By Lay Observer 4 June 2015
Seldom does one emerged from a seminar feeling that one has learnt something entirely new. That’s how many of us felt after attending Dr Dominik Muller’s (Goethe-University Frankfurt) seminar at the SOAS Centre for Southeast Asian Studies on PAS and Pop Culture.
For many, PAS and Pop Culture are contradiction of terms, and the title is a mouthful: Islamist Politics and Popular Culture in Malaysia: Negotiating normative change between Sharia Law and electric guitars.
But after the first few slides presented by Dr Muller, an anthropologist, the audience knew they were hearing something counter intuitive. These slides unfortunately cannot be reproduced in this article for copyright reasons.
Dr Muller spent a year (2009 to 2010) with PAS, and has continued access to many of their internal meetings, as well as its leaders. The details of his PhD research is published, priced £85 on Amazon.
Dr Muller set out to test the Post-Islamist thesis that following the collapse of Islamism as a political ideology, a process of transformation is occurring in Islamic society whereby youth, in the age of Facebook and mass consumerism, are gravitating towards a more non-Islamist consumer culture, leaving their religiosity at an individual private level.
His study of the PAS Youth Wing does not support this Post-Islamist thesis. Dr Muller found that PAS Youth Wing, led until 2013 by by Nasrudin Hassan Tantawi, a pro-implementation-of-hudud hardliner is successful in promoting the Islamist ideology to consumerist oriented youth. This is achieved by abandoning an erstwhile doctrine against pop music, and by tactically embracing popular culture in an aggressive and savvy manner to advance their conservative Islamist agenda.
“Electric guitars have thereby been re-conceptualized from ‘instruments of the devil’ to tools for ‘missionary work.
By embracing the guitar and Western musical forms, the 400,000-strong PAS Youth Wing is able to persuade Muslim fans of pop and heavy metal music that they can continue enjoying their Western music and at the same time ‘love hudud’. Through the help of a marketing agency, PAS Youth Wing adopts the language of football to coin the slogan ‘Oley, Hudud Allah’ .
To help entice Malay youth to the Islamist movement, PAS Youth Wing organises Guitar classes, thereby keeping the otherwise rebellious youth within the control of the Islamists. The youths are now able to enjoy their pop-music lifestyle free of drugs, alcohol and sex, but with a heavy dose of “love hudud” propaganda. Hudud is an important demand of the Islamist movement.
PAS Youth Wing also made inroad into another sphere of sub-culture in Malaysia when they set up the Alternative Riding Club ARC, and dressed their members in green vests, a colour associated with the movement.
Apart from reaching out to the youth attracted to symbols of consumerist culture such as pop music, electric guitars and bike riding, PAS also make inroads to those modelling for the fashion industries, and could boast winning over some popular icons in the modelling and pop music world to accept the Islamist agenda. At a public event, a trophy catch cried explaining her conversion to the Islamist cause.
PAS’s skill in employing western marketing strategies to populate the otherwise secular consumer space with its Islamist messages is impressive.
Another example of PAS’s attempt to populate the consumer space with their messages is The Telephone Al-Quran which also carries information about PAS programmes and the Koran. They are also reaching out to children at Kindergarten age.
To understand PAS, and to contrast it with the other parties, one must remember that PAS, since it conception in 1951, has all along considered itself not just a political party, but as an Islamist Movement – Harakah Islamiyah. The distinction is not often appreciated.
Dr Dominik Muller findings appear to this observer to confirm the remark made in 2012 by Dr. Ahmad Farouk Musa, director at Islamic Renaissance Front when he wrote:
If there is anything unmistakably clear from the recent muktamar or general assembly of the Islamic Party of Malaysia – PAS – is that despite the acceptance of the concept of tahalluf siyasi or political consensus among the three major components of the opposition front – Pakatan Rakyat – PAS’s ambition in establishing an Islamic State and implementing hudud laws is unwavering, if not more resolute.
In view of the rise of religious extremism in Malaysia, Dr Dominik Muller’s research is certainly worth studying by those trying to understand the voting intentions of Malay youth in areas where PAS is influential, as well as political activists concerned with the future political trends in Malaysia.
If hudud is a continuing divisive issue today, it may not disappear soon as PAS’s Youth of today, infused with the ‘Oley, Hudud Allah’, may be the leaders of tomorrow. Will those youths of today, influenced by the Islamist ideology, be the post-Islamist adults of tomorrow?
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