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Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Volume 12, Number 1, 2011

ISSN 1464–9373 Print/ISSN 1469–8447 Online/11/010110–12 © 2011 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/14649373.2011.532957

The long journey to the just: my life, my struggle

Chandra MUZAFFAR

Taylor and FrancisRIAC_A_532957.sgm10.1080/14649373.2011.532957Inter-Asia Cultural Studies1464-9373 (print)/1469-8447 (online)Original Article2011Taylor & Francis121000000March 2011ChandraMuzaffarcmuzaffar@gmail.com

I have divided my journey into eightphases. I begin with my early years andthe influences that shaped my outlook onlife. The period I was in school constitutesthe second phase and my university yearsthe third. Upon graduation, I joined alocal university as an assistant lecturer,began to play a public role as a politicalcommentator, and embraced Islam as myreligion of choice. This fourth phasemerges into the fifth phase with theformation of a reform group committed tothe transformation of Malaysian society.After 14 years at the helm of this group, Ifelt the time had come to focus upon thechanging international order, andtogether with some friends established anorganization called the Just World Trust,which has now evolved into the Interna-tional Movement for a Just World (JUST).While still in the sixth phase of my jour-ney, I moved into party politics andbecame the deputy president of an oppo-sition political party. Because party poli-tics was an altogether different experiencefrom my NGO activism, I would regardthis short period as a phase in itself, theseventh phase. The eighth and finalphase, which brings us to the present, seesme trying to combine my internationalactivism with a renewed commitment tocertain national concerns.

From each of the eight phases I shalldraw some larger conclusions about activ-ism and politics in Malaysia and in theinternational arena, as the case may be.The interplay between the individual actorand his or her social milieu will also beanalyzed. The study, in other words, hopesto offer some insights into the trials andtribulations that a citizen in the Global

South will have to encounter in the questfor a better society and a better world.

Roots to commitment to multi-ethnic justice and peace: childhood years

Now that I am in the evening of my life, Ibegin to appreciate the profound impactthat my childhood years have had uponmy beliefs, my values and my struggle.

My deep commitment to multi-ethnicjustice and peace stems partly from myearly exposure to people of different reli-gious persuasions and cultural affiliations.My own family was Indian and Hindu butthere was a Chinese amah in our house-hold from the time I was born. A Malaydriver was also part of the family.

The community I grew up in was alsomulti-ethnic. It was basically a communitymade up of hospital staff and their familiessince my father, P. N. Pillai, was a hospitaladministrator. The hospital was located inthe vicinity of a little town called Bedong, inthe northwestern state of Kedah which has amulti-ethnic population with a clear Malaymajority.

The multi-ethnic environment of mychildhood years was not the only influencefrom that period of my life that hasremained to this day. As a little child of fiveor six, I caught a glimpse of service to thepublic and what it entailed. My late fatherwas very involved in public service. He wasthe chairman of the Bedong Local Councilfor a number of years; established the firstEnglish primary school in our locality;founded a welfare home; was a trade union-ist; and, for a brief while, was in politics –first, as the chairman of the Kedah branch ofthe Labour Party, and later, as one of the

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leaders of the Malaysian Indian Congress(MIC). It was from my dear father, a dedi-cated social worker, that I learnt the noblevalue of public service.

There was another virtuous trait thatwas shaped by an episode in my childhood.At the age of four – in 1951 – I was struck bypolio. It left my left leg paralyzed, reducedmy movements considerably, and, for thelast 20 years, I have been forced to use awheelchair to move around. But my physi-cal disability made me conscious of thesufferings of the weak and vulnerable in ourmidst. Justice for the weaker segment ofsociety has been central to my struggle.

It was partly because of my physicalcondition that reading became my passion.It began at a very young age, when I wasthree or four. Besides, we had a library athome; my father was a voracious reader.The pursuit of knowledge has been thecredo of my life.

Both polio and my love for books led meobliquely to yet another quest: a yearning forthe transcendent, a deep desire to fathom themystery of life – and death. It was perhapsthe loneliness of my childhood – I couldn’tparticipate in the boisterous games thatother children played – which brought to thefore the spiritual side of my personality. Ihave remained since then a pilgrim on ajourney, reaching out constantly for the spir-itual touch of the Divine.

Realizing the role of ethnic politics in the life of the nation: in school

The attitudes and attributes that I hadimbibed, almost unwittingly, in my child-hood years stood me in good stead as Ientered school. I consider myself blessedthat I experienced a multi-ethnic environ-ment right through my 13 years in school– six years in primary school; five years insecondary school; and two years in post-secondary school. My close friends atevery stage of my schooling came fromevery community. The teachers whoinspired and encouraged me most alsoreflected the multi-ethnic reality of Malay-sian society.

