The institute’s chief executive Wan Saiful Wan Jan was speaking in particular about PAS splinter party Amanah which, he said, claimed to champion progressive Islam.
“If progressive ideas are taken up by civil societies and progressive individuals than even if Amanah doesn’t succeed, progressive ideas will continue to survive,” he said at an international conference on democracy and the Muslim world convened by the Istanbul Network here.
Wan Saiful said it was inaccurate to label Amanah members as progressive Muslims although they might seem more progressive than the conservatives in PAS.
Instead, Wan Saiful cited the label ‘neo-conservatives’ which, he said, was given to them by a local scholar. He was possibly referring to Universiti Sains Malaysia political science professor Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid who had referred to Amanah members as neo-conservatives.
“The ideology is still the same but neo-conservatives try to bring it to the public in a more rational and easily acceptable way,”
Wan Saiful’s positivity prompted political and social analyst Wong Chin Huat, from the Penang Institute, to ask why the IDEAS chief executive was so sure that progressive ideas would continue to survive, accusing PAS of claiming to be “all things Islam” and “the most authoritarian party.”
In response, Wan Saiful, who is also a life-long member of PAS, said ideas were stronger than any individual and “certainly” stronger than any institution.
“This is the beauty in working in the realm of ideas. The challenge is to promote ideas and make them mainstream.
“The progressive ideas such as the belief in individual liberty and reality is not in the forefront yet.”
Wan Saiful said those who were more progressive started emerging in PAS after the Reformasi era in 1998.
“PAS positioned itself as the opposition that championed the Malays and Muslims and so many of those who sided with Anwar Ibrahim joined the party and many of the neo-conservatives started joining as well.
“So much so that between 1998 and 2010, people started saying PAS had changed from a conservative party to a progressive one, but this is wrong.
“PAS has always been conservative, it just allowed those who were more progressive (neo-conservatives) to come in and gave them positions so they could act as poster boys to get the non-Muslim support.
“Then in 2015, they were kicked out of those positions and sidelined when they began getting too influential.”
This, Wan Saiful said, was what gave birth to Amanah.
“This move led these neo-conservatives to realise that perhaps PAS was not the place for them.”