Introduction

Since independence, the Malaysian economy has posted impressive rates of growth, in the process undergoing important structural changes (see Table 7.1). Neither the growth of the economy nor its structural transformation, from a predominantly agricultural economy to a manufacturing and service based one, would have been possible without the sustained expansion and modernization of the country's infrastructure.

This chapter describes the development of infrastructure in Malaysia. Infrastructure comprises a wide spectrum of physical facilities and services, ranging from the various types of transport facilities to utilities such as telecommunications, electricity, sewage and water supply. Most types of infrastructure have the common characteristics of being both capital-intensive and long-lasting. There are also important differences between them in terms of industry structure.

Some, for example, are near natural monopolies whilst in others competitive markets are possible. Also infrastructure such as roads and telecommunications are network industries, whereas ports and airports are location specific. Because the sector is very broad and complex, the discussion, of necessity, is broad and addresses crosscutting and sector-wide issues without going into the specifics of each subsector. Yet another complication with regard to infrastructure in Malaysia arises from the fact that the country comprises three separate physical and political entities. The component parts of the country — Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak — are very different in terms of land area, level of development and population size. The regional disparities render discussion of the country's infrastructure problems and policies somewhat problematic.

In this chapter only some of the important issues pertaining to infrastructure development in Malaysia are addressed. Among the issues discussed are:

1. • Investment in infrastructure development and the consequent growth of the country's infrastructure stock;

2. • The sector objectives and strategies of the government; and

3. • The current and emerging infrastructure challenges.

Investment in Infrastructure

At independence in 1957, Malaya inherited a fairly good set of infrastructure facilities for its immediate needs, albeit highly concentrated along the west coast and also dependent on Singapore for port and airport facilities. Development of infrastructure, especially in Peninsular Malaysia, from 1957 up to 1965 mostly kept abreast of growth in demand: this is borne out by the fact that there were few instances of severe infrastructure shortages or breakdowns even if, as earlier, the spread and coverage of infrastructure was uneven between different regions of the country.

The state-religion relationship in Malaysia is a complex matter wherein all non-Islamic religious relations are mediated by the state's preferential relationship with Islam, as befitting Islam's constitutional status as the religion of the country. Islam's status has meant that the Malaysian government is obliged and empowered to regulate and administer the Islamic religious sphere while staying out of any direct involvement in the non-Islamic religious sphere. As a result, administrative decisions involving Islam have been made largely without considering the interests of other religions. It should be borne in mind that such decisions are not necessarily intentional or by design. Quite often, it is simply that the concerns of other religions do not fall within the ambit of the government, legally speaking. However, the practical effect of the government's involvement in the Islamic religious sphere has been the increasing intrusion by the government into the non-Islamic religious sphere. The intrusion of the government in the religious and social spheres of the non-Muslims has provoked a response by the latter to circumvent such intrusion. In this chapter, I will be discussing the response by the minority Christian community in Malaysia.

ETHNICITY AND RELIGION IN MALAYSIA

One of the major projects of all post-colonial states is the quest for a national identity that seeks to transform its diverse population into a modern nation. However, as Geertz (1973) had noted almost fifty years ago, the state's attempt at nation-building will inevitably run into the resistance of primordial sentiments (traditional identities and loyalties) that have a more concrete reality than that of the abstract notion of nationstate. What results from this encounter is a complex interplay between the state's nation-building project, and these traditional identities and loyalties that would deeply affect the political, social, and economic structures of a given post-colonial society. Malaysia has not escaped this fate.

Therefore, the Malaysian state's project that aimed at wholeness is mired with the contingencies of a plural society that reflects a basic division between the indigenous Malays and non-Malays. One needs to look no further on this issue than at the Federal Constitution of Malaysia. As with other modern constitutions, it explicitly carries the modern notions of citizenship. Interestingly, the same document also defines who is a Malay, a definition that carries with it certain social and political privileges.

