abandoned but not divorced by their husbands.

Other progressive reforms in the civil family law in the late 1990s were amendments to the Guardianship Act and the Distribution Act. The Guardianship of Infants Act 1961 was amended to provide for equal guardianship for both father and mother, rather than the previous provision where only the father was the primary guardian of the children. In contrast, the Islamic Family Law still provides for the father as the sole primary guardian of his children although the mother is now allowed to sign certain forms for her children under an administrative directive.

The Distribution Act 1958 was also amended to provide for equal inheritance for widows and widowers, and also granted children the right to inherit from their mothers as well as from their fathers. Under the newly proposed amendments to the Islamic Family Law, the use of gender-neutral language on the issue of matrimonial property is discriminatory on Muslim women when other provisions in the IFL are not gender-neutral. Muslim men may still contract polygamous marriages, may unilaterally divorce their wives for the most trivial of reasons and are entitled to double shares of inheritance.

These differences between the lot of Muslim women and non-Muslim women beg the question: do we have two categories of citizenship in Malaysia, whereby most female citizens have less rights than others? As non-Muslim women catch up with women in the rest of the world, Muslim women here are only going backwards. We should also note that only in Malaysia are Muslim women regressing; in every other Muslim country in the world, women have been gaining rights, not losing them."

Now, Malaysia is a wonderfully constituted mix of Malay, Indian, Chinese and other Southeast Asian people, cultures and religions, and has been for centuries. As a "modern nation", it is new, but as a rich, dynamic, diverse collection of mankind, it is quite ancient. As a modern nation, it takes the symbolism in its flag from the United States, and as an ancient one it assembles its religions from the Hindu, Buddhist, nativist and Muslim past, with the Muslims outnumbering the rest significantly. The Muslim leadership was none too please with Marina's Musings.

"Mahathir's "apartheid" accusation stung in a country which as a leader in the developing world saw itself at the forefront of the international campaign against racial segregation in South Africa.

The Muslim Professionals Forum (MPF) accused her of doing "a great disservice to a country praised by many as a model Muslim nation."

"Her prejudiced views and assumptions smack of ignorance of the objectives and methodology of the shari'a, and a slavish capitulation to western feminism's notions of women's rights, gender equality and sexuality," two female founding members of the forum, Farah Pang Abdullah and Siti Jamilah Sheikh Abdullah, said in a response." http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=\ForeignBureaus\archive\200603\FOR20060314a.html

The formal response by Farah Pang Abdullah and Siti Jamilah Sheikh Abdullah, founding members of the Muslim Professionals Forum, follows:

"Marina Mahathir likening Muslim women in Malaysia to black South Africans under apartheid as second-class citizens held back by discriminatory rules is completely ignorant of the reality on the ground and the Islamic Family Law (IFL) amendments.

An accurate and complete understanding of the IFL requires much more serious scrutiny than many are seemingly willing to give. Any study of the IFL must reference the primary sources of Islamic jurisprudence namely the Quran, the Hadiths (the authenticated traditions of His prophet), Ijma (consensus of the Muslim scholars) and Qiyas (analogies). It is completely unacceptable that views on any matter related to Islam be represented by anyone applying only their human opinions and benchmarks.

Mainstream Muslim NGOs upon substantiative research of the IFL Bill, have concluded that it does not violate the principles of the syariah laws. The Muslim Professionals Forum (MPF) led a delegation of Muslim NGOs to meet the minister for women, family and development on Feb 13 where we reaffirmed our support for her firmness in dealing with the controversies plaguing the IFL bill. We nonetheless pointed out a few "grey areas" in the bill which ought to be improved to ensure that no provisions could be interpreted or misconstrued as being discriminatory to women.

Truth, justice and equality has nothing to do with gender attributes. We must rise above the narrow sexism/feminism dialectics by embracing a theology in which the divine is truly gender neutral. It gifts humanity with a legal code and family norms which are rooted in the understanding that, the sexes are not equal but different, and will naturally gravitate towards roles which affirm rather than suppress their respective genius.

Muslim women in Malaysia are perfectly comfortable reconciling the injunctions of the syariah with modern life. We continue to play a prominent role in public life as high-ranking civil servants, in academia, in the corporate world, even in politics, something that our sisters in more "progressive Muslim" Morocco and Tunisia - that, among others, outlaw polygamy, ban the hijab and sanction social abortions - can only look on with envy.

