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By John Chan
A
wave of protests and riots has rocked Tibet since March 10—the
49th anniversary of a failed rebellion led by the Dalai Lama in 1959.
The unrest has put the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership into
a dilemma—violent repression risks further international condemnation
just months before the Beijing Olympic Games, while any concessions
will encourage separatism elsewhere in China, as well as in Taiwan,
where a presidential election will be held this Saturday. Moreover,
Beijing is acutely aware that protests in Tibet have the potential
to trigger wider social discontent over unemployment and the highest
levels of inflation in 12 years.
The political atmosphere in China this year resembles the late 1980s,
when hostility to rising prices and the impact of market reform fuelled
a wave of protests. In March 1989, the death of the Tibetan religious
leader, the 10th Panchan Lama, became the focus of a series of riots
in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. President Hu Jintao, then the CCP party
boss of Tibet, imposed martial law in the city. These developments
anticipated far more explosive events a few months later, with nationwide
protests of workers and students, culminating in the bloody military
crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4. Hu’s
repression in Tibet won him the support of the CCP leadership to become
Deng Xiaoping’s heir.
The latest unrest erupted on March 10 after Chinese police arrested
60 monks from the Drepung monastery, who were protesting on the anniversary
of the 1959 CIA-backed revolt. On the same day, the Dalai Lama declared
from exile in India: “For nearly six decades Tibetans have had
to live in a state of constant fear under Chinese repression.”
The next day around 600 monks staged a protest in front of the Lhasa
police headquarters demanding the release of the detained monks. Sporadic
protests last week led to more arrests in the city.
On Friday, local police prevented monks from the Ramoche monastery
from demonstrating. This provoked an angry response from ordinary
Tibetan residents, who have been treated as second-class citizens,
economically and culturally, for decades. Hundreds of protestors smashed
and burned at least 100 shops, banks and hotels owned by local Han
Chinese. Cars and buses were also torched.
Several thousand paramilitary police officers were mobilised to suppress
the riots. Rather than completely blacking them out, the state-controlled
media broadcast limited coverage of the protests in Tibet in a bid
to minimise international criticism. “Throughout the incident,
Lhasa police officers exercised great restraint. They remained patient,
professional and were instructed not to use force,” the official
Xinhua news agency declared.
These claims lack any credibility, however. Foreign journalists are
banned from going to Tibet, while CNN—the only foreign news
service allowed in—was blacked out. China’s Internet police
have also been filtering information related to the unrest. Even cell
phone signals in Tibet were apparently blocked. Tourists have been
asked to leave.
The Chinese media has reported that at least 13 “innocent civilians”
were killed during rioting in Lhasa last Friday, but the actual number
of dead is unclear. Three people reportedly died by jumping from a
building during a police round up of rioters. The state media has
shown footage of rioters attacking Han Chinese and Hui Muslim civilians
and shops, but not scenes of police repression. Government officials
have described the rioters as “lumpen” and “hooligan”
elements—the same terms used to describe the Tiananmen Square
protestors in 1989. The Dalai Lama’s self-styled government-in-exile
has claimed that at least 99 protesters have been killed by Chinese
troops.
Large parts of Lhasa have been sealed off by paramilitary police,
while armoured vehicles are patrolling the streets. Military trucks
carrying soldiers broadcast calls for rioters to surrender before
a deadline on Monday midnight, or face severe punishment. Reportedly
105 people turned themselves in. Loudspeakers in the streets have
been calling on residents to “discern between enemies and friends,
maintain order.” Heavily-armed Chinese troops are reportedly
patrolling the area around the ancient Jokhang temple—regarded
as Tibetan Buddhism’s holiest shrine.
On Monday, about 600 protestors were rounded up by Chinese security
forces. According to the London-based Times, 40 detainees were paraded
through the streets of Lhasa to intimidate the public. These measures
were endorsed by Beijing’s own “spiritual leader”
in Tibet, the Panchan Lama, who has condemned the “violence”
of the protestors.
The unrest has spread to the neighbouring provinces of Gansu, Qinghai
and Sichuan. Last Sunday, some 200 Tibetan protestors threw petrol
bombs and burned down a police station, a market and houses in Abe
County of Sichuan. In Lanzhou, the provincial capital of Gansu, 500
Tibetan students staged a sit-in strike at Northwest Minorities University
on Sunday afternoon. A curfew was imposed in Xiahe, another city in
Gansu, after police suppressed a protest of 1,000 Tibetans, including
monks from the Labrang monastery, on Sunday. Even in Beijing, 200
students at the Central Nationalities University held a silent candlelight
vigil on Monday night—under the surveillance of China’s
political police.
Social tensions
The Dalai Lama initially called for restraint. However, with increasing
international media coverage, he has begun criticising the Chinese
government for its “rule of terror” and “cultural
genocide” against Tibetans. Although he has rejected Beijing’s
accusation that he was behind the riots, his comments have further
aroused Tibetans both within and outside China. Small protests of
Tibetans and their supporters have taken place outside Chinese embassies
and consulates in a number of cities around the world.
