Malaysia has had its share of controversy over the enforcement of Islamic laws among its majority Malay Muslim population. The episode sparked an unprecedented sense of outrage among Malaysian women of all creeds and races, says Zainah. This time, officials dropped the charges after Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and the mainstream media, which usually reflects official views, joined a wide coalition of women's groups in criticizing the raid and its selective enforcement of the law. Within a week, Azlina was back singing at the Ship. But the emotions raised by the incident remain high.
Some activists characterize the raid as a wake-up call for Muslim women.
Malaysia boasts of being one of the world's most developed Islamic societies, in which women have attained unprecedented levels of success in the workplace and classroom. Women now outnumber men at universities, for example. But despite these gains, Muslim women in Malaysia have made depressingly little progress in overcoming a daunting range of institutionalized inequities and prejudice, perpetuated largely by conservatives in the religious establishment. Paradoxically, while the arrest and jailing on corruption charges of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim opened politics to wider debate two years ago, that pivotal event has actually made life more difficult for Muslim women. Maznah Mohamad of Penang's Science University argues that polarization between the fundamentalist opposition Islamic Party of Malaysia, or Pas, and the ruling United Malays National Organization has left little middle ground for debate about principles such as gender equality.