Two of Malaysia's most outspoken Malay leaders found themselves in the doghouse after careless and insensitive speech against the other races in the country.
Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nazri Aziz for underestimating the intelligence of the people by hiding behing "free speech" to avoid taking action against the other garrulous but pro-establishment leader Ibrahim Ali.
As for Ibrahim, an ultra-Malay rights rabble-rouser, he tried to douse the fire lit by his controversial call for a crusade against Christians in the country by insisting that he used the word jihad (or holy battle) for "shock" effect.
But his clumsy and half-hearted efforts to retract part of his extreme speech made last Saturday failed to appease, drawing even greater contempt from his non-Muslim peers.
"We are happy to note that Ibrahim Ali does not intend to kill the Christians in the country, but when did the Christians demean Islam. Only Utusan and the Umno bloggers said such a thing. For the record, DAP and the Christian leaders had already completely denied the report, yet Ibrahim Ali still used it to curry favor with the crowd even though it can incite hatred and spark riots," Taiping MP Nga Kor Ming told Malaysia Chronicle.
In his statement issued late on Thursday night, Ibrahim had sought a way out of the predicament he brought on himself and his self-styled ultra Malay-rights group Perkasa.
"Jihad does not only mean perang salib or crusade, it does not mean the killing of Christians and Muslims, but it includes acts of prevention using one's hands, mouth, writing and other means," said Ibrahim.
"Everyone lost their cool but they don't realise what they do sometimes also demean Islam, and when this happens no one is reprimanded."
There was no apology at all.
'Be careful what Nazri is actually saying'
Meawhile, as expected, Nazri has stood by his much criticised decision not to prosecute Ibrahim, citing freedom of speech as his rationale.
“But it has been days since he made the statement and yet, we do not see any riot on the streets. People are no longer as sensitive as they were before. Now, people just laugh at Ibrahim and call him a clown. So you cannot even say that Ibrahim’s words have caused the Malays to rise against the Christians," Malaysian Insider reported Nazri as saying.
Nazri also pledged the same liberty for other Malaysians in similar situations in the future.
But his words and new-found affinity for new politics convinced no one or comforted anybody.
"Nzari and Umno are trying to take advantage of peaceful nature of the non-Malays who will think twice about any physical action because they are outnumbered. In this case, it is Ibrahim, a Malay, saying bad things about Christians. Of course, the Malays and the Muslims won't riot against him. The Christians also won't - their protest comes in the verbal form through letters, their leaders, in the social media and so forth. Just because Christians don't take to arms does not mean they don't feel as strongly as if they marched 10km and screamed and shouted," PKR vice president Tian Chua told Malaysia Chronicle.
"Conversely, if a non-Malay and non-Muslim said bad things about the Malays and the Muslims, some of the Malays especially the Perkasa types will surely go haywire or pretend to go haywire to stir things up. They will protest and demonstarte. Will Nazri then turn around and say, this is different. It is different because the words of the non-Malay actually caused a physical reaction and that is jailable under the Sedition Act or the ISA. We have to be very careful because we are now dealing with Umno elite who twist and turn everything. They cannot be trusted at all."
As for Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim, he opposes using draconian laws to charge Ibrahim Ali but insists that Ibrahim can and should be punished under laws other than the Sedition Act and the Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without trial for indefinite periods of time.
"I do not condone the use of these laws even as a temporary measure. But should a civilised country, after half a century of independence, condone these sorts of sentiments?" Malaysiakini reported Anwar as saying.
"There are (other) laws to investigate Ibrahim, but how do investigate when you know it is being promoted and supported by the ruling establishment?"
At a rally last Saturday, Ibrahim had attacked the Christian community, which forms 10 per cent of Malaysia's 28 million population versus the Muslims' 60 per cent.
Based on an unsustantianted news article in the Umno-owned Utusan daily that Christians wanted Christianity to replace Islam as the country's official religion, Ibrahim had threatened bloodshed against them.
“If they want a crusade, so be it. If they say that the peace that we enjoy is not good enough we shall take up the challenge. Don't take the silence of Muslims as a sign of fear,” Ibrahim had boomed in his controversial speech.
