Speaking at the Asia-Pacific Women Parliamentarians' Conference held in Bangkok this week, KeADILan party president Wan Azizah Wan Ismail stated that her political battle is being fought for all women, and not just her jailed husband, the ex-deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim.
Speaking to the meeting of women politicians, activists and members of the press, she said that "I have to fight, not as a personal battle only, but for many of the downtrodden women". "Whatever I've been through has given a lot of Asian women courage." (AFP, March 20)
Wan Azizah then accused both the Umno party and its leader, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of using numerous methods to keep women out of politics. She pointed out that Mahathir had referred to her as a timid and inexperienced politician who did not know the ropes in the field of politics.
Replying to these allegations, Wan Azizah pointed out that during the general elections last November, Malaysia's opposition parties put up a large number of female candidates who seized their highest percentage of the vote since 1969, thereby proving that women can face hardship and win elections as well.
Much of what Wan Azizah has said in Bangkok is laudable by any standards. It is high time that a Malaysian politician should speak out against the chauvinism and prejudice that have taken root in the political culture of the country lately. Wan Azizah's emergence and rise as a female politician who leads her own party is unprecedented in Malaysia and gives us some hope that the future might be brighter for those Malaysian women who wish to take up a professional career in the world of politics and government.
But there remain a number of serious contradictions and flaws in her own line of argument, and should these errors remain unchecked she will invariably face the charge of double-standards and hypocrisy herself. Having made such an impact on the Malaysian political scene in so short a space of time, the last thing that she needs now is to be labelled as another wheeling-and-dealing Malaysian politician who is economical with the truth.
For a start, it must be noted that while the leadership of Umno has always been in the hands of men, it cannot be said that the party is completely against the participation of women in politics. Umno's "Kaum Ibu" (Women's Wing) happens to be one of the biggest and best-organised women's political organisations in the world today.
Ironically, this came about thanks to Islamic opposition party PAS' amazing success during the 1959 general elections when the party managed to win control of two states - Kelantan and Trengganu - just as it has done recently. In the wake of the 1959 elections, Umno realised that it had to match PAS on every level.
The leader of the party, Tunku Abdul Rahman, then turned to the only remaining section of the party that was under-utilised: the women's wing known as the Kaum Ibu Umno. From the 1960s onwards, Umno's women's wing has been one of the most active and effective sections of the party and it has ensured Umno's victory in many an election.
To claim that Umno is a party that does not want women to get involved in politics is therefore far-fetched to say the least. What it boils down to is the fact that every Umno leader, from the Tunku to Mahathir, has counted on the women's wing of the party but at the same time have tried to keep it under control.
Due to the neo-feudal set up of Umno and its traditionalist outlook which is more akin to Malay palace politics than a modern liberal-democratic party, Umno's leaders have never tolerated challenges to their rule within the party from any quarter, and this includes its Women's wing.
The same, however, cannot be said of PAS, which happens to be one of the allies of the KeADILan party of Wan Azizah. While Wan Azizah was willing to condemn Umno and its leadership for its hidden biases and prejudice towards women (which few would deny), it is a shame that she was not consistent and balanced in her analysis. For a cursory examination of PAS' history will show that it is far more of a conservative and traditionalist party when it comes to the thorny issue of women in politics.
The hey-day of progressive Islamism in PAS came to an end with the death of its third president, Dr. Burhanuddin al-Helmy in 1969. During this time, PAS was a party that was to be reckoned with. Its leadership was made up of men with a different ideological stand and moral outlook compared to the present leadership of the party.
After he took over as the president of PAS in 1956, Dr. Burhanuddin managed to attract many radical Malay nationalists to the party's cause. This included Malay women like Khatijah Sidek, who had left Umno because of personal differences with the party's leadership. Khatijah Sidek was regarded as a radical fire-brand and "stronger than any man in Umno" at the time. During the 1959 elections, she was one of those who won on the PAS ticket.
From the 1980s, however, the leadership of PAS has passed onto a new generation of Islamist thinkers of a radically different disposition and outlook. Beginning with its Deobandi-educated Mursyid'ul Am Nik Aziz Nik Mat and its ex-Abim leaders like Fadzil Noor and Hadi Awang, the leadership of the party has articulated a radically different Islamist approach to politics which combines both traditionalist notions of moral and scriptural authority and a modern approach towards party-political struggle.
PAS now takes a very strict and dogmatic line on issues such as personal law, individual religious beliefs and gender roles in society. Its leaders have openly stated, on many an occasion, their conviction that Malay-Muslim women in Malaysia should play more traditional roles in society like housewives and mothers.
Leaders of PAS like Kelantan Mentri Besar Nik Aziz have claimed that much of the social ills that affect contemporary Malay-Muslim society today is due to the fact that the Malay-Muslims are no longer living according to a religiously-sanctioned lifestyle where gender roles are clearly differentiated. In everyday terms this effectively means a return to a traditional setting where men are the bread-winners and women are left to rule within the domestic space. This dichotomous and hierarchical set-up is further rationalised via the use of conventional notions of male chivalry and masculine responsibilities towards the "weaker sex".
Nik Aziz has even gone as far as stating that he will not allow women to contest elections on the PAS ticket on the grounds that if they were to do so they would, (1) be abandoning their domestic responsibilities to their husbands, children and household, (2) risk the danger of coming into close intimate contact (khalwat) with other men who are not their husbands or members of the family, and (3) by doing so bring scandal and disrepute to the Islamist party.
In contrast to the conservative views of Nik Aziz and the other leaders of PAS, the leaders of Umno have shown more moderation in their approach to religion in general. Mahathir himself has argued that a Muslim woman should be free to express her religiosity on her own terms, and it need not take the form of a tudung (headscarf) or the hijab. Although Mahathir cannot be called a democrat by any stretch of the imagination, one also needs to concede that the man is not a religious bigot or fanatic.
Bearing these factors in mind, we need to question the premises of Wan Azizah's attack on Umno which she made while in Bangkok. One cannot deny the fact that the harassment of women has taken place in the ranks of the ruling parties themselves.
This matter was brought to light recently when a number of women MPs complained about the lewd and vulgar behaviour of Barisan Nasional MPs in Parliament. (Then again, judging by the behaviour of the Mentri Besar of Pahang, it may well be the case that such behaviour will be de riguer for all Barisan MPs in the future). ([#1] "PAS condemns Pahang MB's vulgarity",[/#] March 22)
But Umno and the parties of the Barisan are not the only ones guilty of giving women a hard time in the country. PAS, with its uncompromising stand on issues like women's dress codes, behaviour of women in public, etc. is equally dogmatic and conservative (some would say even more so) as the other parties in power.
Rather than addressing these painful realities head on, Wan Azizah has instead offered her support to her allies in the Islamist party and even endorsed their proposal to introduce strict laws on women's dress in the state of Terengganu ([#2] "Azizah sokong pelaksanaan tudung di Terengganu",[/#] March 24).
Rather than playing politics with PAS, Wan Azizah needs to be clear on where she stands on women's issues. Instead of playing to the Islamist gallery and dancing to the tune of the ulama, she should stick to the simple message of her own reformist party: that in the end, it is the individual who decides his or her own political fate and cultural identity, and not a group of self-appointed moral watchdogs who don the garb of religious officialdom.
DR FARISH A. NOOR is a Malaysian political scientist and human rights activist. He is currently researching the subject of Islamist movements in Malaysia and writing a book on the country's main Islamic party, PAS.