COMMENT | The rally against the state-sanctioned violence of Myanmar against the Rohingya Muslims shows the true nature of Umno and PAS.

Instead of urging the UN, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and Asean to put an immediate stop to the violent excesses of the Myanmar government under the leadership of Aung San Su Kyi and the military, Najib Abdul Razak and Abdul Hadi Awang have taken to producing a counter-narrative – that Muslims in Malaysia must be united against the Rohingya genocide.

Of course they must stand together. But the counter-narrative of Najib and Hadi, oddly enough, does not concern the fate of the Rohingya Muslims, who have been displaced over several generations in Myanmar, but instead has more to do with drumming up support for Umno and PAS.

At a time when close to a million Rohingya people are exposed to genocide and ethnic cleansing, it boggles the mind that Najib and Hadi could stoop so low as to politicise this plight to advance their own electoral pact and agenda.

The above shows the moral depravity of Umno and PAS. In Islam, the rights of Muslims and non-Muslims must be protected at all cost. In the Quran, it is stated that the act of "killing an individual" is equal to killing "the whole of the humanity."

“Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one – it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors.” (Surah Al-Ma'ida 5:32)

Murder is, therefore, considered the most heinous and abject capital crime in Islam.

To "legalise what is prohibited" is an equally serious crime in Islamic law and jurisprudence. By forming an electoral pact to consolidate power, at a time when the level of corruption has become endemic, is akin to encouraging more vice and crime.

By using the plight of the Rohingya Muslims to prop up Umno and PAS in the eye of the public is nothing less than an act of desperation.

Let's admit this: Rohingya Muslims and victims of all war crimes need to be defended and saved. However, one should not exploit their wretched state to further one's political mileage. Indeed, by coming up with zero solutions to the plight of Rohingya Muslims, PAS and Umno have shown themselves unworthy of being trusted with any positions of power and trust.

Indeed, the entire edifice of Islamic political theory is adl or justice. This is why Prophet Muhammad and his four righteous caliphs emphasised fairness and accountability time and again. When Khalifah Abu Bakar as-Siddiq took over the reins from Prophet Muhammad, his message to the early ummah was this: while I shall lead, when I am wrong, I am not immune to your reprimand. In this light, Hadi and Najib are ignoring the most basic form of Islamic fiqh or jurisprudence.

By so doing, they have taken their version of politics to sheer calumny, and invited fitnah.

Rohingya may be a "dirty" word to the Myanmar government, with Suu Kyi once even refusing to utter the word in an interview, but this contempt has serious and tangible implications.

Men, women, children, including the old and disabled, who hail from the Rohingya community have been subject to systematic ethnic cleansing. The UN and the network of foreign activists in Myanmar have all confirmed three facts:

  1. Hundreds of thousands are living in fear and violent persecution. There are an estimated one million Rohingya in Myanmar, most are singled out by extremist Rakhine Buddhists – with the complicity of the government of Suu Kyi and the military – for annihilation.
  2. Many in the community have been displaced, often fleeing from ravaged and burned homes, with women and children killed without any regard for their most basic rights. Their conditions have been wretched, to say the least. International humanitarian aid is even refused, causing wide-scale famine and pestilence.
  3. Rohingya Muslim communities in Rakhine have been deprived of any semblance of citizenship or even refugee protection. By reducing them to near nothings, the Myanmar government and military are subjecting them to the horror of a complete genocidal wipe out. If they take to the boats, many of which are not sea worthy, they run the risk of being swallowed up by the ocean.

Given the serious implications the Rohingya genocide, sanctions must be imposed on the whole of Myanmar now.

Najib and Hadi have failed to use their unholy alliance to speak out against the catastrophe that has uprooted generations of Rohingya Muslims. More importantly, the duo have failed to protect the very Muslims they have vouched to defend. Najib’s Global Movement of Moderates has proven itself to be a farce.

The Rohingya Muslims' very existence is now at stake.

RAIS HUSSIN is Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) supreme council member and head of policy and strategy.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.