Malaysia depends heavily on imported labour. As of 2010, migrant workers comprised around 16 per cent of the country's total labour force. The proportion of foreign workers in Malaysia's labour force has been growing steadily over recent decades. In 1990, foreign workers amounted to less than 250,000 while in 2007, their numbers soared to more than 2 million (Asian Development Bank Institute 2012). In July 2008, 35 per cent of employers registered with the Ministry of Manpower employed migrant workers (International Organization for Migration 2010). The country's reliance on imported labour has been said to be a result of the global restructuring of production and its absorption into the global economy (Kaur 2004). Moreover, the country's dependence on foreign labour has been tied to its industries being labour intensive owing to the lack of technological innovation (Azizah 2001).

Migrant workers have been a much needed labour source critical to Malaysia's relatively strong economic growth in the last two decades. In 2010, Malaysia's economy grew by 7.2 per cent because of a recovery in exports and stronger domestic demand, in particular investment, in spite of the 2008 global economic crisis. Although the economic growth rate was moderate at 5.1 per cent in 2011, nonetheless, the economy expanded (Asian Development Bank 2011). In particular, strong growth has been recorded in the manufacturing and plantation sectors. While these sectors have boosted the country's economy, they have also been dominated mostly by foreign workers because of their cheap labour (Azizah 2001).

The employment of migrant workers in the country, however, has been a complex terrain. While on the one hand, the government has acknowledged the demand for these workers by Malaysian employers, resulting in its having to carefully and strategically regulate the import of labour, on the other, it has had to stem the reliance on imported labour by discouraging employers to hire migrant workers. The strong presence of migrant workers in the country has also led to a backlash from the public who blame migrant workers for the worsening security in the country. But the hard facts on being particularly a low-skilled or unskilled worker in Malaysia have been bleak. Amidst these complex issues, the Malaysian state has had to confront the humanitarian concerns of these migrant workers employed on its shores.

INTRODUCTION

Home to the world's largest Muslim population, Indonesia would seem an unlikely destination for a Christian revival. The rapid growth of Pentecostal congregations across the archipelago in recent years, however, reveals just such a development. Today, Indonesia not only nourishes numerous vibrant Pentecostal communities, it also accommodates dozens of auditorium-size mega-churches filled with thousands of worshippers in several Muslimmajority cities. The historians Aritonang and Steenbrink suggest that among the 17 million Indonesian Protestants, at least 6 million are Pentecostals, including those who are still registered in mainline churches (2008, pp. 882–83). In its celebration of the Holy Spirit's gifts — speaking in tongues, healing, and prophesying — Pentecostalism is particularly successful in converting mainline Protestants and Catholics (Chao 2011; Nagata 2005; Robinson 2005). Over the last twenty years, almost in parallel to the children of Javanist Muslims turning into consciously orthodox Muslims, the offspring of Indonesian mainline ethnic church members have embraced the identity of born-again Christians in great numbers.

Charismatic churches are growing apace in Indonesia amidst rising tensions between religious communities. In West Java during the last decade, animosities between certain hardline Islamizers and aggressive evangelicals have triggered attacks against churches (Jones 2010, p. 1). On the other end of the archipelago, Pentecostalism has been a major rallying point among the Dani of Irian Jaya in opposition to the rising number of Muslim migrants (Farhadian 2007, p. 117). In 2011, a suicide bomber struck the Bethel Full Gospel Church in Surakarta in Central Java — a Pentecostal church affiliated with the best-selling author Rick Warren's megachurch in the United States — and injured 28 people (Kumar 2011). In the same region earlier that year, extremists had vandalized three churches in retaliation for the allegation that local Pentecostal churches were converting Muslims.

Despite these attacks, evangelical Christian and Pentecostal communities continue to find ways to erect churches throughout the country. As the renowned Indonesian evangelical preacher Stephen Tong commented defiantly when his new mega-church opened in Jakarta in 2008, “I've built a bigger one than all the destroyed churches combined” (Ng 2008). But it is difficult to predict whether the erection of megachurches would incite more anti-Christian sentiments.

