Doing it her (moderate) way - Nation | The Star Online
Quote: In our race to be religious, we
forgot our faith.
DESCRIBING herself as a bookworm
scientist, Lyana Khairuddin never thought that she could galvanise more than
100 people to stand up and speak up.
But fire up people she did, and some 5,700
have pledged support for the online petition she started – “I am #26 ”– which
is calling for a public discourse on the position and application of Islamic
laws in the country.
“I am not a lawyer or a politician or have
a famous family. All I love are viruses and Harry Potter, but I know I wanted
to know more about Syariah law because it affects my life,” says the
31-year-old virology lecturer and AIDS researcher at Universiti Malaya.
Something that has always troubled her is
the lack of awareness on the legal jurisdiction and administration of Syariah
law.
“We have to live under this law and I know
nothing about its implementation, and it is often amended without public
consultation. Why can’t we have a consultative process? The people who have to
live with it should be the first people to know.”
Her niggling questions about Islamic law
blew up when she read the open letter by the 25 former civil servants dubbed as
the “Prominent Malays or G25” which raised the same concerns. G25 had called
for a review of the Syariah criminal offences and a consultative process on the
position and application of Islamic law in the country.
Their strongly worded letter also asked
for the supremacy of the Federal Constitution to be upheld in light of the
unresolved disputes between the Syariah and Civil courts.
“I remember reading it and putting it up
on my Facebook Wall and asking, ‘Can people sign this?’
“That also got me thinking, can we have a
movement like this without “prominent” personalities? Can the voices of
ordinary Malaysians like me be heard?”
After getting in touch with the G25
representative, Datuk Noor Farida Ariffin, with the help of the former
ambassador’s relative, writer activist Tariq Ismail, Lyana decided to test the
waters and penned the “I am #26” petition.
Putting herself out on cyberspace was
nerve-wrecking, Lyana shares.
“I kept thinking, what if no one signed
this?”
She need not have worried. From her 20
friends who signed the petition to lend moral support, the number of supporters
rocketed.
“I have to admit that we do need well-known
people among us to get big support. I would not have done it without Tariq and
his group Aura Merdeka,” she says with a laugh.
What touched her was also the support
shown by non-Muslim Malaysians.
“Although the petition is meant for Malays
only, there were many non-Malay Muslims who signed – they started out by
saying, I’m not Malay but I’m Malaysian ...
“I was just touched. Because to me if
Syariah law is implemented it will affect the non-Muslims in the country too,
so I understand their concerns.”
Although she is not sure if moderate Malay
Muslim voices are gaining ground against the cacophony of those with a more
extremist outlook, Lyana is optimistic.
“We can only say that we are trying.
Because if we don’t try, they will assume that we are okay with it.”
> Do you feel that the “I am #26”
campaign is reaching its objectives?
We now have around 5,700 supporters and my
target is to get at least 10,000.
But a friend asked me, “Do you think that
the PM will change the policies just because 5,000 people signed a petition?
And one of the first comments I got was
from a friend who said, “I will only take you seriously once you have 200,000
people, because that is how many supporters Perkasa said it has.”
But I was thinking, “If I got 100 people
by tonight, I’ll be happy.”
I got 200-something by the next morning.
So, even if it is only 200 or over 5,000 supporters, it is still something. It
means more than 5,000 people are thinking, “Yes, we are Muslims but we support
the need for a public discourse on the position and application of Islamic laws
in the country.”
> What is the plan for the petition
now? How are you translating this into action?
We don’t know if we will reach 10,000 or
if the PM will even accept our petition. I am still working on how to give it
to him.
But at least we are having a discourse on
it. Maybe I’ve opened a can of worms, because you are also hearing from the
conservatives who want Syariah law to be upheld and the Federal Constitution to
be amended to “incorporate the needs of the Muslims.”
But people want to know more about the
Constitution and Syariah law. They are talking and writing about it. They are
speaking up and critically analysing it. Everyone has their own opinion, of
course, but to form that opinion, they have to read and do research.
I also hope the discourse will stay at a
level that is civil – we don’t want people to call each other names.
They have started personal attacks on
Datuk Noor Farida (a member of the G25 Prominent Malays) and calling her names.
That is sad. Can’t we have civil discussions without dredging up history and
calling people names?
We need to focus on the issue at hand and
the issue at hand now is that all 13 states in Malaysia implement a Syariah law
system, which is not standardised and causing a lot of confusion. And
ultimately, we are not God, so why are we so judgmental of other people?
> Were you not worried of a backlash?
Someone warned me of cybertroopers – that
they will come after me and I need to hide, change my profile picture and
everything. I was very scared but seeing the momentum the petition was going,
it hit me, what do I have to be scared of?
It (the initiative) is coming from a
concerned citizen of Malaysia who is not an expert in Syariah law but has to
live with it because she’s a Muslim and wants to understand more about it.
And it came from my heart when I started
it, so I thought if people are going to talk bad about me, so be it...
> What’s the worst comment or insult
that has been hurled at you?
It’s happened twice, and only once because
of “I am #26.”
