Zamri Vinoth insulting Thaipusam: A classic symptom of the "convert syndrome" gone wrong

Zamri Vinoth insulting Thaipusam: A classic symptom of the "convert syndrome" gone wrong


13 Mar 2025 • 10:00 AM MYT


TheRealNehruism
Writer. Seeker. Teacher

Image credit: Focus Malaysia


Many people tend to equate the “conversion” of identity with a miraculous event – as in how Saul miraculously was turned into Paul on the road to Damascus – but the reason why a person converts their identity is actually more mundane than that.


People as a rule, discard their old identity and assume a new one, or convert their identity, chiefly because they are extremely unhappy being who they are.


While religious conversion tends to be the most well-known form of identity conversion, there are actually many more types of identity conversion than we assume.


A person can change their work identity by changing career paths, for example.


One can even change one’s nationality, which is a form of identity conversion as well, by emigrating to a different nation.


Some of us have even converted our ancestry or race, as our fourth prime minister Mahathir Muhammad is often alleged to have done.


People are even known to convert their gender in order to save themselves from extreme unhappiness.


Regardless of whether we are changing our job, ancestry, religion, nationality or even gender, the reason why we convert, however, is always the same – we do so, because we are so unhappy being ourselves, that we have to discard some of the identities that form our concepts of self, in order to become a “new self”, that will be able to escape from the extreme wretchedness that we experience in being ourselves.


There is nothing wrong with being a convert. As a matter of fact, conversion is a legitimate way of curing wretchedness, depression and other forms of extreme unhappiness that some of us are bound to experience in being ourselves.


If you hate your job, rather than stick with and be a source of misery to yourself and others around you, the better thing to do is to actually change your job.


If you really find it that hard being yourself in your country, there is nothing wrong in considering emigrating to another country, to keep your pursuit of happiness alive.


As it is with one's job identity or national identity, so it is with one’s religious identity – sometimes, the religion that you are born with might not be the one for you. There is ample evidence of people who were only able to make peace with themselves and their world, when they were able to convert to a different religion.


The problem is that sometimes, we might not be able to make peace with ourselves or our world even after we convert our identity.


I know of someone who converted his nationality but is still unable to find happiness after his conversion.


As a result, now he is doubly unhappy to the point the only happiness he seems to be able to derive, is by denouncing both in his current host nation and his former home nation alike, to make everyone everywhere just as miserable as him.


Mahathir also, let us not forget, is famous for picking on the fault of both his current race and former race (alleged) before he had power and after he lost power. When he was in power, he was happy enough with himself to not pick on any one of us, but before got power and after he lost power, he has a track record of harping on the shortcoming of his current race by saying things like they ungrateful, lazy or incompetent and of his former race, by accusing them of being disloyal, unappreciative or greedy.


As the saying goes, misery loves company and when a convert fails to find happiness even after their conversion, they tend to succumb to the “convert syndrome”, where the only happiness they can get involves making everybody they are associated with or used to be associated with, miserable.


The fact that religious converts like Zamri Vinoth, Ridhuan Tee and Firdaus Wong, are constantly harping on the shortcoming of the identity group that they had previously left is a sign that their conversion might not have succeeded in reconciling them with their estranged sense of self.


If you are unhappy with yourself, you will first try to find happiness by becoming someone else. If you are still unable to find happiness in your “new self”, then you might just completely give up on the likelihood of ever finding happiness in your life, and decide to just console your miserable self, by taking a sick pleasure in making everybody around you miserable as well.


By the looks of it, these converts are likely still at war with themselves even after their conversion, and as a result, they are in conflict with everyone around them as well.


The fact that Zamri Vinoth had so eagerly jumped into the fray in the ongoing ERA FM DJ’s Kavadi fiasco, is a sign that the only way that he might be able to reconcile himself with his estranged sense of self, is if by being at war with everyone else around him.


If the non-Muslims and Muslims in Malaysia had a great relationship, Zamri would likely be a thorn in the side of the Muslims. It is the Muslims that he would have harangued as being not-Islamic enough or not pious enough or not following the actual teaching of Islam, and leave us non-Muslims alone.


However, considering that the relationship between the non-Muslims and Muslims in Malaysia is likely strained, then unhappy converts like Zamri are a problem that we, the non-Muslims, have to deal with, because rather than be in conflict with the Muslims, it is us, his former identity group, that he will find it much more profitable to be in conflict with..


By picking a fight with us, unhappy converts can win in two ways.


In the first way, they get a chance to denounce their former identity group as being worthless or flawed, to console themselves as to why they had to leave their former identity group for a new group.


In the second way, they will also get to be seen as heroes by their members of their current identity group, for being willing to fight against a group that they have a strained relationship with, and secure extra validation and recognition from their current identity group, which might act as a balm to soothe their extreme sense of unhappiness with themselves and their world.


If you were to ask me, what can be done in order to resolve the problem that is being caused by these unhappy converts, I will say that to look at the problem in this way is to miss the forest for the tree.


The problem we have is not that these converts are unhappy - the problem we have is that the relationship between the muslims and non-muslims in the country is strained.


If the relationship between muslims and non-muslims in the country is not strained, these unhappy converts will not be able to make such an impact in our lives.


The unhappiness of the unhappy converts are but mere flickers of a flame – if the forest was not dry, nobody would have even noticed it.


It is because the forest is dry that even these flickers have the potential to cause a wildfire.


So rather than focus on what can be done to the unhappy converts to mitigate the racial and religious problem before us, we should really focus on the racial and religious problem before us, to mitigate the effects of these unhappy converts on it.


Like Pusat Komas said, maybe it is time to have a religious harmony commission, to create a condition where racial and religious trouble will not arise, rather than keep fire fighting against every racial and religious incident that occurs, and tire ourselves addressing the superficial symptoms, without ever addressing the root cause.