INTRODUCTION

Indonesia today can aptly be described as bipolar. It is the rising star of the international finance and business communities in Asia, with growth and other macroeconomic indicators attracting ever-increasing investment and attendant international clout. On the other hand, twin dark clouds of corruption and the tenuous status of religious minorities hang over the bright horizon in ominous contrast. In this chapter, we look at the factors underlying the increasing precariousness of religious minorities in Indonesia, we make a case for why the stance of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah matter, and we examine both official and non-official positions of the two mass-based organizations on both Islamic and non-Islamic minorities in Indonesia. We conclude that Indonesian society is becoming increasingly polarized, and that as such, NU and Muhammadiyah's mission of occupying a “middle path” is increasingly important. The two organizations navigate the terrain of the “middle path” differently due to their contrasting structure and internal culture; however, they are both important players in the ongoing discourse on religious freedom in Indonesia.

There is no question that the problem of its treatment of religious minorities is threatening Indonesia's status as the “golden-haired boy” of democratic reform which is often touted by international observers and ministry of Foreign Affairs officials alike.1 Recent violent attacks against Shi'a minorities in East Java, Hindu minorities in Sumatra, the forced closure of churches in Bekasi and Bogor, and the brutal murders of three Ahmadis in Cikeusik, West Java, have called into question whether the Indonesian state has the ability to provide the most basic level of security to its citizens, much less fulfil rights to freedom of worship accorded by the 1945 Constitution. Although Islam is the religion of the vast majority of Indonesia's citizens (88 per cent), there are significant Protestant (6 per cent), Catholic (3 per cent), and Hindu (3 per cent) minorities, in addition to followers of Buddhism, Confucianism, and other beliefs.2 In Indonesia's recent history, mainstream Muslim leaders have been amongst the advocates for religious minority rights in Indonesia; however, a combination of lack of state ability or will to protect these rights, and increasing society-level intolerance has resulted in their erosion in recent years.

INTRODUCTION

Indonesia is a religiously plural state. Freedom of faith is constitutionally granted — at least concerning the six officially acknowledged religions. Pluralism in Indonesia thus not only implies diversity, but also the “right of every religious … community to be itself and maintain its own traditions, practices and attitudes” (Sharpe 2005, p. 43). However, as recent acts of religious intolerance show — be it the forced closure of Christian churches, attacks on Ahmadiyah Muslims or, earlier, the “religious war” in the Moluccas — religious pluralism is often at stake and constantly needs to be renegotiated and put into action again. During the authoritarian Soeharto regime, any tensions, conflicts or media reporting having to do with issues of ethnicity, religion, race or class (SARA) were kept in check or suppressed. After his stepping down in May 1998, SARA tensions all over the country exploded or were taken as a welcome excuse to instigate conflicts and mobilize local people for violence. This chapter aims to outline two ways of how Indonesians in the Moluccas try to cope with inter-religious clashes: one being focused on adat, that is tradition and customary law, as a seemingly neutral means to reintegrate people, the other being focused on religious dialogue. The contribution intends to deconstruct the simplified image of a harmonious traditional past versus religious strife that neglects the diverse and complex processes of negotiation in which the two domains — religion and adat — have always been involved in.

The Moluccas are part of Eastern Indonesia, a region that stands out against the rest of the country due to its (colonial) history, its former importance as spice granary, and its religious composition (Bräuchler and Erb 2011). In Muslim-majority Indonesia, the Christian share of the population in Eastern Indonesia is substantial; in some of its provinces Christians even constitute the majority. According to recent government statistics, the Moluccan population is almost 50 per cent Muslim and 50 per cent Christian (comprising Protestants and Catholics) (Badan Pusat Statistik Propinsi Maluku dan Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Daerah 2010). Spending some time in the Moluccas, it is obvious that religion very much determines daily life. The majority of people is, one way or the other, on a regular basis busy with social or praying activities organized by churches or mosques. This has a strong impact on social networks in the Moluccas.

