Post-Islamism or Pop-lslamism?

Ethnographic observations of Muslim youth politics in Malaysia

Abstract

This paper analyses transformations in the organisational culture of the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) and its Youth Wing. By examining the party's changing approach towards popular culture, the article investigates whether the narrative of a transnational post-Islamist turn can be applied to the PAS Youth Wing. Based on anthropological fieldwork, I argue that in contrast to the assumption that Islamic marketisation and post-Islamism are reinforcing each other, the PAS Youth Wing has strategically appropriated and integrated Islamic consumerism in order to pursue a decidedly Islamist political agenda. This 'pop-Islamist turn' is reflected in a competition over the most efficient political exploitation of popular culture, which has emerged as a new 'battlefield' between PAS and its constitutive Other, the government party UMNO. The marketised 'popisation' of PAS is framed by firmly Islamist orientations. The discourse-dominating PAS Youth elites, which are at the forefront of implementing the new mobilisation strategies, categorically oppose post-Islamist tendencies within the party.