“Before our followers fall in this battle, Perkasa leaders will first lay down their lives and die sprawling in blood.
Dear President Barack Obama,
Along with many American Muslims, my family and I listened to your speech today on the Middle East and North Africa. While I appreciate your encouraging statements to the people of the Muslim world -- particularly to those who are currently fighting for dignity and civil rights in their own lands -- I also couldn't help feeling that many Americans are not setting the example of which you spoke when it comes to our own Muslim citizens.
Currently, 20 states have introduced anti-Muslim legislation, with more pending. Some of our country's lawmakers and politicians have made very bigoted inflammatory commentsabout Muslims and Islam. Very recently, Tennessee, under extreme pressure, rewrote a bill that would have made it a crime punishable by 15 years in prison for Muslims to worship together in groups of two or more. Organized groups are staging hate rallies against Muslims building houses of worship around the country. Local municipalities are playing the zoning game by zoning Islamic schools and mosques out of the community. Mosque playgrounds are being torched. Muslim family homes, property, and mosques are being vandalized. Children are being bullied and harassed because they are Muslim. Shockingly, last week the Editor of the Gainesville Times in Florida published a letter that called for the expulsion of all Muslims from America. Recently, several Muslim clerics, and also a young Muslim woman were pulled off airplanes for no other reason other than they were dressed in recognizable Muslim attire. This is all being seen through the modern technology's "window into the wider world" that you mentioned in your speech, but like all windows, you can also look from the world outside and see what's happening inside. What does it say to the world when our President speaks about rights for people in the Muslim world that "include free speech; the freedom of peaceful assembly; freedom of religion" when our own people are being hindered from building mosques, and schools, and our right to worship freely is even being threatened?
Mr. President, Muslims in America know that you do not stand with this kind of bigotry and hatred. During your announcement of the killing of Osama bin Laden you said,
Religious leaders are responding to President Barack Obama's much-anticipated speech on the Middle East, in which the president said that "all faiths must be respected” and suggested “bridges be built among them."
Much of the sweeping speech addressed political and economic issues in light of recent democratic movements in the majority-Muslim region. Obama promised U.S. support for democracy, human rights and a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But Obama, who famously addressed the Muslim world from Cairo University in two years ago in a speech focused on Islam, also discussed religion several times in Thursday's comments.
"We support a set of universal rights. Those rights include free speech; the freedom of peaceful assembly; freedom of religion; equality for men and women under the rule of law; and the right to choose your own leaders -- whether you live in Baghdad or Damascus; Sanaa or Tehran," Obama said in the hour-long speech.
"It was very important for the president to call for the respect of religious minorities who are not Muslim. For me, as an imam, I'd like to see the [Muslim] community respond and take action to that," said Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America, who attended the speech in Washington, D.C.
In recent months, the plight of religious minorities in majority Muslim countries has made international headlines.
"I think his message was to the American Muslim Community, too. Religious tolerance and respect of women has to be the top priority of any democracy," said Magid.
"Coptic Christians must have the right to worship freely in Cairo, just as Shia must never have their mosques destroyed in Bahrain," Obama said.
The Rev. Timotheus Soliman, a Coptic Christian priest in Miramar, Fl., said Obama made similar statements about religious tolerance in his Cairo speech that "went unnoticed."
"Didn't he talk about the Copts last time? There is a lot to pray for and things haven't gotten better back home," he said.
Obama's remarks on religion were significantly less pointed than those in his 2009 speech, when he said wanted to "seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world."
Eboo Patel, president of Chicago-based nonprofit Interfaith Youth Core, said he was "struck by Obama's comments on the tremendous resource represented by young people in the region, and how what we are witnessing over there traces the arc of American history, from revolution to sectarian conflict to the spreading of freedom and equality."
"Just as young people pushed for universal values here and built bridges of cooperation between different communities, so are they doing that there. That presents great opportunities for partnership," said Patel.
What will likely be the most controversial part of Obama's speech was his call for a restoration of pre-1967 borders between Israel and the Palestinian Territories, a significant shift in U.S. policy.
Reaction to the speech from Jewish leaders varied.
