Commentary: Is Malaysia going the Sri Lankan way?

MANIPAL, India, Like the Pakistan army, which has jihad as its official motto, the rulers of Malaysia claim to represent the "moderate" face of Islam. However, ever since former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad introduced Wahabbism Lite into Malaysia in 1981, the practice of discriminating against all other creeds has evolved.

Across Malaysia today there is a rolling back of the 2,000-year-old culture of the Malays, brought with the Chola and Srivijaya kings from India. In place of this tolerant and syncretic tradition -- which is still strong in neighboring Indonesia despite attacks from cultural extremists -- some of the Malaysian leaders have sought to introduce the harsh tones of the Saudi desert and the mindset of the ancient Bedouin, as far as possible in a modern economy.

The veil and the beard are now ubiquitous throughout Malaysia, with some enclaves already implementing a Wahabbi Lite version of what is wrongly termed "sharia" law, a system of jurisprudence avoided by all but states such as Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Cash and preachers from Saudi Arabia and other countries linked to the Wahabbi International have been allowed to enter Malaysia freely. Politicians from the country's United Malays National Organization maintain cordial links with the Pakistan army. Mahathir himself even adopted a Pakistani boy.

Ironically, Mahathir Mohammad's contribution to the religious radicalization of Malaysia has been covered up by his high-decibel anti-Western rhetoric, which has given him a "nationalist" image. A genuine nationalist would have sought to unify rather than divide Malaysian society. But under Mahathir, Malay Muslims -- especially the Wahabbi element -- were aggressively favored by the state over the Chinese and the Indians, even those who were themselves Muslim.
Both the army and the police force have become instruments of Malay privilege. After nearly three decades of state-sanctioned repression, it was no surprise that a group of Malaysian Hindus, who make up 2 million of the country's population at the bottom of the economic ladder, mustered the courage to stage a peaceful protest against the destruction of several dozen temples by the Malaysian authorities, demolitions conducted for the most part without explanation or compensation.

The ruling elite has thus far succeeded in keeping the Muslims within the Malaysian Indian community away from the agitation, arguing that the destruction of temples, several of them of historical value, had no effect on them as Muslims. Yet the anger of the Malaysian Indian community is palpable and has not been doused by denunciations from top Malaysian officials, including the regime's "Indian" face, minister Sami Velu.

Malaysia's state-sanctioned policies against ethnic Indians resemble those introduced in the 1950s by Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranaike in Sri Lanka, who made it exceedingly difficult for Sri Lankan Tamils to get a university education or a government job. After more than 16 years of such discrimination, several Tamils embraced the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and launched a violent struggle that has continued for more than a quarter of a century.

The dirt-poor, seething Malaysian Tamils, including Muslims, are ideal recruiting material for a local variant of the LTTE, or even a branch of the Sri Lankan organization, eager to burnish its Tamil credentials worldwide. Rather than using police and other security agencies to batter its own citizens into submission while billing itself a democratic state, the Malaysian government should study the history books to avoid the quagmire that the Sinhalese fanatics landed in by their anti-Tamil policies.

Unlike China, which stays out of issues where people of Chinese ethnic origin are involved, India's domestic politics make it mandatory for the New Delhi government to seek justice for ethnic Indians, especially in a country like Malaysia, which is within its geographical back yard and with which it has close cultural and business links.

In a global society, it is no longer possible for Malaysia's Malay leaders to wall off their country from international scrutiny. Thanks to their bitter experiences in Sri Lanka, Tamils worldwide have built up a substantial network of information outlets. Several of these are disseminating details of ongoing policies designed to confine them to the margins of the Malaysian economy and society.

The new prime minister of Malaysia, Abdullah Badawi, has demonstrated a moderate and modernizing mindset, and has quietly reversed some of the Wahabbi Lite policies introduced by his fiery predecessor. Interestingly, several key leaders of the UMNO, including some ministers, have now come out against the destruction of the temples that caused the present flare-up. Those responsible have been pulled up and warned to stop, even though official rhetoric against the organizers of the protest continues.

In a throwback to the Mahathir era, when dissent could be punished by imprisonment on trumped-up charges of sodomy, the organizers of this entirely peaceful protest have been prosecuted for "sedition" against the state. In actuality, it is those responsible for creating a system of ethnic-based privilege and religion-based discrimination that should be booked under such laws, for they are putting at risk Malaysia's future as a tranquil and prospering country.

The poisoned fruits of the Mahathir era have now emerged in the open, but the odds are that the new dispensation will see in the recent agitation -- and the worldwide publicity that followed -- a wake-up call to halt and reverse the country's steady retrogression into a Wahhabi Lite state, along with the likes of Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Prime Minister Badawi is pushing for Malaysia to join the front rank of the "knowledge" states, able to compete globally with India or even in time the European Union. This is possible, but only once Malaysia frees itself from the legacy of religious and ethnic discrimination that has led to the alienation of those outside the fold of privilege.

By M.D. Nalapat
(Professor M.D. Nalapat is vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and professor of geopolitics at Manipal University.
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