By and large, it would seem that the people of Malaysia are very passionate about their religious beliefs. But can anybody tell me this: what is religion?

My question is legitimate, I think. When there is so much undercurrent of repressed tension in our national narrative on religion, surely we must have a rough idea of what we are arguing about?

Here, our mythical man-in-the-street comes to our rescue. He will assert, with the sturdy blandness of common sense, that all religions are good because they teach people to be good, and live the good life.

That seemingly self-evident truth is not necessarily true of course. For instance, there are religious cults, in Malaysia and elsewhere in the world, which we instinctively know to be "deviationists". Then, our problem begins when we ask: "deviation" from what? Who determines what is deviationist, what is not, and how?

Besides, if all religions teach people to be good, why is it that, in past millennia, some of the greatest evils in human history have been inflicted by believers of various faiths in the name of their all-compassionate all-loving god, either on followers of other religious beliefs, or on members of other sects within the same faith?

From the sea of blood spilled over religious wars and religious persecution down through our collective history, are we to conclude that religion has failed in teaching people to be good, or that the good name of god has been misused all too often, or in Christian terminology this world still belongs to the devil?

Lacking in clarity

Perhaps, it just means that the language used by our man-in-the-street is lacking in clarity and precision when it comes to serious religious discourses. Perhaps real common sense can be the most uncommon commodity around.

Then again, there was this die-hard opposition supporter who confided to me sheepishly after one general election, that he had voted for the BN for the first time in his life, because he wanted to continue to eat pork, drink beer, play mahjong, go to a hair saloon with dubious lady attendants, and sing in karaoke lounges freely. He proudly declared that those were his basic human rights, which will disappear if the PAS-led opposition alliance comes to power.

I did not even try to question his shaky understanding of human rights. Neither did I try to persuade him that it will be another half a century perhaps, before the reality of an alternative government in Malaysia can become dimly possible. He had made up his mind on the issue, probably for the rest of his life, and that was that.

Nevertheless, that is how many non-Muslim Malaysians think about Islam, i.e., reduced to a set of taboos in food, dress codes, and "undesirable" social activities. Perhaps, in the labyrinth of their unconscious mind, there lurk dark images of Arab horsemen in flowing robes swinging long curved knives in the air, or menacing suicide bombers boarding jumbo aircraft.

Decades of truncating and distorting our public political discourse for the purpose of demonising political foes may have brought about this state of affair. Perhaps religious prejudices are the inevitable by-product of racial prejudices, given the identification of the Malay race with Islam as enshrined in the constitution. Then again, PAS state governments in Kelantan and Terengganu might have inadvertently reinforced these distortions by their overt emphasis on this particular aspect of religious life.

I suppose most organised religions will have systems of taboos governing codes of personal behaviour, like the mode of dress, the correct relation between the sexes, and such other manifestations of moral norms.

Should mean much more

But surely, great religions worth their salt, trying to teach people to be good, must mean much more than the sum total of these moral norms that govern the external behaviour of their believers?

For instance, the Catholic Church officially bans the use of artificial modes of birth-control, much to the chagrin of women's groups of the world, among others. Most Buddhists are discouraged, if not forbidden outright, from the consumption of animal meat, as part of their compassion and respect for all living life in general. Surely, the essence of these two religions ought to be defined beyond these taboos?

Indeed, the more thoughtful will argue that religious laws and edicts that govern personal behaviour are but one aspect of a religious life. Over-emphasis on public observances of religious ethics can - and often does - lead to a kind of hypocrisy.

We all know the type. They are the ones who are very devout in observing their public religious duties, who give generously to religious charities, but live a life rotten to the core in private. You can count some prominent politicians and businessmen among these "white-washed walls".

For this reason, some religious people have stayed away from organised religion all together. Even among believers of the major faiths, there has been a historical development in stressing personal faith as the cornerstone of religious devotion, in place of an interceding religious body that hands out man-made dogma from time to time.

Religion, they say, is a deeply personal matter between a believer and his god, and let no man put asunder.

This idea has some legitimacy. Historically, it led to the Reformation in the history of Christianity, resulting in great schism within the Church itself, and the emergence of the Protestant and other countless Christian sects that sprawl all over the world to-day. You could say that this trend of thought has something to do with the fundamental human right to religious freedom.

New urgency

In Malaysia, the claim that religion is a private matter, and should be separated from politics has taken on a new urgency, especially for those who oppose vehemently the PAS proposal to establish an Islamic state in multi-religious Malaysia.

Taken away from the confusing cauldron of political rhetoric, the claim that Malaysia is a secular state by virtue of our constitutional provisions does not seem so self-evidently true. There are many contentious issues that require treatment elsewhere.

For instance, even in developed democracies in the so-called West, the separation between politics and religion is not as clean cut as people think.

My fellow columnist Salbiah Ahmad, in an excellent article entitled Religion, politics and the law , has this to report from the works of Professor Michael Perry of Emory University:

"However, there is a line of thinking among religion and human rights scholars that it is simply unfeasible and untenable to rout religion entirely from lawmaking and politics. Many people are adherents to some sort of religious belief. There must be another way of framing the discussion."

"For Perry, self-identity is partly constituted by one's fundamental beliefs and commitments. Because the identity of individuals is shaped by their communal contexts, including their religious community, a person's moral identity is partly constituted by her or his religious convictions."

"Perry envisions politics as an ongoing moral dialogue with others based on religious conceptions of the good. Rather than separate religion and politics, he argues that religion should be put in dialogue with politics in the context of constitutional aspirations. He frames the question as "not whether to mix religion and politics" but "how to mix them"."

Like many expressions of platitudes, the proposition that religious belief is entirely a private matter is not so much wrong, as it is incomplete towards a better understanding of religion.

Use of language

Eventually, one's religious worship and religious practices almost always take place in a religious community. I say "almost always" because there are mystics who will retire from the world in prolonged solitary silent contemplation of religious truths, and seeking union with the ultimate reality of godhead.

Even so, the secluded religious mystics have behind them a body or organized believers and recognized sacred texts as their supporting superstructure that makes their mystical activities reasonable.

In short, the practice of one's religious belief always involves the use of language, either in thinking to one-self, or more importantly on communicating and discussing this belief with fellow devotees or people of other faith. In so far as language is always public, and as long as one's faith is always shaped and deepened by language, religion cannot be entirely a matter of private spirituality.

Therefore, it would seem that much of our common understanding about religion can be faulty in one way or another.

Can I further conclude that, if we examine our pre-conceived ideas about religion with intellectual honesty and emotional integrity, we are left with no alternative but to admit that we know little about religions in general and about our own faith in particular?

This admission of ignorance should not lead us to despair. There is something mysterious about mankind's obsession with their religious sentiment. The sickness of modernity and modernization is the tendency of societies to debunk all things mysterious, and to throw out the baby with the dirty bath water.

It does not mean automatically that religion should still be left to internal private world of personal faith, just because it has an element of mysteriousness often beyond the realm of words. It does mean that when we initiate any public discussion on religious beliefs, we use this admission of ignorance as a starting point.

Only then, our discourse can be open-ended, aimed at extending our common horizon towards some kind of common understanding which in turn will further a deeper appreciation of our own faith.

In this spirit, if I have made any remark about any religion which is wrong and offensive, I will appreciate your forgiveness and correction.

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