The Dalai Lama is attempting to use the protests to pressure Beijing
for greater autonomy for Tibet. He represents a section of the Tibetan
elite, who have abandoned their previous demand for independence and
see their future as bound up with the expansion of Chinese capitalism
through a power-sharing arrangement, along the lines of the former
British colony of Hong Kong. Not wanting to overly antagonise Beijing,
the Dalai Lama has denied responsibility for the violent protests.
“We must not develop anti-Chinese feelings. Whether we like
it or not we have to live side-by-side,” he declared in an appeal
to end the violence in Tibet yesterday. He offered to resign as the
head of the Tibetan government-in-exile if “things get out of
control”.
The focus of the Dalai Lama’s demands is to confine opposition
to the issue of preserving Tibetan culture. Underlying the protests
in Lhasa, however, is deeply felt resentment at the social and economic
deprivation that the urban and rural Tibetan poor share with their
counterparts throughout China. Like the regime in Beijing, the Dalai
Lama is terrified of a social movement that would unite the poor and
oppressed across the language and cultural divide.
An editorial in the Financial Times on March 16 warned that Beijing
had mistakenly believed its own propaganda about reducing poverty
in Tibet. “The danger of this approach has become evident in
the past few days. Far from being grateful to Beijing for benefits
of modernisation and economic development, many Tibetans bitterly
resent the government and the Han Chinese migrants who have flooded
into Tibet and who dominate commerce.”
The market reforms imposed by the Chinese regime in the 1990s have
ruined the livelihoods of impoverished Tibetan farmers and herders,
who make up 80 percent of Tibet’s population of 2.7 million.
Tibet is already China’s poorest region, with one million people
living below the official poverty line of $150 a year. The opening
up of the Qinghai-Tibet railway in 2006 has accelerated social inequality.
The expanding tourist industry, as well as retail and real estate
businesses, are controlled by Han migrants and a small affluent layer
of the Tibetan elite, not the urban and rural poor.
A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report in June 2007 warned that Beijing’s
campaign since 2000 to move Tibetan herders into urban areas threatened
the livelihood of 700,000 people. Chinese officials claimed that the
urbanisation of herders was “an enlightened form of modernisation”,
but their approach was bureaucratic and the main aim was to clear
the land for investors and infrastructure projects. The study pointed
out that resettled Tibetan herders, unable to speak Chinese, could
only obtain work as low-paid menial labourers. They had no money to
start small businesses. Some herders tried to resettle as farmers,
but the government provided no assistance.
F.R. told HRW: “The Chinese are not letting us carry on our
occupation [as herders] and forcing us to live in Chinese-built towns,
which will leave us without livestock and we won’t be able to
do any other work, so we will be surely be beggars.” Z.R. said:
“No new houses have been built, they have just put new doors
and windows in the old prison buildings. The government made a lot
of publicity about bringing electric and water facilities, but those
who moved there say there is no such facility. The government talks
about providing a food subsidy eventually, but so far they got nothing...”
The US and other Western governments have cautiously criticised Beijing’s
crackdown. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Beijing
last Sunday to “exercise restraint in dealing with the protesters”
and urged the release of those who had been jailed. A spokesman for
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who offended Beijing by meeting with
the Dalai Lama last year, declared on Monday that while Germany “understands
and supports the will for cultural and religious autonomy” in
Tibet, it also supports “the territorial integrity of China
and everything that goes along with a ‘one China’ policy.”
To date, no government, including the Dalai Lama’s administration
in exile, has supported the calls from some Tibetan activists to boycott
the Olympic Games. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner tentatively
suggested yesterday that the EU might consider a proposal to boycott
the opening ceremony, but quickly added that the French government
did not at this stage support such a plan. President of the EU parliament
Hans-Gert Poettering floated the idea that individual politicians
should consider staying away from the ceremony. Neither proposal has
attracted significant support.
The limited international criticism is not motivated by concern for
ordinary Tibetans. The scale of unrest in Tibet is relatively small
compared to the many demonstrations and strikes by Chinese workers
and farmers, which are all but ignored in the international media.
The reason is obvious: global corporations are dependent on the super-exploitation
of workers in China, where sweatshop conditions are maintained through
police-state measures. The use of heavily-armed troops, military lock
downs of entire areas and mass arrests are essential to discipline
the working class and protect the interests of global investors.
The extensive reporting on the struggle for a “free Tibet”
serves a different political purpose. The region has been a pawn in
great power rivalry going back to the nineteenth century, when Britain
and Tsarist Russia engaged in the “Great Game” for influence
in Central Asia. After Mao’s troops seized Tibet in 1950, the
Dalai Lama functioned for decades as a political tool for Washington
to undermine Beijing. The US only stopped financing the Dalai Lama’s
guerrilla operations inside Tibet after President Richard Nixon reached
a rapprochement with the Maoist regime in 1972.
Renewed international interest in Tibet is a sign that the whole region
is once more becoming the focus of competition between the major powers.
The US military intervention into Afghanistan in late 2001 was driven,
not by the “global war on terrorism”, but to advance Washington’s
strategic and economic interests in energy-rich Central Asia. The
US, the European powers, China and Russia are all jostling for influence
and access to the region’s huge oil and gas reserves.
While not alienating Beijing by backing calls for “Free Tibet”,
the US and its allies keep the issue alive by continuing to maintain
relations with the Dalai Lama and hypocritically raising concerns
about Tibetan rights. As Beijing is well aware, Washington is quite
capable of exploiting such separatist movements to advance its geopolitical
interests, as it has just done by supporting an “independent”
Kosovo.
