So, let me come back to the issue of Islam being a blessing to Malaysians but many Muslims are a disaster. How do we move forward?

I have been a member of PAS since 1992 and I am proud to see the party gradually changing for the better. I have been very lucky because I have been given the opportunity to deal and communicate directly with many of the top leaders in PAS. Through my association with PAS, I have been very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to get to know many Islamic groups in Malaysia. At the same time, in the UK, as well as my involvement in the British Conservative Party, I have been involved with various Muslim organisations in the United Kingdom, and, believe me, the variety of Muslim groups in the UK is even wider than what we have in Malaysia.

Looking at Malaysia and Britain, I think there is a common thread weaving through many of the different religious and ethnic-based organisations. They all feel like they are victims, or they feel that they have been victimised at one stage in the past. They all feel like they have been, or are being oppressed, and they need to speak as one religious or ethnic group. They all feel like they have to defend themselves from attacks by other religious or ethnic groups, and that is why they group together as one religious or ethnic grouping.

It is funny that in the UK, where Muslims are the minority, they feel they need to be defensive about Islam, but you also see the same thing in a country like Malaysia, where Muslims are in the majority. Muslims in Malaysia also feel that they need to be defensive about Islam. And their reactions to current issues are almost very similar. They group together to create an "us" versus "them" situation, and they appeal to the emotions of followers.

For Malaysia, in order to move forward, I believe we, Muslims, have to stop being defensive. Islam is a confident religion. Why is it that Muslims seem to have lost our confidence? Why is it that when others disagree with us, we show them the keris, or we insist on putting our beliefs into law, which is, just like the keris, a tool for coercion?

I believe these are all signs of defensiveness, and I believe it is high-time for Muslims, and in fact, those of any religion, to stop being defensive, and go into what Professor Tariq Ramadan calls, a "post-integration discourse".

Let us debate substantive policy issues that will improve the country as a whole.

Liberating values of Islam

In order to move forward, we Muslims and Islamists must go back to the liberating values of Islam and formulate and propose policy ideas that are also liberating and fair for everyone. Non-Muslims should do the same and stop intentionally stirring emotional issues that would only create more division.

Let us move away from divisive emotional debates and try to focus about the very positive and liberating aspects of Islam, and other religions.

Rather than continuing to talk about the emotive issues like race and religion, let us shift the debate to real policy issues. Stop sensationalising issues like apostasy and threat to Malay rights. When talking religion, why is it that we like so much to debate about apostasy when we know it is divisive? Why can’t we debate education, health, crime, domestic and international trade, economy, public services, schools, universities, hospitals and so on?

Islam promotes choice and defends the right of individuals to choose. That is positive. Let us stop all this rubbish about "Dalam Islam memang ada pilihan tetapi pilihan itu ada hadnya". This type of statements is turning a positive into a negative. We should go straight into the positives of choice, and find ways to introduce choice into national policies.

Choice in education

Let us look at education - the key to building a successful nation. Let us talk about how to introduce choice into our education system, particularly in schools, so that everybody, Muslim or not, would benefit. Let us make sure our education system is fair in the Islamic sense of putting the right thing at the right place.

To give a more specific example, citizens in this country pay taxes (or at least are supposed to do so!). Is it fair that, when everyone regardless of their religion, pays the taxes, and that tax money is then used to pay for schools and teachers, we still lump students into two groups – Muslim students learn Islamic studies, all other non-Muslims learn Pendidikan Moral. Buddhists pay taxes. Christians pay taxes. Hindus pay taxes. Why don’t we have Pendidikan Agama Islam, Pendidikan Agama Kristian, Pendidikan Agama Buddha, Pendidikan Agama Hindu in schools?

Did Islam not teach us to be fair? If fairness means putting things where they rightly belong, surely the most rightful thing to do is to allow Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Baha’is and so on to learn about their own religion, because after all, they have paid for those services through their taxes. Is it fair to force them to pay taxes to ensure Muslim children get Islamic education, but at the same time depriving children of other religion from learning theirs?

Let us translate the Islamic value of choice into giving true choice to parents – give them the choice to decide what religion their children will study in schools. This should not be dictated by the state, especially when the diktat is unfair to those of other religions.

