Senseless murder

From the MM Online:

LONDON, June 16 — Campaigning for Britain’s EU referendum next week was suspended today following news a leading MP with the “Remain” camp was in a critical condition after being shot.

Jo Cox, a 41-year-old mother-of-two from the opposition Labour Party, was left bleeding on the pavement after the incident in the town of Birstall in northern England, according to witnesses quoted by local media. [...]

Channel 4 News quoted Cox’s office as saying the pro-EU MP had been shot and stabbed.

Sky News television quoted unconfirmed reports from witnesses that the shooter shouted “Britain first” — possibly a reference to British sovereignty, although there is also a far-right party called Britain First.

Condolences to the family of Jo Cox.

But from a Malaysian point of view, while we condemn such violence and mourn in sympathy with her family, many of us must have silently heave a sign of relief (Alhamdulillah) that the assassin was not a Muslim, or bloody Donald Trump and his ilk would have a field day. again.

The recent mass murder in Orlando, Florida, was executed by a mentally deranged man (who was found to be a closeted gay himself) rather than an Islamist terrorist, but Trump didn't allow inconvenient facts to stop him in his campaign of hatred.

Also, recently I read (somewhere, sorry can't remember the source) that Malaysia is among 12 nations blacklisted for its likelihood of harbouring Islamist terrorists. What a terrible notoriety.

A Brooking report has this to say (extracts)

In an influential essay published in April this year, Brookings scholar Joseph Liow laid out clearly the reasons for the rise of IS in Malaysia: the politicization of Islam by the state. In particular, both the ruling UMNO (United Malays National Organisation) party and its main opponent, PAS (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia) use political Islam as their weapon of choice.

The use of political Islam is a deliberate move by a group of committed Islamists hidden in the highest level of the Malaysian state and bureaucracy to create a Malay-Islamic state, not a mere theocratic state. This ideology is unique and separate from the caliphate project pursued by IS. [...]

Who are members of this group pushing for the Malay-Islamic state? The obvious candidates are JAKIM (Malaysian Islamic Development Department), a department under the prime minister’s office, and its state-level version. JAKIM is a government department tasked with defining, to the minuscule detail, what being a Sunni Muslim means in Malaysia, not only in theological terms but also in practical terms, like how to dress and what types of behavior are halal (permissible) or haram.

JAKIM, established during the era of Mahathir, prime minister from 1981 to 2003, is so powerful now that even senior UMNO leaders do not dare to confront it. Anyone who questions JAKIM is threatened with sedition. JAKIM threatened a former MP from UMNO with sedition. The son of a deputy prime minister, he had called for the departmental group to be disbanded. Police investigated a well-known lawyer for sedition after he tweeted, “Jakim is promoting extremism every Friday. Govt needs to address that if serious about extremism in Malaysia.” JAKIM writes all Friday sermons for delivery nationwide, and in recent years these sermons have tried to demonize Shiites, Christians and Jews.

JAKIM’s annual budget is about RM 1 billion, paid for by Muslim and non-Muslim taxpayers. Yet JAKIM is largely unaccountable to anyone. Progressive Malaysian Muslims fear the label of being branded anti-Islamic for questioning the work of JAKIM. Others shy away from criticizing JAKIM for fear of being charged with sedition.

Another government department promoting ethno-religious hate and intolerance is Biro Tata Negara (National Civics Bureau, or simply BTN). Like JAKIM, BTN is also under the authority of the PM’s office.

Officially, BTN is supposed to nurture the spirit of patriotism. While many of its programs do promote patriotism among Malaysian youth, others promote racism toward non-Malays and filter their message to selected groups of Malay participants. TheBTN teaches these Malay participants that the Malaysian Chinese (and non-Malays generally) are like “Jews” and that Malays must be politically supreme at all times.

A recent exposé of internal BTN documents showed that BTN trainers were told to teach that racism is “good” if it promotes Malay unity. It even suggested that racism originated from the Islamic concept of asabiyyah, a positive idea that centered on brotherhood and formed social solidarity in historical Muslim civilizations.

While it is obvious that JAKIM, BTN, and similar bodies, do not officially support IS’s caliphate project or its murderous ideology, their promotion of a uniquely narrow Malay-Islamic worldview indirectly supports and complements the IS brand of intolerance. Many young Malays at the primary and high school level in the Malaysian school system are steeped in a view of Malay Islam that resonates with the IS worldview that there is an “us-versus-them” world order. Malaysian Muslims find IS’s ideology easy to accept, having grown up with a state-sanctioned view of intolerance towards non-Malay Muslims.

Is it any wonder that in a recent PEW poll, 11 percent of Malaysian Muslims had a “favorable” view of IS? What is even more interesting is that in Southeast Asia, Malaysian Muslims are more likely than Indonesian Muslims to consider suicide bombing justifiable (18 percent versus 7 percent).

If we make inferences from this context, there are two clear conclusions. First, there is going to be an IS attack in Malaysia – not if, but when. The number of IS supporters in Malaysia has reached a critical mass: a Malaysian minister revealed a few days ago there are approximately 50,000 IS supporters in Malaysia. Coupled with returning IS fighters from Syria and Iraq, this broad-based support means that one of their attacks will succeed.

Second, support for IS and intolerant Islam is growing in Malaysia due to the deliberate policies of government bodies such as JAKIM and BTN, whose worldview is increasingly becoming even more influential than that promulgated by elected political leaders. The situation can only get worse until the top UMNO leaders rein in JAKIM and similar bodies. If the government waits for a successful attack before undertaking any serious action, it will simply be too late.

The Western world is already pretty virulently anti-Muslim without the need for Malaysian ulama to add on to that unfavourable and distorted perception of what Islam truly is.

It's difficult to tell the Western world that it's the singer (some ulama and some Muslims), not the song (Islam).

But once again, condolences to the Cox family and Britain for their great loss.