ICC NOTE: Last week a radical Islamic preacher publicly said it was the obligation of Muslims to assassinate George W. Bush during his visit to Indonesia .
Drifting Toward Extremism
Dec. 4, 2006 – The meeting of the united Malays National Organization, the ruling pro-Muslim party in Malaysia , was a shocking display of divisiveness. Some UMNO delegates at the rally, which ended Nov. 17, gave speeches that, either explicitly or in veiled terms, were racist or called for violence as a means of settling religious or political differences. One of them, Hasnoor Sidang Hussein, declared: “UMNO is willing to risk lives and bathe in blood in defense of race and religion.” Education Minister Hishammuddin Hussein unsheathed a keris (Malay dagger) at the meeting. Party supporters perceived the gesture as invoking Malay power and pride, but critics said the minister was pandering to racist elements in UMNO’s youth wing, which Hishammuddin heads. Twenty years ago, the youth wing had displayed banners calling for the keris to be bathed in the blood of the minority Malaysian Chinese.
Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi disavowed the inflammatory rhetoric in his speech to the UMNO conclave, and Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak suggested that the police have a word with delegates who’d used extreme language. Still, the UMNO chest-thumping makes clear that the moderate Abdullah is struggling to cope with a surge in intolerantand in some cases extremistbehavior by his base of Malay Muslims. Earlier this year a Muslim mob disrupted a forum being held in Penang to discuss religious pluralism. Forum organizers said the mob’s message was unmistakable: attempts to equate other religions with Islam in Malaysia will be met with violence. Malaysia ‘s minority Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhsalready on the short end of economic policies that favor the Malay majorityare worried. Wong Kim Kong, head of a Christian evangelical group, said in a newspaper interview after the UMNO conference that tensions among the communities were higher than they’d been in decadespartly because Muslims “feel they are being cornered” by the Western war on terror.
In neighboring Indonesia , the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, even more troubling scenes are playing out. Last week a radical Islamic preacher publicly said it was the obligation of Muslims to assassinate George W. Bush during his visit to Indonesia . In Jakarta , three Muslim men are on trial now for allegedly decapitating three Christian schoolgirls in central Sulawesi last year as they were walking to class. On the main island of Java , mobs of young Muslim men have forcibly closed dozens of Christian churches. “We cannot ignore this radical tendency among certain elements of the community,” says Din Syamsuddin, chairman of Muhammadiyah, a mainstream Indonesian Muslim group that boasts 30 million members. “The mainstream in the country are a bit worried.”
