The Guardian view on Charlie Hebdo: those guns were trained on free speech

Editorial

The Guardian

7 January 2015

Jihadi Kalashnikovs murdered journalists in Paris, but their aim was at stifling liberty of expression everywhere. The condemnation must be unequivocal

Events in Paris today were beyond belief, indeed beyond words. The adjectives are simply not there to capture the horror unleashed by weapons of war in a civilian office. But the murder of at least a dozen French citizens, including 10 journalists on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, was beyond belief in another sense too.

Whatever faith-based or other objections there may once have been to the publication’s provocative editorial judgments are now entirely beside the point. “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it,” runs the famous formulation. When men and women have gone to their deaths for nothing more than what they have said, or drawn, there is only one side to be on. The hooded thugs trained their Kalashnikovs on free speech everywhere. If they are allowed to force a loss of nerve, conversation will become inhibited, and liberty of thought itself will falter too.

While much remains to be established about the killers, some uncomfortable truths are plain. Shouts of “Allahu Akbar” were heard, revealing an inspiration that appears to come from some warped version of Islam. Two men were seen immediately and the authorities were soon hunting a third, so this was no act of a deranged individual. The targeting of a weekly editorial conference implies a ruthless concern to maximise the toll, pursued with a chilling preparedness. The heavy weaponry, too, suggests frighteningly organised links.

All this points towards jihadi terrorism, which has been a rare but very real menace in the west throughout this young century. Mostly, as in the Madrid train bombings of 2004 and the Woolwich murder of 2013, barbarism has been justified with reference to western war-making in the Muslim world. More rarely, as in the murder of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh, real-life violence has poured over from something more akin to a culture war. The targeting of Charlie Hebdo, which was followed by the cry “we have avenged the prophet Muhammad”, looks like another such case. The publication has been subject to threats and fury for the best part of a decade, particularly after, in 2006, it reproduced and added extra barbs to Danish cartoons of Muhammad, which had already created a great storm around the world. Such depictions are, of course, blasphemy to most Muslims, but far from relenting, the editors played double or nothing, going on to produce such provocations as a special issue “guest-edited” by the prophet.

To the devout, including very many who are as peace-loving as they are pious, all this was deeply offensive. And, in a way, that was the intention: satire has to shock. Being shocking is going to involve offending someone. If there is a right to free speech, implicit within it there has to be a right to offend. Any society that’s serious about liberty has to defend the free flow of ugly words, even ugly sentiments.

But there is, perhaps, something distinctly French about the form of offensiveness that Charlie Hebdo revelled in. Anti-clericalism has always been a Republican rallying cry, especially on the left, in a way that’s unknown in Britain and the US. Radicals, as the murdered journalists assuredly saw themselves, have always mocked Christian humbug, just as Charlie Hebdo did, and never seen any principled reason to show more deference to other faiths. Such strident secularism goes hand-in-hand with that assertive conception of French citizenship which was on display when the national assembly resolved to ban the full face veil, with only a single deputy voting against.

In the face of outrage, it is especially important that the necessary resolution to defend Republican virtues is not allowed to slide into any kind of backlash against France’s entire Muslim community, the largest in Europe, somehow blaming the peaceful majority for the unforgivable actions of a violent few. The immediate and unalloyed condemnation by the umbrella faith group, the Union des Organisations Islamiques de France, points to the sort of cross-community solidarity that is required.

Different societies may overreact to terrorism in different ways, but all are prone to do so somehow – witness the Senate’s report on American torture for one example, in another context. More significant than any distinction between the societies battling the jihadi threat are the parallels. If there are liberals in London wondering whether the roots of today’s atrocity trace back to France’s unease with multiculturalism, they should reflect that if the same thing happened here – and who is to say it could not? – then there would surely be secularists in Paris speculating on whether the underlying issue was Britain’s moral relativism and faith schools.

Poverty and discrimination at home may create fertile conditions for the spread of extremism, and western misadventures abroad can certainly inflame the risks. In the end, though, the responsibility for the sort of murders seen today lies squarely with the murderers. All those who are appalled by these crimes must use the free speech which the killers sought to silence – and use it to condemn them, without equivocation.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 9 January 2015, 3:29 pm and is filed under
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Zahid would have failed his comprehension test in school if he really believed what he said about his infamous letter to FBI

The Home Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi would have failed his comprehension test in school if he really believed what he said about his infamous letter to the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).

As reported by the New Straits Times (Jan 7, 2015), Zahid had clarified that his letter to the FBI was to confirm that the “14K triad” did not exist in the country.

Zahid said the letter was requested by the legal firm Chesnoff & Schonfeld, which is representing Paul Phua Wei Seng, a Malaysian, who, together with his son, are facing charges of illegal bookmaking in Las Vegas.

The two were arrested in July at the Caesars Palace during the Fifa World Cup, with US authorities alleging that Phua was part of the Hong Kong-based triad.

Zahid said: “It was a request to the minister in charge of the Home Ministry to confirm that there is no ‘14K triad’ in Malaysia.”

Last Saturday, lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, speaking on behalf of Phua’s legal team, said Zahid’s letter was to correct a mistake in a report, submitted by the FBI as an internal document to the court, stating they were informed by the Malaysian police that Phua was a member of the “14 triad”.

In the first place, Zahid’s letter was not just to “confirm” that the 14K Triad did not exist in the country, as he clearly vouched for the character of Phua and as good as declared Phua as  a “national asset” when he pleaded for Phua’s release when he wrote that Phua had helped the Malaysian government on “projects affecting our national security” and that  “we continue to call upon him to assist us from time to time and as such, we are eager for him to return to Malaysia”.

Zahid had mortgaged the reputation of Malaysia and undermined our national sovereignty in writing such a plea to the FBI, for any such letter should have been written by the Police and not by the Home Minister – assuming that the facts Zahid referred to were true – via  the Foreign Ministry.

Compounding his infraction, Zahid even  tried to strengthen his plea by upping the national ante for an individual, hinting about its impact on furthering “good international relations between our two countries especially in the exchange of information”.

Clearly the Police did not appreciate Zahid’s correction, for the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, while steering clear from commenting on Zahid’s letter, made the cryptic remark that while Malaysians abroad are known to be members of that triad, the transnational crime organization does not have roots here.

Since then Zahid has stayed mum to questions as to what were the  “national security projects” Phua had helped the Malaysian government in the past, and furthermore, what are the new “national security projects” Zahid had in  mind which made him pen the words “we continue to call upon him to assist us from time to time and as such, we are eager for him  to return to Malaysia”.

Can the IGP confirm that the Police are “eager” for Phua’s return so as to call upon him to assist on “national security projects” – in fact, whether the police are aware of any “national security project” which Phua has rendered assistance, or whether such projects were only known to Zahid himself.

It is  no more a viable option for Zahid to keep mum or to minimize the fall-out of his infamous letter by claiming that it was only to confirm that the “14K triad” did not exist in the country as it more very much than that.

Why did Zahid sent the letter unilaterally and  undiplomatically, keeping both the Police and the Foreign Ministry outside the loop?

Or is Zahid pleading that he did not really understand the import of his infamous letter to the FBI, and if so, who was the real author of his letter?

All eyes are not only on Zahid, but also on the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, as to how he is going to handle the first new scandal of his administration in the new year or will he just do what he is now very good at, just bury his head in the sand?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 9 January 2015, 7:36 am and is filed under
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Blasphemy and the law of fanatics

Fareed Zakaria

Washington Post

January 8 2015

As they went on their rampage, the men who killed 12 people in Paris this week yelled that they had “avenged the prophet.” They follow in the path of other terrorists who have bombed newspaper offices, stabbed a filmmaker and killed writers and translators, all to mete out what they believe is the proper Koranic punishment for blasphemy. But in fact, the Koran prescribes no punishment for blasphemy. Like so many of the most fanatical and violent aspects of Islamic terrorism today, the idea that Islam requires that insults against the prophet Muhammad be met with violence is a creation of politicians and clerics to serve a political agenda.

One holy book is deeply concerned with blasphemy: the Bible. In the Old Testament, blasphemy and blasphemers are condemned and prescribed harsh punishment. The best-known passage on this is Leviticus 24:16 : “Anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death.”

By contrast, the word blasphemy appears nowhere in the Koran. (Nor, incidentally, does the Koran anywhere forbid creating images of Muhammad, though there are commentaries and traditions — “hadith” — that do, to guard against idol worship.) Islamic scholar Maulana Wahiduddin Khan has pointed out that “there are more than 200 verses in the Koran, which reveal that the contemporaries of the prophets repeatedly perpetrated the same act, which is now called ‘blasphemy or abuse of the Prophet’ . . . but nowhere does the Koran prescribe the punishment of lashes, or death, or any other physical punishment.” On several occasions, Muhammad treated people who ridiculed him and his teachings with understanding and kindness. “In Islam,” Khan says, “blasphemy is a subject of intellectual discussion rather than a subject of physical punishment.”

Somebody forgot to tell the terrorists. But the gruesome and bloody belief the jihadis have adopted is all too common in the Muslim world, even among so-called moderate Muslims — that blasphemy and apostasy are grievous crimes against Islam and should be punished fiercely. Many Muslim-majority countries have laws against blasphemy and apostasy — and in some places, they are enforced.

Pakistan is now the poster child for the anti-blasphemy campaign gone wild. In March, at least 14 people were on death row in that country, and 19 were serving life sentences, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The owner of the country’s largest media group has been sentenced to 26 years in prison because one of his channels broadcast a devotional song about Muhammad’s daughter while reenacting a wedding. (Really.) And Pakistan is not alone. Bangladesh, Malaysia, Egypt, Turkey and Sudan have all used blasphemy laws to jail and harass people. In moderate Indonesia, 120 people have been detained for this reason since 2003. Saudi Arabia forbids the practice of any religion other than its own Wahhabi version of Islam.

