http://www.indianmalaysian.com/sound/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=811
Malay Hindus plan global stir
http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/news/top-story/malay-hindus-plan-global-stir.aspx
By R. Bhagwan Singh
Chennai, Dec. 2: Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi on Sunday expressed concern over the reports of oppression and discrimination against Malaysian Indians and told their representative, Mr P. Waytha Moorthy, who called on him at his house, that he would take up their cause with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
After listening to the Malaysian Tamil leader describe the various areas of discrimination and state violence against the Indian community in his country, the DMK patriarch sought a detailed report for taking up their case with the Prime Minister and in other appropriate forums. He regretted that he was being criticised by Malaysian ministers just because he took up the cause of the Indian community there.
“I told Mr Karunanidhi that the two million Malaysian Indians, 90 per cent of whom are Tamils, are looking to him for support as we are being oppressed and discriminated by our government. His letter to Prime Minister Singh asking for intervention in our support was a major morale booster for us,” Mr Moorthy said after the 20-minute meeting with the chief minister. He said he had also briefed Mr Karunanidhi about the harsh police action to defeat the November 25 rally called by his Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) in Kuala Lumpur.
The Hindraf chief said he would meet several Indian political leaders and human rights activists in the course of the next couple of days in Chennai and New Delhi before flying to Europe and North America to gather worldwide support for the Malaysian Indians, who he alleged were being discriminated against in education, jobs and even government contracts.
Mr Moorthy said the chief minister showed concern when he explained how thousands of Hindu temples had been demolished, Tamil schools were in bad shape and young Malaysian Indians were
increasingly getting restive due to all-round discrimination.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has, meanwhile, stoutly denied charges of discrimination and oppression while denouncing the Hindraf claim as a “blatant lie.” He also accused them of stirring up racial conflict in Malaysia. “I am really angry. I rarely get angry but this blatant lie cannot be tolerated at all,” Mr Badawi said late on Saturday during an official function in Malacca, according to reports reaching here.
Mr Badawi was particularly upset over the Hindraf letter to Britain accusing his government of indulging in “ethnic cleansing” to wipe out the Indian community from Malaysia. Hindraf had recently written the letter to Britain, which had brought thousands of Indians during the colonial era to work as cheap labour to clear jungles for rubber and other plantations. Hindraf has sought $4 trillion as compensation for the Malaysian Indians, now constituting about eight per cent of the country’s 27 million population, as Britain did not bother to protect their rights when leaving Malaysia in the hands of the majority Malay Muslims.
“Ethnic cleansing is like what happened in Bosnia when the Serbians killed and did everything to wipe out Bosnians from the country; we are not doing any such thing here,” Mr Badawi fumed. He said he had helped the Indian community in many ways, such as giving money to repair temples “because we respect other religions, and they are not our enemies.”
“Surely what is being questioned has racial undertones aimed at disrupting the prevailing peace, harmony and well-being of our people,” Mr Badawi said, while insisting that in the 50 years of independence, “we never had any problems with the Indians.”
Reflecting the Malay anger against the Indian agitators, Malacca chief minister Mohammed Ali Rustum, senior vice-president of the UMNO coalition ruling Malaysia, has now called for revoking the citizenship of the Hindraf leaders, accusing them of “betraying their own country.” He also demanded that the Internal Security Act, which provides for detention without trial, be used against them.
“Does this not show that we Malaysian Indians are still being viewed as aliens by these Malay rulers? Otherwise why does Rustum demand our disenfranchisement just because we asked to be treated as equals? The international community should take note of this,” said Mr Waytha Moorthy, reacting to Mr Rustum’s outburst.
Malaysia’s Hindu struggle (Economic Times)
A Malaysian court may have temporarily “discharged” three top leaders of the Hindu Rights Action Force from sedition charges, but that would do little to allay the socio-political unrest that has erupted out into the open in Malaysia.
The scale and ferocity of last Sunday’s street protests, which were spearheaded by this forum of minority ethnic Indians, underscores how strong ethnic minority disaffection is in this ‘multicultural’ nation. Enforcement of the exclusionary Bhumiputra policy — which discriminates against citizens of other ethnic vintage, vis-a-vis native Malays, in distribution of social goods and even economic opportunities — and active Islamisation of the public sphere by the Malaysian state is at the heart of such social strife.
Kuala Lampur must revise its discriminatory policy orientation, if only to effect a genuine national reconciliation. Any reluctance on that score is sure to undermine Malaysia’s considerable economic advances.
Democracy may not be an inevitable corollary of free-market capitalism, but the ever-growing chain of aspirations, which a successful free-market economy fuels, can be meaningfully fulfilled only when democracy is functional. Malaysia’s Bhumiputra national identity, given the success of capitalism in the country, has become more of a bane now than ever before. An exclusivist marker of national identity is, in any case, not in keeping with the ethos of the modern nation-state.