One was when I wrote in my column on an
online news portal about how I missed the spirituality of Islam; I felt that we
in Malaysia are so prone to talking about the rituals of Islam – how you pray,
how many times you go for Haj and whether you wear tudung(headscarf) or
not, as opposed to what is the faith. Someone commented, “You’re not even
wearing a headscarf, how can you talk about Islam?”
Another was when the Malaysian
Consultative Council of Islamic Organisation (Mapim) sent an open letter, which
was supported by 35 Muslim figures, calling for the implementation of Syariah
law and setting up of a high-powered committee to review the Federal
Constitution. They said the people who are asking for a judiciary review of the
Syariah law, the “so-called moderate Muslims”, are actually “extremist
liberals”.
They also criticised The Star’s Voice
of Moderation campaign, saying that all the women in the campaign were not
wearing the tudung.
That is the point I think many Malaysians
have missed totally – that you can be religious without broadcasting it.
To them, for you to be religious, you have
to show it – show that you pray, that you are good...
These comments were hurtful, that I have
no right to talk about my faith because I don’t wear a tudung....
I’ve learnt not to read the comments any
more.
> So what is Moderate Muslim to you?
I don’t know if you have seen this cartoon
online – it shows a scale of Islam from “liberal” and “moderate” to “extreme”.
“Liberal” is on the far left and under
liberal is a woman without a headscarf, on the far right is “extreme” and under
it is a woman in a burqa. In the middle is a woman in a regular headscarf, and
they say this is “moderate”.
Why should we label ourselves as whatever?
Do you believe in living in a Malaysia that is harmonious, where everything is
fine and everyone is happy?
Regardless of which camp you feel you
belong to, I think we have a common belief in this nation. We need to fight for
it and this should be the way we live every day.
Although I don’t believe in labels, I do
see the value of the silent majority speaking up and of like-minded people
getting together, because you see it happening on the other side where
extremists rule – people with extreme thinking getting together and forming
groups.
This is where we need to be careful
though, because we don’t want to do the same – veer towards hatred and call
each other names.
There was also one thing that a friend
told me; she is a non-Muslim who married into the religion. She told me, “Lyana,
for a religion of compassion, I don’t see many compassionate Muslims.”
It made me really sad to hear that. I grew
up with my grandparents in Penang, and I remember a Chinese neighbour coming
to see my grandfather to ask for air Surah Yasin (water blessed with
a verse believed to be the heart of the Quran) for his sick child.
My grandfather never said, “No.” My
grandfather never said, “This is only for Muslims.”
He would do it because it was the
neighbourly thing to do and it was the compassionate thing to do. That is the
spirituality that we miss because we are adamant to live within the box of
Malay Muslim that we have drawn for ourselves.
I am young but because I was brought up by
my grandparents, I grew up in a household with the old Malaysian values of
compassion and moderation.
And that was how Malay Muslims were before
– we always did things and saw things in moderation and with compassion.
Still, I remember things were fine when I
was growing up until a certain point when suddenly it was not fine for me to go
to my friend’s house for Christmas. What happened to our community? What
changed?
I’ve always believed in the middle way.
When I read (American Islamic scholar)
Hamza Yusuf’s Purification of the Heart, which is about the spirituality
of Islam and taking the middle path in Islam, I realise at the end of the day,
all the religions want people to be good and do good.
The gist of the book is that as Muslims we
need to always be centred and always take the middle path. Whenever there is an
argument, we need to listen to both sides and make a just decision.
> What gives you the right to talk
about Syariah law?
Because I am a Muslim. Because I have to
live with it.
In all honesty, I’m scared to fall in love
and get married because, what if I fall in love with a non-Muslim? The law is
that he has to convert and potong (get circumcised) and all.
So Syariah law affects me personally. We
have to live under this law and I know nothing about its implementation, and it
is often amended or new laws are introduced without public consultation.
The people who have to live with it should
be the first people to know.
As an academic, I also feel that when
there is something that I don’t know, I have to study it, learn more about it.
So, yes, I am not a student of law, I am a scientist, but to me if I don’t know
something I’ll ask, and this is what I’m doing with “I am #26.”
That is why we have point number two in
our petition: elected Members of Parliament and the public need to raise their
awareness on the Federal Constitution and the administration of Islamic law in
Malaysia.
> Some say that you are a typical Gen-Y
activist – just pressing “enter” to fight for a cause. What sort of difference
do you think you are making?
We live in a social media world – it’s a
powerful tool, and as in everything that is given to us, it is us who decide if
it is used for bad or good.
By having an online petition I hope it can
reach out to a lot of people.
There were some who criticised me for just
putting the petition online – saying that we were not reaching those who are in
rural areas or those who have no Internet connection.
Sure, it is easy for me to just do an
online petition, but this is all that I can do for now.
If I didn’t do anything, would it have
made a difference? Maybe, maybe not.
Would change happen if we had a
demonstration outside the PM’s office instead? I don’t know.
It’s just that I always believe in the
middle way and I wanted to try to stand up for what I believe in because I feel
in my heart that I’m losing my Malaysia.
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