The Pakistani case is instructive, because its extreme version of anti-blasphemy law is relatively recent and a product of politics. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, Pakistan’s president during the late 1970s and 1980s, wanted to marginalize the democratic and liberal opposition, and he embraced Islamic fundamentalists, no matter how extreme. He passed a series of laws Islamizing Pakistan, including a law that recommended the death penalty or life imprisonment for insulting Muhammad in any way.

When governments try to curry favor with fanatics, eventually the fanatics take the law into their own hands. In Pakistan, jihadis have killed dozens of people whom they accuse of blasphemy, including a brave politician, Salmaan Taseer, who dared to call the blasphemy law a “black law.”

We should fight the Paris terrorists. But we should also fight the source of the problem. It’s not enough for Muslim leaders to condemn people who kill those they consider as blasphemers if their own governments endorse the idea of punishing blasphemy at the very same time. The U.S. religious freedom commission and the U.N. Human Rights Committee have both declared that blasphemy laws violate universal human rights because they violate freedom of speech and expression. They are correct.

In Muslim-majority countries, no one dares to dial back these laws. In Western countries, no one confronts allies on these issues. But blasphemy is not a purely domestic matter, of concern only to those who worry about countries’ internal affairs. It now sits on the bloody crossroad between radical Islamists and Western societies. It cannot be avoided anymore. Western politicians, Muslim leaders and intellectuals everywhere should point out that blasphemy is something that does not exist in the Koran and should not exist in the modern world.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 10 January 2015, 5:22 am and is filed under
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Boko Haram may have just killed 2,000 people: ‘Killing went on and on and on’

By Terrence McCoy

Washington Post

January 9, 2015

For months, fear of Boko Haram has gripped Nigeria’s northeast. The goals of the Islamic militant group, which captured international attention through a relentless campaign of brutality, have long been about killing. But last summer, something changed. Its aspirations became as much about territory as terrorism. It no longer wants to just cripple a government. It wants to become one.

In August, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau announced the establishment of his “Islamic Caliphate,” quickly taking over every corner of Borno State in northeast Nigeria. But one town called Baga, populated by thousands of Nigerians along the western shores of Lake Chad, held out. Anchored by a multinational military base manned by troops from Niger to Chad, it was the last place in Borno under the national government’s control. Over the weekend, that changed.

Gunshots punctured the early morning quiet. “They came through the north, the west and from the southern part of the town because the eastern part is only water,” one resident told the BBC. “So, when we [went] toward the western part, we saw heavily armed Boko Haram men coming toward us.” At the sight of the incoming insurgents, the soldiers put up a scant fight before abandoning their base and leaving residents defenseless.

“There is definitely something wrong that makes our military abandon their posts each time there is an attack from Boko Haram,” local state senator Maina Maaji Lawan told the BBC, adding that residents’ frustration knew “no bounds.” Frustration, however, soon gave way to something substantially worse.

It’s not clear how many people were killed in Baga. Early reports on Thursday said hundreds. Others said it was many more. Musa Alhaji Bukar, a senior government official in Borno, said Boko Haram killed more than 2,000 people which, if true, would mean the group equaled its total kill count last year in one attack. More were said to have drowned in Lake Chad while attempting to swim to a nearby island. Some estimates said more than 20,000 people are now displaced as a result of what one reporter called Boko Haram’s “most horrific act of terrorism yet.”

Baga, local government officials say, is simply no more. It’s “virtually non-existent,” Bukar told the BBC. One man who escaped with his family told Agence France-Presse he had to navigate through “many dead bodies on the ground” and that the “whole town was on fire.” Another man told Reuters he “escaped with my family in the car after seeing how Boko Haram was killing people … I saw bodies in the street. Children and women, some were crying for help.” He added: Bodies were “littered on the streets and surrounding bushes.”

“The indiscriminate killing went on and on and on,” Lawan told BBC.

It’s hard to find contemporary precedent for the delight Boko Haram takes in killing. Even the Islamic State, which has killed thousands and purposely targets minorities, doesn’t seem to be as wanton in its acts of carnage. It appears everyone — Muslim, Christian, Cameroonian, Nigerian — is a target for Boko Haram.

A video recently emerged, Genocide Watch reported, that shows gunmen shooting civilians as they lay face down in a dormitory. A local leader explains they are “infidels,” even though he admits they’re Muslim: “We have made sure the floor of this hall is turned red with blood, and this is how it is going to be in all future attacks and arrests of infidels. From now on, killing, slaughtering, destruction and bombings will be our religious duty anywhere we invade.”

Is there any stopping it? For the time being, it appears not. The administration of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and his military, beset by corruption and ill-equipped, have been unable to match both Boko Haram’s firepower, discipline and fundraising. And now, with Boko Haram’s campaign to control northeast Nigeria complete, analysts said its territorial ambitions have outgrown Nigeria’s porous borders.

Cameroon dispatched troops to its northern border to meet the assault, but its military has been taxed by ceaseless Boko Haram attacks, reported Stratfor Global Intelligence. On Dec. 28, fighters spilled across a dry river bed into Cameroon. “This may have been an attempt by Boko Haram to establish control over a significant portion of Cameroon’s far north region, where the group has long been active and recruited fighters,” the think tank said. Boko Haram seized one town and simultaneously attacked five more.

Residents fled — but where to? According to AFP, Boko Haram’s recent attack means the group controls all of Borno’s borders with Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Meanwhile, hundreds who survived the swim out to that island in Lake Chad are said to be trapped. “They told me,” Abubakar Gamandi, a Baga native, told AFP, “that some of them are dying from lack of food, cold and malaria on the mosquito-infested island.”

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 10 January 2015, 5:35 am and is filed under
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Hishammuddin is right that the terrorism attacks in Paris which finally left 20 dead can happen in Malaysia  but why are the extremists in the country allowed to purvey their rhetoric and politics of hatred and intolerance unchecked?

Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein is right when he warned yesterday that the terrorism attack in Paris, which finally left 20 dead, can also happen in Malaysia.

Hishammuddin said he came back from Paris and London last month where he had discussion with their intelligence agencies and what happened was not something unexpected.

He said what happened in France should not be taken lightly as it is not impossible to face the same scenario in the country, and that Malaysia must beef up its security, especially in the Sabah coastal area.

It is most  unfortunate that the Defence Minister is looking at the problem solely from the perspective of security intelligence, preparations and assets instead of why Malaysia is becoming increasingly prone to threats of terrorism, whether in the country or emanating from the country as evidenced by Malaysians rallying to Islamic State’s Caliphate cause despite  mass murders and beheadings.

The Global Terrorism Index 2014 released by the Institute of Economic and Peace in November, where Malaysia climbed 42 places in the international terrorism indicator, citing religious extremism as the primary cause of terror attacks worldwide, should be a wake-up call that the  peace, harmony and unity of Malaysia’s multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural polity is placed in jeopardy if nothing is done to check the rhetoric and politics of hatred, intolerance and extremism which had increasingly aggravated racial and religious polarization in recent years.

Malaysia is now 48th in a ranking that has Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan at the top, having risen from 91st spot in the 2012 issue of the report.

Malaysia’s score on the index measuring the number of terrorist incidents, fatalities and casualties as well as damage to property has also risen steadily from 2012, going from 0.415 out of a possible 10 to the current 3.04. Ten signifies the highest impact of terrorism.

The Global Terrorism Index 2014 is bad news for Malaysia, for overnight, Malaysia has shot into the international radar of the top 50 countries under the world’s terrorism-watch, having overtaken 43 countries in a matter of two years as a country where terrorism is a bigger problem – overtaking countries like Uganda, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, France, Chile, Italy, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Tajikistan, Spain, Jordan, Switzerland, Zimbabwe, Sweden, Germany, Canada and Serbia.

What has gone wrong as Malaysia has always prided itself as a model for the world for inter-racial and inter-religious understanding, tolerance and harmony that we are now in the top 50 countries in the world in the Global Terrorism Index on the negative impact of terrorism, when Malaysia should be one of the countries with score of zero, indicating no negative effects from terrorism.

There are a total of 39 out of 162 countries in the Global Terrorism Index 2014 ranked 124 with a zero score indicating negative effects from terrorism, including Qatar, South Korea, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, Finland, Gambia, Ghana, Malawi and Mauritius. In 2012, there were 43 countries with a score of zero with no impact of terrorism.

The horrific terrorist attacks in Paris, together with Malaysia’s adverse ranking in the Global Terrorism Index,  should set off the alarm bells in the country as it come at a most critical juncture of the nation’s history, with the recent lurch towards the rhetoric and politics of hatred, intolerance and extremism with racial and religious polarization at its lowest point for over four decades.

Hishammuddin is right when he said that the terrorism attacks in Paris  could happen in Malaysia.

However, there could be no dispute that under the first five Prime Ministers from 1957 to 2009, the likelihood of the Paris terrorism attacks taking place in Malaysia were substantially less likely than under the sixth premiership of Datuk Seri Najib Razak, especially with the  extremists allowed to purvey their rhetoric and politics of hatred and intolerance unchecked in the past few years!

It is most ironic that while the Prime Minister is promoting the Global Movement of Moderates in international platforms, extremists at home were rearing their ugly heads and had never been so blatant and reckless in their rhetoric and politics of hatred, intolerance and bigotry to the extent that the Defence Minister in the country openly admits the possibility of the Paris terrorist attacks happening in Malaysia.