Given my personal experience, one canunderstand why I am so traumatized by theethnic polarization that has overwhelmedour school system today. The vast majorityof young Malaysians in the primary schoolcategory attend Malay, Chinese and Tamillanguage schools that are largely mono-ethnic. They are deprived of the experienceof multi-ethnic learning and interacting thatmany of my generation benefited from.

There was another dimension to myschooling that I am also proud of. For mostof my primary and secondary school, I wasin co-ed classes, meaning girls were myfellow classmates. Coming as I do from afamily where my siblings are all female – Ihave an elder sister and two younger sisters– interaction with the opposite sex helped toreinforce my affection and respect forwomen. I also had the added advantage ofbeing born to an independent-mindedwoman who was a person in her own right,and often made her own decisions.

Today, Malaysian women excel in allwalks of life. Women are at the helm of anumber of institutions charged with manag-ing the nation’s finances. In our publicuniversities, there are more female thanmale students. This should not convey theimpression that Malaysian women do notface hurdles associated with gender.

School was also an opportunity to putinto good effect the reading habit I hadacquired. Because of my enthusiasm forreading, I wrote essays that impressed myteachers. In fact, when I was 10 years old, Iwon the third prize in a Kedah-wide essaycompetition for those under 21, on thetheme of Merdeka (Independence) – 1957was the year Malaysia (then known asMalaya) became free of British colonial rule.Right through my school years, my writingprowess – if I may be allowed a bit ofimmodesty – brought me various awards. In1966, for instance, I won the first prize in anational poetry competition organized bythe national radio station. Not surprisingly,I was often chosen to be the editor of theschool magazine.

The other skill I acquired in school waspublic speaking. In primary school I was the

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head of the school debating team. In second-ary school, though I was only in my secondlevel, a mere 14-year-old kid, I was asked tojoin the school’s debating team comprisingstudents who were 17 or 18 years old.Winning inter-school debates against betterknown schools from other parts of the coun-try was a great joy.

School also taught me the importance ofassuming roles of responsibility. My head-master in primary school, Stanley Augustin,appointed me the school’s head prefect. Itwas a tremendous boost to my self-confi-dence, especially since such posts arenormally given to the able-bodied. Atsecondary school, I was elected to head soci-eties like the Literary and Debating Society.By performing leadership roles, I realizedthe significance of accountability as a normof conduct.

Even before I participated in debatesand the like, I developed an abiding inter-est in politics. I remember it was when Iwas eight, in standard two in primaryschool, that I followed the first FederalLegislative Council election, in 1955. Theother major political event that had animpact upon me was Singapore’s separa-tion from the Malaysian Federation in 1965.Since I had read all the newspaper reportson the issues that led to separation, Ibecame acutely aware in my teens of therole of ethnic politics in the life of thenation. As a scholar and activist in lateryears, I have never ever underestimated theinfluence of this factor.

While remaining alert to the politicalenvironment, I kept alive my interest inreligion. The works of Hindu reformerssuch as Vivekananda and philosopherssuch as Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan werepart of my intellectual diet. It was also insecondary school that I began to read –and admire – Mahatma Gandhi. Later inpost-secondary school, through my interac-tion with some Bahai friends, I was drawnto that faith. For a few months I was aBahai but left the faith, mainly because Ifelt that its beliefs were too intimatelylinked to its founding personalities ratherthan to God.

Beyond western intellectual dominance and communal identity: university days

If my schooling was all within my homestate of Kedah, for my university educationI had to travel down to the University ofSingapore. This was in 1967. SinceSingapore was an independent state, I wasin a sense going ‘overseas’. I could notpursue my university studies in Malaysiabecause the disciplines I wanted to explore –Political Science and Philosophy – were notavailable at Malaysia’s only university atthat time, the University of Malaya.

For my first year, apart from the subjectsmentioned, I also registered to studyHistory. The History syllabus was veryconventional. It focused upon various areassuch as Southeast Asia, India, China, Europe,and so on. The Political Science program wasstructured within a western intellectualparadigm and sought to understand so-called developing societies and their politicalsystems through the lens of political devel-opment theories formulated by westernscholars with a strong bias towards liberaldemocracy as it expressed itself in the UnitedStates and Western Europe. With the excep-tion of a course on Malaysian Politics whichwas grounded in Malaysian realities, andanother course on International Relationsthat dealt with issues of might and right inthe global arena, the rest of the program wassomewhat alienated from the actual situa-tion prevailing in much of the Global South.

The Philosophy program was no better.It was explicit about its western bias. Itssyllabus was in many ways a replica ofphilosophy programs in many Britishuniversities. Even a course like Moral Philos-ophy concentrated upon the western moraltradition. It was Plato and Aristotle all theway up to Hobbes and Locke and on toJeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Asia,with its profound moral philosophiesembedded in the different religious tradi-tions, had no place in the program.