Protecting consumers

Let us go to a second example. Let us look at how to ensure consumers pay the lowest prices for the best products. Surely protecting the consumers and ensuring that consumers get the best deal is a very Islamic thing to do. How do we ensure consumers get the best deal? The answer is by providing a guarantee for choice and competition in the market place, by removing government intervention in the markets, and by allowing traders to compete with others freely to give consumers the best value for money.

We have seen how government interventions only result in cronyism. State interference in the marketplace must be removed, and the role of the state in the market place must be limited. Let us open up our markets for traders, so that they have to compete to give best value for money. Who will benefit? The consumers, of course!

Let us allow the Islamic values of competing to do good (fastabikul khairat) to also operate in the market place. This will allow the traders, in their quest to attract consumers, also to do good for the consumers, by providing consumers with the best value for money.

New Economic Policy

Let us look at a third example - the New Economic Policy. I know many Islamists try to justify this pro-Malay policy by saying that the Malays need help the most, and therefore they must be assisted. I don’t know how these Islamists sleep at night because if they truly believe Malays need special treatment because they are all poor, they are either lying or are na V ve. The reality is, there are Indians, Chinese, Malays, Ibans, Kadazans, Orang Asli, and many more who are also poor and are in need of help.

Islam is a fair religion, and there is nothing more fair than abolishing the NEP that favours only one skin-colour, and introduce a scheme to assist everyone who is in need. Yes, perhaps it should be done gradually. But there should be a clear target and we should develop a timetable towards that aim.

It baffles me to see our Muslim politicians battling each other to argue how Malays are still poor and that the NEP is still needed. This is like arguing that they have failed to do what they were elected to do. And the Malay voters are even more ridiculous. They keep on electing these self-confessed, failed politicians!

What could be more Islamic than campaigning for the abolishing of the NEP, towards the creation of a policy that truly helps those in need, regardless or race and religion? If "adil" means putting things where they rightly belong, then the most rightful thing to do with the NEP is to put it into the rubbish-bin.

I can’t really go into the details of each policy area as this would require more time and space that this short occasion. But my main point is, we should move away from debates on race and religion, and start talking about really substantive policy issues.

Malaysia for all Malaysians

The Muslim Malays must grow up. This is not just a Malay or Muslim country. This is our country and you can see the diversity of our population as soon as you venture outside your own house. We have to realise that when people talk about Malay rights, it is not necessarily because they want to threaten the Malays, but it is because they want to improve the country as a whole.

I know how it feels to be told to stay away from certain issues because, in England where I live, I am a minority. It saddens me to see my non-Muslim non Malay brothers and sisters to be told the same in Malaysia.

So, let me conclude by saying this. I am a Malaysian Muslim. I consider myself an Islamist who believes in classical liberal values. I live in England where I am a minority. I know it is not easy being the minority. When you speak up, some (not all) of the majority says that you shouldn’t punch above your weight. When you try to make constructive proposals, some (not all) of the majority say you are trying to change their country. But, in all honesty, all that you want to do is to make the country better for everyone, not just for yourself. Somehow, because you are a minority, you are looked at with suspicion.

That is why I am urging every Muslim to make Islam truly a blessing for all Malaysians by not going too much into emotive issues. And this is equally applicable to people of all religions. We all should stop deliberately stirring up emotions, and we should move towards debating policy issues using the moral values of our religions, if you really want to use religion as the basis of your thinking.

Let us stop debating and sensationalising things. Let us walk away from debates that appeal only to the emotions. Instead, let us debate policy issues, and appeal to the intellect. Let us debate things that really make a difference to the lives of everyone in this beloved country of ours. Let us think about how to introduce policies that can liberate the people from the grip of the state. Let us together find ways to give back freedom and liberty to the people, socially, economically and politically, while at the same time holding true to the values of our religions.

And, especially to Muslims, let us go back to the values of Islam that promote fairness, freedom and liberty, not the centralising and socialistic tendencies of some Islamists factions.

Islam: A blessing to M'sians? (Pt 1)

WAN SAIFUL WAN JAN is director-general of Malaysia Think Tank London . A life member of PAS, he was previously at the British Conservative Party Research Department and the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit. He moved from KL to England in 1993 and has been living there since. In May 2007, he contested in the English local elections as a Conservative Party Candidate.

The above is a speech he gave at an event organised by Malaysia Think Tank Landon and the Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) in Kuala Lumpur recently.

Wan Saiful can be reached at wansaiful@malaysiathinktank.org