We would like to reiterate our previous position, shared by other NGOs with popular mainstream support, that after a careful study the IFL is syariah compliant. The government's intention of bringing the Federal Territory's Islamic Family Law Act in line with that of other states is a positive move towards streamlining of this law in Malaysia, is deserving of support of Muslims and should be commended." http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/48292

The Middle Eastern Times reported the story this way:

"March 9, 2006 KUALA LUMPUR -- A climate of fear surrounds discussion of Islam in Malaysia, the daughter of former premier Mahathir Mohamad said on Thursday after making a scathing attack on the treatment of Muslim women in her country.

Leading social activist Marina Mahathir said that it was becoming difficult for anyone other than men with religious backgrounds to speak about Islam in Malaysia, where majority Muslims live alongside ethnic Chinese and Indians.

"This goes against the spirit of Islam. This sort of thing is what worries us, where the conservative voice is dominant and everyone else is afraid," she said. "So it's very scary," she added. "But if it's all shut up we'll find there's no more space at all and our lives will be taken over by some very conservative people."

Marina's comments came after delays in the publication of an article in which she compared the situation of Muslim women in Malaysia to that of South African blacks under apartheid.

"In our country, there is an insidious growing form of apartheid among Malaysian women, that between Muslim and non-Muslim women," she wrote for her regular Wednesday column in The Star daily, which has not yet published it.

Marina said that she was prompted to write the article amid outrage over legislation passed last year, which critics say will help Muslim men to take multiple wives and claim property after divorce.

Faced with a storm of protest, the government has agreed to put the Islamic Family Law on ice and subject it to a review.

"We are unique in that we actively legally discriminate against women who are arguably the majority in this country, Muslim women. Non-Muslim Malaysian women have benefited from more progressive laws over the years while the opposite has happened for Muslim women," the article said.

Marina said that her editors were concerned over the sensitive nature of the column, but that she expected it to be printed in Friday's newspaper.

"The main thing for me is that newspapers seem to be running a bit scared on any issue relating to religion, especially with all the issues relating to the cartoons," she said, referring to the Danish caricatures controversy.

"Islam is a religion that allows for a lot of dialogue and discussion but what's happening is that the space for dialogue and discussion is narrowing all the time."

The Star said that the editor responsible for handling Marina's article was too busy to deal with it at the time.

Malaysia's population of 25 million is dominated by some 60 percent Muslim Malays. Chinese and Indians make up 26 percent and 8 percent respectively and they are free to practice their religion and culture."

The UAE's (you know, of Dubai/US ports fame?) Khaleej Times, in its editorial, considered her remarks to be "irresponsible" and "unfortunate".

"Blame it on faith?
13 March 2006
MALAYSIA has been plunged into a fiery debate after Marina Mahathir, the outspoken daughter of former PM Mahathir Mohamed, compared the condition of Muslims women in her country to that of blacks in South Africa during Apartheid.

It's funny that this should come from Ms Mahathir considering it's her father who is known as the architect of modern Malaysia and who ruled the country for over two decades. If the condition of women is far from ideal in Malaysia, her father cannot escape responsibility for it.

Besides, and more importantly, if women are backward in Malaysia, it has nothing to do with their religion. As in some Arab countries, it is pre-Islamic customs and traditions, rather than religion that are responsible for women's status. However, women in this part of the world, Far East and Southeast Asia, are far ahead of their counterparts in the rest of the world. Women of Malay race, found in the neighbouring countries such as the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, have excelled in every field. Women rub shoulders with men in every sphere of activity. The [P]hilippines is led by a woman. Indonesia, Malaysia's Muslim neighbour, was not long ago led by a woman. Even in Malaysia, women have excelled in all areas. This is why it's so unreasonable on the part of Ms Mahathir to link Malaysian women's status to their religion. At a time when there are already enough misconceptions about Islam and Muslims, such an irresponsible remark by a Muslim woman can send a wrong message to the world. It’s unfortunate that a great faith that actually granted and recognised the just status of woman recognising her rights and which transformed her status in Arabian society should be blamed for something that has nothing to do with it."