Thoroughly disillusioned with the twoprograms, I was fortunate at that juncture tohave met up with Professor Syed HusseinAlatas. A distinguished sociologist, he was

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head of the Malay Studies Department at theUniversity of Singapore. Alatas was criticalin a sophisticated way of western intellectualdominance and the ensuing intellectualcaptivity of scholars in much of the GlobalSouth. In his writings he conceptualized the‘captive mind’ and how it manifested itselfamong non-western scholars. Intellectualautonomy, he argued, was what scholarshipin Asia and other parts of the Global Southlacked. I was attracted to his analysis of thisand other issues and spent a lot of timediscussing contemporary challenges withhim. Because he was also a Malaysian, therewere other common concerns that helped tobond us. Indeed, Alatas was undoubtedlythe one person who exercised the greatestintellectual influence upon my thinkingduring those undergraduate years. He was,to put it simply, my mentor.

Apart from my studies, I was also activein the Students’ Union, having been electeda councilor in my second year, in 1968. As acouncilor, there were two events that stoodout. I headed a team of students from differ-ent disciplines that examined education atthe University of Singapore and suggestedcertain reforms. No student group hadundertaken such a task before. As expected,the university authorities did not give muchattention to our endeavor.

I was also embroiled in an issue thatimpinged upon integrity. Since I representedmy hostel, Raffles Hall, in the Students’Council, I was expected to endorse blindlythe hostel’s budgetary requests. This hadbecome a ‘tradition’, whereby every yearRafflesians would make outrageous requestswithout considering the larger interests ofthe student population as a whole, and,using their numerical strength, would securewhat they wanted with the help of theirrepresentatives on the Students’ Council. Itried to reason with my fellow Rafflesiansthat what they had been doing all along wasnot right and that our budgetary requestsshould be reasonable. For taking such a posi-tion, almost the entire student hostel leader-ship and a big chunk of the hostelcommunity turned against me, and I wascensured through a vote. But I stood my

ground. It was my first major exposure to notonly the failure of leaders to uphold simplemoral principles but also the power of themob, and how it could be harnessed to tram-ple upon ethical values such as integrity inpublic life.

There was another episode, not linked tomy role as councilor, which also, in a sense,compelled me to take a moral position. At theend of 1967, the then prime minister ofSingapore, Lee Kuan-Yew, gave a talk at theuniversity. During question time, a studentasked him what he thought was the secret ofSingapore’s ability to survive after separa-tion from Malaysia in 1965. Using analogies,Lee gave an answer which implied that itwas the genes of the majority Chinesecommunity that explained Singapore’ssurvival. Like some of my friends at the talk,I was shocked – and disgusted – by hisanswer. I was at that time a member of theUniversity’s Democratic Socialist Club(DSC), which was closely associated withLee’s political party, the People’s ActionParty (PAP), and I demanded that the DSCadmonish Lee for his racist remark that wasso obviously an affront to socialist ideals. Itsleaders did not want to do so, and, in protest,I resigned from the club. Since I had beenselected by the DSC just before the Leeepisode to represent it in a student programin Strasbourg, it meant that I also lost mychance of going to Europe for the first time inmy life. But I was happy with the decision Ihad made since it was morally the right thingto do.

As an aside, doing what is right, adher-ing to a moral principle, was something thatI had learnt in primary school itself. Iremember when I was in standard four Ihad to sit for an examination at home since Iwas unwell with measles. It was the Malaylanguage paper and I had to provide thesynonym for a certain word. It was the onlyquestion I could not answer, and my eldersister, who was also ill and at home on thatday, saw that I was lost and supplied thesynonym I was looking for. I thought tomyself that it would be morally wrong toaccept her help, and decided to leave myanswer blank. Since I had been scoring full

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marks in most subjects, surrendering fourpoints in the language paper was a setback.But it was an act of integrity that was spiri-tually gratifying.

Going back to my university days, as astudent leader who was also studying Politi-cal Science, I was alert to some of themomentous developments unfolding in theregion and in the world at large in the late1960s. The United States was escalating itsimmoral intervention in Vietnam. Likemany of my fellow students I was opposedto the US’s nefarious agenda. But we couldnot organize any demonstration against theimperial power since the Singapore govern-ment had sanctioned US intervention inVietnam. However, the governmentallowed us to demonstrate against theSoviet Union for its invasion of Czechoslo-vakia in 1968. The other international eventthat captured our attention was the six-dayIsraeli–Arab conflict in June 1967. Thoughthe majority of politically consciousstudents were on the side of Israel, mysympathies lay with the Arabs, who wereindisputably the victims since it was theirland that had been usurped by the Zionistoccupiers. This was the beginning of mylifelong commitment to the Palestiniancause.

However, international issues wereovershadowed by my concern for the situa-tion in my own country, especially after theethnic riot of 13 May 1969, which occurredwhen I was in my final year as a PoliticalScience major. I realized that both Malaysand non-Malays had legitimate ethnic griev-ances. One had to transcend communalperspectives on the political, economic andcultural situation in Malaysia in order toprovide viable solutions to the nation’s chal-lenges. What was important was for the lead-ership to approach these challenges with adeep sense of justice and fairness to all. Here,again, I benefited a great deal from theinsights that Alatas had to offer. Alatas was,incidentally, the president of an oppositionparty, the Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, whenthe riot occurred, and contributed ideas thathelped to chart a new direction for the nationin the post-1969 era.