19
March 2008
Source:World Socialist Website http://www.wsws.org
World Socialist Web Site correspondent John Chan was born and raised
in the southern province of Guangdong.
back to top
By Chandra Muzaffar
It is significant
that the Prime Minister of China, Wen Jiabao, has reacted positively
to the appeal from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama on 28 March 2008
for a dialogue with the government of the People’s Republic
of China. He has however laid down some conditions. The most important
of these is the exclusion of any demand for the independence of Tibet.
The Dalai
Lama has since 1974 maintained that he does not seek the independence
of Tibet from China. He envisages a Tibet that enjoys self-rule within
the ambit of the Chinese Constitution. He has reiterated this position
in his recent appeal. Self-rule or political and cultural autonomy
would enable the Tibetans to “ safeguard Tibetan Buddhist culture—rooted
as it is in the values of universal compassion— as well as the
Tibetan language and the unique Tibetan identity.”
Though
the Dalai Lama’s formal position is not a hurdle to bilateral
talks, there is still some suspicion and distrust towards him on the
part of the Chinese leadership. Some Chinese leaders believe that
he and his key followers had instigated the protest of 10 March 2008
to embarrass the government and force it to make concessions to the
Tibetan people, just a few months away from the 8 August Olympics.
The protest, and the suppression of it by the authorities, had caused
several deaths.
The Dalai
Lama has denied any role in the protest that was initially organized
to commemorate the 49th anniversary of a failed uprising that he had
led. He has also condemned the violence that followed the protest.
However, he has demanded that the Chinese authorities provide an honest
account of the 10 March protest so that it would not have adverse
consequences for long-term relations between the Chinese majority
and the Tibetan and other minorities.
Given
these attitudes that separate the Chinese leadership from the Dalai
Lama, it is doubtful if a dialogue will be possible in the near future—
unless the initiative comes from a person or an institution that commands
the respect and confidence of both parties.
Dr. Chandra
Muzaffar,
President,
International Movement for a Just World (JUST). Malaysia.
31 March 2008
back to top
By
Chandra Muzaffar
Another European has
done it again. Anti-immigration right-wing Dutch politician, Geert
Wilders, has made a15 minute film called Fitna (defamation) which
features violent imagery of terrorist attacks in New York and Madrid
set against passages from the Quran that are distorted and taken out
of context. The film has been posted on internet sites.
The film is indeed a fitna
against Islam and the truth. It deliberately attempts to project the
Quran as a scripture that justifies and legitimizes terrorism and
violence perpetrated against innocent civilians. This is a calumny
against the Quran which warns against wanton violence and prohibits
aggression.
While fitna is being posted
on internet, a theatre in Potsdam, Germany is planning to stage a
play based on Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses which also
misrepresents the Quran and Muslim history and had provoked Muslim
reactions almost 20 years ago. A few weeks ago, the Western media
gave a lot of publicity to Pope Benedict XVI baptizing a former Muslim
journalist from Egypt during Easter. In 2007, the Pope had delivered
a lecture in which he gave a distorted interpretation to the Prophet
Muhammad’s mission. In 2006, a Danish newspaper published cartoons
of the Prophet Muhammad linking him to bombs and terror. A number
of other newspapers and magazines followed the Danish example. Earlier
this year, some Danish newspapers republished those offensive cartoons.
Why is the Quran, why
is the Prophet, targeted in this manner? Is it just Islam that is
under attack? Isn’t it true that Jesus has also been vilified
through films and books? In fact, damning and defaming religion in
general is the pastime of a segment of secular Europe. Among religions,
the targeting of Islam appears to be more systematic and consistent.
There is a reason for
this. It is part of the drive by the centers of power in the West
to impose their hegemony over the Muslim world. As we have pointed
out so often in the past, control over oil and strategic sea-lanes,
the majority of which border Muslim countries, is the motivating force.
However, to establish this control and dominance, the centers of power
also have to target Islam and its followers. Islam has often served
as the ideological inspiration for resistance to Western hegemony.
This is why hegemonic forces have invariably sought to malign the
religion in order to destroy resistance to their control and dominance.
Predictably,
a number of Muslim governments and religious leaders have issued statements
condemning the film. The Secretary-General of the Organization of
the Islamic Conference(OIC), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, has described the
film as “ incitement for hatred and an act of defamation of
religions, solely intended to provoke unrest and intolerance among
people of different religious beliefs.” UN Secretary-General,
Ban Ki-moon, also condemned the airing of Fitna “ in the strongest
terms” and added that “ there is no justification for
hate speech or incitement to violence.” The Dutch government,
it should also be emphasized, has distanced itself from the Wilders’
film.
Muslims
in different parts of the world have been holding demonstrations to
protest against the film. So far no acts of destructive violence have
been reported. It is important that protests remain peaceful. Otherwise,
Muslims would be playing into the hands of those who are hell-bent
on portraying Islam and Muslims as violence prone.
