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Monday, June 4, 2012

Islamic Malaysia in Asian club?, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad
Islamic Malaysia in Asian club?
BY FARISH A. NOOR (Asian Edge)
2 August 2008

One factor that has prevented any country in Asean from unilaterally making such drastic changes to its internal politics has been the checks and balances offered by the region's plural character itself: A quick look at the map of the Asean region would show that this is a region of many faith communities living together and overlapping. Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei remain predominantly Muslim, but they are flanked by predominantly Buddhist Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and even Vietnam. In turn there is the Philippines, which is Christian as well, and in all these countries -- Singapore being a case in point — there are also large pockets of cosmopolitanism mixed with multiculturalism and multi-religiosity too.

Historically this may have been one of the factors that prevented countries like Malaysia and Indonesia from unilaterally upping the stakes in the Islamisation process, for it would have raised eyebrows in the neighbouring capitals.

How long this state of affairs will remain unchecked, however, is anyone's guess. In Malaysia and Indonesia the rise of political Islam has also given birth to radical new Islamist groupings like the Hizb'ut Tahrir that are now calling for a pan-Muslim Asean super-state, far-fetched though their ambitions may seem.

http://newageislam.com/islamic-malaysia-in-asian-club?/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/389


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