"I was most struck by the President’s assertion that we don’t need to accept how things are, but can work toward how they could be – with humility," said Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, president of The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. "While I am not sure that such humility about the role of history and indigenous culture was a part of all that he suggested we could achieve or help others to achieve, I appreciate the President’s commitment to what I would call hopeful realism."
Abraham H. Foxman, Anti-Defamation League national director, released a statement applauding Obama's support for "universal rights" and opposition to " the use of force and political repression."
Foxman also directly addressed Obama's comments on Israel and Palestine, saying, "The Palestinians must heed the President's warnings about imprudent and self-defeating actions."
“The economic reforms and economic modernization as proposed by President Obama cannot succeed without religious and cultural reforms in the Arab World," said Rabbi Marc Schneier, president of The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. "Muslims must choose between moderation and militancy, tolerance and terrorism.”
Obama's speech comes after a poll released this week by the Pew Research Center that foud the United States' popularity has declined within the last year in many Muslim majority nations.
The poll was conducted in March and April, before U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden on May 2 in northern Pakistan. It surveyed about 1,000 people each in Egypt, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories and Turkey. Another 2,000 were polled in Pakistan.
As we do, we must also reaffirm that the United States is not -- and never will be -- at war with Islam. I've made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam.
We appreciated this statement, however, judging by the uptick in anti-Muslim incidents since the death of bin Laden, the words weren't enough to resonate with those in America who feel threatened by their Muslim neighbors.
Mr. President, Muslims need your leadership, your strong voice, and your support in this regard. You are a friend to the world's Muslims, especially those fighting for their freedom, but Muslims need your friendship here on our own soil. Anti-Islam bigotry is getting worse in America -- not better.
In our home, we love and respect you as our President; will you show us the same love and respect as a patriotic American family by speaking out strongly against this growing trend of anti-Muslim bigotry?
Bill O'Reilly calculated that half of the world's Muslims want to "blow the hell" out of Muslims who want democracy and human rights.
O'Reilly--who has long maintained that there is a so-called "Muslim problem" in the world, something he said during the opening of his Thursday show--was speaking to two guests about President Obama's Middle East speech on Thursday. Towards the end of the discussion, one of them said that Obama needed to stress more that "there are Muslims who want liberty."
"For every Muslim in the world who wants democracy and human rights, there's one who doesn't," O'Reilly responded. "And the one who doesn't doesn't have any rules, and he'll blow the hell out of the one who does. So that silences the good Muslims who see the danger from the Muslim world."
WATCH:
"It is impossible to distinguish between Muslims who are anti-American and just waiting for a chance to do us harm, and those who are merely pursuing their religious beliefs in this country. The only way to be sure and safe is to exclude them all." -- Letter to the Editor, Gainesville Times, May 13
The sentiment expressed above reflects an Islamophobic mindset unable to distinguish between the vast majority of law-abiding American Muslims and the few who would do us harm.
While the American Muslim community cheered the death of Osama bin Laden, its celebration was tempered by an odd backlash of sorts. From Maine to California, the U.S. has suffered a rash of anti-Muslim bias incidents, including physical assaults, vandalism of personal property, humiliation in the classroom and the desecration of houses of worship.
The perpetrators of these crimes are clearly unaware of the results from a 2009 Pew Research Study finding that very few American Muslims hold a positive opinion of al Qaeda -- only 5% gave the terrorist organization a favorable rating. Yet, too many Americans mistakenly associate Islam with violence and Muslims with terrorism.
What remains puzzling to me, however, are erroneous views that widespread anti-Muslim bias in America is lacking when in fact Islamophobia, understood as the hatred and fear of Muslims and exemplified in the excerpted letter above, pervades our society.
For instance, in a March 26th CNN.com opinion piece entitled "Don't Overstate Anti-Muslim Bias," William J. Bennett and Seth Leibsohn argue that the "larger story of anti-Islamic bias in America does not hold water."
They cite hate crime statistics compiled by the FBI depicting 72% of religious hate crimes in America were anti-Jewish and only 8.4% were anti-Muslim in 2009.