The vicious marginalisation of the then deputy PM Anwar Ibrahim, who has steadfastly espoused the cause of enlightened democracy and secular national identity, by former PM Mahatir Mohammed and his handpicked successor Abdullah Ahmed Badawi has only compounded the crisis.
Kuala Lampur must recognise that ethnic Indians are fighting for expanding the scope of Malaysian national identity. That their agitation has not made any overture, direct or indirect, to India shows that their politics is not chauvinist and separatist in character. The government’s failure to respond appropriately could lead to a Sri Lanka-like situation in Malaysia.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorials/Malaysias_indentured_rights/articleshow/2586478.cms
The country’s affirmative action has become cronyism by another name. It needs reform.
Malaysia’s programme of affirmative action came under wider scrutiny this week, with the ethnic Indian minority sustaining protests in a country mostly unused to disruptive agitation. Ethnic Indians, mostly of Tamil origin, say that current policies withhold from them economic opportunities available to Malays. In a curious overlap, they have also agitated outside the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur seeking reparation from London for taking their forefathers to Southeast Asia as indentured labourers a century ago. For Malaysia, which has always been keenly alert to the destablising possibilities of its ethnic and regional diversity, these protests would certainly ring alarm bells. About four decades after Malaysia embarked on a unique affirmative action programme to bring the majority Malays into the economic mainstream, these protests should underline the need to refine that plan. After all, with social unrest already wracking their neighbourhood in Thailand and Indonesia, Malaysia’s leaders must be keen to avoid similar political and economic destabilisation.
In zeroing in on the British mission, the protesters are, perhaps inadvertently, showing that for all their problems they cannot hold the majority Malay responsible. In different ways and degrees, colonialism took a toll on all settled and migrant subjects. Soon after Malaysia gained independence, an ambitious programme was launched to pull native Malays out of widespread poverty. This was done, for instance, by hugely subsiding their education in the best universities around the world and by financially assisting their entrepreneurial plans. By one estimate, in 1970, Malaysia’s natives owned only 2.4 per cent of its wealth. In the past decade, however, this affirmative action has been increasingly attacked by wide sections of the population for becoming cronyism by another name. One of the allegations has been that instead of helping certain sections of society in entering the entrepreneurial mainstream, it is now just a way of bailing out favourites and thereby denying others a level playing field.
The current protests would be most constructively seen in this context instead as a sign of outright ethnic discord. Malaysia is in urgent need to reform its affirmative action programme, for the good of all its people.
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/245370.html
Malaysia plans to resolve ethnic Indian issue
P.S. Suryanarayana
MIC asked to
set up a “special
committee”
Hotline to receive complaints
SINGAPORE: A Malaysian Minister on Friday announced steps to form a panel for making “new proposals” that could help resolve the “marginalisation” of the ethnic Indian minority. In a related context, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) said Malaysia, a founder-member, was competent to sort out the issue.
These “new proposals” are to be framed in the overall context of the impact of current policies that centre on affirmative actions in favour of the Malay majority.
Samy Vellu, Works Minister and president of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), said in Kuala Lumpur that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had now asked the party to set up a “special committee” to submit a comprehensive report on the demands of the community. This report would be a sequel to the MIC’s report, submitted to Mr. Badawi in June, under the title “New mechanism for the Indian community.”
The MIC is a constituent of the multi-racial coalition government headed by the United Malays National Organisation.
The MIC will also set up a hotline to receive complaints ranging from those concerning Tamil schools to issues relating to temples, according to Mr. Samy Vellu.
The latest protest, organised by the Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF), was sparked by complaints in these domains. In a letter addressed to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, this umbrella group of non-governmental organisations sought his intervention in this regard. The unauthenticated copy of this letter, now doing the rounds in cyberspace, begins with a narration of an “armed attack” on a temple on November 15.
Malaysian authorities have said they will investigate the authenticity of this document, which contains an appeal to the United Kingdom to move a resolution in the United Nations to condemn the alleged “ethnic cleansing” in Malaysia. A reference was also made, in this letter, to an alleged act of “mini-genocide” against Malaysian Indians.
There is also an appeal to the U.K. to refer Malaysia to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
Asked whether the ASEAN was concerned about the turn of events in Malaysia, the Association’s Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong told The Hindu: “These are issues which our national governments [in member-states] can handle. Let Malaysian authorities handle this. They are capable.”
Internal Security Act
In a related development, Mr. Badawi said he did not rule out the possibility of invoking the strict Internal Security Act (ISA) against HINDRAF leaders like P. Uthayakumar, P. Waytha Moorty, and V. Ganapati Rao.
