Rafizi Ramli has claimed that Centre for Policy Initiatives (CPI) director Lim Teck Ghee appears to only endorse issues that go against Umno, the Malay culture and Islamic studies.Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli’s support of the proposal by the Higher Education Ministry to make the Islamic and Asian Civilisation Studies (Titas) course compulsory in private tertiary institutions (IPTS)
Tien Chua another wolf in sheep’s clothing
Wong Choon Mei said
This is a most unpleasant situation with racial overtones. Not all who have been dropped are Chinese but most are we Chinese very concerned. Who will be next?””At the end of the day, it’s the way they make decisions at the top. It is just like the BN. PKR is the new Umno and DAP the new MCA. Anwar talks about creating a new Malaysian identity but when push comes to shove, he sells out his own members. You can’t blame me for being angry because Tien Chua and me spent the past 3 years investing a lot of time and money to build a following in their designated constituencies. But it is Anwar’s betray that really hurts,”Several of PKR’s most senior Chinese leaders had even convened a meeting a few months ago to discuss the grouses of their grassroots. Their complaints were then formally presented to Anwar but it appears he has not seen fit to take their views seriously.
Perhaps, it is time for the PKR adviser to come down to earth and realize that his greatness came not only from God but from millions of unseen Malaysians who supported him in good faith and without condition.
Anwar should remember that his multiracial credentials, in particular over the past 4 years, were built largely by minority groups such as the Chinese, Indians, Dayaks and KDM, who were fed up with the Umno-BN and willing to fight for change behind his banner.
To treat them shabbily and discard them now that his goal of becoming the next Prime Minister is in sight would not only make a hypocrite of what he stands for but invite well-deserved criticism and retribution.
As at press time, PKR stalwarts such as Tian Chua and Jui Meng, who is the Johor chief, had not responded to calls from Malaysia Chronicle for their side of the story.readmoe Wong Choon Mei of Malaysia Chronicle watch your words our words are weapons
DO WE WANT FEAR OR HOPE IN THESE EYES!
“This isn’t an issue with us,” he said.
| A new wave of anti-Muslim intolerance and antagonism is sweeping Europe. The far right political gains seen in some parts of the continent are alarming. Anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and extreme right parties seem to be cashing in on economic hardship and austerity measures. In a blinkered world of “us” and “them” they have found in Europe’s Muslim citizens the “others”.
In this fevered atmosphere of rising nationalism Islam, the religion of its most-impoverished people, is taking over the continent. Never mind the agonies such sentiments caused when acted upon by the Norway killer, Anders Breivik last year. “Racism is the lowest form of stupidity; Islamophobia is the height of common sense!” said one group in 2008. To any person with a modicum of common sense such attitudes are absurd and bordering on a mythical view of reality. We must check their rise. In a powerful indictment, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, posted a blog about how European Muslims are stigmatised by populist rhetoric (October 2010). “European countries appear to face another crisis beyond budget deficits – the disintegration of human value. One symptom is the increasing expression of intolerance towards Muslims. Opinion polls in several European countries reflect fear, suspicion and negative opinions of Muslims and Islamic culture,” he wrote. He was not alone in giving Europeans this warning; many people across British politics and media have shared similar sentiments for some time. Amnesty International has shared this concern. In its April 2012 report “Choice and prejudice: discrimination against Muslims in Europe“, Amnesty exposes the impact of discrimination on Muslims. Marco Perolini, Amnesty’s expert on discrimination, says: “Muslim women are being denied jobs and girls prevented from attending regular classes just because they wear traditional forms of dress, such as the headscarf. Men can be dismissed for wearing beards associated with Islam… Rather than countering these prejudices, political parties and public officials are all too often pandering to them in their quest for votes.”