More than
organizing protests, the substantial Muslim population in the Netherlands
should mobilize resources and produce films that tell the truth about
the Quran, the Prophet, and Muslim history. These films should be
shown in the cinemas and posted on internet. There should be an honest
and sincere attempt to discuss and understand violence in different
religions and societies. The Dutch people should be made aware that
there are references to violence in most scriptures — the Torah
and the Talmud; the old and new Testaments; the Quran and the Hadiths;
the Ramayana and the Mahabharatha. What one should not do is to take
them out of context, distort and misinterpret them.
There has also been a
proposal by the former Malaysian Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad,
to boycott Dutch products. It is worth considering. Middle and high
income Muslim countries import a lot of food stuffs from the Netherlands.
However, for a global boycott to succeed there should be careful planning,
organization, mobilization and monitoring. As an immediate measure,
it may be more feasible for Muslim governments to subject to a thorough
review all current projects and contracts with Dutch companies. Both
a consumer boycott and a review would serve to persuade Dutch citizens
that it is in their own interest to isolate and insulate Islam baiters
and other types of racists like Geert Wilders.
Chandra Muzaffar
30 March 2008.
back
to top
By Chandra
Muzaffar
On
24 March 2008, four days after the world had observed the 5th anniversary
of the invasion of Iraq, the American death toll in that country rose
to 4000. The White House described it as a ‘sober moment’.
The media also reported
that the number of Iraqi soldiers killed since 20 March 2003 stands
at 12,000. The figure for civilian deaths in Iraq as a direct consequence
of the military occupation by the US and its allies varies from source
to source. One source puts it at 90,000 while another source estimates
that the total number could be between 104,000 and 223,000. A British
polling institute suggests that the total number of civilian deaths
could be as high as 1.2 million.
Whatever the actual figure,
there is no doubt at all that it is the Iraqi people who have suffered
most from the unjust, immoral occupation of their land. It is not
just the colossal loss of lives that is shocking. Unemployment is
high. Essential goods and services are in short supply. Crime is rife.
Corruption is rampant, as Iraqi President, Jallal Talabani himself
admitted in conjunction with the fifth anniversary of the invasion.
As in past anniversaries,
groups and individuals from all over the world have used the occasion
to urge the US and its allies to withdraw their troops from Iraq.
The International Movement for a Just World (JUST) lends its voice
to this collective plea for an end to the occupation of a sovereign,
independent nation— an occupation which will go down in history
as one of the greatest tragedies of our time.
It is quite conceivable
that if either one of the two democratic candidates— Barrack
Obama or Hilary Clinton— gets into the White House, there may
be a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. But that will only mean the
end of the US led military occupation of Iraq. The real occupation,
as we have emphasized a number of times before, is the occupation
of the nation’s economy, politics and culture. This is why the
US Administration is still pushing hard for effective control of Iraq’s
oil through American and Western companies.
It is this occupation
— an occupation which is designed to transform Iraq into the
major client state of the US in the Middle East—— that
activists the world over should seek to end through their campaigns.
Chandra Muzaffar,
27 March 2008.
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By
IslamOnline
Creeping out from the
rubble of their bombed out homes in the Gaza Strip, shell-shocked
Palestinians bitterly remember how homes and walls failed to protect
family members, mostly kids, from the Israeli death.
“There must have
been an Israeli sniper on a rooftop because he fired one shot and
hit her in the stomach,” Raad Abu Seif told the Telegraph on
Monday, March 3.
His 12-year-old daughter
Safa died in his arm inside the family home in the Zimo Square area
of Jabaliya in northern Gaza.
The father, his wife and
seven children had bunkered down inside their home when Israeli troops
trudged through the Jabaliya refugee camp.
Safa was going up upstairs
to join her uncle and his family when an Israeli bullet penetrated
her young body.
“She was still about
four meters from a window and up on the first floor.”
The horrified father rushed
to the phone and called an ambulance to save his child, but the car
came under Israeli fire and was not able to reach the house.
In a desperate attempt,
Abu Seif carried the girl out of the house, raising a white flag.
An Israeli tank fired
warning shots above his head, forcing him to dive for cover.
Shortly, the 12-year-old
child breathed her last in her father’s arms.
“I stroked Safa’s
hair,” said Abu Seif, his voice hoarse.
“And then her eyes
rolled backwards in her head.
“I tried to massage
her heart for a minute, two minutes, three minutes, I don’t
remember. And then I felt there was nothing.”
My Babies
Israeli occupation forces withdrew ground troops from Gaza early Monday,
after killing at least 118 Palestinians, most of them civilians, in
a five-day deadly blitz.
Ahmed Abu Radwan, a teenager,
told the Telegraph he was shot three times when he approached the
Zimo Square area to see what was happening.
Speaking from a hospital
bed, he said that his neighbor Jihad Abu Hilayel, also a teenager,
was shot dead by Israeli soldiers.
But Hatem Abu Shbek said
his nephew, Eyad, 16, and niece, Jacqueline, 17, were shot in his
sitting room.
He insists they were several
meters from the window, accusing Israeli snipers of deliberately targeting
them.Their mother Marfat Abu Shubak was unable to make sense of what
happened.
“I want Eyad and
Jacqueline,” cried the bereaved mother, as she clung to a bundle
of clothes the two children once wore, huddling in one of the rooms
in the half of her house that is still standing.