Mr. Badawi said: “The ISA is a preventive measure that can protect the country from serious disturbances of the peace. The ISA is still there and, when appropriate, will definitely be used.”
http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/01/stories/2007120155811400.htm
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071201/asp/opinion/story_8607905.asp
December 01
OVERSEAS AND UNHAPPY – India needs to pay attention to the ethnic crisis in Malaysia
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray , The Telegraph ( Culcutta)
Malaysia’s simmering ethnic crisis is something for the ministry of overseas Indian affairs to ponder on. Presumably, the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman was bestowed on S. Samy Vellu, president since 1979 of the Malaysian Indian Congress and public works minister in the ruling coalition, because India approves of his work as representative of more than two million ethnic Indians. Since the man and his constituency are inseparable, convulsions in the latter that question his leadership oblige India to reassess its attitude towards the diaspora.
Initially, screaming headlines about Hindus on the march suggested hordes of ash-smeared trident-brandishing sadhus with matted locks rampaging to overwhelm Muslim Malaysia. In reality, thousands of impoverished Tamils carrying crudely drawn pictures of Gandhi sought only to hand over a petition to the British high commission in Kuala Lumpur about their plight since their ancestors were imported as indentured labour 150 years ago. It so happened that the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), a new umbrella group of 30 organizations, mobilized Sunday’s protest when Tamils battled the riot police for six hours.
The confrontation was even farther removed in space than in time from Lee Kuan Yew’s claim in 1959, when Singapore was waiting to join Malaya, that India was to Malayan culture “what Greece and Rome are to Western culture”. Peninsular Malay was part first of the Srivijaya empire and then of Rajendra Chola’s overseas dominions. Even modern Islamic Malaysia borrows heavily from India. Terms like Bangsa Melayu (for the Malay nation) and bumiputera (Malay Muslims), the cherished determinant of political and economic privilege, expose Malaysia’s own unacknowledged linguistic bankruptcy.
Describing the Thirties excavations in Kedah, which confirmed that Bujang was a Srivijaya empire port — dating back to the 4th century — within easy sailing distance of India, Time magazine reported in 2000, “But an Indian Malaysian visiting the Bujang Valley might come away feeling demeaned rather than proud — and that would be no accident.” Anthony Spaeth, the writer, went on to say that “the official literature does its best to downplay, even denigrate, the Indian impact on the region”.
Ironically, the Indian minority’s further marginalization coincided with the long tenure (1981-2003) of the former prime minister, the ethnic Indian medical doctor, Mahathir Mohamad. He also took Malaysia further along the road to Islamization. A kind of competitive Islam was at play under him with the fundamentalist Parti Islam SeMalaysia demanding Sharia law and Mahathir’s subsequently disgraced lieutenant, Anwar Ibrahim, peddling what he called Islamic values without “Arabisation”.
Lee says Chinese Malaysians (25 per cent) who have maintained an uneasy peace since the vicious Malay-Chinese riots of 1969, are being marginalized. But they at least have someone to speak up for them. They are also able to salt away their savings in Singapore where they often send their children for education and employment. Lacking any of these fall-back advantages, the much poorer Indians suffered in silence until Sunday’s upsurge. They did not protest even when six Indians were murdered and 42 others injured in March 2001 without the authorities bothering to investigate the attacks.
Nearly 85 per cent of Indian Malaysians are Tamil, and about 60 per cent of them are descended from plantation workers. Official statistics say Indians own 1.2 per cent of traded equity (40 per cent is held by the Chinese) though they constitute eight per cent of the population. About 5 per cent of civil servants are said to be Indian while 77 per cent are Malay.
An Indian who wants to start a business must not only engage a bumiputera partner but also fork out the latter’s 30 per cent share of equity. The licence-permit raj has run amok with government sanction needed even to collect garbage. Lowest in the education and income rankings, Indians lead the list of suicides, drug offenders and jailed criminals. All the telltale signs of an underclass. While the state gives preferential treatment to bumiputeras, the MIC has done little to help Indians rise above their initially low socio-economic base.
Religious devotion often being the last refuge of those with little else to call their own, Indians set great store by their temples, which are now the targets of government demolition squads. Many are technically illegal structures because the authorities will not clear registration applications. The last straw was the eve-of-Diwali destruction of a 36-year-old temple in Shah Alam town which is projected as an “Islamic City”. Insult was piled on injury when, having announced that he would not keep the customary post-Eid open house as a mute mark of protest, Vellu hastily backtracked as soon as the prime minister frowned at him.
