opinion

The Sept 11 terrorist attacks on the United States have not only changed global geopolitics, it has also affected domestic political realities. Suddenly tough and stubbornly cantankerous leaders are in vogue.

While US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt talked about "freedom from fear", these leaders talk about "fearing freely".

All key issues are now put on the back-burner - democracy, human rights, corruption, indigenous rights, economic injustices, etc. Nothing is more important than the crisis at hand. Nobody is bigger than Osama bin Laden.

Osama has single-handedly moved the political landscape to the right, divided Muslims from non-Muslims, dominated air waves and brought economies to their knees.

Osama's goal is a jihad or holy war of Muslims against non-Muslims. Strange as it appears - to prove Samuel Huntington right - the clash of civilisations between Christianity and Islam appears to be imminent.

Outwardly, Malaysia does not appear as stricken by the Osama factor. But all the symptoms are there - the daily front-page news, the weakening economies and the lurch towards authoritarianism.

The first instance was the use of the newly-passed American laws of detention and the terrorist attacks to justify the need for the Internal Security Act and human rights abuses. The ISA allows preventive detention without trial even though the government can show no proof.

The climate of fear forces the people to give the government's claims of a militant Islamic extremist group attempting to overthrow it violently the benefit of doubt. Worse, it justifies arbitrary abuses of human rights.

Reprehensible acts

Non-Muslims and Muslims differ not in matters of principles but in matters of intensity of outrage. Most Malaysian non-Muslims agree that America has the right to self-defence against these terrorists for their reprehensible acts but abhors the huge civilian losses in Afghanistan.

Muslims have a somewhat different perspective. But of concern is my feedback that Muslims are unwilling to engage on this subject with non-Muslims, who are seen as unsympathetic.

This is unhelpful in promoting constructive dialogue which may lead to eroding the sense of common identity to one of "us against them" mentality. Such sentiments may set back nation-building and efforts to forge a pan-Malaysian unity - a prime concern of all since Independence.

This could be the Osama factor at its strongest. The sense that Muslims are being victimised has forced many Muslim leaders to flaunt their Islamic credentials. Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's announcement that Malaysia is an Islamic nation, whilst shocking to many, was a calculated attempt to outflank the Muslim opposition.

The declaration of Malaysia as an Islamic country carry adverse consequences for the economy. Our liberal and secular traditions may suffer irreparable harm. The deputy minister of tourism has complained of cancellations from tourists who are nervous about visiting an Islamic country after Sept 11. Not just Westerners but even Japanese are cancelling trips to Malaysia.

Manufacturing businesses have not emerged unscathed. Apart from normal orders going down due to the global downturn, food manufacturers have been singled out with huge cancellations. GDP growth has been scaled down from 8 percent to 0.3 percent.

The external trade figure for the four quarters ending Sept 30, 2000 was RM665.2 billlion. The comparable figure for the next four quarters, ending Sept 30, 2001 is RM630.9 billion, or lower by 5.2 percent (RM34.3 billion).

I must state strongly that the painting of Muslims as violent, inhumane and even barbaric is wrong. We are all products of our environment and it is natural for a small minority of any victimised group to resort to violence when they are politically dispossessed and economically marginalised. That does not condone their acts of violence but the response is not more violence.

There must be programmes to treat the root causes. In this case, reaching out to peace-loving Muslims to encourage the voices of moderation, compassion and tolerance towards all cultures to prevail. Bombing does not change minds, it destroys and perverts rational beings.

Pervasive spread

Corruption in Malaysia has become so entrenched, that public figures with integrity despair of even controlling its pervasive spread. The problem lies not in just the massive amounts being mismanaged, misused or even stolen.

Sordid tales of billions spent to bail out government cronies, such as the RM5 billion losses in Perwaja, RM1.8 billion million bailout of Malaysia Airlines, the assumption of a RM3 billion bad loan without making the borrowers bankrupt or the almost RM10 billion Bank Negara losses from foreign exchange speculations.

What is more disconcerting is that the values system towards corruption has become numb, passive and even tolerant. There was shock recently when holy men in charge of Tabung Haji (Islamic Pilgrims Board) can cause millions of ringgit to be mismanaged, and law graduates who are supposed to be defenders of law and justice willing to pay huge sums of money for leaked exam papers, and the head of the Anti-Corruption Agency was reprimanded for being too effective.

No wonder Malaysia's performance Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index has worsened from 29th position in 1998 with a score of 5.3 to 36th position in 2001 with a score of 5.0 .

Such concerns coalesced around former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim after he was summarily sacked by Mahathir on Sept 2, 1998.

Anwar's exposes of corruption in high places, accumulation of extraordinary and unaccounted wealth of top government leaders, cronyism, immunity from prosecution of crimes ranging from sexual misconduct to murder has served to galvanise a reformasi movement in Malaysia.

The impact was greatest amongst the Malays, which deserted Umno and Mahathir, in the 1999 general elections. For the first time in Umno's history, Umno received less than 50 percent of Malay votes.

Umno and the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition was saved by non-Muslim votes, which usually voted with the opposition, but this time switched to BN after being totally intimidated by a campaign of lies and fear of Islamic extremism and public disorder.

Osama replacing Anwar

Malaysian politics was never the same after Anwar was sacked. Likewise, Malaysia will never be the same after Sept 11.

Instead of spurring reforms as Anwar had done in 1998, the Osama factor had the opposite effect by overshadowing the need for greater democratisation and respect for basic human rights. Pleading necessity, the government has removed all our hard-earned gains in human rights with the ban on public speeches.

The fear for all democrats is that Anwar the icon will be replaced by Osama amongst majority Muslims. What this portends, no one knows? Have we seen indications with all the unexplained church burnings in Malaysia recently?

Meaningful dialogues, interaction amongst cultures and strengthening of moderate face of Muslims are important. That is why it is important that moderate forces of Islam not be isolated because of the bombings and deaths of civilians in Afghanistan.

There is an old Chinese proverb that says: "If you are thinking 10 years ahead, plant a tree. If you are thinking 100 years ahead, educate the people."

Regardless of the difficulty, we must never stop our work of educating the people about democracy and their rights.

There may be a "pessimism of the intellect, but there must always be optimism of the will" (Gramsci). Whilst we are impatient for results, we must be patient with our resolve to disprove both Osama and Samuel Huntington. The alternative will be even more horrendous to ponder.

LIM GUAN ENG, a former DAP MP, is the party's national vice-chairman. The above article is part of a speech presented at the "Post-Crisis Malaysia: The Political and Economic Aftermath" organised by John Hopkins University in Washington DC on Nov 8.