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, various scholars have drawn attention to the way traditional definitions of citizenship based exclusively on the framework of the nation-state are being recalibrated under the forces of global capitalism with its pervasive space–time compression and speeding up of transnational flows. James Holston and Arjun Appadurai (1999, p. i), for instance, have suggested that “cities are both a strategic arena for the reformulations of citizenship and a stage on which these processes find expression in collective violence”. To be sure, for the last two or three centuries, the historic primacy of urban citizenship has been incrementally dismantled and replaced by the imaginary and ideological frame of the nation-state (cf. Anderson 2006 [1983]). Nevertheless, in more recent times, it is more often the case that:

Said differently, the public spaces of a country's major cities have become microcosms of the nation-state where citizenship issues of belonging are re-imagined, mis-recognized, played out, and contested. On a similar note, AbdouMaliq Simone understands a central feature of a city — what he calls its “city-ness” — in terms of its cosmopolitan “crossroad” attributes. As he puts it, cities are places “where people take the opportunity to change each other around by virtue of being in that space, getting rid of the familiar ways of and plans of doing things and finding new possibilities by virtue of whatever is gathered there” (2010, p. 192). In comparison to small rural agricultural settlements, cities are seen as dynamic places where the potentialities for cosmopolitan encounters are multiplied manifold.

Be that as it may, under certain historical conditions, cities can become un-cosmopolitan or de-cosmopolitanized. For instance, critical scholars have tended to view contemporary urban citizenships in globalizing modern cities to be increasingly fragmented and splintered.

Introduction

The Malaysian Federation covers around 330,803 square kilometres of land between 1° and 7° latitude north of the equator at longitude 100° and 119° east. Comprising the peninsular states, and Sabah and Sarawak on the north of Borneo Island, with the two regions separated by the South China Sea, it has 4,675 kilometre of coastline. It is amongst the top twenty countries for the most endangered amphibian, mammal, and conifer species (United Nations 2011, pp. 111–12), providing the only habitat to certain species. Malaysia is known for its tropical timber. It is a leading exporter of palm oil. Besides other industrial crops, food and other agricultural produce, it exports tin, crude petroleum, and liquefied natural gas. Most of its petroleum resources are in its continental shelf.

Malaysia has a population of 28.3 million, with a favourable population density of 85,400 persons per square kilometre. It has used its natural resources to achieve enviable socio-economic development. The government has launched ten five-year development plans, which have been guided by longer term policies formulated in response to national and international socio-economic conditions as the country is increasingly globalized.

Similar to the international community, Malaysia has been concerned about the environment and sustainable development. Malaysia's economic successes have increased expectations of continuing economic growth and its accompanying pressures on the environment. Malaysian official inclusion of social concerns exerts further demands. Its traditional community participation in the village is evolving into national and international networks with improving electronic connectivity, and the necessary government consultation with the public compounds environmental challenges. The current uncertain world economic outlook further exacerbates the urgency.

This chapter examines the state of the Malaysian environment and activities affecting it. It explores government policies and programmes. It takes stock of the constraints influencing Malaysia's achievements before exploring strategies for achieving inclusive sustainable development. The analysis is based on the aspirations for economic growth, equity, socio-political development, and sound management of the natural environment. It emphasizes human well-being over the generations, and the environment is taken as the means towards this end.

Socio-Economic Background

Malaysia had a per capita gross national income (GNI) of RM26,175 in 2010 (or US$11,800 at US$1 = RM2.3624). Its gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaged over 6 per cent for 1970–2000 and approximately 5 per cent for 2000–10.

Debates on religious freedom and religious minorities have become more intense in post-New Order Indonesia. This is partly attributed to the increasing attention given to the international human rights discourse in the country's constitutional-legal framework of human rights. During the period of constitutional reforms (1999–2002), a new chapter on Human Rights, which includes provisions on freedom of religion or belief, was inserted into the 1945 Constitution. As noted by some scholars, this new chapter in the Constitution largely reflects the provisions contained in major international human rights documents. Moreover, a number of key international human rights covenants, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which contains international norms on freedom of religion or belief, were ratified by the Indonesian government, politically and legally signifying its commitment to international human rights law. This led to significant questions and debates about how and to what extent the largely secular-liberal international human rights discourse should be interpreted and applied within the Indonesian constitutional, political, and cultural context.

