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Malaysia a beacon of hope for the Muslim world indeed

Nadem Hashemi, the director of the Centre for Middle-East Studies of the University of Denver, has labelled Malaysia as a failed nation because of its failure to live up to the expectation of fighting radical Islam. This disheartening remark was made by the US-based scholar during his talk in the seminar entitled ‘The IS Crisis and the Spread of Radical Islam’ recently in UKM.

He could be right to certain extent but that doesn’t mean that he is absolutely correct in his statement on Malaysia’s status as a moderate Muslim country. Indeed there are certain groups of Muslim youths in Malaysia influenced by Wahhabism but not all had fallen into extreme Islamic beliefs. Our unique demographic composition - comprised of varieties beliefs and cultures - has formed a very effective repellent against extremism.

Moreover the Malays and their culture in this country never tolerated violence against the non-Muslims or the minorities. Malays are certainly not like their Muslim brothers in the Arab World. They have their own way of practicing the Islamic teachings, not only today but even before the independence era.

Malays are generally tolerant in nature and that’s why if you can see, they can live in harmony with other races for so long. This exceptional nature in Malay culture had overshadowed the Wahhabism in Islamic teachings which were brewed in the Arab world.

According to Nadem, Wahhabism was developed by the Arab Saudi after the discovery of the oil, and this belief was propagated around the world with exorbitant expenses - it reached up to US$100 billion, during the cold war era between the US and the Soviet Union.

However, Nadem seems to be missed another important factor that contributed to the thriving of Wahhabism and subsequently Jihadism, especially among the displaced young men in the Middle East, notably in Iraq and Syria. He missed the false intelligence provided by the irresponsible US CIA which were actually blown out of proportion - to conquer the oil-rich Middle East nations.

Therefore, It is a mistake for Nadem to miss those contributory factors which caused the emergence of IS, as an ultimate evil force under the disguise of Islamic teachings.

Malaysia is a country where the citizens are totally against extremism. The majority of them - the Malay Muslims - have never seen the minorities as their enemies and resorted to violence to exert their supremacy over them. The only major clash between races occurred during the May 13, 1969 incident. And it was quickly put to rest with the effective measures taken by the-then leaders.

On the other hand, Nadem subtly concluded in his speech that Malaysia has to set its democracy in order before achieving the status of an exemplary Islamic state which practices moderate Islamic teachings. This statement is stark evidence of his failure to understand the very demographic pattern of this multiracial country.

In fact, Malaysians are unique in the sense that we allow different races in this country to practice their own culture, religion and education in their respective native languages, despite Islam being the federal religion.

Given that Malaysia is a multiracial country, an unlimited democracy in this country is still a far cry. Since our political landscape is heavily compounded by race-based political parties, a democratic system with certain limits is the best option to maintain the harmony in this nation. More than five decades of peaceful governance in this country reflects how successful has been the limited democracy system in this country.

That said, it is not an exaggeration if Malaysia is hailed as the beacon of hope for the Muslim world.

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