It is time for Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, region, gender, age or even political affiliation, to stand up for moderation, and for the politics of inclusion to replace  the politics of exclusion.

Is the Prime Minister and his Cabinet prepared to take the lead in the country to promote moderation and drown out the voices of extremists, who can only represent a tiny though raucous minority in the country?

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 10 January 2015, 8:35 am and is filed under
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Raising Questions Within Islam After France Shooting

by David D. Kirkpatrick

New York Times

Jan 8, 2015

CAIRO — Islamist extremists behead Western journalists in Syria, massacre thousands of Iraqis, murder 132 Pakistani schoolchildren, kill a Canadian soldier and take hostage cafe patrons in Australia. Now, two gunmen have massacred a dozen people in the office of a Paris newspaper.

The rash of horrific attacks in the name of Islam is spurring an anguished debate among Muslims here in the heart of the Islamic world about why their religion appears cited so often as a cause for violence and bloodshed.

The majority of scholars and the faithful say Islam is no more inherently violent than other religions. But some Muslims — most notably the president of Egypt — argue that the contemporary understanding of their religion is infected with justifications for violence, requiring the government and its official clerics to correct the teaching of Islam.

“It is unbelievable that the thought we hold holy pushes the Muslim community to be a source of worry, fear, danger, murder and destruction to all the world,” President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt lamented last week in a speech to the clerics of the official religious establishment. “You need to stand sternly,” he told them, calling for no less than “a religious revolution.”

Others, though, insist that the sources of the violence are alienation and resentment, not theology. They argue that the authoritarian rulers of Arab states — who have tried for decades to control Muslim teaching and the application of Islamic law — have set off a violent backlash expressed in religious ideas and language. Promoted by groups like the Islamic State or Al Qaeda, that discourse echoes through Muslim communities as far away as New York or Paris, whose influence and culture still loom over much of the Muslim world.

“Some people who feel crushed or ignored will go toward extremism, and they use religion because that is what they have at hand,” said Said Ferjani, an official of Tunisia’s mainstream Islamist party, Ennahda, speaking about the broader phenomenon of violence in the name of Islam. “If you are attacked and you have a fork in your hand, you will fight back with a fork.”

Khaled Fahmy, an Egyptian historian, was teaching at New York University on Sept. 11, 2001, after which American sales of the Quran spiked because readers sought religious explanations for the attack on New York.

“We try to explain that they are asking the wrong question,” he said. Religion, he argued, was “just a veneer” for anger at the dysfunctional Arab states left behind by colonial powers and the “Orientalist” condescension many Arabs still feel from the West.

“The Arab states have not delivered what they are supposed to deliver and it can only lead to a deep sense of resentment and frustration, or to revolution,” he said. “It is the nonviolence that needs to be explained, not the violence.”

Only a very small number of Muslims pin the blame directly on the religion itself.

“What has ISIS done that Muhammad did not do?” an outspoken atheist, Ahmed Harqan, recently asked on a popular television talk show here, using common shorthand for the Islamic State to argue that the problem of violence is inherent to Islam.

Considered almost blasphemous by most Egyptian Muslims, his challenge provoked weeks of outcry from Islamic religious broadcasters and prompted much-watched follow-up shows. In subsequent debates on the same program, Salem Abdel-Gelil, a scholar from the state-sponsored Al Azhar institute and former official of the ministry overseeing mosques, fired back with Islamic verses about tolerance, peace and freedom.

But then he warned that, under Egypt’s religion-infused legal system, the public espousal of atheism might land his opponents in jail.

“When a person comes out and promotes his heresy, promotes his debauchery, and justifies his apostasy on the basis that ‘Islam is not good,’ then there is the judiciary,” Sheikh Abdel-Gelil said. “The judiciary will get him.”

M. Steven Fish, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, sought to quantify the correlation between Islam and violence. In his book, “Are Muslims Distinctive?,” he found that murder rates were substantially lower in Muslim-majority countries and instances of political violence were no more frequent.

Over a 15-year period ending in 2008, Islamist militants were responsible for 60 percent of high-casualty terrorist bombings, his study found, but almost all were concentrated in just a handful of Muslim-majority countries in the context of larger conflicts that were occurring — places like Afghanistan after the American invasion or Algeria after the military takeover.

“Is Islam violent? I would say absolutely not,” Mr. Fish said in an interview. “There is very little empirical evidence that Islam is violent.”

In Egypt and the Arab world, however, the debate over Islam’s connection to violence has been given new impetus in recent events: the military ouster of the Islamist elected as president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi; the deadly crackdown on his supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood and a retaliatory campaign of attacks on security forces; and the spectacular rise of the bloodthirsty Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq.

Mr. Sisi, a former general, led the ouster of the Islamist president in 2013 and the suppression of the Brotherhood on charges that it was a violent “terrorist group.” (The group has denounced violence for decades and continues to do so.) Even before his speech, he has also presided over an effort to reassert the state’s control over the teaching and application of Islam by installing government-aligned imams in mosques and dictating Friday sermons.

Intellectuals supporting him have applauded his efforts and called for the state to lead a sweeping top-down overhaul of the popular understanding of Islam, attributing the problem to a lack of education or cultural advancement. “Religious thought, or religious discourse, is afflicted with backwardness,” Gaber Asfour, the minister of culture, declared in a recent television interview. “We now live in an age of backwardness.”

Many pro-government intellectuals consider the popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood an aspect of that backwardness and argue that all such Islamist political movements are inherently violent — even if the groups publicly disavow violence.

Their task is not becoming modern; it is becoming hegemonic again, making a new world in which Islam will be on top again,” argued Prof. Sherif Younis, a historian at the Helwan University here who has led calls for an Islamic “reformation.”

“Every fundamentalist has in mind a counter-regime, even if he does not know how to use a knife,” Professor Younis said. That includes the mainstream Islamists of the Brotherhood and the ultraconservatives known as Salafis, as well as the overtly violent jihadist groups like the Islamic State or Al Qaeda, he said.

Others argue that the state control of the Muslim religious establishments — whether in relatively secular states like Egypt or the United Arab Emirates, or in explicitly religious ones like Saudi Arabia — only reinforces the problems. Such attempts at control inject politics into religious teaching, diminishing its credibility. And the state religious establishments further entangle politics and religion by seeking to confer the legitimacy of Islamic law on autocratic rulers.

Amr Ezzat, a researcher with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, argued that the official clerics and the jihadists agree on one thing: Both “say that Islam is the source of the state’s authority, and that we should all be governed by Islamic law.”

Some say it is also naïve to expect unaccountable governments like Egypt’s that cannot provide health care or education to do a better job leading religious reform.

“In an authoritarian society, there is no room for reasoned debate, so it is not surprising that irrational religious discourse is going to flourish in certain quarters of Egypt or the Arab world,” argued Mohammad Fadel, an Egyptian-American Islamic legal scholar at the University of Toronto. “But the answer of these governments has been to double down on repression and that is only likely to increase the extremism.”

A handful of non-Muslim researchers in the West — typically outside the academic mainstream — seek to build a case that Islam is inherently more violent than Judaism or Christianity by highlighting certain Quranic verses. But they struggle to explain away approving passages about violence in other religious texts, such as the book of Joshua in the Old Testament, the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, or the statement attributed to Jesus by the Gospel writer Matthew that “I come not to bring peace, but a sword.”

Raymond Ibrahim, the author of “Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians,” argued in an interview that the passages in the Bible are descriptive but the Quranic ones are prescriptive. But most scholars say such distinctions are matters of interpretation.

Mainstream Muslim scholars in the Arab world or the West emphasize the Prophet Muhammad’s injunctions to mercy and forgiveness, his forbidding of “coercion in matters of religion,” or his exhortation to restraint even in self-defense. “Fight in the cause of God against those who fight you, but do not transgress limits,” reads one verse. “God does not love transgressors.”

Emad Shahin, the editor of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics, compared the discussion of violence in the Islamic tradition to the “just war” teachings of the Catholic Church. But because of the specific history of Western colonialism and Arab responses, he argued, Islam now provides an effective way to appeal to feelings of identity, community, justice, freedom and nationalism all at once. “It is all rolled into one,” he said.

Merna Thomas contributed reporting.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 10 January 2015, 5:07 am and is filed under
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Rising above patriarchal politics

Syerleena Abdul Rashid

The Malaysian Insider

9 January 2015

There is something quite intimidating about politics that seems to deter a lot of capable Malaysian women from getting involved. Generally speaking, women are more vulnerable to attacks, smear campaigns and negative stereotypes as Malaysian society is still somewhat receptive towards patriarchal institutions and social relations. As a result, women are often regarded as inferior and worthy of only complimenting the masculine form.

Our Asian cultural values consent to a system that often regards men as the “protector” of society and family, which itself can sometimes be difficult to challenge although social reforms that are consistent and relevant to modern society are not entirely impossible.

2015 will present Malaysians with a chance to improve our nation’s standing in terms of women empowerment and advancing gender balanced policies. Supporting women’s rights is definitely a long-term agenda that demands thorough analysis, responsiveness and ambition as well as robust strategies that can strengthen progression while engaging all levels of society. Of course, empowerment can mean many things – power, participation, ability, autonomy, decision and freedom – but core fundamental values such as dignity, integrity, respect and self-esteem are highly respected and accepted by everyone.

