Southeast Asia Thread

The Economist: Taking the rap

Malaysia’s culture of tolerance is under threat

NAMEWEE is a Malaysian rapper with a penchant for extravagant eyeware and a dangerous interest in politics. Police picked him up at the country’s main airport in August, when he flew home from a spell abroad. A score of touchy groups had complained that an early cut of his latest video—which featured performers dressed as religious leaders gadding about a church, a mosque and a Chinese temple—insulted the dignity of Islam, a charge punishable by two years in prison. Authorities talked about asking Interpol to help them question his collaborators, a three-piece band based in Taiwan.

In gentler times Namewee’s only offence might have been crimes against music. But Malaysian Islam is gradually growing sterner, and its promotion by the state more aggressive. These trends are getting a boost under the government of the prime minister, Najib Razak. Tormented by claims that a national investment firm has been looted, his party is keen to change the subject. So it is recasting itself as a defender of Islam, the religion of its ethnic-Malay supporters. All this is souring race relations and worrying neighbours, who fear the shift will nurture extremism.

A little over 60% of Malaysia’s 32m citizens are Muslims, mainly ethnic Malays. Most of the rest—including Malaysians of Chinese and Indian descent, as well as various indigenous tribes—are Buddhist, Christian, Hindu or not religious. A constitution propagated at the end of British rule in 1957 guarantees non-Malays the right to follow a religion of their choosing, while also proclaiming, “Islam is the religion of the Federation.”

That compromise has spurred endless debate over how far the government should patronise the faith of the majority. The United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the outfit that has led Malaysia’s ruling coalitions since independence, found religion in the 1980s while fending off a challenge from a pious opposition party. Mahathir Mohamad, UMNO president and prime minister from 1981 to 2003, claimed that Malaysia was an “Islamic country”. His government created a department within the prime minister’s office to regulate and promote Islam.

Malaysian Islam has grown increasingly conservative in the years since, influenced by austere theologies from the Middle East. Its promotion is a particular preoccupation of Malay nationalists, who insist the country’s minorities have secured an unfair helping of its wealth. (Chinese and Indian Malaysians do better in school and tend to earn more.) Meanwhile the country’s Islamic bureaucracy has expanded at both the federal and state level. Religious officials occasionally raid hotels in search of unmarried Muslim couples and other deviants (Justice for Sisters, a campaign group, says that at least 63 transgender women were arrested between January and May); Shia Muslims are also persecuted. A ruling in August reiterated that Malaysian Muslims may not leave the faith without the consent of the Islamic authorities, who never give it.

In theory Malaysia’s non-Muslims are not subject to religious rules, but the atmosphere often affects them. Hostility towards church-building means that growing Christian congregations are meeting in warehouses and empty shops, says a clergyman. Functionaries in some public buildings have required Malaysians to cover their legs before gaining access to government services. Only last month bureaucrats said they preferred not to let Muslim families hire non-Muslim maids. Critics of religious authorities are often branded anti-Muslim; outspoken ones have sometimes been charged with sedition.

Mr Najib says the government will give secular courts, not Islamic ones, the sole right to rule in divorces when only one spouse is Muslim. That will simplify a handful of cases where people try to game the system. (For example, a divorcing husband converts to Islam on the assumption that the Islamic courts will give him custody of the kids.) Yet broadly Mr Najib is seen to be less independent-minded than his predecessors about religious policy, and more reliant on Islamic advisers.

Moreover, his party looks less inclined to rein in Islamist firebrands as threats to its six-decade rule mount. Mr Najib nearly lost a general election in 2013, when minority voters abandoned UMNO’s coalition partners. Since then it has emerged that billions of dollars went missing from 1MDB, a state-owned investment firm, during the prime minister’s first term. Mr Najib denies receiving any of the cash. He has kept his job even though an investigation by America’s Department of Justice, made public in July, appears to implicate him.

Perhaps seeking an alliance that could sustain UMNO even without support from minorities, Mr Najib is cosying up to the Islamist opposition. In May his party fast-tracked the reading of a bill proposed by the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), which is seeking to increase the punishments Islamic courts may inflict on Muslims convicted of religious offences. Currently these are limited to a fine, six strokes of the cane or three years in jail. Some in PAS think that Muslims who drink alcohol should receive as many as 80 lashes, and those who have sex outside marriage 100.

UMNO had long opposed such measures, which some see as a step towards hand-chopping and stoning. The party may simply be dwelling on the subject because it has helped to tear apart the uneasy opposition alliance, which until recently included both PAS and secular parties. But UMNO may eventually conclude that more floggings are a reasonable price to pay for support from PAS.

