Uyghur Muslims: Another rabbit hole we should cease burrowing into

“And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.” - Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

The last time Rais Hussin mentioned the Uyghur Muslims (as I remember it) was in the context of Zakir Naik. Free Malaysia Today reported him as saying, “Rais said he personally could see no wrong in Naik’s activities and speeches. Deporting him would be akin to deporting Uighur (Uyghur) Muslims to China, he said, referring to a request by China for the extradition of 11 Uighur men who entered Malaysia illegally last year from Thailand.”

Seriously? It’s one thing for Muslims to champion the cause of persecuted Muslims in other countries, but comparing the realities of the Uyghurs to an alleged money launderer and religious provocateur?

Ever since I started writing for Malaysiakini, I have made it a point to refrain from writing about international issues. I do this because I am a firm believer in taking care of the business in our backyard, instead of pontificating about the alleged transgressions of others. However, I sometimes have to step into the fray.

And really, equating the alleged systemic discrimination of the Uyghurs to the Shoah? Remember when Hindraf leader P Uthayakumar was jailed for six months for making the same kind of claim with regard to the disenfranchised Indian community? Here is what DPP Noorin Badaruddin said: “The words used by Uthayakumar such as ‘mini genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ at an international level gives the impression that grave crimes and racial oppression were committed.” This should tell us something about what is acceptable and what isn't when it comes to making careless statements.

Opposition supporters, now Establishment supporters, have been writing to me, decrying this op-ed piece by Rais Husin. How can he say such things when, in our own country, the non-Malays are oppressed, they ask? People have stopped using the term “apartheid” when they talk to me about the institutionalised discrimination because they understand that I go a bit bonkers. The last person who used it got testimonials from a South African friend of mine, which he submitted in one of the truth and reconciliation committees. But I digress.

When we talk about systemic oppression like the kind Rais (photo) talks about, we only have to look at the reality the Orang Asal find themselves dealing with when it comes to Malay/Muslim hegemons. Not only have their land be taken away from them, their very culture and identity have been robbed by conversions – sometimes forced – and the ongoing machinations of the Muslim state. Of course, the kind of persecution these people face is rarely talked about in the mainstream media.

Back in 2005, Malaysiakini highlighted one such case of forced conversion among the Orang Asal in Kelantan, with this allegation made by a convert, Hassan bin Ain:

"Hassan believes more than 500 had converted to Islam out of the 2,600 Orang Asli in Kuala Betis.

"Over 60 people got duped into converting to Islam the same way as me," he added.

"Hassan also claimed that more than 10 physically-disabled, ill, aged and mentally-unstable Orang Asli were allegedly dragged out of their homes by force and registered.

"One day, my son and his friends who were on their way to play football at a nearby field were stopped midway by MAIK officials and made to recite the kalimah shahadah(declaration of testimony) on the spot. Each boy was then given RM400 and a sarong with a white kopiah (skullcap)," he said."

Discovering the real horrors

Malaysians should educate themselves on the realities of these people when it comes to how the majority deals with minority ethnic communities - beyond the Chinese/Indian dialectic. Then you will discover the real horrors of what some communities go through.

Add to this the concept of racial and religious superiority of this Muslim country and it makes it pretty difficult for someone to mount a rational, credible defence of the plight of Muslims in foreign countries. Or at least it should. Unless, of course, the point of raising the plight of Muslims in other countries is just window dressing?

And really, Islam is not the only Abrahamic faith that the faithful outside of China get worked up about. As reported in the South China Morning Post (Want to escape poverty? Replace pictures of Jesus with Xi Jinping, Christian villagers urged): “Thousands of Christians in an impoverished county in rural southeast China have swapped their posters of Jesus for portraits of President Xi Jinping as part of a local government poverty-relief programme that seeks to transform believers in religion into believers in the party.” This of course was met with international condemnation, even from gorups here in Malaysia but not from the officials of the then Umno state.

I am just waiting for my Hindu friends or people who read my articles for some sort of grievances against China so, that they too can “champion” some sort of Hindu related cause against the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

And China has every right to be worried about Islamic extremism. We could argue about the means they take to ensure their security, but is this really a productive discussion since we cannot fall back on any first principles that would legitimise our criticism against the PRC?

Just last year, Foreign Policy magazine wrote report about how the Islamic State (IS) is attempting to curry favour with China’s repressed minorities: “A 2016 study from New America, a Washington-based think tank, found 114 Uighurs from Xinjiang joined the Islamic State. Xinjiang furnished the highest number of foreign ISIS fighters from any one region of the world outside of Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, the study found.”

In my article about the Rohingya rabbit hole, I cautioned that this sort of Muslim solidarity should not be something that the Najib administration engages in and which should not be replayed by the current Harapan regime. “The idea that the IS is going to make Southeast Asia as the main theatre of operations is widely acknowledged in intelligence circles and security agencies regionally and internationally. We have to remember that the region provides ample opportunities based on religious and ethnic conflicts for the Islamic State to latch on to.”

What does all of this mean? Our relationship with China is already fraught because we made stupid deals and, as usual, demonised the Chinese government. Not only that, we continue demonising the Chinese community here because it makes appeals to the sensibilities of the political elite. And I m not only talking about the Malay/Muslim political elites.

Now, of course, we use this issue of the Chinese Uyghur Muslims as some sort of fig leaf to demonstrate that, as a Muslim nation, we stand with our brothers overseas, not realising that such proclamations make it so much easier for foreign groups to view Malaysia as some sort of safe house to plan and launch terror activities against the Chinese interests here and elsewhere.

This goes beyond an op-ed piece by a political operative. There are homegrown activists groups, religious figures and the numerous little tributaries that plead the case for oppressed Muslims in other countries based in Malaysia. Some of these groups are even funded by our tax ringgit. Besides the obvious danger that these groups may pose, all of this really detracts from the hard work of getting this country back on track, and of course, makes a mockery of attempting to change the mindset of the Malay polity, which is apparently one of the agendas of this new administration.

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. - Mkini