3 March 2008
Source:
IslamOnline.com
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by Chandra Muzaffar
The ruling Barisan Nasional
( National Front) suffered its most severe electoral setback on 8
March 2008. It lost its two-thirds majority in the Federal Parliament,
suffered a massive defeat in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur
(the national capital), failed to retain control over four states,
and was heavily repulsed in its bid to regain power in yet another
state. Nonetheless, the 14 party coalition continues to rule at the
national level with 140 seats in a 222 member Parliament. The BN also
won the ballot in 7 other states and remains the government in an
eighth state that did not hold state elections.
Dr. Chandra Muzaffar explores
the reasons behind the BN’s setback in Malaysia’ s 12th
General Election. He has used a question and answer format in order
to clarify the issues involved. This article was first written on
15 March 2008 and has been revised subsequently for publication in
the JUST Commentary —Editor.
Q
1 : Is it true that in this Election, unlike many other previous elections,
economic and social issues which cut across ethnic lines occupied
centre stage?
I am not sure if these issues dominated the polls. There is no doubt
at all that the rising cost of living linked to the increase in the
price of oil played a major role. The escalating crime rate and allegations
of corruption and nepotism also impacted upon the mind of the Malaysian
voter, regardless of ethnic affiliation.
Q2:
Did issues connected with the economy resonate with the poor more
than other strata of society?
Even
the middle class was angry about the rising cost of living. Regular
wage earners in both the public and private sectors were forced to
stretch the ringgit to the limit to make ends meet. But it is that
huge segment of Malaysian society that I would describe as the ‘have-a-little’
as opposed to the ‘have-a-lot’ that suffered most from
rising prices. The growing gap between these two strata of society
which is the essence of the problem of relative deprivation in Malaysia
today eroded the BN’s support base in the 12th General Election.
The BN’s elite oriented, top-down approach to development which
has brought some benefits to the people has also created a great deal
of frustration and unhappiness among the ‘have-a-little’.
Q
3: Did ethnic issues shape the electoral outcome at all since Malaysia
is a multi-ethnic society par excellence?
Ethnic
concerns have been at the centre of most elections. For at least two
years preceding the 2008 Election a whole gamut of ethno-religious
issues polarizing Muslims from non-Muslims surfaced which increased
the communal temperature in the country.
A
significant segment of the Hindu Indian minority, for instance, was
unhappy about a series of court cases emanating from Hindu conversions
to Islam, the custody of children, the religious identity of deceased
persons, and so on. The demolition of Hindu temples that sometimes
stood in the way of private and/or public sector development projects,
had also incensed the community. In fact, it was the lack of sensitivity
shown by some state officials in demolishing one such temple days
after a major Hindu festival in November 2007 that ignited the biggest
Indian mass protest the country had seen. Indians felt that the Muslim
majority government was not willing to protect the community’s
rights.
A
lot of Chinese Malaysians were also deeply hurt by the keris (traditional
Malay sword) wielding incident at the youth assembly of the ruling
United Malays National Organization(UMNO) in 2006. The inflammatory
speeches made by a couple of delegates at the parent body’s
(UMNO’s) general assembly aggravated the injury. Chinese Malaysians,
like their Indian counterparts, were also disappointed with the government
for not taking strong action against the culprits.
If
many Indians and Chinese were disappointed with the government, so
were some Malays. When a largely non-Muslim group within the middle-class
demanded greater protection for freedom of religion in the wake of
cases involving some Muslim apostates, sections of the Muslim community
reacted. They too organized public gatherings that cautioned non-Muslims
against challenging the position of Islam as the religion of the Federation.
They demanded that the government defend the religion with much greater
vigour. Many Malays were also angry that the Indian mass protest of
25 November 2007 led by the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) had
alleged that the Malay helmed government was practising ‘ethnic
cleansing’ of the community. They wondered why the government
had not nipped Hindraf in the bud. After the Hindraf protest, the
government appeared to be taking several measures to restore the confidence
of the community— measures which gave the impression to the
Malays that the government was bending over backwards to please the
Indian minority. The Malays were not happy about this, just as they
were irked by all the attempts by the government to accommodate Chinese
requests on Chinese schools and the economy on the eve of the Election.
All said and done, the perception that seemed to be growing among
the Malays just before the Election was that the government had conceded
too much to the non-Malays.
While
unhappiness with the government manifested itself within all communities
in Peninsular Malaysia, it was perhaps strongest among the Indian
Malaysians as evidenced in the ballot box. An electoral analyst has
estimated “that the Indian swing against the BN in Peninsular
Malaysia was approximately 35%, the Chinese vote swing was approximately
30% and the Malay vote swing was approximately 5%.”
Q 4: So both ethnic and non-ethnic factors contributed to the BN’s
setback…..
They
did. There was widespread dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction which
transcended ethnic boundaries converged upon a single target —
the Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. He was projected by the
three main opposition parties— the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR),
the Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) and the Democratic Action party (DAP)
— as incompetent and ineffective. His failure to act on a variety
of ethnic and non-ethnic issues, and the belated responses of some
of his colleagues in government to obvious cases of moral ineptitude,
strengthened this perception. At the same time, his son-in-law, Khairy
Jamaluddin, was portrayed as that ‘ambitious, powerful kid’
who was actually running the country. Expectedly, this further eroded
public confidence in the national leadership.