All this is bound to exacerbate an exodus of young Malaysians, including many moderate Muslims. The World Bank has found that the number of Malaysians living in rich countries roughly tripled between 1990 and 2010, and that more than half of these emigrants have university degrees. A gradual exodus of minorities delights Malay supremacists but will make the country poorer.

A more immediate worry is that a rise in racially charged rhetoric will encourage radicals. Nearly 70 Malaysians have had their passports cancelled after joining Islamic State (IS) in the Middle East. Police recently arrested three men said to be plotting attacks on nightspots and a Hindu temple. Last year 11% of Malaysians quizzed by Pew, a pollster, claimed to have a “favourable” view of IS, compared with only 4% in neighbouring Indonesia. That, surely, should be a more pressing concern than Namewee’s videos.

Malaysian premier Najib Razak said that former colonial powers should not lecture nations they once exploited on their internal affairs, a Chinese newspaper reported on Wednesday, in a veiled attack on the West as he looks to strengthen ties with China.

Najib's visit to Beijing follows that of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who announced a "separation" from the United States and signed a raft of memoranda of understanding for Chinese investment in the country.

Najib, who is on a six-day visit to China, said in an editorial in the state-run China Daily that larger countries should treat smaller countries fairly.

"And this includes former colonial powers. It is not for them to lecture countries they once exploited on how to conduct their own internal affairs today," the prime minister wrote.

The Philippines is a former Spanish and U.S. colony, and Malaysia a former British colony.

Najib is looking to strengthen ties with China after July lawsuits filed by the U.S. Justice Department implicating him in a money-laundering scandal. Najib has denied any wrongdoing and said Malaysia will cooperate in the investigations.

More than $3.5 billion was allegedly misappropriated from 1MDB, according to civil lawsuits filed by the Justice Department. The probe has strained ties between Malaysia and the United States, with Najib dismissing it as foreign interference in Malaysia's affairs.

The shift by the Philippines and Malaysia is being widely seen as China's counter to U.S. influence in the region.

Najib also wrote that disputes in the South China Sea should be resolved through dialogue in accordance with rule of law.

China claims most of the energy-rich waters through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbors Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.

"When it comes to the South China Sea, we firmly believe that overlapping territorial and maritime disputes should be managed calmly and rationally through dialogue, in accordance with the rule of law and peaceful negotiations," he said.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said on Tuesday that Malaysia had pledged with Beijing to handle South China Sea disputes bilaterally.

Malaysia agreed to buy four Chinese naval vessels and signed 14 agreements totaling 143.64 billion ringgit ($34.25 billion), Malaysian state news agency Bernama said, after a meeting between Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Najib on Tuesday.

Asked if the defense deals with Malaysia were Beijing's bid to counter U.S. influence, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the country consistently pursued the policy of being a good and friendly neighbor.

"And its foreign policy is not targeted at any third-party country," she told a regular news briefing.

Najib also said Malaysia welcomed the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank which marks a turning point "of peaceful dialogue, not foreign intervention, in sovereign states".

Global institutions needed to be inclusive of "countries that were given no say in the legal and security infrastructure that was set up by the victors of the Second World War", he added.

(Reporting by Sue-Lin Wong; Writing by Praveen Menon; Editing by Nick Macfie and Clarence Fernandez)

SITTWE, MYANMAR – Myanmar police will begin arming and training non-Muslim residents in the troubled north of Rakhine State, where officials say militants from the Rohingya Muslim group pose a growing security threat, police and civilian officials said.

Human rights monitors and a leader of the mostly stateless Rohingya said the move risked sharpening intercommunal tensions in a region that has just seen its bloodiest month since 2012, when hundreds of people were killed in clashes between Muslims and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.

Soldiers have poured into the Maungdaw area along Myanmar’s frontier with Bangladesh, responding to coordinated attacks on three border posts on Oct. 9 in which nine police officers were killed.

Security forces have locked down the area — shutting out aid workers and independent observers — and conducted sweeps of villages in Maungdaw, where the vast majority are Rohingyas. Official reports say five soldiers and 33 alleged insurgents have been killed.

Aung San Suu Kyi — who is in Japan for her first visit as Myanmar’s de facto leader — has urged security forces to exercise restraint and act lawfully. But residents say civilians have been killed, raped and arbitrarily detained and houses razed to the ground. The government has denied abuses by troops.

Ethnic Rakhine political leaders have urged the government to arm local Buddhists against what they say is rising militancy among the Rohingya.