Emotions have been simmering since 2005 when the mullahs seized the body of a 36-year-old Tamil Hindu soldier and mountaineer, M. Moorthy, and buried it over the protests of his Hindu wife, claiming Moorthy had converted to Islam. A Sharia court upheld the mullahs, and when the widow appealed, a civil judge ruled that Article 121(1A) of Malaysia’s constitution made the Sharia court’s verdict final. Civil courts had no jurisdiction. Such restrictions and, even more, the manner in which rules are implemented, make a mockery of the constitution’s Article 3(1) that “other religions may be practised in peace and harmony”.
Last Sunday’s petition was signed by 1,00,000 Indians. The fact that it was provoked by a supposed conversion and a temple destruction and was sponsored by Hindraf prompted P. Ramasamy, a local academic, to say, “The character of struggle has changed. It has taken on a Hindu form — Hinduism versus Islam.” But that is a simplification. The protesters who were beaten up, arrested and charged with sedition were Indians. They were labelled Hindu because Tamil or Malayali Muslims (like Mahathir) go to extraordinary lengths to deny their Indian ancestry and wangle their way into the petted and pampered bumiputera preserve. In Singapore, too, Indian Muslims who speak Tamil at home or sport Gujarati names drape the headscarf called tudung on their wives and insist they are Malay. Malaysia’s Sikhs also distance themselves from the Indian definition which has become a metaphor for backwardness.
Branding Sunday’s demonstration Hindu automatically singles out the minority as the adversary in a country whose leaders stress their Islamic identity. The implication of a religious motivation also distracts attention from the more serious economic discrimination that lies at the heart of minority discontent. Acknowledging that “unhappiness with their status in society was a real issue” for the protesters, even The New Straits Times, voice of the Malay establishment, commented editorially, “The marginalisation of the Indian community, the neglect of their concerns and the alienation of their youth must be urgently addressed.”
Some have suggested that the illusory prospect of fat damages from Hindraf’s $4 trillion lawsuit against the British government may have tempted demonstrators. But the lawyers who lead Hindraf must know that their plaint is only a symbolic gesture like my Australian aboriginal friend Paul Coe landing in England and taking possession of it as terra nullius (nobody’s land) because that is what the British did in Australia. The more serious message is, as The New Straits Times wrote, that secular grievances must be addressed. Though plantation workers have demonstrated earlier against employers, never before have they so powerfully proclaimed their dissatisfaction with the government. In doing so, under Hindraf colours, they have also signified a loss of confidence in Vellu and the MIC. The worm has turned. There is a danger now of the government hitting back hard.
All this concerns India, not because of M. Karunanidhi’s fulminations but because interest in overseas Indians must be even-handed. The diaspora does not begin and end with Silicon Valley millionaires. Nor should Vayalar Ravi’s only concern be V.S. Naipaul and Lakshmi Mittal whose pictures adorn his ministry’s website. Indians of another class are in much greater need of his attention.
Malay Hindus plan global stir (Deccan Chronicle, Dec. 3, 2007)
Chennai, Dec. 2: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on Sunday expressed concern over reports of oppression and discrimination against Malaysian Indians and told their representative, Mr P. Waytha Moorthy, who called on him at his house, that he would take up their cause with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. After listening to the Malaysian Tamil leader describe the various areas of discrimination and state violence against the Indian community in his country, the DMK patriarch sought a detailed report for taking up their case with the Prime Minister and in other appropriate forums. He regretted that he was being criticised by Malaysian ministers just because he took up the cause of the Indian community there.
“I told Mr Karunanidhi that the two million Malaysian Indians, 90 per cent of whom are Tamils, are looking to him for support as we are being oppressed and discriminated by our government. His letter to Prime Minister Singh asking for intervention in our support was a major morale booster for us,” Mr Moorthy said after the 20-minute meeting with the chief minister. He said he had also briefed Mr Karunanidhi about the harsh police action to defeat the November 25 rally called by his Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) in Kuala Lumpur.
The Hindraf chief said he would meet several Indian political leaders and human rights activists in the course of the next couple of days in Chennai and New Delhi before flying to Europe and North America to gather worldwide support for the Malaysian Indians, who he alleged were being discriminated against in education, jobs and even government contracts. Mr Moorthy said the chief minister showed concern when he explained how thousands of Hindu temples had been demolished, Tamil schools were in bad shape and young Malaysian Indians were increasingly getting restive due to all-round discrimination.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has, meanwhile, stoutly denied charges of discrimination and oppression while denouncing the Hindraf claim as a “blatant lie.” He also accused them of stirring up racial conflict in Malaysia. “I am really angry. I rarely get angry but this blatant lie cannot be tolerated at all,” Mr Badawi said late on Saturday during an official function in Malacca, according to reports reaching here. Mr Badawi was particularly upset over the Hindraf letter to Britain accusing his government of indulging in “ethnic cleansing” to wipe out the Indian community from Malaysia.