Amnesty International has accused France, Belgium and the Netherlands of failing to implement proper laws banning discrimination in employment. It is disheartening that a continent that had learnt many lessons in such a hard way, after the devastation of the two World Wars, and which prides itself in equality and human rights, is allowing itself to be influenced by the forces of intolerance and hate. It is now open season to malign Muslims because of their religious and cultural practices. Yet Muslim immigrants arriving after the war joined in the effort to rebuild the economies of war-torn Europe in the 1950s. In almost every field of life, Muslims have been an integral part of the European tapestry. Muslims are today at home in Europe, have been contributors to its past and are stakeholders in its future. Yet the language and rhetoric used by the Far Right and the level of political expediency in mainstream European politics is mind boggling. The hate mongers are apparently succeeding in swapping a racist agenda for an Islamophobic one. The lacklustre response from European leaders has paved the way for anti-Muslim bigotry to move closer to the mainstream. It took a cold-blooded massacre of 77 Norwegian youths by a far-right “Christian” extremist, Anders Behring Breivik last summer, to shake the conscience of Europe’s political class. It was a horrendous wake-up call to home-grown far-right violence and ideology, inspired by the rhetoric of vote-chasing politicians, pseudo academics, media analysts and hate groups like the English Defence League (EDL) in Britain. Breivik, in his recent trial, has made vitriolic attack on European leaders for their “impotence” to stand up against Muslim “conquest” of Europe. In this, he is propounding the “Eurabia” fantasy that is central to the so-called “counter jihadist” movement propelled by ideologues in the USA.Elsewhere, in France, the shockwave of the far-right National Front polling nearly one fifth of French voters in the first round of the presidential elections is still reverberating. Both the socialist candidate and the incumbent president are nowwooing the supporters of Marine le Pen. In Britain the recent news that the EDL has joined hands with the British Freedom Party (BFP) is going to have political implications. The BFP was formed in 2010 by disaffected members of the BNP and whatever its stated objectives, its main target is the Muslim community. It wants to ban theniqab, stop the building of new mosques and Islamic schools and outlaw Sharia (as if it runs Britain!) including Islamic finance. The news that EDL head Tommy Robinson is to be appointed Deputy Leader of the British Freedom Party has alarmed anti-racist groups like HOPE Not Hate, and others. The alliance of EDL and BFP would be more dangerous than the BNP: the current EDL head “Tommy Robinson” (real name: Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a tanning salon manager from Luton) has a better media presence than the Holocaust-denying Nick Griffin. In focusing on Islam and the threat of “Islamist extremists” they can have a bigger appeal than the simple racist agenda of the BNP. With political trust at an all-time low, this far right alliance may take advantage of voter apathy in national and local politics to advance their cause. Be that as it may, we must stand firm and not let our country and continent slip into the intolerant past. We must join hands to slay the dragon of Islamophobia and help build Europe again with everyone’s help, Muslim and non-Muslim, alike. It is time we listen to the voices of sanity, not hate. |
What’s clear is that in this new round of the New Great Game, the last thing the “democratic” West wants is to encourage some Arab Spring winds to hit the Silk Road
Now for the real ‘international community’
The New Great Game was in full swing when the presidents of China, Russia and four “stans” (minus idiosyncratic Turkmenistan)for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit.
Crucially, the presidents of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Mongolia, plus India’s foreign minister, were also there. No better setting for the SCO to propose – via Moscow and Beijing – a completely different worldview from the West’s.
So this, in a nutshell, is what a substantial section of the real “international community” – not that fiction brandished by Washington, London and Paris – thinks about key episodes of the New Great Game.
The SCO is totally against the US and NATO’s missile shield scheme. As for Central Asian “stans”, they better stay away from NATO: if there is any regional crisis, it should be solved regionally. The SCO wants an “independent, neutral and peaceful” Afghanistan (now promoted to the status of SCO observer); this is code for Russia and China doing everything they can to erase US influence over Kabul.
The SCO condemns Libya-style “humanitarian” interventions and unilateral sanctions. It privileges the old-school UN charter and international law – and also, by the way, a future reform of the UN Security Council. On Syria, the only solution is political dialogue – which for Moscow, sensibly, must also include Iran.
The SCO considers a possible strike on Iran “unacceptable”. At the same time, crucially, neither Beijing nor Moscow would want to see a hypothetical Iranian nuclear bomb.
There will be increased economic co-operation among SCO member states. Future steps include an SCO Development Bank. Moscow remains the top trade partner of the Central Asian “stans”.
And a very intriguing development: NATO member Turkey – part of the US missile shield network – was admitted as a SCO “dialogue partner”. No admission, at least not yet, for both India and Pakistan. Inevitably, in the near future, they will become full-time members, alongside Iran.
So this is not yet an Eastern NATO. Chinese news agency Xinhua, with deceptive understatement, stressed the SCO is a “partnership”, not an “alliance”.
a seem to share the same ills: dictatorships, widespread corruption, poverty, high youth unemployment, total media control and very limited political space for any opposition.
No wonder the initial thrust of the Arab Spring in North Africa – a popular struggle for democracy – scared the hell out of most governments along the Silk Road. More than democracy, what they saw was the spectre of Islamisation. Thus the blocking of Facebook and Twitter, the set-up of made-in-China internet filters – coupled with the absence of a pan-Central Asian broadcaster in the Al Jazeera model to spread the word.