Becoming a Muslim

On graduating from the University ofSingapore in 1970, I returned home,wondering what I would do next. I waspleasantly surprised to receive a letter fromthe head of the department of politicalscience at the university, Professor K. J.Ratnam, inviting me to join him in the soonto be established School of Social Sciences atthe newly founded University of Penang,later renamed Universiti Sains Malaysia(USM). I accepted the invitation since anacademic career was in any case my firstpreference. Thus began my long and check-ered relationship with USM.

As assistant lecturer, I co-taught andtutored a couple of courses. I enjoyed teach-ing. My students in the early years, most ofwhom were a couple of years younger thanme, were full of enthusiasm. We interactedwell. Most of my colleagues were seriousacademics and we got along fine.

While teaching, I enrolled for a Mastersdegree, under the supervision of K. J.Ratnam, a recognized authority on Malay-sian politics. My thesis was on the SpecialPosition of the Malays and how the govern-ment and the opposition viewed it. TheSpecial Position is one of the most conten-tious issues in Malaysian politics. Aimed atuplifting the socio-economic status of theMalays and other indigenous communities,this constitutional provision and the policiesemanating from it, notably the NewEconomic Policy (NEP), have been both aboon and a bane for the people. After obtain-ing my Masters, I registered for a PhD at theUniversity of Singapore. I attempted toanalyze dominant and dissenting ideas inMalay society from the past to the present.Alatas was my supervisor and I wasconferred my doctorate in 1977.

Even before my Masters and PhD, from1971 onwards, I had begun giving talks tothe public and engaging with youth groupsand trade unions in Penang. The early 1970sin Malaysia was a time when a number ofcritical issues vital to nation-building hadcome to the fore in the aftermath of the 1969riot. For a political commentator like me, it

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was important to adopt a balanced perspec-tive that created a shared platform for boththe indigenous and non-indigenous commu-nities. I realized that, in a situation in whichethnic positions were becoming polarized, itwas not easy to walk the middle path.

It was in the mid-1970s that I also gotmarried to Mariam Hashim, a sociologygraduate from USM, who was a student ofmine in her first year at the university.Mariam was from a Malay family, whichmeant that ours was an inter-ethnicmarriage. We have been blessed with twodaughters, who are both now married andin their thirties.

However, the most momentous decisionI made during this period of my life was toembrace Islam. My interest in Islam – insome respects a manifestation of mycontinuing devotion to matters of faith andspirituality – was ignited by my close inter-action with Alatas during my undergraduatedays. It was during that time that I read agreat deal on the religion, its worldview,moral teachings, history, and strengths andweaknesses as a civilization. Alatas recom-mended books such as M. M. Sharif’s

AHistory of Muslim Philosophy

(1963), AbulKalam Azad’s

Tarjuman Al-Quran

(1968),Muhammad Iqbal’s

The Reconstruction ofReligious Thought in Islam

(1974) andMuhammad Natsir’s

Capita Selecta

(1954,1957). I was also exposed to the writings ofreformers like Syed Jamaluddin Al-Afghaniand Muhammad Abduh. On top of all that, Iread Alatas’ own works on the religion, suchas

The Democracy of Islam

(1956) and

Islam danMasyarakat

(1960). But most of all it was themany hours of in-depth conversation that Icontinued to have with him in Penang andSingapore right through the early 1970s thathad the most profound impact upon mythinking on Islam. By this time, I had alsostudied and absorbed quite a bit of theQur’an, through its English renditions byMuhammad Pickthall and Yusuf Ali.

My intellectual journey towards Islamculminated in my embracing the faith at asimple ceremony in a mosque in Singaporeon 1 May 1974. The imam (congregationalleader) of the mosque was Alatas’s own

uncle, who welcomed me into the religion,as I uttered the article of faith, witnessed byAlatas himself.

Becoming a Muslim was for me aprofound commitment to a certain under-standing of life, its meaning and its purpose,to a way of living, to a set of values andprinciples. At the heart of this understand-ing of life is, of course, God, and the humanbeing’s engaged surrender to God. It isthrough this surrender that one findsanswers to life’s perennial questions. Wheream I from? I am from God, a product ofGod’s creative power. Who am I? I am ahuman being, a khalifah, a vicegerent onearth, who has surrendered consciously tothe Divine Will. Why am I here? I am here tofulfill the amanah, the trust, which I haveaccepted as a human being to uphold whatis right and to repel what is wrong. How doI fulfill that trust? By adhering to, and bring-ing to fruition, the eternal values and princi-ples that God has revealed to humankindthrough the ages. Where do I go from here?At the end of this transient life, I return toGod to be judged on the basis of my deedsand misdeeds on earth.

