OPINION | Why Some Converts Turn Hostile Toward the Identity They Left Behind
9 Feb 2026 • 6:00 PM MYT
TheRealNehruism
An award-winning Newswav creator, Bebas News columnist & ex-FMT columnist
Image credit: The Scoop
I have always doubted whether identity conversion is truly driven by supernatural causes, even when it is claimed to be so. Saul may have believed he became Paul because he felt divine presence on the road to Damascus, but from a secular perspective, it is equally plausible that he simply became exhausted with being Saul. Sometimes, people change because they are no longer able to live with who they are.
There are moments when being oneself becomes too heavy a burden. One grows weary of one’s religion, nationality, race, social class, or even gender. The exhaustion becomes so deep that the only imaginable escape is to abandon one identity and adopt another. That is when people convert.
Identity conversion functions as a powerful psychological strategy for coping with deep internal stress. When personal strain is tied closely to one’s sense of self, changing that self can offer immediate emotional relief. Migration, religious conversion, racial reinvention, or gender transition often promise a clean slate — a symbolic rebirth. When successful, the transformation can be dramatic. The anxious become calm, the bitter soften, the restless find peace.
But conversion does not always work.
Sometimes, the new identity fails to resolve the old wounds. Instead of liberation, the person experiences renewed frustration. The painful realization dawns: even after changing everything, nothing truly changed. In such cases, disappointment often turns outward. Anger becomes fixated, obsessive, and moralised. Very often, this anger is directed toward the person’s former identity group.
As American philosopher Eric Hoffer observed, “Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.” When people cannot tolerate their own unresolved conflicts, hatred supplies them with structure, direction, and emotional energy.
This psychological framework offers insight into the behaviour of independent preacher Zamri Vinoth and his relentless campaign against Hindu temples.
Zamri is now coordinating a nationwide movement against what he calls “illegal” houses of worship, culminating in a rally in Kuala Lumpur involving some 141 NGOs. Civil society group Pusat Komas has urged him to stop, reminding Malaysians that Hindu temples often have complex historical roots tied to plantation labour, colonial displacement, and working-class survival. These are not merely legal anomalies, but living monuments to hardship, faith, and endurance.
Pusat Komas warned that Malaysia has suffered deeply from communal tensions in the past, and that inflaming religious disputes today risks reopening wounds that took decades to heal. It called instead for rationality, compassion, and adherence to the spirit of the Rukun Negara.
However, it is doubtful as to whether Pusat Komas's advice will be heeded.
Now is there any basis to Zamri's campaign against the Hindu temples?
It would be unfair to say that there is no grounds.
Afterall, the issue of many Hindu temples existing on land that does not belong to the temple is not new. It is an old issue, that gradually arose out of a long and often complex turn of events.
The legal question of land use is, in other words, not without legitimate grounds. If it had no legitimate ground, it wouldn't have been a faultline for so long.
But the deeper question is this: why does Zamri, of all people, the one that is always at the fore front of the issue. Why is he the one that has to be so intensely fixated on Hindu affairs, when he used to be a hindu himself, and has long left the Hindu fold?
If conversion had truly liberated him, one would expect distance, detachment, perhaps even quiet indifference. When you leave something that you find burdensome and wearisome, why not just leave it behind ? Why keep coming back to it, even after you found something better to take you forward?
When we see how Zamri keeps returning to the affairs of his previous identity group, almost always with persistent hostility, it begins to beggar the question: did his religious conversion succeed in resolving his conflict with himself? If it did, why does he still appear so conflicted?
Here, another dimension emerges — hierarchical identity. Changing religion does not automatically change one’s position within a social order. A marginal figure does not become central merely by switching camps. A follower does not become a leader simply by changing allegiance. When hierarchical frustration persists, identity anxiety continues. While Zamri might have converted from one religion to another, that conversion alone might not be sufficient to resolve all the issues he has with himself. Other than religious conversion, perhaps he also needs a hierarchal conversion - or convert from being a follower to a leader - in order to resolve his full identity crisis.
Our old Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad’s life offers a revealing parallel. His transformation from Peranakan to constitutional Malay did not initially produce calm ( Note :Barry Wain, the author of the book, “Mahathir: The Malaysian Maverick”, claimed that Mahathir’s father bore the name “Mohamad Iskandar Kutty” and was of Jawi Peranakan descent, although Mahathir denies the claim) . Instead, it intensified his insecurities, giving rise to his well-known ultra-Malay phase, where he would out do even the Malays who are born Malays, especially in manifesting anti non-Malay sentiments. Only after he rose to national leadership did those tendencies gradually soften, allowing him to recast himself as a statesman above racial politics. Yet, once power slipped away after 2020, his identity anxieties resurfaced — proof that unresolved conflicts return when hierarchical security collapses.
Zamri’s trajectory may not be very different. Until he achieves authority, recognition, and status within his new religious identity, his internal conflict may continue to seek release through antagonism toward his former community.
In calmer times, when religious harmony and racial tolerance is high, this obsession might remain marginal. Zamri migh still take an antagonistic stance against his former identity group, but that stance might be limited to a individual or local level.
But in today’s climate — where cultural tension and religious anxieties in the country are at a high — it might find fertile ground to grow, amplify, and affect the entire nation at a larger scale.
This is why Zamri’s campaign should not be seen merely as activism or moral crusade. It is also an expression of unresolved psychological struggle, magnified by political opportunity.
How Malaysia responds will determine whether this moment becomes another episode of communal injury — or a reminder that maturity, restraint, and historical wisdom still guide the nation.
Let us see how the cookies crumble.
