"It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be coming up it." - Henry Allen

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A few weeks ago, I was at a seminar on Malayness organised by the Asia Research Institute (ARI) (available as a podcast).

One of the speakers, A/P Syed Farid Alatas (from NUS's Department of Malay Studies), was lamenting that Muslims in Singapore don't take a critical approach to their holy texts and history. This is not just an academic way of how the community thinks of itself and others, but has serious implications.

Muslims in Singapore accept the dominant interpretation, but there is no critical discussion of problematic aspects of their faith. They accept as true Hadith and Sunna which go against common sense and logic; one story has the Prophet massacring 600-900 Jews when only <300 people were killed over 2 decades of his life, and is resulting in growing anti-Semitism in Singapore.

Another dubious story goes that in one night the Prophet visited and had sex with all his wives in a few hours, since Allah gave him the strength of 17 or 30 men. This despite the fact that it is unlikely that friend, Companion or wife of the Prophet would repeat this story, and the Koran saying the Prophet was an ordinary man blessed with revelation but not a superman.

The Muslim community in Singapore doesn't discuss these things, even behind closed doors, and this leads to problems in contemporary society.

These problems can be seen in Indonesia also, but at least there there is debate and discussion. In Singapore and Malaysia these issues are not discussed; they're swept under the rug and not seen as problems.

A/P Alatas concluded that this imbalance of law, spirituality and an uncritical approach to religion, then are problems that define the Malay community.

During the Question and Answer session, one person said that he/she was more worried about extremism in Malaysia/Singapore than Indonesia because there is no debate in the former countries. In Indonesia there is a sophisticated debate going on, and even Malaysia has more debate than Singapore, though it's not sophisticated.

I think it is uncontroversial to note that the public paranoia about religious discussion in Malaysia (and even more so in Singapore) is why we see these problems, and the lack of discussion means no one knows what Muslims here are thinking. The very laws and public paranoia meant to protect certain religious communities actually ends up harming and impoverishing them. Even if one were to avoid the traditional free speech angle, this is a compelling realpolitik argument for, even if not giving religious discussion the same restrictions that other forms of speech have (ie less than at present), then at least clearer signposting about governmentally-declared "acceptable" forms and modes of religious discussion and debate.