Archive for category Islam
The illiberal threat to Islam
Zairil Khir Johari
The Malaysian Insider
25 January 2016
Central to the idea of liberalism, be it political, economic or social in context, is human agency – the capacity for individual human beings, acting rationally, to make choices deemed to be in their best interest.
However, freedom of choice and conscience alone is insufficient if it is not complemented by the necessary space, both in the personal sphere and the public realm, to act upon those choices without discrimination or victimisation.
Conversely, illiberalism refers to the lack of such fundamental freedoms. An illiberal polity is, therefore, one where diversity is not tolerated, and where being different invites persecution, whether by society or the state.
It is one where conformity is not only approved of, but even coercively imposed. In Islamic terms, it is where ijtihad (independent reasoning) is suppressed and taqlid (to follow blindly) is expected.
In an illiberal state, speech and expression are censored and dissent is suppressed. In most cases, citizens are kept in check through the fear of an existential threat – often through the construction of an “other”. Read the rest of this entry »
‘The Economist’: While Indonesia fights Islamic State, Malaysia politicises Islam
Posted by Kit in Islam, Islamic state on Sunday, 24 January 2016
Malay Mail Online
January 24, 2016
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 24 ― Indonesian social movements are attempting to counter jihadist influence, but the Malaysian government has completely politicised Islam until there is little space for more peaceful interpretations, The Economist said.
In an analysis of the Jakarta bombings published yesterday, the London-based weekly publication noted that supporting or joining the Islamic State (IS) is not illegal in Indonesia, though the Indonesian government is considering preventive detention laws to curb terrorism.
“The country’s two biggest Muslim social movements — Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama — have been trying to counter jihadist propaganda.
“In Malaysia, however, the government itself has thoroughly politicised Islam, leaving little room for dissent from its harshest rules. A study last year found more than 70 per cent of Malaysia’s ethnic-Malay, Muslim, majority support hudud laws such as stoning for adultery. Another found that 11 per cent of Malays viewed IS favourably,” said The Economist in an article titled “After Jakarta.” Read the rest of this entry »
What Indonesia Knows About Blocking the Islamic State
Posted by Kit in Islam, Islamic state on Wednesday, 20 January 2016
Joshua Kurlantzick
Bloomberg
January 20, 2016
Smart strategy has made the largest Muslim-majority nation a tough environment for the Islamic State.
In the wake of last week’s attacks in Jakarta, which killed seven people, fears are growing that the largest Muslim-majority nation in the world is going to be hit by a wave of Islamic State-linked bombings and shootings. The potential for mayhem seems obvious. Indonesia’s open society and high social media penetration make it easy for young Indonesians to access Islamist sites and Facebook pages, and the Sunni Muslim insurgency has released several videos in Indonesian in an apparent recruiting effort.
Indonesia is a country of thousands of islands, with porous borders and many soft targets: The militants launched bombs and opened fire in broad daylight in one of the busiest neighborhoods in Jakarta. And Indonesians have fought in Syria and Iraq and returned. The Soufan Group, a consulting security consulting group, believes that at least six hundred Southeast Asians have traveled to Syria to fight with the Islamic State and then come back to their home countries. Indeed, the alleged ringleader of last week’s Jakarta attacks, a militant named Bahru Naim, is currently living in Raqqa, Islamic State’s hub. Read the rest of this entry »
Enough of this nonsense! Malaysia was created as a secular nation
Posted by Kit in Constitution, Islam on Tuesday, 19 January 2016
— Clive Kessler
Malay Mail Online
January 19, 2016
JANUARY 19 — Enough of this nonsense! Enough already!
Malaya and then Malaysia was created as a secular nation.
Denial of this basic fact has become commonplace in recent times.
The pioneers in promoting the revisionist myth that there was or is nothing secular in the nation’s origins or about its Constitution have been the creative legal innovators and myth-makers of the PPMM: Persatuan Peguam Muslim Malaysia (Malaysian Muslim Lawyers Association) –- notably Datuk Zainul Rijal Abu Bakar — and their like-minded associates in CENTHRA, the Putrajaya-based and Saudi-friendly Centre for Human Rights and Advocacy, headed by on Azril Mohd Amin.
Their lead is followed, and their disruptive views are echoed, by a horde of Utusan Malaysia scribes and ideologues and, in their wake, a claque of well-connected writers and publicists and ambitious politicos.
In the absence of any clear refutation, their increasingly unchallenged view now threatens to become “the default position”, the received and undeniable truth.
But are they right?