Rakhine State police chief Col. Sein Lwin said his force had started recruiting new “regional police” from among the ethnic Rakhine and other non-Muslim ethnic minorities living in Maungdaw.

Candidates who did not meet the educational attainment standards, or criteria such as minimum height, required for recruitment by the regular police would be accepted for the scheme, he said.

“But they have to be the residents,” said Sein Lwin. “They will have to serve at their own places.”

Police Capt. Lin Lin Oo said initially 100 recruits aged between 18 and 35 will undergo an accelerated 16-week training program, beginning in the state capital, Sittwe, on Monday.

“They will be given weapons and other equipment, like police,” said Lin Lin Oo, an aide to the commander of the border police in Maungdaw, who will oversee the auxiliary force.

Police and civilian officials said the auxiliary police recruits would not form a new  “people’s militia,” like those that fight ethnic insurgencies elsewhere in Myanmar.

Such militias — which are often accused of abuses against civilians — raise their own funds and are overseen by the army. The new recruits in Rakhine will be paid and come under the control of the border police.

Min Aung, a minister in the Rakhine State parliament and a member of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, said the recruits will help protect residents from the militants, estimated to be 400-strong, responsible for the Oct. 9 attacks.

The government has said the militants, who stole weapons and ammunition in the raids, have links to Islamists overseas.

Only citizens will be eligible to sign up for the police training, Min Aung said, ruling out the 1.1 million Rohingyas living in Rakhine State, who are denied citizenship in Myanmar.

“The minority ethnic people need to protect themselves from hostile neighbors,” said Min Aung, referring to non-Muslim ethnicities who are in the minority in the region. “That’s why the government supports them as regional police, as well as with employment.”

Suu Kyi’s government has invited diplomats and the senior United Nations representative in the country on a visit to Rakhine from Wednesday to try to assuage concerns over aid access and rights violations.

But international experts working to rebuild relations in Rakhine, and human rights groups, say arming and training local non-Muslims could make the situation on the ground worse.

“It’s sad and telling that the authorities regard this move as part of a security solution,” said Matthew Smith, founder of Fortify Rights, a campaign group.

Arming local Buddhists who may regard all Rohingyas a threat to their safety was “a recipe for atrocity crimes,” Smith said. “It can only inflame the situation and will likely lead to unnecessary violence.”

Kyaw Win, an ethnic Rakhine resident of Kyein Chaung village, in Maungdaw, said Wednesday that he was interested in signing up for the training, but said he doubts the plan will allay his community’s security fears.

“It is not possible to live together with Muslims because they are invading and seizing our own land day by day,” he said.

A Rohingya community leader in Maungdaw, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he is concerned Muslims might come under attack from the newly armed recruits.

“If they have guns in their hands, we won’t be able to work together as before,” he said.

PETALING JAYA, Nov 3 — Some 50 members of the Red Shirts movement marched to Malaysiakini’s office here today to demand an explanation over claims that the news portal received funding from US magnate George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF).

At the main gate, the police, after speaking with Malaysiakini editors, only allowed 10 representatives of the group including Jamal to enter the premises.

In the meeting, Jamal demanded that Malaysiakini explain to him the allegations of receiving funding from OSF by this Saturday noon, failing which Jamal said the group will hold a mass protest and supposedly “tear down” half of the building on that day.

“Are you really going to tear down our building?” the portal’s editor-in-chief Steven Gan asked following the threat.

“I don’t know...I cannot promise anything on that day,” Jamal replied, while sipping the coffee provided.

Despite that, the portal’s Malay language desk editor Jimadie Shah Othman answered Jamal’s queries on the alleged funding by OSF.

“Our funding come from donors, subscribers, advertisements and yes, some did come from OSF...all these information are in our website,” he said.

Jamal’s group left the office about 15 minutes later and told reporters outside that he still plans hold another rally outside the office this Saturday.

“God willing, if I’m still alive, I will bring some 20,000 members from NG Os nationwide to protest here,” he claimed.

Several police reports have been lodged against electoral watchdog Bersih 2.0, urging the police to investigate the authenticity of leaked minutes purportedly from an OSF meeting that detailed its efforts to intervene in Malaysian politics through donations.

The document also reportedly said Malaysiakini’s video arm Kini TV had also received funding from the Malaysia Programme.

Malaysiakini said that the grant was used to produce the Realiti Sarawak and Sekilas Bumi Kenyalang programmes and that it only constituted a small portion of its revenue.

Bersih 2.0 chairman Maria Chin Abdullah also said the organisation has not received any money from OSF since mid-2011 onwards.