Our problem exists merely because of deep-rooted patriarchal beliefs which have permeated our society and political structure. The system we live in gives priority to men and has seemingly limited women’s rights in our country. Ironically, though, Article 8 of our Federal Constitution guarantees that “All persons are equal before the law and entitled to the equal protection of the law” and further states that “there shall be no discrimination against citizens on the ground only of religion, race, descent, place of birth or gender in any law or in the appointment to any office or employment under a public authority or in the administration of any law relating to the acquisition, holding or disposition of property or the establishing or carrying on of any trade, business, profession, vocation or employment.” Malaysians have witnessed numerous incidences that seemingly violate what is enshrined in the constitution.

American researchers carried out a study to ascertain the perception of young girls regarding politics and gender discrimination. Results showed that many were aware of how misogynistic the political climate could be while observing that female politicians faced more difficulties than men. Additionally, the young girls perceived that female politicians were also subjected to biased treatment and sexual harassment while men were free from such treatment. This proves that society embeds negative beliefs and gender discrimination into the minds of our young children.

Talented and promising young women are often discouraged from taking on leadership roles; those who do are often prevented from making references that focus on gender inequalities to avoid perpetuating negative gender stereotypes. Simone de Beauvoir once said, “Society, being codified by man, decrees that woman is inferior; she can do away with this inferiority only by destroying the male’s superiority.” A feminist or an advocator of women’s rights is usually given a negative label that is spiritually emasculating and obtuse. But how else can you battle injustice if women continue to remain silent?

To change this, it is necessary for Malaysians to understand the system that wants nothing more than to maintain women as mere subordinates. We need to unravel the machinery, bit by bit, in a systematic manner. Understand that patriarchy creates barriers which prevent women from progressing in society and that this itself contradicts the modern, just world in which we live.

Effectively altering public perception on gender roles can be done through various ways. Start by creating neutral spaces where communities, especially women, can address issues such as sexual violence without worry of being mocked or judged, promoting politically correct terms that are not gender biased (ie. chairperson instead of chairman) and of course, creating equal opportunities for both men and women in the workforce (ie. remuneration based on merit not gender).

Establishing a gender quota is definitely a good step in levelling the gender imbalance in politics but the struggle should not just end there. There is still an urgent need to develop national clarity – a tangible blueprint on how we can challenge and purge gender discrimination. Patriarchy simply destroys our ability to empathise and connect with one another as it warps humanity in a way that is antithetical. There needs to be a “collective responsibility” to counter this; change requires personal, interpersonal and communal deliverance. Women’s empowerment materialises when we are permitted to envision the alternative and confront the powers that deny us of our autonomy. But until then, the sobering truth still remains and Malaysian women will continue to be denied of our greater potential. – January 9, 2015.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 10 January 2015, 6:22 am and is filed under
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True Malaysian culture

Dyana Sofya

Malay Mail Online

January 9, 2015

JANUARY 9 ― I am a Muslim and I am a Malay. I am proud and I am okay. I am not an extremist.

On Wednesday, 12 people were shot dead as three gunmen attacked the Paris office of French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in what some now call a militant Islamist attack.

The magazine’s editor-in-chief and four well-known cartoonists, along with two police officers, were among those killed. Apparently, the gunmen claimed to be “avenging the Prophet Muhammad” as they fled the crime scene.

Unfortunately, this tragedy is not an isolated incident. There is now a global trend of young confused Muslims resorting to murder and vengeance in a twisted idea of jihad, justifing their violence in the name of religion.

As the recent government White Paper on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria proves, even Malaysians are not exempt as 39 Malaysians were identified to have been involved in the violent jihadi movement.

This situation contradicts the nature of Islam as the majority of Muslims believe it to be ― the religion of peace. Tariq Ramadan is therefore right to condemn the Charlie Hebdo attack as as a “pure betrayal of our religion,” which we all know to preach compassion and mercy.

In Malaysia, we face a similar problem.

Malay culture is known for its grace and courtesy. Even when expressing disagreement or reproach, Malays are known to use subtle hints, sometimes even invoking poetry in the form of pantun nasihat, in order not to offend their counterparts.

One personal example that I have learned, is that serving food with a stick of lemongrass in the dish is to signal that the host is running out of food and that they are scraping the bottom of the pot. Hence, guests should consider eating less to make sure there is enough for everyone.

These subtle Malay manners seem to have disappeared today. We now have Malay groups publicly offering rewards for slapping women and tainting people’s faces with chicken blood. We also have a former Chief Justice bent on instigating racial and religious hatred by making provocative statements pitting the Chinese and the Malays against one another.

It is extremely unfortunate that these extremist voices are allowed to dominate the public agenda. This is why it is important not only to fight back against these purveyors of hate, but also to replace their agenda with a moderate one espousing peace, harmony and universal Malaysianness. It is dangerous to allow them to define the image of Islam and the Malays. If we do, then it would be a victory for all extremists.

In order to move forward, we need to focus not on primordial traits like ethnicity or religion, but on values ― in particular, the values of compassion, kindness, charity, honesty, justice and benevelonce that every Malaysian shares, regardless of culture.

Perhaps it is also tragic that Malaysians need disasters to remind us of our shared values. It is only when tragedy strikes that we stand together, respect each other more, and readily come to each other’s aid.

Having visited the flood-stricken areas in the East Coast myself, I have seen how thousands of Malaysians of all walks of life and colour have risen above where the government has fallen below expectations. Where the state and federal governments faltered, regular Malaysians in their own capacities took matters into their own hands, gathering whatever resources they could and launched an unorganised (but not disorganised) aid campaign that crossed the boundaries of political partisanship, race and religion.

Now that is true Malaysian culture!

We may have started the year 2015, but old courtesies are never out-dated. While the last year may have ended on a despondent note, this year may be the beginning of better times for our country, provided true Malaysians stand up.

Here’s hoping we always stick to it and not only act like true Malaysians when disasters strike. Happy New Year!

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 10 January 2015, 6:30 am and is filed under
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The 40-year-old nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah is one of the seven cardinal sins of UMNO/BN government betraying the rights and interests of the people

The 40-year-old nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah is one of the seven cardinal sins of the UMNO/Barisan Nasional government betraying the rights and interests of the people.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS) has gone full circle, from skepticism of the public when it was first announced to high hopes raised during the public hearings, and to dashed hopes, disbelief and even deeper skepticism when the RCIIIS Report was made public in Kota Kinabalu on 3rd December 2014.

The people of Sabah and Malaysia must not give up hope and must continue to demand action to end the influx of illegal immigrants, revoke identity cards issued illegally, ensure a clean and untainted electoral roll in Sabah and to punish those responsible for the Project I/C and other treasonous scams, acting unlawfully, whether through abuse of power or corruption, in the massive issuance of illegal identity cards to exercise the citizenship rights of voting in the electoral processes.

The debate on the 40-year-old nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah cannot come to an end with the RCIIIS Report, but should be taken to a new height of immediacy and urgency.

The publication of this booklet, “The RCIIIS: The Endless Merry-Go-Round”, which is a collection of  media statements and speeches of DAP leaders in the first month of the release of the RCIIIS Report, is to ensure that the 40-year-old nightmare of the problem of illegal immigrants in Sabah remain in the forefront of public debate and democratic struggle not only in Sabah but also in Malaysia.

Two days ago, Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan, Sabah’s Deputy Chief Minister and the Chairman of the RCIIIS Report Working Committee, said: “Although the report is only 396 pages we may need to foster firstly on the contents, comments and recommendations from various groups.”

Does Pairin know what he is talking about?

The RCIIIS report has 368 pages. Has he got another Report of the RCIIIS which is 396 pages? Let him produce such a Report to the people of Sabah.

When the RCIIIS Report was made public in Kota Kinabalu on Dec. 3, Pairin said the report must be followed by drastic action by the government to ensure that illegal immigrants would no longer be an issue in Sabah.

Seven-and-a-half weeks have passed since the publication of the RCIIIS Report.  What  “drastic action” has been taken by the government to resolve the 40-year-old nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah, once and for all?

In fact, the 38 days that have elapsed since the publication of the RCIIIS Report on Dec. 3 had been wasted days as virtually nothing had been done as the RCIIIS Report Working Committee has yet to hold its first working meeting.

Even Pairin’s appointment letter as Chairman of the RCIIIS Report Working Committee had not been written, and it is most shocking and even outrageous that despite repeated public promptings by Pairin himself, the appointment letter has not appeared although the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Naji Razak himself announced Pairin’s appointment nearly two months ago.

Who is supposed to pen Pairin’s appointment letter as RCIIIS Report Working Committee Chairman? The Prime Minister or the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi?

If the letter of appointment has to come from the Prime Minister, why has this not been done when the Prime Minister had the time to go on  vacation in Hawaii,  cut short his holidays to rush back to the floods catastrophe in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia,  fly  again to Bangkok before falling ill as a result of E Coli, purportedly from the floods?

If the letter of appointment has to come from the Home Minister, why has this not been done when Zahid has the time on Dec. 18 to write a letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) vouching for the character of a gambling kingpin standing trial in Las Vegas and pleading for his early return, setting off a major national scandal as the Home Minister not only acted unilaterally by not informing the police and the Foreign Ministry but also  contradicted the earlier official police communication to the FBI?

Clearly, the 40-year-old nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah, which had changed the political demography in the state as well as altered the socio-economic and security circumstances in Sabah does not rate highly in the Putrajaya scheme of things.

In these circumstances, what can Pairin achieve as Chairman of the RCIIIS Report Working Committee?

I am shocked that Pairin is operating as if he knew nothing about how to resolve the 40-year-old nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah.

How can this be, when all the solutions to the illegal immigrants problem should be on his fingertips.

Surely Pairin has not forgotten that he was toppled as Sabah Chief Minister after 10 years as head of the Sabah State Government precisely by the political conspiracy behind this nightmare of the illegal immigrants in Sabah!