In short, no. And for three main reasons. Read the rest of this entry »
Our politics created Malaysian Isis
Posted by Kit in Islam, Islamic state on Tuesday, 19 January 2016
– Saefullah Norhaidi
The Malaysian Insider
19 January 2016
I was recently in Kuala Lumpur when Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) carried out its attack in Jakarta, marking the entrance of a new terrorist movement, in the Southeast Asian region.
It is clear now, Isis wants its voice to be heard, its presence felt. I have no idea whether this has any connection to it, but that very evening, I saw police forces walking in the miscellaneous places we were walking around in Kuala Lumpur.
Now is definitely the time when governments in this region will start to become intensely vigilant and more vehement in deterring the harmful growth of Islamic radical movements in their respective countries. Read the rest of this entry »
Indonesia Attack Brings Islamic State to Southeast Asia’s Door
Posted by Kit in Islam, Islamic state on Monday, 18 January 2016
Chris Brummitt and Rieka Rahadiana
Bloomberg
January 15, 2016
A deadly gun-and-suicide bomb attack claimed by Islamic State in central Jakarta shows the growing reach of the jihadi network from outside its base in the Middle East.
The assault on a Starbucks cafe and a police post in the Indonesian capital, while unsophisticated, was the first in Southeast Asia to be directed or inspired by IS, and follows months of warnings by security officials that its members posed a threat to the region.
“Paris in November, Istanbul this week and Jakarta today,” Hugo Brennan, Asia analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, said on Thursday. “This latest attack can be seen as further evidence of Islamic State’s increasing ability to inspire deadly attacks in cities around the globe.”
For Indonesia, which has more Muslims than any other nation, it was a grim reminder of the resilience of a radical fringe that has existed since independence. In the 2000s, militants linked up with al-Qaeda to carry out a string of attacks, the last in Jakarta in 2009 on luxury hotels, but have been under pressure from a concerted crackdown by security forces. Read the rest of this entry »
Are UMNO Ministers and leaders prepared, 66 years after Datuk Onn suggested it, consider opening UMNO doors to non-Malays to become an inclusive Malaysian political party?
Posted by Kit in 1Malaysia, Islam, Islamic state, Najib Razak, nation building on Sunday, 17 January 2016
The pathetic statement by the Communications and Multimedia Minister, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak that fielding more Malay candidates in the next general elections does not make DAP a multiracial party is the latest proof of the narrow-minded and petty mentality of the present UMNO leadership, which is completely bogged down by the politics of race and the failure of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia Policy.
Malaysia is a plural society and the racial, religious, linguistic and cultural diversity of the country is a national asset and not a liability.
Malaysians will continue to be Malays, Chinese, Indians, Dayaks, Kadazan-Dusun-Muruts, Orang Asli or Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Taoists, Sikhs but the success of Malaysian nation-building will be measured by our ability to create an overarching common national identity where we are Malaysians first and race, religion, region and socio-economic status second – in othe words, where despite our racial, religious, linguisticm, cultural and socio-economic differences, we accept each other as Malaysians first above all else.
In this context, UMNO Ministers and leaders like Salleh Said Keruak should welcome DAP reaching out to get more Malay, Dayak, Kadazan-Dusun-Murut and Orang Asli support and emulate the DAP example to graduate from Malay to become Malaysian leaders instead of decrying such a development.
Is UMNO prepared to emulate the DAP’s example and reach out to all non-Malays and non-Muslims by welcoming them into UMNO ranks? Read the rest of this entry »
To fight Isis, US should encourage moderate Islamic agenda in Malaysia, says report
Posted by Kit in Islam, Islamic state on Saturday, 16 January 2016
The Malaysian Insider
15 January 2016
The US should encourage Malaysia to pursue a “genuinely” moderate Islamic agenda if it wants to thwart militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis), according to a report titled “Indonesian and Malaysian Support for The Islamic State”.
The report, produced by the United States Agency for International Development, said Malaysia’s counter-terrorism efforts had achieved some success but was curtailed by government support for conservative Islamic interests.
It said Putrajaya’s right-wing bent, borne out of the need to arrest Umno’s declining support, alienated an important Muslim population that could have helped in combating the militants’ influence.
“At the broadest level, the US government should encourage and support genuinely moderate domestic Islamic agendas in both Indonesia and Malaysia,” read the report, published on January 6 and available online.
“In the Malaysian case, the moderate Islamic image it projects internationally is not reflected in domestic policy that is increasingly sectarian and hostile, not only to minority religious rights but also to progressive Muslim views.” Read the rest of this entry »
Why Ibrahim Ali did not find me objectionable as anti-Malay and anti-Islam when he sought my help in the seventies to escape detention under ISA as a student leader?
