Can Islam have a democratic future? It has a glorious past and present

I was born Abdul Halim bin Ismael from Nakhon si Thammarat, southern Thailand. I was born in a Pesantran. In Southern Thailand we call it Pondok. I was born in a Madrassah. I was born in a Madhhab, a basic Muslim Islamic education institution.

But here I am. If the Thai government could make me a spokesman, I think there is value in trying to understand Islam and what it can contribute to democracy.

Let me tell you a story. Thirteen days before September 11, 2001, the government of Austria called a meeting, A Dialogue Among Civilizations, attended by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan.

At that dialogue were Rabbi Schneider, from New York, Hans Kung, Professor of Catholic Thought, from Switzerland, an adviser to President Khatami of Iran, the proponent of this dialogue, a few others, and myself.

The Secretary-General proposed that we talk about global civilisation. I, being from a Buddhist-majority country, raised my hand and said "Maybe it is not time yet to talk about global civilisation because I can sense that exponents and representatives of those great civilisations are still very attached and emotionally hanging on to them".

I proposed that we talk about global awareness, which I see emerging everywhere. I think this meeting was in the spirit of mutual respect in search of something that will help us bridge the gaps between us.

You can find the seeds of ideas and principles of all political ideologies in the fundamental teachings of any religion. If you think of democracy as a mixture of various ideas, values and cultures from across the world and from all civilisations, it is something of a modern invention.

Islam is the same. It is a continuation of the tradition of monotheism from Judaism, to Christianity, to Islam. Its uniqueness is that we count every prophet all the way back to Adam. Adam, Moses and Jesus are prophets of Islam. The only difference is that we believe that Mohammed is the last prophet.

The Jews stopped at Malachi - Jesus is not one of their prophets. The Christians do not consider there were any prophets after Jesus. However all three traditions belong to the same monotheistic tradition.

It is important to understand the frustration, emotions and feelings of Muslims. Muslims are very proud of their past but are reminded of the injustices that have been imposed upon them. Muslims are frustrated by the present injustices they feel but are inspired by the unwavering fate that they will be vindicated in the end.

Islam has a very strong identity, sometimes uncompromisingly so. But, given that the last two or three hundred years have produced a record of interference, invasion and colonialism the process of evolution, diversification and development has not been continuous in the Muslim world.

Muslim scholars, when Europe was in the Dark Ages, studied the texts of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. They produced texts on medicine, astronomy and philosophy. They passed this wisdom on to the Christian fathers in the monasteries in Rome. From there it flowed through to the Renaissance, the industrial revolution, the Age of Enlightenment and to the power that would lead Europe into the Levant, into the Middle East and into the Holy Land in the form of colonialism.

Then came the establishment of the State of Israel. The Palestinian and Israeli issue is deep, emotional, frustrating and unforgiving for a lot of Muslims around the world, not only for the Palestinians and Arabs.

These emotions have somehow surfaced in the political evolution of almost every Muslim country. Muslims have been denied the opportunity to evolve their own democratic tradition. But this does not mean that we are incapable of evolving, developing and innovating a system that would lead a democracy in some form.

Most people look at Islam as one monolithic religion. But in South East they have gone through their own specific process of diversification, innovation and adaptation.

What is the reason that Muslims in south-east Asia are more moderate, flexible and more adaptable than Muslims in the heartland? South-east Asia was already very well informed by two major religions - Hinduism and Buddhism - when Islam came. It was forced to adapt, adopt, and innovate.

I call us here in south-east Asia "Muslims in the periphery". We are more flexible, moderate and ready to adapt and adopt. Look, for example, at the role of women. You cannot dream of putting south-east Asian Muslim women behind the wall. Because when Islam came to south-east Asia, women already were planting rice and marketing their wares.

Therefore Muslims in south-east Asia, and especially Muslims in Malaysia, are somewhat like other developing societies. They are diversifying their economy, developing their institutions and slowly trying to open up the system.

To me Malaysia is the only Muslim society that is effectively facing modernity and globalisation. We used to laugh about them when they were trying to achieve what they called the "Islamisation" process of knowledge of the economy, society and of education. But look what they have achieved. Of course the Malaysian model is not perfect. It can be embellished, modified and improved upon but it is a rich model and at least it is working

There is this idea of turning Iraq into a democracy following from which there will be a march of democracy throughout the Middle East. It will be a very long march. Wealth came in the late 60s, 70s, 80s and in the 90s. But that wealth, rather than allowing the country and the society to open up, somehow closed it down further. There is one supreme patron - the government.