Central Asian strongmen have reasons to look back in anger – and dread – to what’s happening in Egypt and Syria. Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan and Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan have each been in power for 21 years now. Emomalii Rakhmon in Tajikistan has been president since the country’s bloody civil war during the 1990s.
Propagation of ignorant fears the Republican proponents of Islamophobic views
Bachmann letter, is that it is useless to make fine distinctions among Islamists, whether one is speaking of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, or al-Qaeda itself. All share the same aggressive world-view and the same aims; the only distinction among them is the relative degree to which they are willing to employ violence to achieve their ends.It is tempting to some to dismiss as some sort of lunatic fringe those who believe, as Bachmann and company apparently do, that “civilisation jihad” poses a clear, present and insidiously critical danger to American values and the American way of life itself. Their ideas may well seem ludicrous to some, but they are decidedly not on the fringe. As someone who speaks frequently on counter-terrorism and national security issues, this writer frequently encounters the champions of these views.
Hearing into ‘radicalisation’ of US Muslims raises questions
As a Republican, I am all the more inclined to deplore the Know-Nothings who seem to have traditionally and consistently found a welcome home in the right-wing of my party, whether they be the old anti-Communist extremists of the John Birch Society, former opponents of civil rights for blacks, those who demagogue popular prejudices against gay people and undocumented immigrants today, or those who exploit fear of terrorism and popular ignorance of Islam to tar those, such as some in the Obama administration, who are willing to take a thoughtful and nuanced approach to the national security challenges posed by Islamic extremism. Moral obtuseness about the human effect of blind prejudice and political opportunism may be one of the uglier aspects of what Bachmann and company are up to. But it is incidental to their aims, and arguably not the most harmful result of their bigoted and paranoid views. The central enemy in the mind of those who inspire, inform, and/or share the views espoused in the Bachmann letters is not any particular person or group, but Islam itself.The sly innuendo employed against Huma Abedin may have been particularly outrageous. But Huma Abedin is not the main preoccupation of Bachmann’s congressional clique, or of the many others who share their views – any more than Joseph Welch’s young protégé was a particular concern of Joe McCarthy’s.
No less a conservative Republican stalwart than the late William F Buckley, Jr was known to excoriate the excesses of what he referred to as “the fever-swamps of the American Right”. What is most troubling about the Islamophobia that has gained such traction in the Republican Party, however, is precisely that it is not confined to the fever-swamps – or, perhaps, the swamps are simply spreading.Character assassination
The letter-writers fear the conspiracy is enjoying considerable success. According to Bachmann et alia, “The State Department and, in several cases the specific direction of the Secretary of State have taken actions recently that have been enormously favourable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests.” Among these, it cites “… assorted efforts undertaken in the name of ‘engaging’ the Muslim Brotherhood both in Egypt and the United States. Lately, these have amounted to… assisting the realisation of the Brotherhood’s goals”.
And just in case there were any ambiguities on that count, the letter helpfully spells out the mission of the MB in the United States, which is nothing less than “destroying the Western civilisation from within” through “civilisation jihad”. Mercy: No wonder the preternaturally earnest Bachmann is upset. The Department of State is in the hands of persons so naïve, or so bamboozled by Muslim conspirators and sympathisers, that it is willing actually to talk to persons, presumably including the recently elected Egyptian president, allegedly bent on the sinister destruction of the American way of life
Whether you love him or hate him, it would be hard to characterise Newt Gingrich as a fringe element in the Republican Party. A former Speaker of the House of Representatives, he mounted a credible campaign this year for the Republican presidential nomination, running for a time as a strong second to Mitt Romney. He is a very talented generator of ideas, whose greatest weakness is a bewildering inability to distinguish the good ones from the daft ones. But he is highly influential. Here is what he has to say about Islam: “I believe Sharia is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it. I think it is that straightforward and that real.” The former Speaker takes little comfort in the fact that violent extremists have not been able to successfully target the US since 9/11, for he is alive to the threat from “stealth jihad”. “Stealth jihadis use political, cultural, societal, religious, intellectual tools; violent jihadis use violence,” he has said. “But in fact they’re both engaged in jihad, and they’re both seeking to impose the same end state, which is to replace Western civilisation with a radical imposition of Sharia.”
Fortunately, most in the US, and indeed the vast majority of Republicans, are far more concerned with the state of the US economy than they are with fear of the Talibanisation of the United States. But there is no end of harm that can come to the United States’ reputation and to US interests in the Islamic world, to say nothing of the personal and social harm being done to loyal Muslim Americans, when propagation of such ignorant fears is not contested. It is good that Senator McCain has risen to the defence of a Muslim-American public servant. But his work, and that of other right-thinking Republicans, is hardly done
