PERSPECTIVE: LIM TECK GHEE

PERSPECTIVE: This is a section for “guest posts”. Guest write on any subject or issues they choose. And what they write are posted as received. Today's guest is Lim Teck Ghee.

Anwar, Israel, Gaza and Religion

Now that Anwar has reached the pinnacle of political success, how does he want to be remembered? And how will he be remembered?

Is it for his Malaysia Madani? Or Madani Islam? Or speech at the United Nations? Or his recent Time magazine interview?

Here in Malaysia, he's the subject of discussion in family get-togethers, coffee shop cakap cakap, boardroom meetings, and media programs. He appears in the hopes, fears, and even dreams and nightmares of ordinary Malaysians.

Is he an imposter reformist? Or is he just being true to form? The quintessential chameleon, extraordinary?

Of this we can be sure. Anwar is looking at the mirror every morning before he begins the campaign round.

So how does he want to be remembered?

Uncompromising? Resolute? Courageous? Transformative? Run of the mill?

Perhaps his biggest challenge is how he deals with the religious elephant in the Malaysian room.

Anwar in his UNGA address noted

We are concerned over the emergence of a “new form of racism” characterised by xenophobia, negative profiling and stereotyping of Muslims. This is manifested in an alarming trend of hatred, intolerance, and acts of violence against Muslims and their sanctities …. Inaction in the face of such blatant provocation to a religion is simply irresponsible and sends a dangerous message to humanity

What he raised was chillingly prophetic.

All religions, despite the good they do, can be both opium and gasoline.

When religion is (mis)appropriated and mainstreamed into public policy and practice, the outcome is invariably disastrous.

Perhaps secular is the wrong word to use in a politically correct Malaysia, even a haram one as I am advised.

But the need to draw a firm unambiguous line, so that a rejuvenated secular Malaysia or however called is his legacy for the present and younger generation, cannot wait.

No pussyfooting on this which in my humble opinion, has the potential to bring the biggest and most benefits to the Malay and Muslim youth.

Ps.

Weekend reading on the roots of the horrendous tragedy taking place in Gaza

*State of Terror.. How Terrorism Created Modern Israel - Thomas Suárez (Skyscraper, 2016)

"Why has the so-called 'conflict' in Palestine endured for over a century, with no resolution in sight?

Tapping a trove of source documents heretofore poorly explored, Suarez challenges the prevailing narrative of a clash between Arabs and Jews as depicted by the mass media. He demonstrates historically what to honest and informed observers is obvious from the present reality: that the entire tragic history is the violent takeover of Palestine by a European settler movement that couched its goals in pretenses of messianic entitlement Zionism.

Suarez details a shocking campaign of Zionist terrorism in the 1940s and 1950s that targeted anyone in the way of its goals, whether the British government, the indigenous Palestinians, or Jews. Indeed, Suárez dismisses Zionism's very raison d'etre safe haven for Jews as a cynical fraud, exposing the racial-nationalist movement as itself consummately anti-Semitic. Zionism pursued its political goals at the expense of, not for the benefit of, persecuted Jews. Today's seemingly intractable quagmire is Zionism's unfinished business, an Israeli state driven by unrequited territorial designs and the dream of ethnic 'purity'. At its root, the 'conflict ' is neither complicated nor unsolvable, but ending it will require stripping Zionism of its false narrative. Suarez attempts this by laying bare the historical record."

https://www.amazon.com/State-Terror-Thomas-Su%C3%83%C2%A1rez/dp/191107203

Lim Teck Ghee PhD is a Malaysian economic historian, policy analyst and public intellectual whose career has straddled academia, civil society organisations and international development agencies. He has a regular column, Another Take, in The Sun, a Malaysian daily; and, is author of Challenging the Status Quo in Malaysia.