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.
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