6 - Constricting Cosmopolitanism: Secular States in Muslim Southeast Asia

Summary

From markets to mosques to blogs, via the work of intellectuals and hijabclad women, it is clear by now that Muslim cosmopolitanism has carved a secure place within the hearts and minds of Muslims in Southeast Asia. This has had implications on non-Muslims in the region as well. Because Southeast Asian Muslims are, by and large, inclusive and cosmopolitan in their outlook, the day-to-day interactions and encounters with non-Muslims have generally been peaceful. Indeed, beyond the isolated episodes of conflict and violence that have so often been sensationalised by the media, the reality of life in Muslim Southeast Asia is such that people of varying backgrounds get along well in everyday life because the majority of the Muslim population understands Islam as a religion that is open towards and tolerant of people of different backgrounds, respectful towards strangers and foreigners, while remaining committed to (and rooted in) their own faith and community.

The state is yet another entity that needs to be scrutinised in the making and unmaking of Muslim cosmopolitanism in Southeast Asia. Most studies of cosmopolitanism have neglected the role of the state. The reasons for overlooking the state are twofold. The foremost reason is the prevailing assumption that globalisation has effectively shifted the agency of states to interest groups, lobby organisations and grass-roots movements. These non-state actors have captured the attention of social theorists who have showed how they have shaped societal receptivity towards cosmopolitan ideals and defined cosmopolitanism from a bottom-up viewpoint, rather than a top-down perspective. A related reason why states have largely been ignored has to do with the supposition that each state is generally concerned with the protection of its own security and citizenry. This has conditioned how states function; that is, they are generally insular regarding cosmopolitan projects because such efforts run contrary to state goals of inculcating national loyalty, commitments to the local culture and the defence of state sovereignty. Noting these trends in scholarship and in state–civil society practices, Garrett Wallace Brown argues that, ‘for cosmopolitans, the agenda should be to think more inventively about how to make these everyday state practices increasingly more cosmopolitan’.