These questions featured prominently in the recent public and legal debate on Law No. 1/PNPS/1965 on the Prevention of Abuse of Religion and/or Blasphemy (the “Blasphemy Law”). The Law, which prohibits and criminalizes religious interpretations or practices considered “deviant” from the core tenets of six “official” religions in Indonesia (Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism), was recently reviewed by the Indonesian Constitutional Court. The application for the judicial review of the Law was submitted to the Constitutional Court in late 2009 by the Religious Freedom Advocacy Team (Tim Advokasi Kebebasan Beragama), a coalition of human rights lawyers and activists. The Team requested the Court to repel the Law arguing that, among other things, it contradicted the provisions on freedom of religion or belief in the Indonesian Constitution and internationally recognized human rights law. In April 2010, after an intense public debate and a long series of court hearings, the Court decided that there were insufficient grounds to revoke the Law, declaring it valid. Contrary to the Religious Freedom Advocacy Team's arguments, the Court found no contradiction between the Law and the Indonesian constitutional provisions on religious freedom, suggesting that Indonesia has its own unique conception of religious freedom.

INTRODUCTION

Malaysia, and the greater Malay world, has a rich history of syncretic religious and cultural traditions that have seen disparate theological norms and theories wedded with culturally inflected actions and practices. Islam in the Malay world, accordingly, has a rich syncretic and pluralistic history (Ellen 1983). Traders and Sufi missionaries (Islamic scholars of the Muslim mystical and spiritual tradition) are credited with bringing Islam to the Malay world from India, China, Persia, and the Arab peninsula and as such introducing a range of interpretations as well as practices in a diffuse manner that only slowly and regionally displaced earlier practices of animism, Hinduism, and Buddhism (Federspiel 2007). Sufism is attuned to otherness and a communion with the divine that goes beyond prayer or orthodox Islamic praxis and thus is seen as instrumental in the process of conversion from other spiritual traditions to Islam. The mode of transmission is debated with some arguing that Islam penetrated the region often through elites who acted as advisors to royal households (Milner 1982), whereas others focus on the emancipatory power of Islam for ordinary Malays (Wertheim 1956). Another debate focuses on whether it was traders or Sufi missionaries who were the first and most important for Islam's successful entrée into the region (van Leur 1955; Johns 1961). One moment many agree upon as pivotal is the conversion of the ruler of Malacca in the fifteenth century (even if debates still surround whether the first or second ruler converted and precisely when). Upon the ruler's conversion, his subjects would also convert; however, religious praxis and cosmological thinking were often syncretic, merged, and connected by adherents, religious leaders, and rulers. Thus, a long history of religious pluralism and hybridity continued in the Malay world with the advent of Islam.

Over time, Islam in the Malay world became interwoven with local adat (custom) into regionally distinct traditions that often accommodated pre-existing beliefs, rituals, and customs. These processes have produced an abundance of locally distinct customary practices that complement Islam (Sharifah Zaleha Syed Hassan 2000). There continues a long and sometimes fierce debate about the impact of Islam on the Malay world, its rulers, and people.

Islam in Indonesia is highly contested. Contesting Islam involves grappling with meanings of religious texts and of relating such texts to contemporary social and political conditions. Discourses on the meanings of the Qur'an intersect with readings of Indonesia's history and current trajectory. The fall of the Soeharto-led government in 1998 facilitated much openness in freedom of expression. The press, for years stifled under strict censorship and practices of self-censorship, became more vocal and critical: there was room for all sorts of voices to compete in debates of national, regional, and religious importance. Islam and expressions of being Muslim became increasingly debated. The manner in which Islam is invoked in the discourses on Ahmadiyah and freedom of religion is the subject of this chapter.

The process of democratization that emerged in 1998 was seen as a highly positive break from an authoritarian and highly centralized recent past. Decentralization, democratization, and a liberal press, however, also opened up space for intense conflicts to emerge. Some of the voices that have gained prominence in the post-New Order era have been highly anti-democratic and illiberal. This casts a question mark over Indonesia's reputation for fostering a supposedly “tolerant Islam”. Muhammad Ali, for example, writes, “this era of political openness became a political opportunity for Muslim radicalism. Islamic hard-liners […] came to the surface and became active” (Ali 2005, p. 3). Elsewhere, recent yearly reports on religious life in Indonesia have concluded rather negatively that acts of intolerance are increasing and that there are rising problems of religious harmony between members of different religious groups (Bagir et al. 2012; The Wahid Institute 2011).

