Have courage amid intimidation, M'sians told

INTERVIEW Controversial liberal-Islam advocate Irshad Manji says Malaysians must gather the "moral courage" to rise against violence and intimidation in their path toward reforms.

A concept made popular by the late American politician Robert F Kennedy, Manji explained, moral courage "is the willingness to speak truth to the powerful people in your community, for the sake of the greater good to more than in your community".

Added the Uganda-born Canadian author, whose controversial book is banned in Malaysia: "We are not talking about becoming heroes, or about becoming martyrs.

"We are talking about using what you already have inside of you, in order to achieve integrity both for yourself and for your community. If ordinary people can do this, surely so can you," she said in an interview with Malaysiakini last week.

"My hope and intention is to show Malaysians this - you are capable of the same, you don't have to run away. If you run, you do nobody any service, certainly not to Islam and certainly not to your own integrity."

The author was in Malaysia last week to launch her latest book, but the government banned her from doing a roadshow.

Bullied by religious thugs

Manji believes that ordinary people, Malaysians included, are capable of extraordinarily "gutsy" acts of courage when push comes to shove.

As evidence, she pointed to her experiences in Indonesia and in the Netherlands, when Islamic hardliners attacked her events and on both occasions, ordinary citizens formed a human shield to protect her despite the risks to their safety.

She related how two dozens of Islamists stormed the launch of her book Allah, Liberty & Love in the Netherlands as their jihad, but none of her guests, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, took flight.

They instead rose to form a human wall around her and her Muslim co-hosts.
"I picked up a copy of the book and pointed to the word ‘love'. And told them that this is all it is about, that Allah loves you and we do, too."

Her assailants were caught off-guard by her statement and sat down dumbfounded, before rising again to continue their tirade.

Similarly two weeks ago, in the city of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Manji related how several helmeted thugs, whom she labelled as "gangsters with no pretense of being religious" rode their motorcycles through the security barriers and swung metal bars at anything and everyone, injuring three people, including a member of her staff.

Manji described how the audience threw themselves all around her, hiding her from the extremists and taking the blows meant for her.

"Amazing! They knew they could be the first people to be killed if the extremists got wind that they were protecting me."

Such courage, she said, was needed to be shown in contrast with the cowardice of her attackers who, while thinking they were fighting for Islam, were actually performing a disservice to the faith by giving "Islam-bashers exactly the picture that their audience want".

Collusion between extremists and cops

What was more "embarrassing and shocking" Manji said, was the apparent collusion between extremist groups and the police in the attacks against her on Indonesian soil, which she said was the worst she had ever endured.

She negotiated with police for her events after one of it in Indonesia got disrupted, she said, when the chief of police in one city "openly tweeted the name of the hotel" that been booked by the organisers for her to stay.

She likened such "collaborations" to the kind that existed between the police and white supremacists during the civil rights movement in the United States, when police allowed the white supremacists to burn buses and attack civil rights activists with impunity.

However, Manji counselled courage against such intimidation, as "without courage, there will be no progress".

She refuses to cower before her attackers or give power to extremists, she said, because she always has faith, not just in God, but also in doing what is right.

As further examples, she pointed to Indian reformist Mahatma Gandhi as a person who dared to stand up to Hindu fanaticism and was assassinated by a Hindu who claimed that Gandhi "loved Muslims too much".

Gandhi, she related, spoke truth to those in his own society and worked to ensure that Western imperialism was not replaced with the fanatic religious imperialism advocated by some Hindus.

In a like manner, she also mentioned Abdul Ghaffar Khan, whom she labelled as a Muslim version of Gandhi who had advocated women's equality, non-violent resistance and Muslim-Hindu unity in what was to be present-day Pakistan, way before Gandhi started his reforms.

Abdul Ghaffar, she lamented, was "erased" from history as his teachings were not approved of by the rulers of Pakistan, where he lived prior to the country becoming independent.

Movement for reform

Manji says her new book, Allah, Liberty & Love, for one, is to teach and equip young Muslims to overcome their fears of social disapproval and being stigmatised for asking questions or pursuing reforms.

"It seeks to reconcile faith and freedom, rather then force the false choice between faith and freedom."

The book, Manji posits, is a "non-violent armament with which to speak your truth to your community".

Unlike her first book, What is Wrong With Islam Today?, which argues why Islam needs reforms, she said Allah, Liberty and Love is about helping to give readers the tools to take the journey toward integrity, which she believes Malaysians are also hungry for.

Though, she adds, that any movement for reform is not just about big ideas and witty principles, it is also about having fun and supporting one another.

As such, Manji said, one of the "tools" provided in her book is a recipe for a special chai or tea.

She described how, in writing her book and faced with the dilemma of how to navigate on certain issues, she invited friends and colleagues over for chai.

"Over this recipe, we had great conversations and these sessions helped to resolve my dilemmas."

Any struggle for reforms, she says, is made "a little bit lighter and a little bit sweeter with chai, expressing her wish that she may have many more chai dates with Malaysians soon.

In the final analysis, Manji said, what she hopes people will say about her in the future is that her niat or intention is pure.

"I cannot control the outcome, but I can always control what my intention is, going into it. Which is gratitude to God, first and foremost," concluded the feisty Islamic reformist.