This
is not the first time that a national leader has become the target
of mass public dissatisfaction in a general election. In the 1969
election— the election which in terms of its results bears some
striking similarities to the 2008 polls— Prime Minister Tunku
Abdul Rahman had become very unpopular among both the Malays and non-Malays
for different reasons. Their negative feelings towards him were reflected
to some extent through the ballot box. Even in other countries perceptions
of the national leader appear to be one of the major determinants
of electoral outcomes.
Q
5: The opposition parties harnessed this dissatisfaction to the hilt….
One
should not be surprised that they did so. In a number of instances
they did a service to the nation by exposing wrongdoings which otherwise
would have remained hidden in some closet somewhere. The expose involving
the late Zakaria Deros a member of the Selangor State Assembly who
had allegedly accumulated considerable wealth through dubious means
and built a huge palatial mansion for himself without the requisite
municipal approvals would be an outstanding example. At the same time
however some opposition leaders had no compunctions about disseminating
scurrilous allegations pertaining to the private lives of government
figures without providing incontrovertible evidence. Similarly, while
the opposition was right in criticizing the government for its inability
to check profiteering and smuggling which had contributed to some
extent to the escalating cost of living, it was wrong in hoodwinking
the voters into believing that it could reduce drastically the price
of petrol if it came to power. It was disingenuous of the de-facto
PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim for instance to claim that it was because
of his capabilities as Finance Minister that the petrol price was
low in the nineties. The international price of oil at that time was
between 10 and 27 US dollars compared to a 100 US dollars today!
 Truths,
half truths, distortions, exaggerations and outright lies were mixed
into a scintillating cocktail and served to the people by an opposition
who like the government parties was ever ready to separate means from
ends in pursuit of its goal— of winning as many state and parliamentary
seats as possible. While it is true that the opposition parties were
disadvantaged compared to the ruling BN in obtaining access to the
mainstream print and electronic media, they utilized to the fullest
the new information and communication technologies at their disposal.
It was not just internet and SMSes that they used to good effect;
DVDs and digital cameras were also harnessed to the maximum. The 2008
Election was perhaps the election in which the new ICTs had tremendous
impact.
The
effective use of the new ICTs also enabled the opposition to communicate
better with the million odd new, young voters, compared to the BN.
Since the protests against the sacking of Anwar from government in
1998-9, opposition politicians had succeeded in opening up channels
of conversation with the young through the new ICTs. It is quite conceivable
that in the recent Election, a big chunk of their vote went to the
opposition.
Q
6: More specifically, what was Anwar’s role in the 2008 Election?
Since
his dismissal as UMNO Deputy President and Deputy Prime Minister in
September 1998, this was the third time that Anwar was ‘involved’
in a general election on behalf of the opposition. In the 1999 General
Election, it was the terrible injustice done to him, his incarceration
and the infamous black eye, that helped opposition personalities outside
prison to forge an informal coalition comprising PAS, DAP, PKR ( then
known as Parti Ke ADILan Nasional) and Parti Rakyat Malaysia. Anwar
was the leader of the coalition which had a common manifesto and a
common reform programme whose goal was a ‘Just Malaysia’.
It was in the 1999 election that the vast majority of parliamentary
and state battles were one to one contests between BN and opposition
or Barisan Alternatif (BA) candidates. The situation changed somewhat
in the 2004 General Election. Only PKR and PAS were left in the BA,
the DAP having pulled out in September 2001. Anwar, still in prison
continued to be the leader but the BA’s performance was dismal.
It won only 7 parliamentary seats— 1 PKR and 6 PAS, compared
to a total of 45 seats in the 1999 election. The BA and Anwar could
not withstand the powerful Abdullah Badawi hurricane that swept the
land in 2004.
What
was it in Anwar’s role in 2008 which helped change the electoral
landscape so dramatically? Unlike 1999 and 2004, he was now out of
prison. It was his campaigning, his ability to mobilize, his networking,
and most of all, his oratory that made the difference. This is why
even though there was no common manifesto among the opposition parties
in 2008, and there were, on a percentage basis, fewer straight fights
between the BN and the opposition, compared to 1999, Anwar’s
physical presence and performance buoyed the opposition’s fortunes.
Though I remain a critic of Anwar and his politics, it must be acknowledged
that there has never been an instance in Malaysian politics when a
single individual has made such a significant difference to the electoral
landscape of the nation.
Anwar
appealed to a segment of the Malay electorate because of his earlier
incarceration and the ordeal he had gone through. At the same time,
his association with PAS refurbished his credentials with the Malay
community since dissent in Malay society has always derived legitimacy
from Islam. However, it was his ability to attract non-Malay voters
at all levels, especially in the middle and upper echelons, that made
his 2008 foray unique. Anwar succeeded in presenting himself as a
man who would fight for non-Malay equality, as someone who will champion
Chinese and Indian rights, whatever the costs and consequences. In
more concrete terms, he promised Chinese and Indians that he would
eliminate the New Economic Policy (NEP)— a policy which incidentally
had formally come to an end in 1990, but a policy which to non-Malays
embodied all the injustice of ethnic discrimination and ethnic privileging
that they resented so much. He also struck a chord with Chinese Malaysians
by admonishing the UMNO leadership for failing to take a position
against the keris incident. To a lot of Hindu-Indian Malaysians he
appeared as the saviour of their temples and their dignity. Anwar,
in other words, pressed all the right ethnic buttons with the non-Malay
communities in the 2008 Election.