It is partly because these fundamentalquestions of life and death are never askednor answered in socialist thought that, inspite of my attraction to specific socialistideas, I could never regard myself as afollower of that ideology. Islam, as we haveshown, links those fundamental questionsto life on earth, and the trust that we bear asvicegerents. It endows that trust with asacredness that defines our very existence ashuman beings. At the crux of that trust isour responsibility to ensure justice, whichthe Qur’an regards as the mission of all theProphets. Justice in turn is intertwined withequality and freedom, with compassion andkindness, with integrity and honesty, which,according to Islam, are all anchored in GodConsciousness.

ALIRAN

It is because consciousness of God is socentral to my belief system that, when Ifounded a social reform group called Aliran

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Kesedaran Negara (National ConsciousnessMovement) on 12 August 1977, with thehelp of six friends, I made belief in God itsfirst principle. This principle was juxtaposedwith the quest for more democratic space,economic and social justice, public integrity,harmonious ethnic relations, and so on.

ALIRAN was an imperative need at thatpoint in time since there was no groupoutside the arena of party politics that had aholistic vision of, and commitment to, socialchange and reform. Most of the earlymembers of ALIRAN were academics,professionals and trade unionists. We issuedmedia statements on current issues, andorganized forums and seminars on democ-racy, corruption, national unity and inter-religious harmony, which were well patron-ized by the public.

Then, in October 1980, ALIRAN experi-enced its first major collision with thegovernment. The Ministry of Home Affairs,which has authority over all registered soci-eties, issued ALIRAN with a ‘show cause’letter, asking the group, more specifically, toexplain why it should not be de-registered.What sparked the de-registration letter wasa media statement I had made a few daysbefore, criticizing the small increase in sala-ries for workers in the lower echelons of thepublic services compared to the hugeincrease for those at the upper echelons. Acouple of other societies were also issuedwith ‘show cause’ letters for other reasons.This led to a public outcry, especially in thecase of ALIRAN.

A few weeks later, the governmentaggravated the situation further by askingall societies that commented on social andpolitical issues to re-classify themselves as‘political societies’. Restrictions would beplaced upon public servants, includingacademics, participating in such societies,apart from curbs on their funding. Morethan 100 societies came together to protestagainst these amendments to the SocietiesAct, which were blatantly undemocratic andeven unconstitutional. It was the first timethat such mass mobilization had taken placeamong citizen groups. The general publicwas in sympathy with these groups. The

government had no choice but to drop ormodify some of the proposed amendments.

ALIRAN, which was at the forefront ofthis mass protest movement in early 1981,became much better known. A quarterlyjournal was started, which was wellreceived by a segment of the English-speak-ing middle class. Issues pertaining todemocracy and social justice were its focus.Buoyed by the success of the journal, mycolleagues and I felt that we could nowlaunch a monthly magazine.

In order to produce the magazine, andprovide its contents, on a regular basis, Iknew I had to become a full-time ALIRANworker, without remuneration. I decided toquit my university lectureship. That was inAugust 1983. It meant giving up a goodsalary and a comfortable lifestyle. Ourfamily income went down by two-thirdssince we were all now largely dependent onmy wife’s salary.

My family’s sacrifice was worthwhile.The

ALIRAN Monthly

flourished. It becamethe major source of alternative analysis ofMalaysian concerns, read by a substantialsegment of the nation’s English-speakingcommunity.

As ALIRAN’s popularity rose, the Statestruck yet another blow. Because of tensionswithin UMNO, the mainstay of the rulingcoalition, as a result of an intensely foughtintra-party contest in April 1987, and becauseof tensions in the larger society broughtabout by ethnic and non-ethnic factors, thethen prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad,decided to clamp down on dissent: 118 of uswere arrested under the infamous InternalSecurity Act (ISA) in October 1987. The ISAallows the government to detain people with-out trial, in the name of preserving nationalsecurity. I was kept in solitary confinement ina small prison cell at the Penang policestation. After a week, the family was allowedto visit me on a regular basis. In all, I wasdetained for 52 days. I was released withoutconditions on 18 December 1987.

In the first couple of weeks of detention,it was obvious from the interrogationscarried out that the authorities regarded meas a sort of Marxist. Incidentally, when I was

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banned by the Singapore government fromentering the republic on 28 October 1987 –the day after I was detained in Malaysia –the unofficial reason given was that I hadinterfered in Singapore’s internal affairs byasking for the release of individuals arrestedin May that year under Singapore’s ISA,who were part of a ‘Marxist plot’ to destabi-lize the country. Was there a link betweenmy ISA arrest and the Singapore ban? Wasthis an example of cooperation between theintelligence outfits in the two countries? It istrue that I had called for the release of theISE detainees but how can one construe thatas interference in the internal affairs ofSingapore? In any case, were the detaineesMarxists or just social critics without anyideological leanings? For the record, theSingapore government lifted the ban on meat the end of October 2003.