Hindraf had recently written the letter to Britain, which had brought thousands of Indians during the colonial era to work as cheap labour to clear jungles for rubber and other plantations. Hindraf has sought $4 trillion as compensation for the Malaysian Indians, now constituting about eight per cent of the country’s 27 million population, as Britain did not bother to protect their rights when leaving Malaysia in the hands of the majority Malay Muslims. “Ethnic cleansing is like what happened in Bosnia when the Serbians killed and did everything to wipe out Bosnians from the country; we are not doing any such thing here,” Mr Badawi fumed. He said he had helped the Indian community in many ways, such as giving money to repair temples “because we respect other religions, and they are not our enemies.”
http://deccan.com/home/homedetails.asp#Malay Hindus plan global stir
British MPs slam Malaysia over treatment of Hindus
Members of the British parliament have demanded that the Malaysian government scrap plans to demolish Hindu temples and allow legitimate protests against it.
From correspondents in London, England, 2 Dec 2007 – (www.indiaenews.com)
Members of the British parliament have demanded that the Malaysian government scrap plans to demolish Hindu temples and allow legitimate protests against it.
In a strongly worded statement, they have also urged the British government to take up the matter on their behalf and ‘make the strongest possible representation’ to Kuala Lumpur.
The MPs’ demand comes after the Malaysian police used force to break up protests by Hindus complaining of decades of neglect and discrimination by the government in Kuala Lumpur.
The police action has been criticised around the world.
‘This House notes with grave concern the stated intention of the government of Malaysia to demolish 79 Hindu temples,’ said the House of Commons Early Day Motion that has been signed by 19 MPs so far.
The MPs called upon their government ‘to make the strongest possible representations to the Malaysian government both to cease the programme of demolition and to allow this legitimate voice of protest to be heard without physical interference’.
The EDM was moved Thursday by Stephen Pound, ruling Labour Party MP for Ealing North, and signed among others by Keith Vaz, the longest-serving Asian MP in Britain, and Ann Cryer, a member of the influential Home Affairs Select Committee.
http://www.indiaenews.com/europe/20071202/83961.htm
Monday, December 03, 2007 3:37:00 AM
‘Dangerous rise in Malay Muslim supremacism’
Venkatesan Vembu
Malaysian scholar Farish Ahmad-Noor speaks on the ‘Talibanisation’ of Malaysia, and the assertion of ‘Hindu rights’ by ethnic Indians
HONG KONG: The rise of “Malay Muslim supremacist politics” in Malaysia is at the root of the current assertion of “Hindu rights” by ethnic Indians, and both of these trends hold dangerous implications for the country’s future, warns Malaysia’s leading political scientist, secular-democratic scholar and human rights activist.
In a wide-ranging interview to DNA, Dr Farish Ahmad-Noor, who has written prodigiously on politics and Islam in Asia, says that Malaysia is currently witnessing the emergence of “a parallel civil society that’s being shaped more by religious communitarian concerns rather than by secular democratic civil society concerns.” Excerpts:
Q: Is Malaysia being Talibanised?
What we are seeing in Malaysia at the moment is the emergence of a parallel civil society that is being shaped more by religious communitarian concerns than by secular democratic civil society concerns.
The development that we have seen over the past few years – from 2000 until now – would indicate that there are more and more religious-inspired NGOs in Malaysia - Muslim NGOs, Hindu NGOs, Christian NGOs… My concern, as someone who is secular, would be the long-term future of a secular-democratic space that can bring Malaysians of all backgrounds together.
That’s why many people in Malaysia were worried about the demonstrations in Kuala Lumpur on November 25.
While we sympathise with and support the struggles of Malaysian Indians for equal rights, we do so on the basis of a shared citizenship – i.e. we support them because they are fellow-Malaysians. But by turning it into a religious issue, I think they (the Hindu Rights Action Force, which organised the protest rally) alienated a lot of non-Hindu Malaysians who felt that they were somehow not part of this.
Quite a number of Malaysian activists have explained why they did not go to the rally. Which is a pity because the issues raised by Hindraf are very real issues. We all know about the very great economic disparity between the Malaysian Indian community and the rest of Malaysian society. These are very real issues that have to be addressed.
Q: But isn’t it true that the wave of temple demolitions – on the grounds that the temples were illegal structures, built on land that was wrongly appropriated – have proved more emotive than the campaigns against economic marginalisation?
Yes, but for me, that is detrimental in the long run – for a number of reasons.
It alienates Malaysia’s Hindu community from the other religious communities in the country; it underlines how small they are as a minority and how fragile they are as a constituency, because they are also economically at the bottom.
To me, the core issue is poverty. If Malaysian Indians were economically empowered, they would have a stronger lobbying voice than they do now.