In
this regard, there is some evidence to suggest that whenever a prominent
Malay leader articulates non-Malay grievances, the Chinese and Indian
anti-establishment vote shoots up significantly. It is as if they
are encouraged, even emboldened, by the stance of the Malay leader.
Thus, in 1969, the newly formed, mainly Chinese Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia
(Gerakan) with a credible Malay, Professor Syed Hussein Alatas, as
its President, trounced the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and
Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), the Chinese and Indian components
of the ruling Alliance (the predecessor of the BN) in the Penang State
election, winning two-thirds of the Assembly seats. In 1990, when
the DAP teamed up with the Malay based Semangat 46 led by a former
Finance Minister, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, which also had as its patron
Malaysia’s first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Chinese
opposition party was able to wipe out both the MCA and the MIC in
the Penang State polls. The other Chinese majority party in Penang,
the Gerakan, however managed to retain a few seats. In a sense, Anwar
and the Malay based but multi-ethnic PKR emboldened the non-Malay
voter as few other Malay opposition groups had done in the past. Non-Malays
felt confident that they could go for the jugular because a Malay
leader of stature was prepared to espouse their cause. The Chinese
in particular were brave enough now to abandon their often cautious
and pragmatic approach to political change.
Q
7: You have looked at Anwar’s role. What was former Prime Minister,
Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s role in the BN debacle?
It
will be recalled that a few days before the General Election, Dr.
Mahathir reminded voters of the importance of ensuring that there
was a strong opposition. He had also criticized Abdullah’s leadership.
Analysts point out that his attacks on Abdullah in 2006 and part of
2007 had undoubtedly undermined the latter’s standing in Malaysian
society and may have contributed to the BN’s decline at the
2008 polls.
Q
8: Was there also internal sabotage?
In
every election the BN and opposition parties face the danger of internal
sabotage — of one’s own party officials and workers refusing
to put their shoulder to the wheel. The root cause is often the disgruntlement
of some party functionary who was not chosen to stand and the anger
it generates among his or her followers. There are commentators who
argue that this time what appears to be sabotage was more widespread
than before. In a number of state and parliamentary constituencies,
it is alleged, BN operations rooms were not functioning even a week
after nomination day. It would certainly have cost the BN some votes.
Q
9: Did the mainstream media also contribute towards the BN debacle?
From
nomination day to polling day, the local mainstream print and electronic
media almost all of which are linked in one way or another to the
ruling coalition, campaigned vigorously for the BN. Their campaign
was so propagandistic that it turned off a lot of people. There was
little balance in their coverage of election issues or activities.
Given the increasingly critical attitude of the voting population,
it is quite conceivable that BN media propaganda may have undermined
the BN itself!
If
the mainstream print and electronic media were unabashedly pro-BN,
several NGO magazines were shamelessly pro-opposition. They were unwilling
to evaluate their favourite opposition leaders on the basis of those
standards and principles that they insist BN officials adhere to.
Much of cyber media was also loaded against the BN just as major Western
media outlets were obviously biased towards the opposition, specifically
Anwar Ibrahim and his party.
Q
10: Did the cancellation of the ‘indelible ink’ requirement
for voting three days before the polls also affect the results?
It
must have had an adverse impact upon the BN. The Election Commission
(EC) had for the first time introduced this new rule that the finger
of a person who had voted would be inked to ensure that he does not
vote again. The aim was to enhance the integrity of the voting process.
At the eleventh hour, the rule was cancelled. The EC and the Police
cited security as the reason for the cancellation. The voting public
obviously did not buy the explanation. It not only angered a lot of
voters; it undermined the integrity of both the EC and the BN government.
Analysts view the rescinding of the indelible ink rule as the major
factor that swung a sizeable percentage of the undecided vote towards
the opposition in the last two or three days before the poll.
Q
11: It has been said that by allowing for more debate and discussion
on a number of major national issues, Prime Minister Abdullah undermined
his own position.
There
may be some truth in that. In contrast to the Mahathir years, there
has been under Abdullah much more discussion on a variety of issues
ranging from the environment to ethnic relations. Topics such as ‘corruption’
have been debated live over Television Malaysia.
Whenever
a government provides some latitude for free expression after decades
of authoritarian rule, the ensuing debate often tends to weaken the
position of the ruling elite which had in the first instance broadened
the scope for dissent. This has happened in a number of countries.
Though every case is unique, the Malaysian situation bears some semblance
to the Aquino Administration in the post Marcos period or the Habibie
government in the post-Suharto period. To put it in another way, Abdullah
perhaps has had to pay the price for adopting a more accommodative
approach to dissent.
Q
12: Does this mean that opening up space is not a good thing…..
No,
encouraging freedom of expression is a virtue in itself but dissent
has to serve the larger public good. For that to happen there has
to be leadership. Otherwise, dissent can lead to confusion and even
chaos.
In
the context of the 2008 Election, the leadership did not seem to have
a strategy to deal with the plethora of dissenting issues that had
sprouted out in the course of the campaign. It relied on the 3Ms it
was most familiar with, namely, money, media and (government) machinery.