Of course, the Marxist tag made nosense at all, given my own ideological orien-tation and my interrogators soon droppedit. They then began to concentrate uponALIRAN and dissent. I soon realized that itwas dissent that the police interrogatorswere unhappy about. I tried very hard toconvince them that dissent is legitimate inany democracy and that the appreciationand accommodation of dissent is

sine quanon

for the stability of any society.After my release, I campaigned for the

release of the few who were still detained.They were all freed within 18 months. Verysoon, I was drawn into another major issueconcerning Malaysian democracy. In May1988, a tribunal dismissed the head of theMalaysian judiciary, for alleged judicialmisconduct. Since the allegation was utterlypreposterous – most people believed thatTun Salleh Abas’s dismissal had somethingto do with an UMNO case that was about tobe heard by the Supreme Court – a signifi-cant cross-section of the populace becamevery critical of the Mahathir Administration.Through the

ALIRAN Monthly

and viapublic meetings, my fellow human rightsadvocates and I made the public a littlemore aware of the danger of untrammeledexecutive power and the significance of anindependent judiciary to a civilized society.

In 1990, I participated in yet anotherendeavor to strengthen Malaysian democ-racy. Together with a handful of otherpublic personalities, we established an ‘Elec-tion Watch’ group to monitor the eighthgeneral election. The group, under a retiredchief justice, Tun Muhammed SuffianHashim, produced a fair and objectivereport which sought to improve the elec-toral system in the country.

A year later, in 1991, I stepped down aspresident of ALIRAN. I had been at thehelm for 14 years, and felt the time hadcome to relinquish my position. I havealways believed that no one should cling onto a position for eternity. Besides, I could seethat the global scenario was changing and itrequired a response from people in theGlobal South.

JUST

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991,leaving the US as the world’s only super-power, some of us realized that the US elitewould pursue with relentless determinationits goal of establishing global hegemony.There was a need to raise public awarenessof the perils of US global hegemony. It wascritically important to persuade people thathegemony should be resisted and thathumanity should intensify its struggle forglobal justice. It was with these aims inmind that some friends of mine and Icreated the JUST World Trust in Penang on1 August 1992. The veteran NGO activist,Mr S. M. Mohd Idris, was the chairman andI was the secretary and director.

At about the same time, I returned toUSM as a senior research fellow, at the Centrefor Policy Research. It was my hope that Iwould be able to do some research and writ-ing on the changing global scenario, apartfrom continuing my academic work on ethnicrelations and religion.

JUST was actively publishing articles,and organizing conferences and work-shops. In the wake of the atrocious humanrights violations in Bosnia-Herzegovina,JUST organized a major internationalconference on the theme of ‘Re-thinking

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Human Rights’ in December 1994. It wasan attempt to expose the hypocrisy anddouble standards in the human rightspostures of mainstream western society.The 1994 Conference was followed byanother equally successful workshop in1995 that analyzed the distortions andmisrepresentations in the western mediavis-à-vis the Global South, especially theMuslim world. In both instances, bookswere produced: from the conference, abook entitled

Human Wrongs

(Just WorldTrust 1996) and, from the workshop, abook called

Terrorizing the Truth

(JustWorld Trust 1997).

On the US-led drive for global hege-mony, on biased mainstream westernperspectives on human rights, on the jaun-diced western media, and on issues such asBosnia, the crippling sanctions against Iraqand the oppression of the Palestinians,JUST’s views paralleled the government’s.Consequently, my own relations with PrimeMinister Mahathir Mohamad improvedconsiderably. Besides, the deputy primeminister in the 1990s was Anwar Ibrahim,an old friend of both Idris and myself. It wasAnwar who encouraged private Malaysiancorporations to donate to JUST.

Since the donations were substantial,JUST trustees felt that we could not remain aprivate trust that was not accountable to thegeneral public. JUST World Trust was there-fore transformed into a registered societyunder the Societies Act and given a newname, the International Movement for a JustWorld (JUST). The JUST office was movedto Petaling Jaya, near the federal capital,Kuala Lumpur, in 1997. The principalreason for the move was because I had beenappointed professor at, and director of, theCentre for Civilizational Dialogue at theUniversity of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur. Ialso became president of the restructuredJUST.

Party politics

In February 1999, two years after myappointment, I lost my university job. Mycontract was not renewed. Two months

later, in April 1999, I became the deputypresident of a new opposition politicalparty, Parti KeADILan Nasional, orNational Justice Party. Suddenly I hadbecome a politician, while remaining JUSTpresident. How did this happen?

On 2 September 1998, Prime MinisterMahathir had sacked his deputy, AnwarIbrahim. He deemed Anwar ‘morally unfitto rule’. It was alleged that he had indulgedin homosexual activities and had extra-marital sexual trysts with a whole lot ofwomen.