In a way, I understand why they had to do it: there are no avenues left for the minorities in Malaysia: the press is controlled by the state, they have no access to the mainstream media, they are often dismissed…
The nature of Malaysia’s sectarian politics means that you have a conservative Indian party that claims to represent all Hindus but the very same MIC (Malaysian Indian Congress) party does not take into account the plight of poor Indian estate workers. They are triply disadvantaged as a result of this.
In the long run, if I was in (Hindraf’s) position, I would align myself to a bigger cause – that is, equality for all Malaysians on the basis of Malaysian citizenship rather than on the basis of communal interests.
But the main problem is a fundamental economic institutional-structural one. The institutionalised form of economic discrimination has damaged the prospects of an entire generation of poor Indians in Malaysia.
We’re talking about poor families who cannot afford the basic necessities of any working democracy: education, healthcare, social security. The long-term future of the next generation is at stake here.
I used to teach in a Malaysian University, and the representation of Indians in the student community is well below the national average. If you go purely on the basis of a racial quota, there should have been 8-10% in the universities.
As for the demolition of the temples… Let’s be frank. The demolitions have nothing to do with religion, it’s all about commerce and companies that want the land to build highways or shopping malls or car parks or whatever.
Unfortunately, because of the lack of economic clout, the Indian community is not in a position to prevent these things.
The destruction of temples – almost one a week – has been really catastrophic. This is simply unacceptable.
I have witnessed this myself: a case where, on one road, within a distance of half a kilometre, there were a mosque and a temple. The temple was bulldozed, but not the mosque. This highlights to the Hindu worshippers the obvious inequality.
Q: So, these are not ’secular demolitions’?
(Laughs) Many mosques are also scheduled for demolition. But the Muslim community is bigger in number and has stronger economic and political clout, so it can lobby, whereas the ethnic Indians cannot. This simply highlights the glaring inequality in Malaysian society.
I fully sympathise with the anger of a lot of Hindus in the country, except that I wish they would express it in a more constructive way.
Q: You say the temples that are being demolished are ‘Malaysian’, not ‘Indian’. Could you explain what you mean by that?
As a historian, I would point to a very long process of inter-cultural communication and contact. As we know, South East Asia was very much a part of the Greater Indian world, long before the advent of modernisation and colonisation.
Till today, the characters of the Mahabharatha appear in popular narratives all the way from Vietnam to Indonesia. We are part of a continuum. SE Asia has more in common with India than with China, which never had a cultural impact on the region.
It is very disheartening to see this long history of cross-cultural contact between peoples being erased in such an explicit way through the destruction of these temples.
For me the bottomline is this: what is the status of the Indian migrant community in Malaysia? We’re talking about the third, fourth, fifth generation… they’ve been here for 200 years. They are as Malaysian as anyone else.
Some Malaysian politicians and newspapers constantly use the phrase ‘Indian temples’. For me, there are no ‘Indians’ in Malaysia; we are all Malaysians. The only Indians are the Indian nationals with Indian passports.
That’s the point we are getting through to the Malaysian Indian community: that you are Malaysian citizens who are Hindus, or Malaysian citizens who are Muslims. Fight on the basis of that.
Your temples are part and parcel of the whole Malaysian landscape. You demand the right to have these temples because these temples belong in Malaysia, they are built by Malaysians, not foreigners.
Q: Do a lot of Malaysians share that perspective?
From an academic point of view, yes, of course. And a lot of people who went to the Hindraf rally were demanding exactly that. I was very moved by one of the demonstrators, who said, ‘We are Malaysians: my family has been here for three generations, so why are we being treated like second-class citizens?’ He is completely right. It’s very telling that he used the world ‘Malaysian’ throughout, he didn’t describe himself as ‘Indian’.
For me, ‘Indian’ is a political category, just like ‘Malaysian’ is a political category.
I am of mixed parentage: I’m Javanese-Dutch-Punjabi. I don’t have a drop of ‘Malaysian blood’ in me. I’m completely foreign. In fact, I’m a recent migrant: a third-generation migrant.
But I demand my rights as a Malaysian. I believe that all fellow-Malaysians have to do the same. I think it’s a very surreptitious way of alienating Malaysian Indians by calling them ‘Indians’.
It’s on the basis of that shared solidarity that we work together. It’s on that basis well that I will defend these temples as ‘Malaysian’.
The people who built them were Malaysian citizens, those who worship them are Malaysian citizens, they’re built on Malaysian soil, and are open to all Malaysian citizens.
For me, that adds to the richness of Malaysia. I am proud to say that every major religious group in this planet is represented in Malaysia.
Even the Malay language has incorporated Sanskrit cultural influences: there’s a Malay sentence made up entirely of Sanskrit words: Mahasiswa-mahasiswi berasmara di asrama bersama pandita yang curiga.
Q: What does it mean?
