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| Southeast Asia |
| Malaysia silent on Muslim Dire Revenge (TM) |
| 2004-11-12 |
| The ire that has swept through the Muslim world since Buddhist Thailand's crackdown on peaceful demonstrators in its underdeveloped southern region last month is understandable given the circumstances: 78 Muslims in Tak Bai district suffocated to death when 1,300 protesters were stuffed into police trucks for more than six hours. In neighboring Malaysia, condemnation has been more vocal than elsewhere. The atavistic Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) called the incident "a Holocaust of the modern era", while former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad compared the region's unrest to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and urged Thailand to grant autonomy to Thai Muslims. A popular state-controlled daily said the Thai government now "surpasses Israel's record of aggression" against Muslims. In some ways such censure comes with the territory. Malaysia's Muslims, like Thailand's, are of Malay ethnicity. And Malaysia is Thailand's closest majority-Muslim neighbor. But it also suggests that Malaysia has a long way to go to fulfill its self-proclaimed tag line as an exemplary progressive Islamic nation. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #1 Article: Mild-mannered Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi stressed the security forces’ brash actions at a news conference after the Tak Bai incident. "We hope he [Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra] will be able to manage the situation without allowing the violence to spread. It is important he manages it." Actually, many of the effective monsters in history have been mild-mannered in public. Uncle Joe Stalin and China's Moose Dung used their soothing voices to send millions of their fellow countrymen to their deaths. Moderate Muslims are not spittle-flecked ranters - they couch their message of conquest in mellifluous tones. Has Islam been hijacked, or is this the natural predisposition of Muslims? If we take GWB's position that Islam has been hijacked, then the problem is that the hijackers comprise the vast majority of Muslims, and the hijacking is composed of changes in Islam that have taken over the allegiance of the vast majority of Muslims. In saying that Islam has been hijacked, GWB was proferring an olive branch, giving Muslims the chance to reject the path of confrontation with the US via their terrorist proxies. If Muslims slap this olive branch away, they may yet regret it, just as the Muslim kingdoms of Central Asia regretted killing the Mongol envoys. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-11-12 10:00:21 AM |