WANT Muslim unity? Try secularism, suggests political scientist Wong Chin Huat. He looks at the war in Syria and Iraq between Sunnis and Shiites, and at parallels in Malaysia.
secularism
PR shies away from Islamic state issue
THE Nut Graph started posting six questions to 222 Members of Parliament (MP) in January 2010 for its MP Watch: Eye on Parliament project. The project — a likely first of its kind in Malaysia — aims to record MPs’ positions on key issues of democracy as well as provide MPs a platform for voters […]
What’s in a name?
Is Malaysia an Islamic or secular state? IF there is one enduring debate in Malaysia, it is whether this country is an Islamic or secular state. No less because successive prime ministers keep making declarations that it is an Islamic state to much public confusion. Islam is the official religion of the federation. But what […]
The role of intra-faith dialogue
We need more intra-faith dialogue (© arte_ram / sxc.hu) DISCUSSIONS on religious issues, or a lack thereof, are increasingly defining public policy and society in Malaysia. A few key words are enough to jog memories — the cow-head protest, the whipping sentence on Muslims for drinking alcohol, Christians and the word “Allah”, concert banning, and […]
Why secularism? Learning from Ireland
PICTURE a former British colony where the majority of people practise a religion that has become closely tied up both with national identity and with bitter anti-British sentiment. After a violent war for independence, the new state’s earliest leaders align themselves with the religion by censoring anything that upsets its hierarchy. A group of religious […]
Do secular laws benefit Muslims?
“IN order for me to embrace, fully and publicly, my African-American, feminist lesbian identity, I didn’t believe I could simultaneously embrace, fully and publicly, my Muslim identity,” Aishah Shahidah Simmons tells The Nut Graph. “But given all the repression I’ve faced as an African-American, feminist lesbian, I have so many privileges in the world as […]
