The Political Mobilization of the Christian Community in Malaysia

Spanning Malaysia’s post-independence period, and using the repression-mobilization nexus as a key theoretical framework, this study outlines how its Christian community delicately and simultaneously defends its religious rights without being construed as anti-Islam in the face of state-led “Islamization”. By primarily focusing on the 1980s to the contemporary period, while considering subnational differences between East and West Malaysia, this study charts the changes in the community’s tactics of resistance and explains why it chose to adopt a non-partisan and non-violent approach despite targeted repression. In outlining the interplay between a minority community’s mobilization and national-level contestation, it focuses especially the role played by the Christian elites. Additionally, it raises key questions that remain relevant in the study of contentious politics: How do minority community in semi-democratic contexts protect their rights? What are their options and constraints for resistance? And how do changes in the political environment mould their strategy and tactics of resistance?