It is amusing and comical that Perkasa chief Ibrahim Ali claims that he suffered sleepless nights after the DAP declared that it is not anti-Malay or anti-Islam.
He claimed to be shocked by the statement and said he could not sleep for 50 hours.
Clearly, Ibrahim Ali was still talking when sleep-walking.
Can Ibrahim explain why he did not find me objectionable as being allegedly anti-Malay and anti-Islam when he frantically sought my help as Parliamentary Opposition Leader when he was trying to escape detention under the Internal Security Act for his activities as a student leader in the seventies?
I had raised this issue once publicly some five years ago, and Ibrahim Ali did not dare to challenge the veracity of my statement.
This show the quality of leadership of the Perkasa chief. Read the rest of this entry »
Can Prime Minister and Cabinet end the greatest injustice in the Najib premiership – ensure Indira Gandhi’s re-union with her daughter within 48 hours after the Prime Minister, Cabinet, Parliament and Judiciary have failed her for seven years?
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, Islam, women on Tuesday, 12 January 2016
Tomorrow is the Cabinet’s weekly Wednesday meeting.
One of the issues the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the 36 Ministers in the Cabinet must wrestle with is what they could to end one of the greatest injustices in the Najib premiership of six year nine months – where a mother had been forcibly separated from her 11-month old baby daughter not for one or two years but for seven years!
The Prime Minister, the Cabinet, Parliament and the Judiciary have all failed Indira Gandhi and the Constitution, the laws, the courts and the system of governance have been manipulated to deny Indira her fundamental rights as a mother to see, hold and touch her daughter!
The same week that Najib became the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia in April 2009, Indira found that her three children had without her knowledge or consent been unilaterally converted to Islam by her ex husband, who had converted to Islam a month earlier.
That started Indira’s long and still unending legal battle for control and custody of her three children. Read the rest of this entry »
The truth hurts
Posted by Kit in Islam, Malays, Mariam Mokhtar on Monday, 11 January 2016
by Mariam Mokhtar
Malaysiakini
11th January 2016
Just because a Malay talks and writes about the injustice meted out to non-Muslims, it does not mean that the Malay is bashing his own race, nor is he denigrating Islam. Malays, in particular, refuse to acknowledge that most critiques are not about the religion, but are in fact criticisms of the Malays who have misinterpreted a particular phrase, or religious edict.
If PAS, Umno Baru and the respective religious institutions are critical in stopping alleged conversions of Malays to Christianity, why were there no mass conversions of Malays during the colonial era, when none of these political parties nor institutions existed?
Many Malays appear to see the conversion issue as a numbers game. Many Malays are also religious hypocrites. Read the rest of this entry »
Saudi Arabia has bigger problems than Iran
Posted by Kit in International, Islam, Islamic state, Oil on Monday, 11 January 2016
— Tobin Harshaw
Malay Mail Online
January 8, 2016
JANUARY 8 —Saudi Arabia’s feud with Iran over the beheading of a prominent Shiah cleric led to a lot of overwrought speculation about Sunni-Shiah tensions rising to tear up the Middle East. Those more steeped in regional affairs point to the other 46 men beheaded, almost all of whom were Sunnis charged with terrorism.
The theory here is that the execution of the preacher, Nimr al-Nimr, was less about provoking Shiahs than pre-empting domestic outrage over the deaths of so many Sunnis, who make up 85 per cent of the country’s population. The kingdom has rarely been concerned with domestic opinion in its 90 years of statehood. Does Saudi Arabia now fear unrest among the masses? Should it?
Outside of North Korea and the New England Patriots, few institutions are more opaque than the Saudi royal court. But over the last year, the first in the reign of 80-year-old King Salman, the famously hidebound monarchy has undergone a shocking and risky makeover.
Salman, who took over last January 23 on the death of his half-brother King Abdullah, was widely expected to be just a caretaker. Instead, he took care of business. Within months, he replaced the anointed crown prince with his nephew Mohammed bin Nayef, the longtime interior minister. Yet he also watered down this new heir’s influence by dismantling the crown prince’s previously independent court.
The real winner was the king’s young son, Defence Minister Mohammed bin Salman, who became deputy crown prince and gatekeeper to those seeking the king’s attention. The prince was named head of the new Council of Economic and Development Affairs, which took over many powers of the finance ministry, and was given control over Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil monopoly. (Yesterday, he suggested that the kingdom may consider selling a stake in the oil giant.) Read the rest of this entry »
The Saudi blueprint
Posted by Kit in International, Islam on Friday, 8 January 2016
Economist
Jan 9, 2016
The desert kingdom is striving to dominate its region and modernise its economy at the same time
FOR years Saudi Arabia seemed inert, relying on its vast oil wealth and the might of its American patron to buy quiet at home and impose stasis on its neighbours. But oil prices have tumbled, America has stood back from leadership in the Middle East, the region is on fire and power has shifted to a new generation—notably King Salman’s 30-year-old favoured son, Muhammad bin Salman. A sandstorm of change is rousing the desert kingdom.