It is quite possible that there were atleast two other reasons for Anwar’sdismissal. In 1997–1998, Malaysia, togetherwith a number of other Asian countries,faced a serious financial crisis caused mainlyby the massive exit of speculative capitalfrom the region. Mahathir sought to over-come the crisis by imposing currencycontrols and stimulating the economy.Anwar, who was also the finance minister,preferred the removal of subsidies and thereduction of public expenditure. It was, inthe words of Economics Laureate, JosephStiglitz, ‘an IMF program without the IMF’(Stilglitz 2002).

Apart from fundamentally differentapproaches to the financial crisis, Mahathirknew that Anwar was trying to underminehis leadership. A couple of middle-levelUMNO leaders aligned to Anwar accusedMahathir of corruption and cronyism. Thethen UMNO Youth leader, an Anwar ally,also launched an attack on Mahathir’salleged lack of integrity. Mahathir hit backby not only exposing Anwar’s allegedcronyism and corruption but also by givinghim the boot.

I was supportive of Mahathir’s imposi-tion of currency controls and some of hisother economic measures. In fact, JUST wasperhaps the only NGO to endorse hisapproach. At the same time, however, I wasdeeply dismayed by the way Anwar wastreated – the orchestrated shaming in themedia; the cruel assault in prison perpe-trated by none other than the InspectorGeneral of Police himself; and the shabby,shoddy aspects of his trial.

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This is why I spoke out against Anwar’smaltreatment. I became the deputy chair-man of a social movement to defend Anwar,called ADIL, formed in late 1998, which wasled by his wife, Dr Wan Azizah Ismail. Itwas because of the stand I took that I lostmy university job.

I had no intention of joining a politicalparty. I was told that at least 20 Members ofParliament from the ruling coalition wouldquit and come out in open support ofAnwar. They would lead the party. It didnot happen. So when the party was formed,on 4 April 1999, I was compelled to acceptthe position of deputy president. Azizah,also a reluctant politician, became KeADI-Lan president.

KeADILan was a party composed ofdisparate groups and individuals withdivergent political orientations whose onlycommon goal was Anwar and getting himout of jail. Right from the outset it wasembroiled in unending political feuds andconstant in-fighting. Anwar, who sought todirect the party from behind prison walls,wanted KeADILan to remain a party ofpersonage, which would be focused on himand nothing else. He allowed corruptionand communal politics to thrive within theparty as long as his power was intact.Worse, he himself played up to differentethnic galleries as and when it suited hispolitics. Anwar went out of his way to culti-vate support from the centers of power inthe West. He forged close ties with the likesof Paul Wolfowitz, the former US DeputySecretary of Defense, a leading neo-con andprincipal advocate of US global hegemony.In the eyes of the champions of hegemony,Anwar was a ‘liberal’, a ‘democrat’, a‘friend’ who could be relied upon to carryout their agenda.

Anwar’s politics, and the parlous stateof the party, convinced me that I should quit– which is what I did in December 2001. Iwithdrew from party politics altogether.The two-and-a-half years I was in KeADI-Lan proved an eye-opener on how Machia-vellian politicians can be. They may espousethe loftiest of ideals but it is what they dothat really matters.

Towards culture of resistance and integrity: the current phase

Party politics was an aberration in my life. Iam now doing what I have done all theseyears: social activism through NGOs andintellectual endeavors through academia.JUST has continued to articulate its positionon a wide spectrum of global concerns. TheIraq War of 2003 – a stark embodiment ofthe US-led drive for global hegemony – wasone of those concerns that engaged JUST’senergies. Globalization, both its positive andits negative dimensions, was also on ourradar screen. An international roundtablewas organized on the theme in 2002. Theglobal war on terror and its impact upon thewestern and Muslim worlds, inter-civiliza-tional ties, alternatives to empire and therelevance of a universal spiritual-moralvision for the crises of our times, are some ofthe other themes that we have focused uponin the last few years.

Apart from roundtables, seminars andforums, JUST has also published a great deal.At least half a dozen books have appeared inthe last six or seven years. Of course, ourflagship remains the monthly bulletin onglobal concerns, the

JUST Commentary

,which reaches more than 6000 groups andindividuals in about 120 countries. There isalso the JUST website, which carries analysesof current issues and reflections on globaltrends. Since 2007, the website (www.just-international.org) has received more than 2.5million hits.

I have also, for many years now, trav-eled to different parts of the world, givinglectures and speaking at seminars andconferences, all the while conveying thesame message, which in essence is the JUSTmission: the global justice that we seek willhave to be anchored in a universal spiritual-moral vision at the core of which is aprofound consciousness of God. Globalhegemony, widening disparities betweenrich and poor, political authoritarianism,religious bigotry, cultural prejudices and allthose negative human traits such as greedand selfishness, are inimical to this vision.Increasingly, I sense a rapport with this

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message, especially among certain groupsin the US.