(Laughs) It’s actually a joke. It means: ‘The students – male and female – are romancing on the campus, and the teacher is suspicious.’ It is entirely Malay and entirely Sanskrit in origin!
But it is no longer orthodox Sanskrit, because in terms of its grammar and syntax it’s been ‘Malaysianised’. If I were to recite that to a proper Sanskrit speaker, he wouldn’t understand it.
There’s more… The building that houses the Malaysian radio and TV station is called ‘Angkasa puri’, which is a sanskit term meaning ‘palace of the sky’. We still call our soldiers ‘parajurit’, and our teachers ‘guru’.
Forty per cent of the Malay language is of Sanskrit origin. So, how can we possibly deny that we have this long historical link to India? This enriches us.
Q: Is that why we see a reaction even today from India to last week’s developments?
The Malaysian government does not realise the long-term impact this will have worldwide. I’ve already received protest letters from Hindu activists in America.
This is my worry: across SE Asia now, with the rise of religious politics, it is more often than not right-wing politics. If you look at the statement issued by the Malaysian Socialist Party, which says ‘We should be careful not to allow issues like this to be capitalized by right-wing elements’.
But I fear that it’s bound to be capitalised by right-wing elements. If the right-wing in India takes up this issue, the right-wing Malay Muslims in Malaysia will react.
This can only have a detrimental effect on both Malaysia and India, but more particularly on Muslim-Hindu relations in Malaysia.
Q: But as you’ve pointed out earlier, there were early warning signs of this wave of creeping religiosity in the SE Asian region: the bombing of the Borobudur temple in Indonesia by Islamists in the 1980s. Why then did this trend escape scrutiny until recent times?
In Malaysia, unfortunately, we have a sort of an American system, where we allow the expression of religious identity for political means: the ruling parties already do that. UMNO (the United Malay Nationalist Organisation) claims to be an Islamic party and advocates Malay Muslim rights, so they are in no position to say Hindus can’t advocate Hindu rights. Of course, even more repugnant is this notion of Malay superiority…
Q: Isn’t that the fount of all this trouble?
Of course. My fear that we are witnessing the rise of an increasingly sectarian and dangerous Malay Muslim supremacist politics in the country.
Q: And as a solution to that, you seem to advocate that we should all subsume our ethnic identities in favour of a national identity.
I have no problem with people who want to cling on to their ethnic identities, except that I would emphasis that all ethnic identities are “constructed”.
I speak as someone who is hybrid himself: I’m in no position to claim any particular identity. What am I – Javanese or Dutch or Punjabi?
I don’t mind that people want to dress up in ethnic dresses – the whole costume drama. What I do mind is taking this at face value and confining ourselves solely in our respective religious or racial identities. It will in the long run be detrimental to the plight of Malaysian Hindus to be identified mainly as Hindus; they are Malaysians first.
My own remedy, if you like: we need to reinforce the secular pluralistic democratic space, where people can feel comfortable in the public domain without having to assert their specific religious or racial identity.
But we don’t have that at the moment, which is why minorities feel the need to protect their language or race or culture, because we are witnessing the rise of rampant Malay supremacism in the country.
Some one has to de-escalate. And as with the arms race, whoever is strong has to de-escalate first. If I were in a minority position, I would not want to give up the only thing I have left.
It’s not fair to ask minorities in Malaysia to “be more Malaysian” when even the majority – the Malay Muslims – don’t want to be ‘Malaysian’, they want to be Malay Muslims. They are pushing a Malay Muslim supremacist agenda.
Q: As a historian and social observer, what is your biggest worry for Malaysian civil society, after the Hindraf rally of November 25?
That this trend will spread across the board, that we will see further religious and racial communitarianism, with more strident voices coming from the minority, and an even stronger assertion of Hindu identity and Christian identity.
Q: Are you worried about a call to arms?
I don’t want to play into the government’s hands – because that’s what they keep warning about. I’m worried that the government will use this as an excuse to crack down in the name of national security. The Prime Minister has already said the government is considering invoking the Internal Security Act.
Q: Is there anything that gives you hope that the situation will be de-escalated and the underlying issues of economic marginalisation will be addressed?
One positive factor has been that in the space of five days, two members of parliament from the ruling coalition have broken ranks with the government to say that it should start start listening to the people and that things aren’t what the mainstream media are making them out to be: that these are not demonstrations organized by thugs and gangsters, but an authentic voice of protest. It’s good to hve MPs breaking ranks (although, of course, they have been reprimanded for doing that)
We have to see how the government receives this. If we see a temporary moratorium on the demolition of temples, that might be a good sign.