The visible result is the brutal treatment of dissent at home and assertiveness abroad that has just been on chilling display. On January 2nd Saudi Arabia executed 47 people. Most of them were terrorists linked to al-Qaeda but some, including a prominent Shia cleric, simply called for the fall of the ruling House of Saud. After Iranians set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran in protest, the kingdom cut diplomatic, trade and air links, a grave and foolish escalation in a febrile region.
Away from the headlines, however, a different assertiveness could prove equally consequential. Prince Muhammad has drawn up a blueprint designed to throw open Saudi Arabia’s closed economy and government—including, he says, the possible sale of shares in the national oil firm, Saudi Aramco.
Coupling geopolitical swagger with sweeping economic change is a gamble. The outcome will determine the survival of the House of Saud and shape the future of the Arab world. Read the rest of this entry »
Iran, Emerging From Sanctions, Faces More Isolation After Embassy Attack
Posted by Kit in International, Islam, Islamic state on Tuesday, 5 January 2016
by Thomas Erdbrink
New York Times
Jan 4, 2016
TEHRAN — When a Saudi state executioner beheaded the prominent Shiite dissident Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday, the Shiite theocracy in Iran took it as a deliberate provocation by its regional rival and dusted off its favored playbook, unleashing hard-liner anger on the streets.
Within hours of the execution, nationalist Iranian websites were calling for demonstrations in front of the Saudi mission in Tehran and its consulate in the eastern Iranian city of Mashhad.
The police, outmanned, looked the other way as angry protesters set the embassy ablaze with firebombs, climbed the fences and vandalized parts of the building.
Now, Iranian leaders are suddenly forced to reckon with whether they played into the Saudis’ hands, finding themselves mired in a new crisis at a time they had been hoping to emerge from international sanctions as an accepted global player. Iran might have capitalized on global outrage at the executions by Saudi Arabia, but instead finds itself once again characterized by adversaries as a provocateur in the region and abroad. Read the rest of this entry »
How Saudi Arabia and the Islamic State find common ground in beheadings
Posted by Kit in International, Islam, Islamic state on Tuesday, 5 January 2016
By Adam Taylor
Washington Post
January 4, 2016
Over the past year, Saudi Arabia has faced recurrent criticism that its ultraconservative interpretation of Islamic law is not so far off from what is practiced by the Islamic State, an extremist organization that proclaimed its “caliphate” across parts of Syria and Iraq in June 2014. The criticism clearly irks some Saudi officials, who have threatened legal action against social media users who make the comparison with the Islamic State.
This weekend’s announcement that Shiite cleric Sheik Nimr Baqr al-Nimr was among 47 people executed in Saudi Arabia in a day has added considerable fuel to the fire, however. Saudi authorities have acknowledged that some of those executed were beheaded — a technique widely used and publicized by the Islamic State.
In just one sign of broader official outrage at the execution of Nimr, the website of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, released an image that contrasts the Saudi kingdom’s use of beheadings with the Islamic State’s decapitation videos. “Any differences?” it asks, showing a Saudi executioner with a sword standing over a kneeling man.
The idea that Nimr could have been beheaded will only inflame sectarian tensions in the Muslim world, with Shiites remembering the way that Husayn ibn Ali, the third Shiite imam, was beheaded by the Sunni Umayyad caliphate in the seventh century. Read the rest of this entry »
Saudi action “resets geopolitical chessboard” in Middle East, says expert
Posted by Kit in International, Islam, Islamic state on Tuesday, 5 January 2016
By Anakhanum Khidayatova
Trend
4 JANUARY 2016
Saudi Arabia and Iran have been engaged in a Cold War via proxy, in its most recent manifestation, since the Arab Spring, in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and in other countries around the world through humanitarian aid and dawa (outreach), Theodore Karasik, the Middle East analyst and senior advisor to Risk Insurance Management in Dubai, told Trend Jan. 4.
“This Cold War entered a dangerous, highly confrontational phase in the past few days. The Kingdom, in mid December, prepared the steps for today, with Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announcing a Sunni Muslim Alliance. With the Saudi execution of the “terrorist extremist” Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who was the spiritual leader of Saudi Shiites in the Kingdom’s Eastern Province, the sectarian divide grew immediate into a deep chasm”- he said.