Leibsohn and Bennett buttress their argument by pointing to the ascension of President Barack Obama to the presidency notwithstanding his Arabic name and a Muslim born father. And, in another contest (albeit of a different import), a Muslim, Arab woman was chosen as Miss USA in 2010 -- additional proof that anti-Muslim bias is lacking.
Leibsohn and Bennett's arguments are fatally flawed.
First, their reliance on FBI hate crime statistics is misplaced.
By way of background, the FBI has been collecting hate crime data from state and local law enforcement agencies since 1990 which it compiles in an annual report.
Most civil rights advocates will tell you that the FBI hate crimes report does not tell the whole story. Since hate crimes are often underreported to and by law enforcement, the data reflects the reporting of hate crimes to local police agencies, and even then, only those law enforcement agencies which actually report to the FBI. Having worked with the Arab, Muslim and South Asian communities for the past ten years, I have seen bias incidents go unreported to law enforcement agencies for a number of reasons. These reasons include the fear of compromising one's immigration status; lack of English-language and cultural proficiency; unfamiliarity with the criminal justice system; apathy towards recourse. Members of these communities may also distrust law enforcement, given past reports of abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, "extraordinary renditions" by the CIA of Muslims to third countries to be subjected to torture, the NSEERS Special Registration program targeting male nationals predominantly from Muslim-majority countries, to name a few. Recent immigrants may also carry cultural baggage from their native lands where law enforcement was not to be trusted and regarded as corrupt. In my view, this may account for the discrepancy between underreported hate crimes versus an increase in employment discrimination claims by American Muslims, which are at an all-time high. While hate crimes must be reported to the police and/or the FBI, employment discrimination complaints do not.
But, even when victims report an alleged hate crime, it may not make it into the FBI report for other reasons, including: the police may fail to record it as a hate crime; their departments may not report hate crime statistics to state officials; and those officials may not accurately report to the FBI.
For instance, following the September 11th terrorist attacks, as many as nineteen people were murdered in the backlash against the Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities including, Balbir Singh Sodhi, Waqar Hasan, Adel Karas, Saed Mujtahid, Jayantilal Patel, Surjit Singh Samra, Abdo Ali Ahmed, Abdullah Mohammed Nimer, and Vasudev Patel. Their stories were told in the national media including, USA Today and the Washington Post.
Yet, the FBI hate crime reports for 2001 and 2002 reflect that no anti-Islamic murders were committed in those years (see Table 4 in each report).
Next, it strikes me as peculiar that Leibsohn and Bennett chose the ascension of President Obama -- a Christian who attends Church with his family on Sundays -- to the Oval Office to make a larger point regarding an absence of anti-Muslim bias.
Never mind that the 2008 presidential campaign was wrought with Islamophobia, from those calling Obama a secret Muslim clearly seeing the term as a pejorative, to political rhetoric by Republican Presidential candidates. While Senator John McCain expressed his preference against Muslims assuming the U.S. presidency, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney disapproved of any Muslim appointments to the Cabinet. Islamophobia runs rampant in politics today.
Further, as elated as I was that a Muslim woman of Arab descent won Miss USA in 2010, I cannot help but reflect upon other types of contests of a different import. Pointedly, the number of actual Muslims running for political office in the U.S. is on the decline from its already small number. While in 2000, some 700 Muslims (out of 2-6 million American Muslims) ran for elected office in the U.S., that figure dropped by 90% to just 70 in 2002. By 2004, it was up to only 100 Muslims.
Finally, while Liebsohn and Bennett point to a CNN survey purportedly showing that 70% of Americans would not oppose construction of a mosque in their area, recent Pew Study Research from March 2011 depicts the American public as divided over whether Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its believers. Indeed, 40% say the Islamic faith is more likely than others to encourage violence while 42% say it is not.
To place these figures in proper context, in March 2002, just 25% saw Islam as more likely to encourage violence while twice as many (51%) disagreed.
To be clear, I despise racism and prejudice against any groups, including Jews, African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, the disabled, etcetera. There is a danger when hate violence and animus against American Muslims is understood as a past phenomenon. We render no service to our country by idealizing ourselves, and ignoring pervasive prejudices as normal.
To overcome a problem, we must expose it, discuss it and then, address it effectively -- together.
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