Organizer: Climate Change in Southeast Asia Programme at ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute
Type/Location: Hybrid / Singapore
Description:
National identity is shaped by a confluence of factors, including history, politics, economics, education, class, race, religion, and globalization. Within this complex interaction, Islam has played an increasingly important role in shaping national identities in both Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority countries. Islam’s influence in maritime Southeast Asia has increasingly become a defining feature of the socio-political landscape. Since the Muslim resurgence movement of the 1980s, political elites, civil society groups, and ordinary Muslims have attempted to embrace Islam’s “way of life” principle in multiple ways; some of these endeavors have transpired through both inclusivist and exclusivist orientations. This roundtable examines the interplay between Islam and national or community identity in three key Southeast Asian nations: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. By referencing Indonesia’s strategic repositioning of itself as a global leader in moderate Islamic thought through Pancasila, Malaysia’s Madani framework that aims to foster social cohesion and national unity amid its racial and religious diversity, and the negotiations between secularism and Islam among Singapore’s religious elites, the speakers will explore how these countries balance the role of Islam in governance, education, and identity formation. These serve as crucial case studies in understanding how Islam contributes to and intersects with the construction of modern national identities in the region.
About the Speakers:
Andar Nubowo is a lecturer in the Faculty of Education, Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia (UIII), and executive director of MAARIF Institute for Culture and Humanity in Jakarta. He attained his PhD from the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Lyon, France, where he wrote his dissertation on the social history of moderate Islam (Islam wasatiyyah) in Indonesia.
Muhammad Faiz bin Fadzil is secretary-general of the National Trust Party (AMANAH). He represented the Permatang Pasir constituency as a member of the State Legislative Assembly (ADUN) in Penang from 2018 to 2022. Before joining AMANAH, he held various leadership positions in Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS).
Mohamed Imran Mohamed Taib is an independent researcher, writer, and advocate for multiculturalism and interfaith dialogue in Singapore, with over two decades of experience in the scene. He is the founding director of Dialogue Centre Limited and founding board member of the Centre for Interfaith Understanding (CIFU), both of which are interfaith organizations concerned with issues of social cohesion and inclusion.
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