The temple issue is not the real issue, but it is a catalyst because it is emotive. It’s emotive even for me, although I am not a religious person. I find them aesthetically pleasing, and I’d encourage Malaysians to visit different places of worship rather than destroy them! I’d be happier to see Muslims visiting Hindu temples, and vice versa. That’s not happened, and the prevailing mood makes it difficult.
If the government is wise enough to take this seriously, they may perhaps have a committee or a board of inquiry to look into the temple demolition issue. It’s not just the fact of the demolitions, but the way they’ve been destroyed – of icons being smashed… They would never do this to a mosque. Some mosques have of course been shut down, but no one would dream of bulldozing a mosque when people are inside.
Q: How much of that is just grassroots-level conservatism that’s not reflected across Malaysian civil society? I mean, you still have skimpily dressed women dancing on Malaysian television: not what you’d call a Talibanised society.
Malaysian society is becoming very complex: there is one element of Malaysia that’s becoming very Talibanised. On the other hand, you have the reaction. If you look at the Malay Muslim community, for instance, the fault lines are deeper and wider than ever before.
You have the emerging new phenomenon of urban Malay Muslim youth who get involved in bike gangs and drugs orgies. All this is very public on the Internet. There is this open defiance. On the other hand, there is an element, like in any developing society, becoming increasingly conservative.
These fault lines are getting deeper. For me that’s perfectly normal. It’s a typical symptom of any developing country. We’re just going through a normal developmental process.
But this is a society that’s been told for half a century that change is bad, and change is not normal… Whereas it is normal. People need some sort of narrative to fall back on, to explain what is happening. Unfortunately, again and again, the narrative that is used is one of crisis, of chaos. The metaphor that’s always used is that of the garden: you have to tend the ‘garden’, which is overgrown with ‘weeds’. The ‘weeds’ are the kids in shopping malls and bike gangs.
Nature evolves, and as Darwin pointed out, it can evolve in ways you don’t expect.
A modern state simply has to accept this and develop the means to deal with this
The state must always tries to “accommodate” new developments.
But the Malaysian state is suffering from institutional inertia: it has lost its ability to think on its feet.
Just listen to the speeches of the Malaysian politicians of the past two weeks. They betray two facts: they don’t know what is happening in their own country, and they don’t know how to cope.
The immediate reaction is: ‘These are terrorists, trouble makers, anarchists’. I’m sorry, but the Malaysian public doesn’t believe it.
Q: Can you see everything that’s happening in Malaysia in isolation from what’s happening on the geopolitical plane: the ‘Clash of Civilisation’ rhetoric, and so on. And can any reconciliation in Malaysia happen independent of geopolitical factors?
No, because the external variable factors have an immediate and profound impact.
If tomorrow, the BJP in India smashes another mosque in India, it will immediately have an impact. If tomorrow, America invades Iran, you’re going to see thousands of Islamists on the streets in Kuala Lumpur.
The Malaysian state has to accept that is living in a global world, and there are so many internal and external variable factors it has to adapt to.
It has to be like a multi-cellular organism that can adapt to challenges on all sides – internal and external. But for a government that has something like 62 ministers, it doesn’t seem to have evolved any means of adapting. (Laughs).
The Malaysian state used to be much more on the ball in the 1960s and 70s: it adapted to the Cold War and the Communist insurgency very well.
Q: Do you believe it was Mahathir Mohammed who let things slide?
Of course, with the onslaught on the civil service and the judiciary. As a political scientist, I can say that any state will survive so long as its key institutions are sound. If people believe in the law, they don’t have to protest; they know they can go to the court.
Q: But, Dr Noor, in Malaysia, even the Constitution endorses Malay supremacist policies. So, where then do we begin?
I completely agree. The Malaysian Constitution from the outset has all these catches built into it to ensure a certain political tilt to the system. These ‘corrective measures’ were intended only on a temporary basis, until we had equality.
But we now have a third generation of leaders who have come to take it for granted that Malay supremacism will be the dominant leitmotif of Malaysian politics for all eternity.
But the Malay community itself is fragmented now, so what are you talking about? The Malay youth on the street who are unemployed and poor, who get involved with drug gangs and bike gangs… they too are marginalised and they don’t see any point in maintaining this rhetoric of Malay dominance because they clearly have not benefited from it.
When we look at the phenomenon of plural urban spaces nowadays, it’s very clear that people are opting out of the system. They don’t necessarily have to turn into radical militants: they can turn to drugs or crime or alternative lifestyles.
That also accounts for why the urban arts scene in Malaysia is now very fluid and very rich. The positive side is that its allowed for a lot of artistic expression. We have everything… even Tamil-Telugu rap groups in Malaysia! I think this is good.
But without an overarching idea – an abstract concept like a Malaysian identity – these communities will remain apart and that’s my worry: that after 50 years, we are not a united nation, we are increasingly a fragmented nation.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1136812