Or has Pairin  forgotten all the resolutions on solutions to this problem passed by the annual PBS congress for the past two decades on this issue?

There are at least seven things which Pairin as Chairman of the Working Committee can and must do  immediately to resolve once-and-for-all the nightmare of the illegal immigrants in Sabah.

Firstly, let the Working Committee declare that ‘Project I/C’ had existed. Secondly, declare that there are illegal immigrants on the electoral rolls in Sabah.

The RCIIIS said that it was most probable that there was Project I/C with I/Cs illegally issued to illegal immigrants  and that illegal immigrants were on the electoral rolls.

The Working Committee must be prepared to come forward to declare that both Project I/C existed and that illegal immigrants had been placed on the Sabah electoral rolls, for if  both of these problems had not existed in Sabah, then there would have been no  nightmare of illegal immigrants changing the political demography of Sabah, reducing native Sabahans to be foreigners in their own land!

Thirdly and fourthly, the Working Committee must implement measures to address these two problems, by the re-issue of new identity cards for all in Sabah and revocation of all old I/Cs obtained illegally by false and fraudulent means as well as a thorough clean-up of the Sabah electoral roll to remove every illegal immigrant improperly registered as a voter.

Fifthly, the Working Committee should ask Purtrajaya to present a bill in the March meeting of Parliament to repeal the Election Amendment Act which barred court challenges to unqualified voters on the electoral rolls after the rolls had been gazetted – a most subversive and undemocratic  power given to the  Election Commission after the Likas election petition.

Sixthly, the Working Committee must ensure that there is no increase of any single illegal immigrant in Sabah.

Seventhly, the Working Committee should publish the 6,000 missing pages in the RCIIIS Report on the notes of evidence of 211 witnesses, statutory declarations and exhibits.

The RCIIIS Report is a shabby piece of work as it does not present a roadmap for the resolution of the problems created by the influx of illegal immigrants and the unlawful granting of blue I/Cs and voting rights to illegal immigrants.

But the RCIIIS had not been a total waste of time and effort, as for the first time, 211 witnesses have put in black-and-white their accounts of the  transgressions against the law, criminality and treachery in Project I/C and other scams which conferred blue I/Cs and voting rights on illegal immigrants.

These 6,000 odd missing pages in the RCIIIS Report must be published, for it will give the people of Sabah and Malaysia the opportunity to judge whether the RCIIIS Report is a fair and faithful representation of the RCI proceedings.

(Statement at the launching of the book
“The RCIIIS – The Endless Merry-Go-Round: The 40-year-old Problem of Illegal Immigrants in Sabah”
 at Hotel Shangrila, Kota Kinabalu on Saturday, 10th January 2015 at 3 pm)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 11 January 2015, 7:00 am and is filed under
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After 40 years of nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah, time is well past “talking” and only action, action and action will do

A few days ago, the yet-to-receive Appointment Letter Chairman of the Working Committee of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS) Report, Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan said his committee was prepared to hear out the Opposition.

Pairin intended to appear very magnanimous but he has come across as very out-dated and even obsolete, for after 40 years of nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah, time is well past “talking” or “hearing out”, but action, action and only action to resolve the problem once-and-for-all will do.

All the solutions that could be conceived to resolve the problem of exponential increase in the population of Sabah as a result of the unchecked influx of illegal immigrants, and worse, their illegal and immoral enfranchisement as voters through Project I/C and such-like treasonous conspiracies, have been canvassed ad infinitum, even by Pairin himself and the PBS leaders, and it is the height of dishonesty and hypocrisy for anyone to pretend that they want to hear out some more views as to how the 40-year-old nightmare of illegal immigrants could be resolved.

Pairin knew that there is no shortage of solutions but only one thing is lacking, and he himself had diagnosed this problem when he appeared as a witness at  the RCIIIS. This was noted in  page 31 of the RCIIIS Report on Pairin’s testimony as follows:

“He (Pairin) bemoans the fact that although PBS had raised the problems relating to illegal immigrants with the authorities, very little appeared to have been done and that what is needed is a political will to deal with the issue.”

Has Pairin, as Chairman of the RCIIIS Report Working Commitee, the “political will” to see the nightmare resolved “once and for all” instead of being kicked around in a never-ending merry-go-rounds?

Is he prepared to tell the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the co-chairmen of  Permanent Committee on the RCIIIS Report, the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and the Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman, that  unless the authorities are prepared to take “drastic action” – the very words Pairin used after the publication of the RCIIIS Report – to end the 40-year-old nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah “once and for all”, he will not continue to  be part of the  farce and charade to drag out the illegal immigrant problem to no end till kingdom come, pretending to hear everyone out into the indefinite future but really doing absolutely nothing in pratice!

The very fact that it has taken more than six months before the RCIIIS Report was made public; with some 6,000 pages missing on the notes of evidence of the 211 witnesses, public exhibits including charts, pictures, statistics, letters, official directives, commentaries and articles, statutory declarations; that Pairin has not yet received his Letter of Appointment as Chairman of the Working Committee; that the Working Committee of the RCIIIS Report has yet to hold its first official meeting (in fact, I doubt Pairin knows are the full members of the Working Committee); and the lack of a roadmap to resolve the 40-year nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah in the RCIIIS Report all point to one thing: that the Federal and Sabah State Governments are not serious in wanting to resolve this problem “once and for all”.

In fact, the release of the RCIIIS Report was timed to ensure that  it was only made public after the Dewan Rakyat had adjourned, and the report could  not be discussed in Parliament or even the Sabah State Assembly.

In the circumstances, how are the people of Sabah and Malaysia to be convinced that the UMNO/Barisan Nasional governments in Putrajaya and Sabah have finally woken up to the seriousness of this problem and has the political will and sincerity to resolve it “once and for all”?

Finally, the people of Sabah and Malaysia must assert their democratic rights to demand responsibility, accountability and action from the Putrajaya and Sabah governments to resolve the illegal immigrant problem once and for all, not to further  spin out the nightmare of the illegal immigrants in Sabah into endless rounds of talks and committees.

(Speech at the second DAP Sabah forum on RCIIIS Report in Kg Paka, Ranau on Saturday, 10th January 2015 at 8 pm)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 11 January 2015, 11:21 am and is filed under
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Church fails to get 9-man bench to hear ‘Allah’ review

by V. Anbalagan

The Malaysian Insider

11 January 2015

The chief justice of Malaysia has turned down a request by the Catholic Church to convene a minimum nine-man panel to deliberate its review application against the ban on the word Allah when the case comes up on January 21.

The church was instead informed that only a five-man bench would be constituted to hear the matter.

The decision by Tun Arifin Zakaria was conveyed to the Catholic Church by the special officer to the chief justice, Dr Alwi Abdul Wahab, in a letter dated December 31.

The letter which was sighted by The Malaysian Insider, said that the request for a full bench could not be entertained. There were no reasons given on why the request was dismissed.

On December 23, a lawyer for the church had sent a letter to Arifin, urging for at least nine Muslim and non-Muslim judges to hear its arguments on fundamental constitutional provisions relating to religion.

The letter, which was also sighted by The Malaysian Insider, had said the church wanted a quorum that reflected the multi-cultural and multi-religious diversity of Malaysian society, given the nature of the issues raised.

“This is because fundamental constitutional provisions relating to state religion, freedom of minority religion, freedom of expression, which have far-reaching consequences for Malaysians of all races and religions, will be raised,” the letter had said.

In February last year, lawyers for the church had asked for, and given, an unprecedented seven-man bench to hear their leave application which was dismissed in June the same year.

The review application is aimed at setting aside the ruling by the apex court’s seven-man bench that upheld the Home Ministry’s ban on the use of the word “Allah” in the Catholic weekly, Herald, and establish a new panel to re-hear the leave application.

Four of the Federal Court judges, who formed the majority, had refused the leave-to-appeal application while three others took the position that leave should be granted.

“It is pertinent to note that each dissenting judge had written his or her own grounds allowing the application for leave,” the letter had said.

The Catholic Church is fighting for the right to use the word Allah in its publication, Herald. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, January 11, 2015.The Catholic Church is fighting for the right to use the word Allah in its publication, Herald. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, January 11, 2015.It had added that the church, therefore, believed that it was appropriate for at least a nine-man bench to be formed to hear the review.

The letter cited a precedent in India where a 13-man Supreme Court bench sat in 1973 to deliberate on an important constitutional issue in the case of Kesavananda Barati v the Government of Kerala.

The church also drew Arifin’s attention to the October 2013 Court of Appeal ruling, which continues to raise serious public concern where parties had used portions of the judgment to seize holy books of Christians even though the majority ruling in the leave application had declared that those portions were mere remarks made in passing.

A copy of the letter was sent to the Attorney-General’s Chambers and Messrs Zainul Rijal Talha and Amir, the legal firm that is representing one of the respondents.

On June 23 last year, Arifin was among the majority apex court judges who dismissed the church’s application for leave to appeal.

Others were Tan Sri Raus Shariff, Tan Sri Zulkefli Ahmad Makinuddin and Tan Sri Suriyadi Halim Omar.

The dissenting judges were Tan Sri Richard Malanjum, Tan Sri Jeffrey Tan Kok Wha and Datuk Zainun Ali.

All the seven judges as well as Tan Sri Apandi Ali, who was in the Court of Appeal panel that heard the church’s case, but who is now a Federal Court judge, cannot hear the review application.

A five-man bench to hear the review application could still come from the remaining six Federal Court judges but nothing in law prevents Arifin to also scout for members in the Court of Appeal.

The church is seeking to reverse the findings of the Court of Appeal decision, which had allowed the home minister’s appeal to overturn the 2009 High Court’s decision that the Herald could use the word “Allah”.

