malaysiatoday.com,

Please explain how I “twist” my “tongue like Nazri” to point out the obvious differences that Israeli policies in relation to Palestinians – or of United States policy in Iraq – are international issues involving countries addressed in the United Nations as distinct from marginalisation of Indians, which under international norms and law, would be widely considered a domestic issue?

Is it not tongue twisting on your part to equate in scale and circumstances the marginalisation of Indians here with targeted killing for extinction of 40,000 Bosnia muslims mass killing by Serbs militants (ethnic cleansing)? The Srebrenica Massacre/ Genocide, in July 1995 ocurred during the Bosnian War, an international armed conflict involving several sides.

Hindraf’s protest concerns racial and religious discrimination is a human rights violation issue – and Human rights is under the UN human rights charter – but does this alone take the matter out of the definition of ‘domestic affairs’ under international norms and law?

I have already said that notwithstanding international norm not to interfere in another sovereign’s state domestic affairs, increasingly the practice is to deviate only in exceptional cases of human rights violation of the scale and proportion triggering humanitarian crisis relating (say) to ethnic cleansing eg in Darfur of Sudan or Ogaden refugees in Ethiopia or civil war in Somalia.

Racial or religious discrimination is technically a human rights violation under UN Charter but that does not in scale and proportion tantamount to humanitarian crisis justifying, by international norms, international intervention in exception to the rule against domestic interference.

Are you saying that there is ethnic cleasing here as what Hindraf memo to Gordon Brown say? If so why complain to India or UK ? – the UN is the proper forum, isn’t it?

Why don’t the rest of us Non Bumi also tag along and complain about the implementation of NEP as human rights violation to the UN and other countries?

EARNEST I am not advocating Abortion (as in sense of awaiting until full fledged genocide) as opposed to malaysiatoday.com’s advocating the use of Condom (nipping what what happened in Kg Medan in the bud).

No one here – and definitely not me – has said that what happened in Kg Medan should not be investigated or stopped. Strong feelings about that should not be a licence to unwarrantedly extrapolate things that I didn’t say or mean.

All I said was to clarify, what based on customary international norm and usage, is the line drawn, in terms of scale and proportion, between mere human rights violation on one hand and humanitarian crisis on the other where the latter overrides, as an exception, the norm of not interfering in a sovereign state’s domestic affairs, justifying international / UN intervention.

“To you, it is not justified too?” – Earnest

Personally not only Tamil Nadu CM could comment and condemn injustice in our country, so too can Altantuya Shaaribuu’s father or anyone else and vice versa we of their countries.

Because we are the World – a Global citizenry of common aspiration and intertwined destinies and comon problems of bigotry of race, religion, creed and wealth/power.

This idea of non interference in domestic affairs started as an international norm when de-colonisation happened aftert end of World War II ended where new states lobbied for some slack from UN and big powers not to have their domestic affairs (read their failures in human rights) interfered with to allow time for domestic democracy to take root and prosperity to grow and underpin it.

But don’t use my thinking – I’m nobody – as platform to argue in public with our leaders.

When one is taking on lawyer Nazri and try to establish his double standards in telling Tamil Nadu CM off for interfering, one has to follow present day international norms and law and use better examples than Malaysia’s criticisms of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Iraq War because otherwise these guys can defend themselves and rebut effectively on 3 grounds –

1. International law and norms exclude interference in our national affairs other than exceptional cases of humanitarian intervention in genocide/ethnic cleansing (as in Bosnia-Serb & other cited cases) which per Hindraf’s grievances even Kg Medan incidences don’t, in scale and proportion, apply;

2. Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Iraq War are clear cases of interenational issue as opposed to domestic issue as a third foreign power like US is intervening in the affiars and besides the UN ios arbitrating non of such conditions being in our Indian marginalisation case;

3. above and beyond international norm and law, Muslim leaders for religious reasons can claim solidarity with the muslim plight in Palestine and Iraq based on religious precepts transcendental of international law.

For this reason I suggested that it would be a better example to contradict him if and when there are situation where Malaysian leaders interfered with Singapore’s domestic affairs as in its treatment of its Malay citizens.

Then it would be comparing orange and orange and not orange and apple for which our Minister of Law could easily distinguish and rebut cogently.

That’s the summary of what I was trying to say, if you need the clarification.

Cheers. :)

“….//…Can the word “Muslim” be substituted with “Hindu”, “Palestine and Iraq” with “Malaysia” in the above context? Can Hindu leaders for religious reasons also do the same?…//…” – EARNEST.

You have to ask the experts on Islam and Hinduism for that. I am neither.

From the little I know, the concept of nation state, sovereignty, nationalism and so on was philosophically developed in 18th century Europe which was torn by factionalism drawn from racial and religious lines.

The concept of nation state was pretty much absent in early Islam during the establishment of the first Islamic State in the world (Madinah) and throughout the political history of the Caliphate era. Thus from the very beginning of Islam, there can only be one ruler and one Ummah under the ruler.

Ummah is the community of believers. It is a consciousness of belonging to a community whose membership was open equally and without any qualification or restriction, except that of the faith, to all believers. In this sense Islam is universal transcending national borders. A Muslim born and bred in the Unites States may claim citizen of US as a nation but transcendental to that would be his world wide affliation to the Ummah. It became a means of establishing a religious and cultural identity that was independent of and beyond individual Muslim states in existence today.

This construction of religious and cultural identity under concept of “Muslim brotherhood” is unique to Islam and not found in the same pattern in Hindu or any other religious teachings, I think.

Actually except for the very few like you who have researched and known about the two Christian counterparts in the form of medieval christendom and modern theonomist theocracy, this is hardly common knowledge to most people, and particularly many muslims may think that theocracy and the feature of world wide Ummah are unique to the Islamic faith since the beginning providing the perceived objective basis for others to understand if not respect why they alone are justified to treat it as transcendental of even international norm and laws on no domestic interference in complete defence against allegations of double standards.

Good question – no easy answer to this thing about internal standards, why claim to ethnic solidarity not to be treated as same stature as religious solidarity.

Not to sure but maybe it has something to do with the principle of self-determination being acepted as one of the basic principles of international law/norm overriding with solidarity. The argument appears to be self determination is granted to all peoples including minorities who choose to continue being citizens as minority in their respective countries taking the good along with the bad.

Besides this , the other point is the diaspora issue – Chinese and Indians are distributed all over the world and from the practical angle if China or India were to intervene whenever their same ethnic minorities complain of marginalisation in their own countries, what would happen to international order and diplomatic relations world wide?

To the counter argument why these same arguments don’t apply to religious solidarity, I suppose many would take spiritual matters to transcend and operate on a level or realm probably above all these man made practical considerations or principles on self determination applying or delimiting extent of ethnic solidarity. I don’t really know the answer but venturing a guess.