The expert also said that Saudi Arabia’s Sunni Muslim Alliance is now fully activated with the al-Nimr execution. Read the rest of this entry »
European Sympathies Lean Toward Iran in Conflict with Saudi Arabia
Posted by Kit in International, Islam, Islamic state on Tuesday, 5 January 2016
by Sewell Chan
New York Times
JAN. 4, 2016
LONDON — In the days since Saudi Arabia inflamed tensions with Iran by executing 47 people, including a Shiite cleric, European observers have been quick to condemn the action, reflecting broader concern across the Continent about Saudi policy and its role in the tumult rolling through the Middle East.
Opposition in Europe to the death penalty — and harsh corporal punishment, including the flogging of a Saudi blogger who has become something of a cause célèbre in Europe — is just one element of the criticism of the Saudi monarchy. Even as European governments continue to view Saudi Arabia as a vital if problematic stabilizing force in the region, as well as a rich market for European arms and other products, European opinion has grown increasingly critical of Saudi support and financing for Wahhabist and Salafist preachers who have contributed to the Sunni extremist ideology that has fueled Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
In addition, the European Union and six major world powers reached a deal in Vienna over the summer to contain Iran’s nuclear program, and Iran is seen as essential to ending the five-year-old civil war in Syria, which has fueled a surge of migrants to the Continent, the highest number since World War II.
So for many Europeans, Iran — long a pariah because of its anti-Western rhetoric and its nuclear program — has suddenly become, at least in comparison with Saudi Arabia, an object of sympathy. Read the rest of this entry »
Iranian Protesters Ransack Saudi Embassy After Execution of Shiite Cleric
Posted by Kit in Islam, Islamic state on Monday, 4 January 2016
by Ben Hubbard
New York Times
JAN. 2, 2016
Iranian protesters ransacked and set fire to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran on Saturday after Saudi Arabia executed an outspoken Shiite cleric who had criticized the kingdom’s treatment of its Shiite minority.
The cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, was among 47 men executed in Saudi Arabia on terrorism-related charges, drawing condemnation from Iran and its allies in the region, and sparking fears that sectarian tensions could rise across the Middle East.
The executions coincided with increased attacks in Saudi Arabia by the jihadists of the Islamic State and an escalating rivalry between the Sunni monarchy and Shiite Iran that is playing out in conflicts in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere. Sheikh Nimr was an outspoken critic of the Saudi monarchy and was adopted as a symbolic leader by Shiite protesters in several Persian Gulf countries during the Arab Spring uprisings. Read the rest of this entry »
Senior political leader who lied about the DAP being offered RM1.2 billion in exchange for an Israeli naval base in Port Dickson will have to pay the heavy price in court for making false and defamatory statement
Posted by Kit in DAP, Islam, Najib Razak, Pakatan Harapan, PAS on Saturday, 2 January 2016
There is recently a culture of political desperation in the country.
This could be seen from the New Year Message by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak yesterday claiming that his twin RM2.6 billion and 1MDB mega scandals are no more, when they are never more alive and kicking, growing ever bigger in scale and impact, that Malaysia has just been “crowned” as the world’s third most corrupt country – thanks to Najib’s twin mega scandals!
What beggars the imagination is how Najib could make such an outrageous claim when he himself could not possibly believe it, unless he has left the real world of politics and entered the world of make-believe!
Another example of such political desperation is the regurgitation of wild and reckless allegation by a senior political leader of another political party about the DAP’s ties with Israel, and the preposterous allegation that the DAP was offered RM1.2 billion by Israel if we win the general elections in exchange for the building of an Israeli naval base in Port Dickson.
Senior political leaders from other political parties who lied about the DAP, like the one who made the preposterous allegation about the DAP being offered RM1.2 billion in exchange for an Israeli naval base in Port Dickson, will have to pay the heavy price for such baseless and reckless allegations in the courts.
All political leader must learn the hard lesson that they cannot just get away with lies or the most preposterous allegations, or seek refuge for their nefarious and dastardly deeds by claiming they were merely recycling such lies and falsehoods by “men of straw” or some insubstantial characters!
According to Al-Quran, slander is a crime worse than murder. Read the rest of this entry »
A Christmas wish
Lyana Khairuddin
The Malaysian Insider
23 December 2015
It is really easy to get caught in the hype and commercialisation of Christmas.
Let’s be realistic here, Christmas no longer represents merely a religious holiday that marks the birth of Jesus, but rather an occasion for merrymaking with friends over food, that great unifier of mankind.
Of course, in Malaysia, our turkeys are halal-certified and our merrymaking involves being served orange juice in wine glasses. Read the rest of this entry »
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