The High Court had declared that the decision by the minister to ban Herald from using the word “Allah” was illegal, null and void.

The church, led by the then Kuala Lumpur Archdiocese Archbishop Emeritus Tan Sri Murphy Pakiam had filed a judicial review application in 2009, naming the minister and the government as respondents.

Lawyer Benjamin Dawson, a member of the church’s legal team, had said the review was based on three broad grounds.

The first was that there were certain legal issues central to the leave application but were not considered by the Federal Court, such as the scope of Articles 3 and 11 of the Federal Constitution.

Article 3 states that Islam is the official religion of the federation while Article 11 touches on freedom to practise one’s religion.

The church further contended that the minister’s decision to prohibit the use of the word “Allah” in the Herald had also taken into account a theological consideration.

Dawson had said that the second ground was that the apex court’s majority judgment decided on certain legal issues, which were neither argued nor raised by the parties before the Federal Court or the Court of Appeal, such as the constitutional validity of Section 9 of the Anti-Propagation Enactment.

The third ground is that the Herald’s case is one of the most important constitutional cases to come before the apex court, especially where minority rights are concerned.

He added that there existed a public-interest factor to support the review application. – January 11, 2015.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 11 January 2015, 7:18 am and is filed under
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In Manek Urai, school’s in but mud and water keep classes from starting

By Zurairi AR

The Malay Mail Online

January 11, 2015

KUALA KRAI, Jan 11 ― Schools here reopened today for the start of the new year, but students in flood-stricken Manek Urai have yet to commence with lessons as cleanups are expected to last another week.

Clad in colourful casual attire and rubber slippers instead of the usual white-and-navy-blue uniforms, the students in SK Manek Urai here spent their time lounging around gawking at army personnel and volunteers, from their still wet classrooms.

This month marks the first anniversary of Yusof Ismail, 49, as the school’s headmaster after transferring from his hometown of Tanah Merah last year.

He admitted that the floods, which submerged two of the schools four storeys, were a major setback.

“It’s my personal challenge this year, to rebuild this school from the ground up. I am starting from square one now,” Yusof, with his black pants tucked inside a pair of yellow rubber boots, told Malay Mail Online during a visit this morning.

Earlier, he was visited by the procurement and asset management division of the Education Ministry, who dropped by from Putrajaya to check on the school’s condition.

Only 50 per cent out of 400 students turned up in school today. Only 50 per cent out of 400 students turned up in school today. “Out of around 400 students, only 50 per cent turned up today,” said Yusof, explaining that while two of the school’s blocks were already cleaned, the third one which also housed the canteen was only 60 per cent ready.

In class 3A on the ground floor, Standard Three students chatted and played around with each other while their teacher sat helplessly atop one of the new plastic tables supplied by the ministry.

“I cannot do anything today. We do not even have any chalk left,” said the teacher, who hailed from a town near Kota Baru and asked to remain unnamed.

Two water tankers arrived in the late morning to further clean the classes, where dirt still clung to the metal graters that separate classrooms on the ground floor. Even in the teachers’ rooms upstairs, water from the previous clean-up still flooded the tiled floors.

As early as 11.30am, however, some parents started to pick their children up ahead of the end of school at 1.20 pm. Some students decided to follow suit, causing a male teacher to shout at the top of his lungs from the first floor: “Get back to your classes!”

“What was the point of them staying? They would just make noise with each other,” said a defiant local called Hisham, 30, who picked up his daughter who just started school today, and his niece.

Students of SK Manek Urai are clad in colourful casual attire and rubber slippers instead of the usual white-and-navy-blue uniforms. Students of SK Manek Urai are clad in colourful casual attire and rubber slippers instead of the usual white-and-navy-blue uniforms. It was a similar situation in the SMK Manek Urai secondary school situated 1km away from the primary school. During a visit earlier by Malay Mail Online, students in their daily clothes leaned out from the balconies, staring at the distance.

The school’s grounds was still covered in thick mud worsened by the rain in the early morning, while army men were using a water jet cleaner to blast dirt away from desks and chairs.

Malay Mail Online was, however, refused entry to the school by its principal, allegedly under the direction of the District Education Office.

Next door, the Second Battalion of the Malaysian Army’s Border Regiment from Batu Melintang Camp in Jeli, and the 508 Regiment of the Territorial Army from Jalan Rasah Camp in Seremban were busy trying to clear the school’s squalid dormitories.

The army men and women were seen bringing out water-damaged furniture and mattresses to a dumping ground across the road.

Army men and women were seen bringing out water-damaged furniture and mattresses to a dumping ground across the road. Army men and women were seen bringing out water-damaged furniture and mattresses to a dumping ground across the road. Two-man teams worked in tandem to haul mud in wheelbarrows, one pushing it from the back while the other tug at a rope connected to it from the front.

“Today is our sixth day here. Our priority is to get their rooms clean so they can stay here,” said their commanding officer, Second Lieutenant Annur Zaqwan.

Manek Urai, over 20 km south of Kuala Krai town, was among the worst-hit areas in the recent floods which saw over 250,000 people in Kelantan displaced from their homes.

The floods caused both Kg Manek Urai Lama and Kg Manek Urai Baru to inundated, leaving most homes in ruins and the families homeless. As of this week, the victims were still reeling from the disaster.

In December, Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin postponed the start of the school session by a week after the floods, and insisted that students in about 300 schools that were affected by the floods could begin their schooling session according to schedule.

However, Education Minister II Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh admitted last week that out of the 165 flood-affected schools in Kelantan, only 130 would be ready for school today.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 11 January 2015, 7:52 pm and is filed under
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9 Points to Ponder on the Paris Shooting and Charlie Hebdo

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BY
OMID SAFI (@OSTADJAAN),  WEEKLY COLUMNIST

On Being with Krista Tippett

As a person of faith, times like these try my soul. Times like these are precisely when we need to turn to our faith. We turn inward, not because the answers are easy, but because not turning inward is unthinkable in moments of crisis.

So let us begin, not with the cartoons at the center of the shootings at the office of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, but with the human beings. Let it always be about the human beings:

Stéphane “Charb” Charbonnier
, 47 (editor)

Bernard Maris, 68 (economist)

Georges Wolinski, 80 (cartoonist)

Jean “Cabu” Cabut, 78 (cartoonist)

Bernard “Tignous” Verlhac, 57 (cartoonist)

Philippe Honoré, 73 (cartoonist)

Elsa Cayat (columnist)

Michel Renaud (a guest)

Frederic Boisseau (building maintenance worker)

Franck Brinsolaro, 49 (a police officer)

Moustapha Ourrad (copy editor)… It’s not Muslims vs. cartoonists, as long as there are Muslim cartoonists.

Ahmed Merabet, 42, (police officer)… A Muslim who died protecting the cartoonists from Muslim terrorists. Muslim vs. Muslim.

And brothers Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi — the alleged shooters, with a legacy of crime behind them — and Hamyd Mourad.

I try to resist the urge to turn the victims into saintly beings, or the shooters into embodiments of evil. We are all imperfect beings, walking contradictions of selfishness and beauty. And sometimes, like the actions of the Kouachi brothers and Mourad, it results in acts of unspeakable atrocity.

So how do we process this horrific news? Let me suggest nine steps:

Muslim police officer Ahmed Merabet. He was shot in the head while lying on the ground begging for mercy on the streets near Charlie Hebdo’s office building.

1) Begin with grief.

We begin where we are, where our hearts are. Let us take the time to bury the dead, to mourn, and to grieve. Let us mourn that we have created a world in which such violence seems to be everyday. We mourn the eruption of violence. We mourn the fact that our children are growing up in a world where violence is so banal.

Even yesterday, on the same day of the Paris shootings, there was another terrorist attack in Yemen, one that claimed 37 lives — even though this tragedy did not attract the same level of world attention. There were no statements from presidents about the Yemen attack, no #JeSuisCharlie campaigns for them. Let us grieve, let us mourn, and let us mourn that not all lives seem to be given the same level of worth.

In solidarity with the people killed in Paris, this illustration is accompanied by the caption, “Break one, thousand will rise,” as part of the #JeSuisCharlie hashtag. Many people and media outlets have been sharing this illustration by Lucille Clerc but incorrectly crediting Banksy. Credit:
Lucille Clerc

2) Yes, this is (partially) about freedom of speech.

Satire, especially political satire, is a time-honored tradition. Satire at its best is a political tool to invert hierarchies, to disturb and unsettle. Being unsettled and disturbed is necessary for education — education of individuals and education of communities. Unsettling is never smooth, or graceful.

Let us not make saints out of satirists, some of whom fostered racist cartoons, none of whom deserved this fate, all of whom should be mourned. Let us have the integrity to say that the killed satirists spent their lives tearing down sacred icons. Let us, in their death, not turn the satirists into the very sacred icons they opposed their whole life.

Here’s the thing about freedom of speech: There are few red lines left. In an age where almost anyone can get his/her writings published online, blocking or censoring anyone has become all but impossible. Yes, freedom of speech includes the right to offend. Yet, I wonder if our willingness to celebrate the “right to offend” also extends to us reaching out in compassion to those who are offended. I also wonder what we do when the “freedom to offend” is not applied equally across the board, but targets again and again communities that are marginalized and ostracized.

So how does one counter offensive words/images? Had the shooters in Paris actually bothered opening the Qur’an, they would have known about “repel evil with something that is lovelier.” Had they sought to embody the Qur’an, they wouldn’t have shot down cartoonists but made sure to shoot down prejudice by embodying luminous qualities that would transform the society one person at a time.

