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ShareMalaysian 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'?