I have always doubted whether identity conversion is truly driven by supernatural causes, even when it is claimed to be so. Saul may have believed he became Paul because he felt divine presence on the road to Damascus, but from a secular perspective, it is equally plausible that he simply became exhausted with being Saul. Sometimes, people change because they are no longer able to live with who they are.
There are moments when being oneself becomes too heavy a burden. One grows weary of one’s religion, nationality, race, social class, or even gender. The exhaustion becomes so deep that the only imaginable escape is to abandon one identity and adopt another. That is when people convert.
Identity conversion functions as a powerful psychological strategy for coping with deep internal stress. When personal strain is tied closely to one’s sense of self, changing that self can offer immediate emotional relief. Migration, religious conversion, racial reinvention, or gender transition often promise a clean slate — a symbolic rebirth. When successful, the transformation can be dramatic. The anxious become calm, the bitter soften, the restless find peace.
But conversion does not always work.
Sometimes, the new identity fails to resolve the old wounds. Instead of liberation, the person experiences renewed frustration. The painful realization dawns: even after changing everything, nothing truly changed. In such cases, disappointment often turns outward. Anger becomes fixated, obsessive, and moralised. Very often, this anger is directed toward the person’s former identity group.
As American philosopher Eric Hoffer observed, “Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.” When people cannot tolerate their own unresolved conflicts, hatred supplies them with structure, direction, and emotional energy.
This psychological framework offers insight into the behaviour of independent preacher Zamri Vinoth and his relentless campaign against Hindu temples.
Zamri is now coordinating a nationwide movement against what he calls “illegal” houses of worship, culminating in a rally in Kuala Lumpur involving some 141 NGOs. Civil society group Pusat Komas has urged him to stop, reminding Malaysians that Hindu temples often have complex historical roots tied to plantation labour, colonial displacement, and working-class survival. These are not merely legal anomalies, but living monuments to hardship, faith, and endurance.
Pusat Komas warned that Malaysia has suffered deeply from communal tensions in the past, and that inflaming religious disputes today risks reopening wounds that took decades to heal. It called instead for rationality, compassion, and adherence to the spirit of the Rukun Negara.
However, it is doubtful as to whether Pusat Komas's advice will be heeded.
Now is there any basis to Zamri's campaign against the Hindu temples?
It would be unfair to say that there is no grounds.
Afterall, the issue of many Hindu temples existing on land that does not belong to the temple is not new. It is an old issue, that gradually arose out of a long and often complex turn of events.
The legal question of land use is, in other words, not without legitimate grounds. If it had no legitimate ground, it wouldn't have been a faultline for so long.
But the deeper question is this: why does Zamri, of all people, the one that is always at the fore front of the issue. Why is he the one that has to be so intensely fixated on Hindu affairs, when he used to be a hindu himself, and has long left the Hindu fold?
If conversion had truly liberated him, one would expect distance, detachment, perhaps even quiet indifference. When you leave something that you find burdensome and wearisome, why not just leave it behind ? Why keep coming back to it, even after you found something better to take you forward?
When we see how Zamri keeps returning to the affairs of his previous identity group, almost always with persistent hostility, it begins to beggar the question: did his religious conversion succeed in resolving his conflict with himself? If it did, why does he still appear so conflicted?
Here, another dimension emerges — hierarchical identity. Changing religion does not automatically change one’s position within a social order. A marginal figure does not become central merely by switching camps. A follower does not become a leader simply by changing allegiance. When hierarchical frustration persists, identity anxiety continues. While Zamri might have converted from one religion to another, that conversion alone might not be sufficient to resolve all the issues he has with himself. Other than religious conversion, perhaps he also needs a hierarchal conversion - or convert from being a follower to a leader - in order to resolve his full identity crisis.
Our old Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad’s life offers a revealing parallel. His transformation from Peranakan to constitutional Malay did not initially produce calm ( Note :Barry Wain, the author of the book, “Mahathir: The Malaysian Maverick”, claimed that Mahathir’s father bore the name “Mohamad Iskandar Kutty” and was of Jawi Peranakan descent, although Mahathir denies the claim) . Instead, it intensified his insecurities, giving rise to his well-known ultra-Malay phase, where he would out do even the Malays who are born Malays, especially in manifesting anti non-Malay sentiments. Only after he rose to national leadership did those tendencies gradually soften, allowing him to recast himself as a statesman above racial politics. Yet, once power slipped away after 2020, his identity anxieties resurfaced — proof that unresolved conflicts return when hierarchical security collapses.
Zamri’s trajectory may not be very different. Until he achieves authority, recognition, and status within his new religious identity, his internal conflict may continue to seek release through antagonism toward his former community.
In calmer times, when religious harmony and racial tolerance is high, this obsession might remain marginal. Zamri migh still take an antagonistic stance against his former identity group, but that stance might be limited to a individual or local level.
But in today’s climate — where cultural tension and religious anxieties in the country are at a high — it might find fertile ground to grow, amplify, and affect the entire nation at a larger scale.
This is why Zamri’s campaign should not be seen merely as activism or moral crusade. It is also an expression of unresolved psychological struggle, magnified by political opportunity.
How Malaysia responds will determine whether this moment becomes another episode of communal injury — or a reminder that maturity, restraint, and historical wisdom still guide the nation.
Let us see how the cookies crumble.
***
Zamri, Ridhuan, Firdaus all want to show their new gang their worth, their pahlawan-ness, their mettles, to prove that they 'belong' - likewise with Mahathir
Mahathir could have been a highly respected Statesman, loved by all Malaysians, what with his 'Bangsa Malaysia', but in the end he let himself down by abandoning his one true 'masterpiece' - sayang saje!
