Mehmet Murat ildan

COMMENT | There is a whole lot of dumb going around now. Since the hegemon is making every card in the deck a racial one, aggrieved Malay supremacists have been tripping over themselves attempting to remain relevant at a time when the Malay community is divided and Malay political parties are wondering who exactly a majority of the Malay community - in the peninsula - will vote for. A decisive majority is needed for the winner to claim that the party is the only one that can defend “bangsa” and “maruah”.

Perkasa has been wondering around like a headless chicken attempting to please many Malay masters but only managing to further expose the scam that the BN is anything but a vehicle for a kleptocratic racial hegemon. While Perkasa comes out sounding like the village idiot, groups such as Isma (Malaysian Muslim Solidarity) have a strong consistent message of racial and religious supremacy, bolstered by a cadre of Muslim professionals who engage in sophisticated rhetorical legerdemain to subvert the democratic process in favour of Umno, although they claim the mantle of “independent” Malay/Muslim opinion shapers.

Perkasa meanwhile is waging a muddled war on two fronts, the first with MIC and the second, with MCA. While certain Umno personalities rightly point out that Perkasa is a joke, the reality is that much of what Perkasa advocates is in line with mainstream Malay thought even though the community is fractured and not along ideological lines but along party (political) lines.

Perkasa’s war against the MIC is based on the MIC’s Vell Paari statement that Indian Muslim preacher Zakir Naik - who apparently is an honorary member of Perkasa - should be investigated for allegedly being an Islamic State (IS) recruiter here in Malaysia. Apparently, such a claim makes someone a threat Islam.

While I have no idea what Zakir Naik is doing here, the reality is that Malaysia has always been a transit point for Islamic terrorism. The New Mandala ran a piece in 2013 – ‘Extremism in the name of Islam and Malaysian Muslims’ - which I think is still relevant today. Indeed, I think the climate has become more tense with recent geopolitical conflicts and regional ratcheting of Islamic fervour by hegemons fearful of loss of power.

While I thought the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project was a flawed endeavour, I do think that the thrust of the piece - an examination of how the state creates an environment either willing or unwittingly for these types of extremists to thrive - is an important point.

The article references prominent experts and the work of two I am most familiar with - Joseph Chinyong Liow and Gordon P Means - and points to the reality that when the state makes the environment conducive to radical ideologies then we can expect more trouble from foreign devils waiting to use Malaysia as a transit point and staging area for terrorist acts. Anyone here remember the Kuala Lumpur ‘al-Qaeda summit’?

Land of opportunity

The following passage from the article should describe why I am really not concerned with Perkasa’s bleating that Vell Paari’s words were an affront to Perkasa - “For jihadi militants, Malaysia was a land of opportunity but not where militants could enjoy tacit government sponsorship or a safe sanctuary. What Malaysia had to offer the al-Qaeda network was its climate of politicised Islam within a Muslim-majority population, its visa-free immigration to citizens of Islamic countries, its excellent worldwide communication linkages, and its advanced banking system that included a well-developed sector of Islamic banks.

“Both Liow and Means have shown that the Umno-led government has played an important role in enabling, though not outright and formally encouraging, extremism in the country by way of sanctioning religious revivalism and Islamisation.”

Honestly, when you have a father of two pleading guilty and jailed for “giving support to a terrorist group and supported terrorist act involving the use of explosives” and if you are a rational person, you do not really have time to worry if Islam is under siege but rather if explosives are being set off in the name of Islam.

Then, of course, there is Perkasa’s concern that the MCA will be a conduit for communist China with the “cooperation deal” that the MCA inked with the ruling party. Unlike many other of my pundit brethren, this whole China relationship is not something that concerns me. I have more concern with the anti-China rhetoric from the opposition fuelling the anti-Chinese Malaysian sentiment that is the refuge of racists that should be of worry for any rational person.

As usual, these so-called defenders of ‘Malay’ rights are missing the bigger picture. Which is more dangerous - China attempting though commerce to spread its influence or Islamic jihadism attempting to subvert imperfect democracies in the region?

Perkasa deputy president Sirajuddin H Salleh asked, “Has BN, Umno and Malay NGO leaders forgotten the thousands of Malay soldiers and their families who suffered and died while fighting the communists who saw Beijing and Mao Zedong as their guide during the emergency? And my question to Sirajuddin is, is Perkasa forgetting the thousands of Muslims who have died all over the world because of Islamic terrorism?

Understand this. I am not too concerned about the communist threat or that MCA is sending party members to be possibly indoctrinated by the Communist Party of China. What I am worried about are the thousands of young Malays who are sent to the Middle East and come back with beliefs and ideas that are anathema to our way of life, and this seems perfectly fine with the Umno hegemon.

Why apply a different standard to the Chinese component party of BN? I suppose that being Malay and a communist is a pardonable offence, but being Chinese means that you and the generation after is always a threat.  What is Perkasa actually worried about? That these MCA cadres would return and turn the Malays into unthinking, unquestioning drones who support an ideology that is promulgated by the state? Oh wait…

Actually, what Perkasa should be worried about is the rhetoric of the grand Umno poohbah concerning China. I doubt there has ever been a Malay leader who is so unabashedly pro-China and who does not miss an opportunity to demonstrate to China that Malaysia - Tanah Melayu - would make an ideal playground for Chinese business. A Malay leader who has no problem cosying up to China whose ambassador to Malaysia angered Malay rights types with his overt rejoinders of tolerance and peaceful co-existence.