The Enemy Is Not In the Blanket: the Biggest Threat to Islam Is Coming From Outside
By June H.L. Wong
March 11, 2015
Indeed, the biggest threat to Islam is coming from outside.
BY now, it should be crystal clear as to what is the biggest threat to Islam. The shocking revelation that two young Malaysian men were present at the latest beheading of a Syrian man by the Islamic State, and openly enjoying the gruesome act, drives home how far IS influence has grown.
As Senior Asst Comm Datuk Ayob Khan said in The Star on March 5: “The video is clear indication of the involvement of Malaysians in the slaughter of innocent people.”
What the two, Mohd Faris Anuar, 20, and Muhamad Wanndy Mohamad Jedi, 25, did is now one of many documented incidents of Malaysians involved in terrorism.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has said that 67 Malaysians are known to have gone to Syria and Iraq and five have been killed. That was in January. Since then, a sixth Malaysian has died, although reports are not clear as to when he perished.
Zahid also said another 120 people with suspected IS links or sympathies had been detained and placed in isolation.
Actually, the number of Malaysians dying in Syria and Iraq is confusing because in June last year, a Wisma Putra statement said 15 Malaysians were believed to have been killed.
Even the 67 are just those that the authorities have been able to identify. No one knows how many more unidentified Malaysians are there.
Whatever the number, it is enough to galvanise the Government to act; thank goodness for that.
Perhaps now there will also be realisation that for a very long time, those who profess to want to protect Islam in Malaysia were targeting the wrong people, namely non-Muslims, and particularly the Christians.
Let’s be frank here. There has been increasing suspicion about Christians wanting to convert the nation and take over power. That was the underlying subtext in the emotional controversy over the right of Christians to use Allah in their Bibles.
Yet, no action was taken to stop the Sikhs from using the word when it was revealed that it was used in reference to God in their holy scriptures. So one cannot but wonder about this fear about Christians and their intentions in this country.
The irony of it is the Christians had a great opportunity to win converts and they had a whole century (at least) to do it. I am referring to the colonial times under the British when very many Catholic priests and nuns and Protestant missionaries set up schools all over the country and enrolled thousands of young Malayan and then Malaysian children.
As a student at Assunta Secondary Girls School, Petaling Jaya, in the 1970s, I remember how our headmistress Sister Enda Ryan would cite the Prayer of St Francis during the morning assembly. Non-Christians, Muslims included, would stand quietly and wait for it to be over.
No one was fazed, upset, offended or felt threatened that they were being subtly influenced to convert, or their faith undermined by listening to the prayers.
Many of the teachers were Catholic priests and nuns who were undoubtedly motivated by their religion to come so far from home to bring enlightenment and education to the natives. Surely if they wanted to, they could have converted many to their faith.
Yet, that didn’t happen. Which is why Malaysia is still a Muslim majority nation? Instead, countless citizens benefited from being educated in mission schools.
Many of our leaders and top government servants, at least the older ones, have acknowledged they owe their success to such educators while remaining true to the faith of their forefathers.
So it’s strange in the 21st century, when churches and missionaries no longer control our school system and after almost 60 years of Malay-led rule, there is still this fervent need to defend Islam against internal threats.
The truth is that the harm to Muslims and Islam in this country is coming from outside, not inside and it has been happening for years now, going back to the days of Jemaah Islamiyah and al-Qaeda.
Now it’s taken a turn for the worse with IS which is actively looking for recruits from around the world to wage their war of brutal terror.
Finally, there is acknowledgement, once denied, that IS agents are insidiously infiltrating our religious schools to lure young and gullible minds to their cause. That’s why Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar recently said the police would monitor these schools to ensure they don’t become bases for indoctrinating extremist ideology and recruiting militants.
Internationally, Malaysia is in the spotlight as a transit point for individuals from the region to use to find their way to the Middle East.
So we need to put a stop to all this unnecessary defending of Islam among ourselves and focus on the real enemy. No right-thinking citizen, Muslim and non-Muslim, wants the IS and Boko Haram brand of Islam in our midst and whether it’s six or 15, that’s too many deaths of our people.
Indeed, this fight for and in defence of Islam involves all of us. Non-Muslims cannot see fighting IS and its evil influence as “not their problem”, the way most of them see the Palestinian struggle as a Muslim cause happening in faraway Middle East that does not interest or concern them.
Thanks to the Internet and social media, nothing is far away anymore, as their indoctrination is brought right into our homes, offices and schools.
And as SAC Ayob also rightly warned: “If they (Malaysians in Syria) can slaughter captives, who’s to say they wouldn’t do that when they come back?”
These returning radicalised Malaysians will not choose between progressive, moderate Muslims and non-Muslims to target. We will all be fair game to them.
Aunty finds much truth in this quote by Thomas Jefferson: “On the dogmas of religion ... all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarrelling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.”
Source: http://www.thestar.com.my/Opinion/Columnists/So-Aunty-So-What/Profile/Articles/2015/03/11/The-enemy-is-not-in-the-blanket/
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