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Pens are thrown on the ground as people hold a vigil at the Place de la Republique (Republic Square) for victims of the terrorist attack on January 7, 2015 in Paris, France. Twelve people were killed, including two police officers, after gunmen opened fire at the offices of the French satirical publication Charlie Hebdo. Credit: Dan Kitwood License: Getty Images.

3) We do not know the political motivations of the shooters.

The healthy and spiritually sane thing to do is to pause, grieve, bury our dead, and reach out to one another. But we want explanations. We want to know why. We may even deserve to know why. Compounding the problem is that we have a cycle of 24-hour news, which has to be filled with content. It has to be filled with content even when we do not have facts available to us.

Some of the news coverage has been referring to the shooters as “Islamists.” If we define being an Islamist as someone who’s committed to establishing an Islamic state, there is no proof of that commitment on the part of the shooters. It seems more prudent to simply call them what we know they were: violent criminals.

4) Islam does not tell us the whole story. And we may not know for some time how much of the story it does tell us about.

One of the last known facts about one of the Paris shooters is that he had been involved with a scheme to join an insurgency in Iraq back in 2005. Here is how his lawyer described him:

“Kouachi, 22, lived his entire life in France and was not particularly religious… He drank, smoked pot, slept with his girlfriend and delivered pizzas for a living.”

We have seen this pattern before, again and again: the Tsarnaev brothers were seen drinking and smoking pot; the visiting porn shops and nude bars and getting drunk. Not exactly the model of pious, observant Muslims.

There is no mythical Islam that floats above time and space. Islam is always inhabited by real life human beings. In this case, as much as in the case of 9/11 hijackers, it might be good to look more at the political grievances of the shooters than into the inspiration of some idealized model of “Islam.”

5) Let us avoid the cliché of “satire vs. Islam.”

Let us leave behind for one minute all the rich scholarly debate on the concept of blasphemy vis-à-vis Muslim and European civilizations. (Take a good hour to read Talal Asad’s brilliant essay on the topic.)

To portray this episode as the struggle of satire vs. Islam misses the fact that Muslims themselves have a proud legacy of political satire. In places like Iran, Turkey, and Egypt there are many journalists and satirists languishing in prisons because they have dared to speak the truth — often against autocratic and dictatorial rulers. For my own money, these are the champions of free speech, the Jon Stewarts of Muslim majority society. Bassem Youssef, who was often called the “Egyptian Jon Stewart,” is yet another example of a voice of satire who was instrumental in the Arab Spring.

6) Let’s not overdo the Muslim objection to images of the Prophet.

Yes, many Muslims today do not approve of images depicting the Prophet, or for that matter depicting Christ or Moses (also venerated as prophets by Muslims). But this was not and is not the case for all Muslims. Muslims in South Asia, Iran, Turkey and Central Asia — places that were for centuries the centers of Muslim civilizations — had a rich tradition of miniatures that depicted all the prophets, including those depicting the Prophet Muhammad. These were not rogue images, done in secret, but rather an elite art paid for and patronized by the Muslim caliphs and sultans, produced in the courts of the Muslims.

And let us give Muslims some credit. What many of them object to is not the pietistic miniatures depicting Muhammad ascending to heaven, but rather the pornographic and violent cartoons lampooning Muhammad.

Muslims do have a tradition of depicting Muhammad in artwork. The Mi’raj of Muhammad is a small painting from the 1700s. It shows Muhammad riding a creature called a buraq and ascending into heaven.

7) Context is not apology.

This is perhaps the most sensitive of the points. There is no point apologizing for actions that deserve no defense. The shooting of artists, satirists, journalists, heck, the shooting of any human being, is an atrocity that stands as its own condemnation.

To ask for, insist upon, and provide context, however, is part of what we are called to do. No event, no human being, no action stands alone. And even this vile action in Paris — just like the vile actions of 9/11, or the wars in Middle East — all take place in a broader context.

French Muslims are not a random collection of Muslims. They hail from Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, places that were colonized by the French for decades. They are, in a real sense, the children of the colonies. The traumas of the French Muslim population today are linked to and an extension of the violence inflicted by the French on Muslims colonized for decades. No empire (including the American empire) likes to be reminded of its colonial practices, but the truth must be spoken.

French society, like many other European societies, is awash in a wave of anti-immigrant xenophobia. Anti-immigration parties routinely gain about 18 percent of the vote in popular elections, and measures justified under “secularism” (including the ban on hijab in schools) target almost exclusively the Muslim minority. A Pew Global poll shows that 27 percent of all French people openly acknowledge disliking Muslims. Numbers in other European countries are even higher: 33 percent in Germany, 64 percent in Italy. Clearly, today’s Europe has a Muslim problem.

Yes, this is partially about an ideological appropriation of religion and the issues of free speech, but it is free speech as applied disproportionately against a community that is racially, religiously and socioeconomically on the margins of French — and many other European — society. As such, to purely treat this as a freedom of speech issue without also dealing with the broader issues of xenophobia is missing the mark.

I wonder in all the celebration of “freedom of expression” parades, whether we will pause to reflect on the French prohibition on Muslim women wearing the head-covering (hijab) in public schools, something that was stripped away under French commitment to secularism. I wonder why it is that all freedoms of expression are not equally valued.

A very legitimate part of the response to the crime of the shooters is to honor and proclaim the value of freedom of speech. This, indeed, must be done. And it should be done boldly and proudly. Yet there has to be an element of humility and truthfulness here as well. Consider for example the heartfelt response of Secretary Kerry to the shootings, who described them as “a larger confrontation, not between civilizations, but between civilizations itself and those who are opposed to a civilized world.”

One has to applaud Kerry for not giving in to the tired cliché of “clash of civilizations.” Yet there is something profoundly disturbing about claiming the mantle of civilization for “us.” Doing so takes us back to the same colonial rhetoric of the 19th century that posited the world as being divided between “the civilized” West and “the savage” Rest. Let us defend the best parts of our civilizations, the ideals of freedom and liberty and equality, and let us have the integrity and honesty to also state that many people both inside and outside of our borders have often experienced Western powers as more a nightmare than a dream. For African-Americans and Native Americans in the United States, for the colonial subjects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the United States, France, and England have always been experiments that have often fallen short of the lofty ideals they/we proclaim. This is not to cast aspersions on the beauty of those ideals, but to always hold ourselves in check, to always remind us that the tension between being civilized and savagery is not one that divides civilizations and nations, but a tension inside each and every single one of us, each and every single one of our communities.

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A day of mourning as the French flag flies half-mast at the Elysee Palace in Paris. On January 7, 2015, armed gunmen attacked the offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, gunned down and killed 12 people. Credit: Patrick Kovarik License: Agence France-Presse / Getty Images.

8) Muhammad’s honor.

The shooters are reported to have shouted that they were doing this to revenge the honor of the Prophet. Let me put objectivity and pretense towards scholarly distance aside. The Prophet is my life. In my heart, Muhammad’s very being is the embodied light of God in this world, and my hope for intercession in the next. And for those who think they are here to avenge the honor of the Prophet, all I can say is that he is beyond the need for revenge. Your actions do not reach him, neither did the profoundly offensive cartoons of Charlie Hebdo. That pornographic, violent, humiliated and humiliated figure depicted in Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons is not and was not ever my prophet. As for the real Muhammad, neither the cartoonists nor the shooters ever knew him. You can’t touch him. You never knew Muhammad like we know Muhammad.

And as for the shooters, they have done more to demean people’s impression of the religion of the Prophet than the cartoonists in Charlie Hebdo ever did. If the shooters wanted to do something to bring honor to the Prophet, they could begin by actually embodying the manners and ethics of the Prophet. They could start by studying his life and teachings, where they would see that Muhammad actually responded to those who had persecuted him through forgiveness and mercy.

9) So, how do we respond?

Crises try the soul of women and men, bringing to the surface both the scum and the cream. What will surface in France?

Forecasting the future is the business of fools. I will not offer forecasts, but here’s what I do hope for: I hope that it will bring out the best in French society, and not the worst. Here’s hoping that the affirmation of the values of the French republic will affirm equality, liberty, and brotherhood for all 66 million citizens, including the 5 million Muslim citizens.

One can either see the French retreating into an ideological corner, blaming a collective Muslim population for refusing to “integrate,” and blaming themselves for being “too tolerant.” In fact, eliciting that French backlash might have been one of the shooters’ goal all along, as Juan Cole has postulated. Or, one could hope that the French would respond closer to the Australians after their recent crisis, in the beautiful “I’ll ride with you” campaign.

One can hope that the response to the Paris shooting should consist of not merely a full-throated defense of freedom of speech, but also a renewed commitment to a robust and pluralistic democracy, one which encompasses marginalized communities.

Let us hope that the French response will look a lot like the response of Norway, whose prime minister Jens Stoltenberg said the following words just two days after the shooting during the memorial ceremony: “We are still shocked by what has happened, but we will never give up our values. Our response is more democracy, more openness, and more humanity… We will answer hatred with love.” Yes! More democracy, more openness, more humanity.

Let us hope that it is not merely the freedom of speech that we hold sacred, but the freedom to live a meaningful life, though others find it problematic. Let us hope that the freedom to speak, to pray, to dress as we wish, to have food in our stomach and to have a roof over our head, to live free of the menace of violence, the freedom to be human are seen as intimately intertwined… Yes, let us cherish and stand up for the dignity of the freedom of speech. And let us always remember that speech, like religion, is always embodied by human beings. And in order to honor freedom of speech, we need to honor the dignity of human beings.