What you see in the Middle East is not development. What you see in the Middle East is modernity. Modernity you can buy. If you have the money you can buy all the gadgets of the latest invention, but there is very little development. That is the distinction. But in Malaysia and Indonesia you see greater efforts for human resource development, a process that forces a country to be more open. The society is diversifying. Therefore there is room for participation, access and for give and take within the same Islamic society.

I once asked President Khatami of Iran, a Shi'ite, this hypothetical question: There are two men. One lives in a closed society. Every minute of his life is prescribed. He has to follow the rules of Islam. He has to pray five times a day. He has to fast. He has to pay his alms - his zakat. He has to do everything prescribed by the law, government, regime and police.

There is another Muslim who lives in an open society, with all the choices to be bad. Yet he remains good. He prays five times a day. He fasts. He pays his alms and does everything that the religion requires of him. Which is the better Muslim? President Khatami clapped his knees and laughed. He said, "You from south-east Asia are better than many Muslims around here".

My point is that Islam can inspire you to become a good democrat. Islam can also inspire a society to become a democracy. It depends on various factors that have to somehow work in order to propel that process of democratisation forward.

That certainly does not happen in many countries in the heartland of Islam. They were not forced by circumstances, while countries like Malaysia were. Malaysia and Indonesia are open societies that have to negotiate and mediate between various conflicting values and cultures.

Unfortunately, a historical moment like in Christianity in the West, where you had to separate the Church from the State has not occurred in Islamic history. The moment when intellectual research could be done independently of the great religious leaders has not occurred in the countries of Islam. This is because the kind of Islam that is patronised, promoted and encouraged has to be the type that the regime feels comfortable with.

In Saudi Arabia it has to be Wahabi, nothing else. In Iran, if you want to do research, if you want to evolve Islamic thought into modernity, you have to subscribe to Shi'ite dogma not Sunni. I am sure it is similar in every other Islamic country. In the past however, when Islam was growing, flourishing and prospering, the freedom to search, investigate, reason and rationalise was extremely open.

I think it is time to complete the loop. My suggestion is that the West, the Muslim countries and the Muslim people should get together and transfer what has been achieved, developed and innovated in the West, back into the Muslim world. If you leave Muslims behind, frustrated, hopeless and bitter like in Afghanistan and in other places, they will become a source of instability.

What happened on September 11 gave us a lesson. That was the first major global event that was experienced in real time around the world. We have to help each other to grow into a more open and egalitarian global society and complete that loop back into the Muslim World.

The kind of research and studies that needs to be done is particularly difficult. You cannot do it with the regimes looking behind your shoulders telling scholars not to deviate, not to bring any outside elements or their own ideas.

Research on Islamic studies can be done effectively outside of the Muslim world by Muslims and by others. Oxford University has just established a Centre for Islamic Studies. Harvard has had one for some time. There are also centres in Chicago and Princeton. Great scholars from the Muslim world staff them.

A Centre for Democratic Institutions like this can help. Complete that loop. Train Islamic students, scholars and Muslims so that they can help propel their own society into this era of globalisation.

For so long humanity has lived in the cave, as Plato describes it. We live with symbolism, with our prejudices, our faith and our beliefs. Now with technology, science and the capacity that we have, I think we are capable of walking out of the cave. We live with certain stereotypes of each other. These stereotypes might portray a particular group by saying it cannot change, be democratic, progress and diversify. Surely humanity should walk out of the cave and allow the light to shine.

I think the Muslims are just like any other human beings, aspiring to move forward but frustrated by the present circumstances that they find themselves in. I think you should feel sympathy with some of the problems they are facing. With all the power at our disposal in the world, somehow we could not solve the problems of the Palestinians. With all the powers we have we could not solve the problems of backwardness and of illiteracy not only in the Muslim world, but also in many other places.

In the age of globalisation there is no Christendom, no Islamic world, no east, no west, no south, no north. Therefore help each other. Help the Muslims attain their own true renaissance. The road to that renaissance that many of them are aspiring for is openness and democracy.