Cosponsored with the Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford

Daulah Islamiyya (Islamic sovereignty, or an Islamic state) is a declared objective of the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyya. In Malaysia, where parliamentary elections are expected to be held in April, both the Muslim-Malay party (UMNO) in the ruling coalition and the Islamist party (PAS) opposed to UMNO have offered rival visions of Malaysia as an Islamic state. Radical groups in Indonesia have proposed replacing the "Pancasila state" in their country with an Islamic state. So what exactly is an "Islamic state"? And why does it matter so much for politics -- radical or democratic -- in Muslim Southeast Asia? Dr. Martinez will review and explore the contexts, in theory and in practice, that can help us understand what this debate is about. Patricia Martinez, a Malaysian, is among the most highly regarded and widely published scholars working on Islam in Southeast Asia. She is based at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, where she is senior research fellow for Religion and Culture and Head of Intercultural Studies at the Asia-Europe Institute. Her writings relevant to her talk include "Islam, Constitutionalism and the Islamic State" (2004) and "The Islamic State or the State of Islam in Malaysia"(2001). A 2003 essay, "Deconstructing Jihad; Southeast Asian Contexts," is available at http://www.ntu.edu.sg/idss/new-publi.asp. Dr. Martinez has just returned to Stanford from speaking engagements in Australia.

In the United States since 9/11, there has been a tendency to reduce Southeast Asia's connections to the Middle East to religion: that is, to the Muslim faith shared by majori-ties east of the Mediterranean and south of the South China Sea, not to mention the Muslim minorities elsewhere in Southeast Asia. While addressing the changing nature and importance of this overlap, Professor von der Mehden will also analyze how and why these two regions, spatially so far apart, have been interacting on a range of economic, security, and political issues, including the question of Palestine. He will argue that there is more interaction today between the two regions than ever before. Each region has become more involved in the affairs of the other. But these burgeoning connections are not what they were expected to be. Nor are they all benign.

Fred von der Mehden is internationally known for his extensive scholarship on politics, religion, and development in Southeast Asia. His talk will update and expand on his 1993 book, Two Worlds of Islam: Interaction between Southeast Asia and the Middle East. A senior editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World (1995), Professor von der Mehden's many other books include Religion and Modernization in Southeast Asia (1986); Southeast Asia 1930-1970 (1974); Comparative Political Violence (1973); and Religion and Nationalism in Southeast Asia (1963). He has just returned from Southeast Asia, where he has lectured or done research almost every year since the 1950s. He is California-trained, having earned a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley; an M.A. from Claremont Graduate School; and a B.A. from the University of the Pacific.

Educational achievement in Malaysia is racially skewed across its three main cultural groups: The Malay-Muslim majority lags behind the country's Chinese and Indian minorities. This poses a dilemma. Should the state give the majority preferential access to education in the name of group equality? Or permit such access to be decided by merit alone, in the name of fairness among individuals? Malaysia has chosen to expand opportunities for schooling while maintaining a strict policy of affirmative action for Malays, all within a centrally controlled and standardized system of national education that relies on the Malay language and includes emphasis religion and morality. After showing how this pattern evolved from the secular, English-language format adopted by the British when they ruled Malaysia, Dr. Bakri Musa will assess the costs and benefits of affirmative educational action in the country today. Bakri Musa has written extensively on Malaysia. His latest book, An Education System Worthy of Malaysia (2003), has been described as "a severe critique" and "a comprehensive proposal for reform." Earlier titles include Malaysia in the Era of Globalization (2002), and The Malay Dilemma Revisited (1999). Shorter commentaries have appeared in Asiaweek, Education Quarterly, The Far Eastern Economic Review, and The International Herald Tribune, among other print media, and been aired by National Public Radio on its program, "Marketplace." A surgeon in private practice in Silicon Valley, Dr. Musa earned his medical and graduate degrees at the University of Alberta in Canada.

American news from Indonesia has been alarming. "Asian Terror: Al Qaeda Seeks Niche in Indonesia, Officials Fear," headlined the New York Times on 23 January 2002. In the same issue, in a column ambitiously subtitled "What the Muslim World Really Feels," Tom Friedman described "an iron curtain of misunderstanding separating America and the Arab-Muslim world"--a world marked, in his view, by "enormous cultural resistance to believing anything good about America."

Indonesia is mainly Malay, not Arab, but it has more Muslims than any other country. How seriously should signs of jihadism there be taken? Ostensibly Islamist or jihadist movements include Darul Islam, HAMMAS, Laskar Jihad, the Islamic Defenders Front, the Islamic Youth Movement, Jemaah Islamiah, and KISDI. In Maluku and Sulawesi, Christians have killed Muslims and vice versa. Americans and their embassy in Jakarta have been threatened. How should such groups, events, and risks be described, explained, and responded to? In what specific ways are faith, politics, and violence intersecting in Indonesia--and with what implications for Indonesians and Americans?

Analysts have long portrayed Indonesian Muslims as exemplary in their openness and tolerance toward non-Muslims and, within the Muslim community, toward religious diversity, creativity, and reform. Were these observers naive? Or have jihadism and Islamism been grossly overdrawn, and for reasons that involve politics, prejudice, and sensationalism far more than actual conditions? In this volatile context, how realistic are current reformist projects to foster a "liberal Islam," a "moderate Islam," a "feminist Islam," or a distinctively accommodative "Indonesian Islam"--as against an avowedly "militant Islam" that would impose an "Islamic state"?

Press reports of rising anti-Americanism and Muslim militance in several Southeast Asian countries have fueled speculation that the United States may be planning to intervene against terrorist groups in that part of the world. How credible are these reports? In Indonesia, which has more Muslim citizens than any country with the possible exception of India, Islamist activists have demanded the severing of U.S.-Indonesian relations and threatened to expel Americans. There has been speculation that American advisers may soon arrive in the southern Philippines to help Manila root out ostensibly Islamist rebels operating there. While criticizing the bombing of Afghanistan, Malaysian Premier Mahathir Mohamad has accused his Muslim opposition of links to Islamist subversion. Meanwhile, Malaysian jihadist elements are alleged to have been in touch with Osama bin Laden's network. How real are these perceived dangers? What do they imply for stability and democracy in Southeast Asia, and for the future of America's global coalition against terror? Bambang Harymurti has long been associated with Tempo, the leading newsweekly in Indonesia. He served on its editorial board from 1987. When the magazine was banned in 1994, he moved to the daily newspaper Media Indonesia. He returned to Tempo following its reappearance in printed form in 1998. He has held fellowships at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the East-West Center, among other institutions. He was also a finalist in Indonesia's astronaut program. Fortunately for journalism, he did not make the cut. Don Emmerson convenes the Southeast Asia Forum in the Asia/Pacific Research Center, a unit of Stanford's Institute for International Studies.