May we reach out to one another in compassion

May we embrace the full humanity of all of humanity.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 12 January 2015, 3:38 pm and is filed under
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Batu Sumpah Movement creating a silent peaceful revolution in Sabah with the triple objective to restore the history, memory and rights of people of Sabah to reclaim their basic citizenship rights – imbued with history and confident about the future

The unveiling of the third Batu Sumpah replica in Moyog today –  with the majesty of the twin huge stones –  of the Keningau Batu Sumpah engraved with the three commitments of “Ugama Bebas Dalam Sabah”, “Tanah Tanah dalam Sabah di kuasai oleh Kerajaan” and “Adat Istidiadat anak rayat Sabah dihormatkan dan dipelihara oleh Kerajaan” marks a silent and peaceful revolution in Sabah to change the mindset of the people of Sabah with the triple objective to restore the history, memory and rights of the people of Sabgah to reclaim their basic citizenship rights –  imbued with history and confident about the future.

We must always be reminded of Czech writer Milan Kundera’s famous quote:  “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting” which is the raisons d’etre for the Batu Sumpah Movement.

The Batu Sumpah movement, to plant a replica of the Keningau Batu Sumpah all over the state of Sabah, is not a DAP monopoly – it is above party politics as it concerns the heritage of all Sabahans as  a reminder of the historic guarantees given to the people in the  interior of Sabah about the trinity of their rights in the establishment of Malaysia in 1963 on religion, land and native customs.

The Batu Sumpah movement deserves the support of all Sabahans, regardless of political affiliation, ethnicity or region – and leaders from the Barisan Nasional parties in Sabah are welcome to join and participate in it.

If fact, if the PBS President, Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan, is prepared to support the Batu Sumpah movement, and I am given advance notice, I am prepared to be present at any PBS ceremony led by him to mark the erection of another replica of Keningau Oath Stone in Sabah.

Seven months before the 13th General Elections in May 2013, I spoke at length during my speech on the 2013 Budget in Parliament on October 4, 2012 on the Keningau Batu Sumpah and called on all Members of Parliament, whether Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat, whether in Sabah, Sarawak or Peninsular Malaysia, to support a Royal Commission of Inquiry to assess whether the dreams and aspirations of Sabahans and Sarawakians in forming Malaysia had been fulfilled or betrayed in the past five decades.

Although my call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry stemming from Batu Sumpah Keningau fell on deaf ears in October 2012, this remains a live issue and with the passage of time, an ever more focussed aspiration of the people of Sabah.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS) Report has brought back to the fore this central issue, for without doubt, the greatest threat to the fulfilment of the three commitments engraved in the Keningau Oath Stone is none other than the 40-year nightmare of the illegal immigrants in Sabah, which had not only changed the political demography in the state (responsible for the ousting of PBS as the dominant party in Sabah and the toppling of Joseph Pairin as the Sabah Chief Minister), but drastically altered the socio-economic and security situation in Sabah.

I want to thank Jannie Lasimbang, Jaringan Orang Asal SeMalaysia (JOAS) Director and BERSIH Sabah co-ordinator for coming here and  presenting me a JOAS publication “Orang Asal – A Photographic Introduction to the First Peoples of Malaysia”.

As stated in the book: “Orang Asal – which means first or original people – is a collective term for the indigenous peoples of Malaysia. They are the descendants of the people who settled Sabah, Sarawak and the Malay Peninsula before the establishment of the Malay sultanate and the arrival of the Colonizers.”

What particularly attracted my attention was the book’s reference to Sabah where it said: “In Sabah, the Orang Asal are referred to as Anak Negeri or Natives of the state.  There are at least 72 ethnic and sub-ethnic groups of Anak Negeri in Sabah with the major groups being the Dusun, Kadazan, Murut, Rungus and Bajau.  Other indigenous people in Sabah include the Bisaya, Brunei, Cagayan, Gana, Idahan, Iranun, Kalabakan, Kedayan, Kimaragang, Kwijau, Lotud, Lun Dayo, Makiang, Begahak, Minokok, Nulu, Paitan, Rumanao, Serudong, Sungai, Tidung and Tindal.

“In 2010, they numbered 1,270,979 which represented 40 per cent of the state population of 3.1 million.  A decade earlier, however, they made up 75 per cent of the state’s population.”

The drastic reduction of the Orang Asal in Sabah from 75% to 40% is an extraordinary and phenomenal  change – all because of the 40-year nightmare of the problem of illegal immigrants in Sabah.

This is the rationale for the launching of a Batu Sumpah Movement, with the triple objective to restore the  history, memory and rights of the people of Sabah and why it deserves the continuing support of all Sabahans.

(Speech at the unveiling  of a third Batu Sumpah –  twin Oath Stones – in Moyog, Sabah on Sunday, 11th January 2015 at 2pm)

                This entry was posted on Monday, 12 January 2015, 1:28 pm and is filed under
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If Europe is to overcome Islamist terror, it needs to fight for the values it holds dear

Paul Mason

The Guardian

11 January 2015

For many on the left, tolerance comes easily. But economic disarray has sapped the will to defend our principles of rationalism and individual liberty

There’s a
map of Europe
 that was supposed to tell the main story. It shows the wealth created in every region in the European Union, colour coded: yellow for poor, green for average and purple for the rich areas that produce up to 125% more per head than the average.

The result looks as if somebody took a broad purple paintbrush, starting near Florence, and swiped upwards through the Alps, western Germany and the Netherlands, running out of paint a little around Denmark, but then colouring in most of Scandinavia.

The lifestyle in these rich regions is the outcome Europe aspired to when it adopted first the single market and then the euro. When the euro project was still working, it was assumed that around this highly developed central bloc of wealthy regions, crossing national borders, there might develop the paradigms of a transnational European culture. Think the high-spec family car, the regional opera house and the skiing holiday. It was, after all, along this geographic corridor connecting Florence with Flémalle that the Renaissance happened.

The eurozone crisis put an end to this conceit. But the current wave of revulsion against Islamist terrorism challenges us to ask, urgently, what the common European culture actually is. Austerity has drawn a horizontal line through the map of Europe, across which solidarity has not readily flowed. German unemployment this week hit an all-time low of 6.5%, while youth unemployment in Italy – even in the “purple zone” – stands at 43%. So if the Charlie Hebdo atrocity was aimed at sparking a culture war in Europe, it could not have been better timed.

The news coverage showed the enormity of the spontaneous demo at the Place de la République on the night of the murders. But one participant told me, contrary to the instant myth-making about “unity” among the crowd, that those on the plinth of the statue were openly divided between secular leftists and liberals and populists of the Islamophobic right. The latter leerily belted out the most embarrassing line of the Marseillaise – “Let’s spill the blood of the impure” – to jeers from others. The atmosphere, said my witness, “felt dangerous”.

The source of the danger is that, with the economic project in disarray, the very concept of a unifying, liberal and tolerant European culture is already under threat. With tens of thousands on the streets of Dresden opposing “Islamisation”, and with Geert Wilders’ Freedom party leading the polls in the Netherlands, for many – even in the wealthy “purple” regions – defending European values has become a question of defending white, smalltown, conservative Christian culture, and letting migrants drown in the Mediterranean.

The mainstream parties of the centre have been almost unanimous across Europe in their response to the Charlie Hebdo massacre: dignified restraint, emphasis on the multi-ethnic nature of society, refusal to link it to Islam and migration. Which is fine, but like the rest of elite politics in Europe right now, seems hollowed out in terms of emotion and principle.

The French left’s preference for in-your-face secularism and scatologically offensive satire goes back to the Jacobins, for whom the words “priest, bugger and fuck” were in the core political vocabulary. It is a “French thing” that even their friends struggle to understand. But as a cultural response it has the virtue of being strong. It draws on a tradition 200 years old, that subjected Paris to three revolutions in the space of 90 years, and allowed its population, when the time came, to resist and defeat the Nazis.

But it’s a national tradition. Europe remains, for all the economic integration it has achieved, a coalition of nations with national cultures. Indeed, we revel in our differences: see how warily we intermingle in the summer cafes along the Med, or on the ski slopes, always attuned to national quirks, cultures and obsessions. So by hitting a Europe that is culturally incoherent, and in the midst of economic stagnation, the Islamist terror groups are hitting a smart target.

You would not have to spend much time driving a pizza moped, as one of the Kouachi brothers did, to understand how much the white, Christian people of Europe currently blame each other for the economic crisis. Or how much of their frustration is directed at migrants. The danger in Europe is that the forces of cultural fragmentation coincide with those in economics. The political elite’s economic credibility ebbs away with every month that GDP or inflation falls below zero. For those who have already supported one round of unsuccessful foreign wars in Muslim countries, there is no appetite to do it all again.

The only common culture that will survive the onslaught that IS and its allies are planning for Europe has to be built on two principles: first, religious tolerance and respect for migrants’ rights under international law; second, the aggressive pursuit of secularism, rationalism and individual liberty. The liberal centre and the European left have this weakness in common: they find the tolerance bit easier than the aggressive fight for humanism and modernity. The collapse of the old left’s economic project, and the current collapse of the economic project of the centre, has sapped their will to fight for the culture they believe in.

Islamist terror cannot be stopped by the security and intelligence services alone. It has to be fought culturally and economically. But the only cultural response that is going to beat them is the one that does not play their game. It has to be based on the core values of European democracies – and this is true whether or not we like the eurozone or even the EU as institutions. Those core values reach back to the Enlightenment and the Renaissance; they are secular and humanist in action, even when carried out by people who are devout Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Where to start? Eradicate the slums, remove religious bigots from all educational contact with children and give kids brought up in obscurantist faiths an education that insists the prejudices of their parents may be mistaken. And find the young people jobs.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 12 January 2015, 11:31 am and is filed under
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