It didn’t work this time.
30
March 2008.
In
the May issue of the Commentary we hope to carry an article on some
of the issues and concerns that have arisen from the 2008 Election
—Editor.
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by Qamar-ul Huda, Mohammed
Abu-Nimer and Ayse Kadayifci
In
October 2007, we were part of a Muslim American delegation of peace
and conflict resolution experts who went on a one-week trip to Iran
to discuss ways in which various Iranian groups approach conflict
prevention, resolution and dialogue. Our delegation met with peace-practitioners,
lawyers, human rights experts, NGOs, scholars, religious leaders and
students.
There
is a tremendous amount of internal debate among these groups in Iran.
The western image of a closed society of mullahs dictating every Iranian’s
thoughts and movements is far from the reality. We learned through
discussions with the ayatollahs that there is vibrant expression of
self-criticism and debate surrounding current issues, including voices
opposing some of Iran’s foreign policies.
In the
holy city of Qom, we met with three Grand Ayatollahs who had been
selected by Ayatollah Khomeini to govern the Council of the Judiciary,
the main supreme judiciary in Iran. They expressed their commitment
to peace, improved relations with all nations, and the urgency of
a dialogue among civilisations –especially immediate dialogue
to diffuse the current tensions between the United States and Iran.
These Grand Ayatollahs made it explicit that they considered religious
violence and terrorism reprehensible and antithetical to Islamic values.
Over the
course of our stay, the Iranians we met showed great curiosity about
our work in conflict resolution and how it was for us –as Muslims
- to live in the United States. Human rights scholars and lawyers
were eager to learn about the current debate in the United States
over civil rights, capital punishment, gender rights, ethnic profiling
and cultural assimilation. The majority of our conversations focused
on the best ways to promote pluralism and democratic values in an
Islamic context. Many believed that the Iranian experience can offer
valuable lessons to other Muslim countries, while others insisted
on greater measures that separate state affairs from religious doctrine.
Our delegation
met with members of the Islamic Commission on Human Rights in Tehran,
who taught us about the ongoing activities in Iran that protect the
rights of the country’s citizens, especially those of children,
women and labourers. Although since the 1979 revolution the public
space open to human rights experts in Iran has shrunk, we nevertheless
learned that organisations like the Commission for Human Rights, for
instance, exist despite Iran’s negative human rights record
and serve as an important instrument to monitor, document and disseminate
information on human rights abuses.
There
is an exceptional amount of debate on and off campuses on finding
practical ways to reform the political culture. The majority of the
scholars and students we met expressed eagerness to engage and share
their views and work with American counterparts. It was common to
hear Iranian professors speak authoritatively on modern French, English
and German scholarship, much of which had been translated into Farsi.
Iranian students may have not had much opportunity to meet Americans
in Iran over the past 28 years, but this did not prevent them from
reading and analysing American political philosophy and society.
In a meeting
with 13 of the most recognised intellectuals in Tehran hosted by the
Academy of Science, the premier intellectual professional society
in Tehran, scholars agreed that if Americans and Iranians cannot reach
agreement on ideological and faith issues, they should at least aim
for mutual understanding and acceptance.
At another
event, hosted by the University and Bar Association of Isfahan, 400
students and community members attended our public lecture on “Islamic
Dialogues on Peace” and many expressed their desire to know
more about American culture, Muslims in America, and ways to diffuse
the current crisis between the two nations.
Having
spent time in Tehran, Qom and Isfahan, we can testify to the need
to reduce the mutual Iranian-American ignorance of each other’s
cultures, societies and needs. Aside from witnessing the beauty of
Iran itself, the trip exposed us to the diverse voices of Iranians.
In the
mind of many Americans, Iran is a stagnant society, closed off to
progress and modernity. This trip forced us to question our basic
views of each other and specific means to improve US-Iranian relations.
Only in the past ten years has the portrayal of Iran begun to include
images of reformers as important actors paving the road to progress.
Iranian society is far more complex than even this image suggests.
With a literacy rate of 92 percent, Iran has a vibrant civil society
and intellectual life.
 Unfortunately,
the delegation returned to the United States only to find the debate
over military strategies for ending Iran’s nuclear enrichment
program still continuing. Even since the release of the National Intelligence
Estimate (NEI), a combined report by sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies
on 3 December, 2007, stating that Iran’s nuclear program ceased
in 2003, we still find a continued push toward confrontation by some.
This adversarial approach is not only dangerous, but it is also indicative
of the degree to which American policymakers can be removed from the
reality in Iran. Not only does this talk of war overshadow opportunities
for improving bilateral relations, but it also underestimates the
complexities of a society that has its own rich, internal dialogue.
On several
occasions in Iran, we were reminded of a saying by the revered Imam
Ali: “Ignorance is the enemy of human wisdom”.
Let us
learn from these exchanges so that we might prevent ignorance. And
let us open the channels of communication between these two nations
so that we might become wiser.
December 2008
Source:
Common Ground News
Dr. Qamar-ul
Huda, Dr. Mohamed Abu-Nimer, and Dr. Ayse Kadayifci were part of an
American Muslim conflict resolution delegation that went to Iran in
October 2007.
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