Chandra Muzaffar is a Malaysian political scientist, and an Islamic reformist and activist.[1] He has written on civilization dialogue, human rights, Malaysian politics and international relations. (wikipedia)
I feel sorry for Anwar, but I feel even sorrier for the country. I feel sad for the system of justice for this country, what it has come to,
A lot of Muslims feel hemmed in. They feel that they've been pushed against the wall ... and they responded to it by supporting parties that waved the Islamic flag,
what we actually want to do is let the foreigners think for us. This is what we see in the rich Middle East countries where foreigners are actually doing all the thinking and they are the ones running the show.
This would be against the grain with the way Islam is practiced in this region. I think Malaysian Muslims, like Indonesian Muslims and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, are not comfortable with this sort of very rigid, dogmatic approach to religion.
The findings are not at all surprising. This is partly because ethnic boundaries are real in our society and almost every sphere of public life is linked to ethnicity in one way or another.
The nation wants him to act. We cannot sweep these things under the carpet. These issues are complex and they seem to be the consequence of a certain mindset prevalent within the religious bureaucracy.
Unlike the other Muslim countries caught in the eye of the storm, Malaysia is free of the hegemonic consequences of big powers that are experienced by Afghanistan and Iraq for example.
What can actually lead to problems is the people around those two leaders. They can try to raise the temperature.
It's back to square one. I don't think the situation is getting better.
