The struggles in many societies have always been over who has the power to make rules and to guide people's behaviour. The state has often been at the centre of these struggles.

The image of a powerful state, with its coercive apparatuses readily available to compel people to conform to a particular set of behaviours, has lured competing groups in the society to vie for state power. In modern democracies, the competition has been in the form of electoral struggles where political parties compete with each other to win elections and form governments.

But soon after winning elections, state leaders are often faced with mounting tasks to ensure that the states they lead remain intact. A myriad of social organisations - madrasahs, churches, kin groups, civic associations, professional associations - continue to bear considerable influence upon people's thought and behaviour. These social organisations remain influential in shaping people's perception of what is acceptable and what not, of what is right and what wrong - of legal meanings.

More often than not, state's strengths and weaknesses, and thus its ability to stay intact, are measured not against coercive powers it wields, but the sense of legitimacy it generates vis--vis contending legal meanings the people have in their minds. Should the state succeed in moderating and accommodating those myriad legal meanings, and turning them into shared meanings, it increases its chance to unite the people and to stay intact.

Of late, Malaysia is no exception to the dynamics of this state-society relation. Socio-economic changes that Malaysian society has experienced over the past decades proliferates new legal meanings which significantly define people's perception of and relationship with the state and its apparatuses.

The call for democracy, transparency, government's accountability and respect for women's rights are examples of new legal meanings at work. Value-laden concepts such as national unity, national security and racial harmony are increasingly been viewed in the light of democratic ideals rather than authoritarian ones.

The debate on the Interfaith Commission of Malaysia Bill as proposed by the Malaysian Bar Council aptly captures the above dynamics. The proponents of the bill mostly are among the urban educated middle class group who remain the main beneficiaries of the rapid socio-economic changes. It is thus not surprising that this group defines "religious harmony" in the light of the new legal meanings that they are very much engrossed with.

Clause (2) of the draft bill interprets "infringement of religious harmony" as "any act or omission which has as its effect the nullification or impairment of the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by any person or community of persons of his or their freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief as prescribed by international norms".

Important references

Absent in the above interpretation of religious harmony are a set of limitations that has been at the core of regime's conception of "harmony" typical to a multiracial and multi-religious society such as Malaysia's. Of course the word "harmony" itself is a contested one.

A participant at the National Conference Towards the Formation of the Interfaith Commission of Malaysia, which discussed the proposed bill, raised her concern that the word harmony in the bill may be misinterpreted as promoting "restriction" rather than "freedom". A considerable time was allocated for the debate on this semantic issue and the general ambiance of the conference suggested that the word "religious harmony" should mean religious freedom rather than restriction to the same.

As such, missing in the bill were important references to constitutional provisions which relate to limitations in one's exercise of his right to freedom of religion. These include Article 11(1) and (4) of the Federal Constitution which regulate the propagation of any religion and belief among persons professing the religion of Islam.

In its place are references to international norms, which particularly refer to various United Nations' declarations and conventions. The bill even explicitly enumerates those instruments in its reference to the norms.

This shift in the conception of "harmony" - from restriction to freedom - does not fully capture the dynamics of state-society relation in contemporary Malaysia. As social forces are by no means coherent, so is state organisation, there are bound to be contending views among the people and the various state sections.

Mainstream Islamic organisations are opposed to the proposed bill for, inter alia, its blatant disregard for special position of Islam as enshrined in the Federal Constitution. There are certainly important aspects of the bill which sit uneasily with their conception of freedom and law.

Central to this issue is the bill's proponent's conception of "religious freedom" which seems to encroach upon fundamental aspects of Islamic law, in particular in relation to the right to convert from Islam (apostasy) and to practice "deviant teachings".

Though there is no single mention of apostasy or Islamic deviant teachings in the bill, the essentially secular-liberal definition of religious freedom and the reference to international norms rather than the Federal Constitution in defining the same are sufficient to invite grave concern among the more conservative Muslims.

The conservative Muslims, whose thoughts and behaviours are continuingly being influenced by their experiences with and involvement in the madrasahs, usrahs and religious sermons, could not but disassociate from what they consider a violation of a well-accepted legal meaning.

Counter productive debates

Between these secular-liberal and conservative Muslim perspectives, lies a more moderate view. Prof Shad Faruqi, a constitutional law expert who participated in the conference cautioned that though the effort to promote inter-faith dialogue is commendable, proper regard must be given to the letter and spirit of the Federal Constitution. And this includes the special position of Islam as the religion of the Federation and the latent spirit of the informal 1957 social contract.

Questioning special position of Islam will open up counter productive debates on the agreed terms of the social contract and is inimical to the main purpose of the proposed commission to promote religious harmony. A number of Muslim and non-Muslim participants at the conference also echoed the same concern.

As these competing social forces are struggling to assert their views and to dominate the public debate, the state is caught in a dilemma. The task to moderate different conceptions of legal meanings and transform them into a shared one seems not to be easy. The state may concede to the views of the bill's proponents and transform state law into the one which is defined in the light of the new legal meanings.

But conceding to their views will essentially alienate substantial Malay/Muslim support to the government. This is not a good option since the Malay/Muslim ground, though is split right down the middle, continues to serve as an important support base for the Malay-dominated government.

Since the government has now shot down the proposal and ordered the Bar Council to put it on hold, the battle for some is over. But as these competing social organizations are becoming more aware of their role in influencing people's thoughts and behaviour - an area which the state often finds difficulties - and by so doing, increases their ability to transform state law, the struggle to win public debate may get more intense. For many, the war has just begun.

MARZUKI MOHAMAD is a political science lecturer at the International Islamic University Malaysia. He is currently pursuing his doctoral studies in law and politics at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.