A reading of the ongoing cases and controversies surrounding Ahmadi communities and Ahmadi faith is necessary in order to gain a deeper understanding of how public debates on Islam and religious freedom are changing and developing. This chapter draws on material from the mainstream liberal media as well as from texts that seek to condemn liberal thought.

INTRODUCTION

On 30 October 2008, Indonesia's Pornography Law (No. 44 of 2008) was passed after much controversy. The Bill was supported by a loose coalition of conservative Islamist groups and Islamic parties, including MUI (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, Indonesia's Council of Ulama, or religious teachers), which issued an official statement, endorsing the immediate passage of the Bill and more radical groups such as FPI (Front Pembela Islam, the Islamic Defenders Front). Despite the fact that the Criminal Code contains articles, which could be used to charge pornography, but which were not being properly enforced, the Islamic party PKS (Partai Keadilan Sejahtera, the Prosperity and Justice Party), supported by a number of other political parties, was keen to introduce a special Pornography Law, as a means of enforcing Islamic morality throughout Indonesian society. PKS's hopes for the Pornography Law were high. It stated that the Pornography Law would save current and future generations from moral depravity, that pornography is a deviation, and against Eastern culture (budaya ketimuran) (PKS 2006). In other words, Eastern culture was seen in oppositional terms to the “depraved West”. Conservative Muslims called on the state to implement laws for the whole community, Muslim or otherwise, which fitted their own standards of morality. The reference to “Eastern culture” can be seen as a way to broaden their Islamic standards to other Indonesians of different religions. As such, it was part of an attempt to incorporate, at a national level, more conservative Islamic values into Indonesian society in general and its legal system in particular.

The Bill was rejected by a broad coalition of liberal Muslims, religious minorities, feminists, and artists. The groups most vocal in opposition to the Bill were religious minorities (particularly the predominantly Hindu Balinese and the predominantly Christian Papuans), who opposed domination of Islamic values (Kearney 2006; Sawitri 2006); feminists, who were concerned that the Bill would restrict women's daily lives and choices of clothing and behaviour (Arivia 2006; Allen 2009); and artists, who worried that the Bill could lead to a new moral censorship (Lindsay 2008). Liberal-thinking Muslims in this loose coalition of activists who opposed the Bill (who also overlapped with the above categories, of course), included the late Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), former Chair of Nahdlatul Ulama and former President of Indonesia (Jakarta Post 2006b). Liberals tend to view morality and religious belief as personal issues.

In August 2012, a crowd of Sunni Muslims (Islam's largest denomination) attacked a community of minority Shiite Muslims in the Sampang regency on the island of Madura, part of East Java. They burned down dozens of houses belonging to Shiite members and killed two people. Views of what caused the violence differed greatly. Government officials declared the attacks to be rooted in a “family conflict” human rights activists held that the attack was carefully planned in advance and that a deep-seated mistrust towards members of the Sy'ia community concerning their religious beliefs was at the root of the Sy'ia–Sunni violence. They asserted that the violence was triggered by a group that had intended to stop a number of Shiite students from returning to their boarding school in the town of Bangil, East Java, after spending the holidays marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan at home. After the Shiite students had reported the threats to the local police, around 1,000 attackers burned down their village.

The assault evoked memories of a similar incident in late 2011, when the home and pesantren (local boarding school) of a Madurese Shiite leader by the name of Tajul Muluk were destroyed. Tajul had been facing accusations of preaching that Islam's holy book, the Qur'an, was not God's original scripture and that its true and final version would only be revealed to the Mahdi, the prophesied redeemer of Islam at the end of times. In response to the charges, the local branch of the Indonesian Ulama Council (Majelis Ulama Indonesia [MUI]) released a fatwa (legal ruling) declaring Tajul's teachings to be “deviant”. The local district court subsequently charged Tajil with “defamation of religion”, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

These two incidents took place against a backdrop of increasing religious segregation and intolerance in Indonesia. Various surveys suggest that an increasing number of people harbour feelings of resentment and suspicion towards people of different religious convictions, in particular if these happen to live in the same neighbourhood. The most recent survey (at the time of writing), publicized in October 2012, put that share at 67.8 per cent.