While I have not ceased to challengeglobal power through JUST, I have also, inrecent years, begun reminding the powers-that-be in Malaysia and the influential stra-tum in our society, of the importance ofaddressing certain critical issues in thecountry. Integrity is one of them. Hence myposition as a director of the Malaysian Insti-tute of Integrity (IIM), which seeks todevelop a culture of integrity within Malay-sian society. Since the chief secretary to thegovernment is the chairman of the IIM, onehopes that some of our ideas will beaccepted and implemented by the powers-that-be. I am also a director of the Interna-tional Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies(IAIS), which, given its intellectual thrust,offers the best hope in Malaysia of develop-ing a universal, inclusive understanding ofIslam that resonates both with the essenceof the faith and the demands of the age.Since July 2009, I have also taken on theadditional responsibility of chairing theboard of trustees of a foundation dedicatedto the task of enhancing national unity. The1Malaysia Foundation not only seeks toraise public awareness on the essentialprerequisites of unity, it also attempts toprovide inputs to the State on matterspertaining to unity. Given the wideningcommunal chasm in Peninsular Malaysia inparticular, the urgency of this missioncannot be emphasized enough.

If anything has reinforced and reinvig-orated my NGO work, it is my return toacademia. I am back at USM – for the thirdtime, due largely to the university’sdynamic vice-chancellor, Professor Dzulki-fli Abdul Razak. Since April 2007, I havebeen Professor of Global Studies, focusingupon the role of religion in a globalizingworld. It is crucial to understand howglobalization will shape our approach toreligion just as we have to try to fathomhow religion will influence globalization.Some of my writings under the USM rubrichave sought to comprehend these complexissues.

Reflections: loyalty to conscience

Looking back at my life and my struggle,what comes to the fore are the challenges Ihave had to overcome and the decisions ofconscience I have had to make. Of course,these challenges are nothing compared tothe formidable obstacles that so many othershave had to face. My physical conditionaside, my incarceration, the loss of job, theSingapore ban and the attempt to de-regis-ter a society I once helmed, have, in varyingdegrees, steeled my resolve to continue thestruggle for a better Malaysia and a betterworld.

And if there is one thing that sustainsme in this struggle, it is my faith in God.

It is this faith in God that has alwaysinspired me, consciously or unconsciously,to make decisions that are morally viable. Asthis essay has shown, at every stage of mylife and in different roles – primary schoolchild, university undergraduate, academic,NGO activist, politician – I have tried, in myown small way, to do what is right, even if itis sometimes against my immediate interest,or if it causes me a degree of hardship, or if itmakes me unpopular.

In the ultimate analysis, in any strug-gle for truth and justice, for equality andfreedom, it is this fidelity to ‘what is right’,to moral principles, that counts. This iswhat loyalty to conscience means – aloyalty that for many of us emanates fromfaith in God.

Acknowledgement

Professor Hee-Yeon Cho’s invitation to meto write about my life and my ideas hasforced me to reflect seriously on the variousstages of my modest quest for a moreunited Malaysian nation and a less unjustworld.

References

Alatas, Syed Hussein (1956)

The Democracy of Islam,

The Hague: W. van Hoeve.Alatas, Syed Hussein (1960)

Islam dan Masyarakat,

Kuala Lumpur: Pustaka Antara.

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Azad, Abul Kalam (1968)

Tarjuman Al-Quran,

Lahore: Sind Segar Academy.Iqbal, Muhammad (1974)

The Reconstruction ofReligious Thought in Islam,

Delhi: Kitab PublishingHouse.

Just World Trust (ed.) (1996)

Human Wrongs,

Penang: Just World Trust.Just World Trust (ed.) (1997)

Terrorizing the Truth,

Penang: Just World Trust.Natsir, Muhammad (1954)

Capita Selecta,

Vol. 1,Bandung: W. van Hoeve.

Natsir, Muhammad (1957)

Capita Selecta,

Vol. 2,Djakarta: Pustaka Pendidikan.

Sharif, M.M. (1963)

A History of Muslim Philosophy,

Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.Stiglitz, Joseph (2002)

Globalization and its Discon-tents,

London: Penguin Books.

Author’s biography

Dr Chandra Muzaffar is both a social activist andan academic. He is President of the InternationalMovement for a Just World (JUST), an internationalNGO based in Malaysia. He is also the Chairman ofthe Board of Trustees of the 1Malaysia Foundation.He is the Noordin Sopiee Professor of Global Studiesat the Science University of Malaysia (USM) inPenang. He has published more than 20 books oncivilizational dialogue, international politics, reli-gion, human rights and Malaysian society. AmongChandra’s latest publications are

Hegemony: Justice;Peace

(2008) and

Religion & Governance

(2009).

Contact address:

Centre for Policy Research andInternational Studies (CenPRIS), Universiti SainsMalaysia, 11800, USM, Penang, Malaysia.

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