Malaysia Matters Podcast

…said Malaysian foreign minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim in response to criticism made by former US Vice President, Al Gore. 

“We hope he [Gore] will stop goring as it is about time he re-examines the goring process within himself and his country,” Rais said after a flag-hoisting ceremony in Putrajaya in conjunction with Asean’s 41st anniversary.

Rais was reacting to a recent statement whereby Gore accused the Malaysian government of using “character assassination” twice in an effort to politically destroy Anwar Ibrahim. -That is, once this summer, and then again back in 1998.

Almost ten years ago Gore similarly offended Malaysians during Anwar’s first difficulty with sodomy charges. At that time, Gore actually utilized some of the opposition slogans as part of his public criticism of the Malaysian government. 

Mr Gore also used the word ‘reformasi’ - the rallying cry of anti-government protestors who support the sacked Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim.

It was Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s responsibility as the then-Foriegn Minister to chastize Gore for his “irresponsible incitement.”

But fast forward to 2008. Gore is yet again backing Anwar.

What is behind this? 

Has Gore been paying attention? Does he understand that Anwar’s coalition partners include the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party - the same guys that have recruited folks to go to Pakistan and fight with the Taliban?

And, of course, the irony here is that, given PAS’s ideal to move the government towards instituting an ever-more universal Sharia law, it is the very sort of statute that Anwar is charged with that PAS would stand behind.

So if Gore is hoping to back the crew that seeks to further westernize Malaysia’s democracy, he’s sitting in the wrong camp.

Apropos of the Melaka posts of late, there is a truly outstanding piece in the Wall Street Journal Asia on the difficulties of historic preservation in that eminently historic town. You can only read it as a PDF — scroll to page 11 — but it is well worth your time.

Yesterday, Jerome Armstrong and I had the privilege of sitting down to interview Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder and CEO of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, author of “What’s Right with Islam,” imam of Masjid al-Farah in New York City, and most important — for our purposes — the co-founder and Chairman of the Board of the Cordoba Initiative. The Cordoba Initiative is part of the reason we’re here in Kuala Lumpur: it is co-sponsoring, with the Malaysian Foreign Ministry, the Third International Conference on the Muslim World and the West (about which more anon), and it has as its core mission the “[healing of] the relationship between the Islamic World and America.”

Imam Feisal was extraordinarily generous with his time, and though the exchange was intense at points, we managed to discuss an impressive array of issues, from American elections, to a commonality of values between America and Islam, to Malaysian history, and beyond. With apologies for the rather erratic audio quality, please settle in for a conversation with the Imam.

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Forbes has posted its list of the 40 Richest Malaysians, prompting one to ask — who knew there was such a list? But there is, Forbes has it, and you should go read it. It’s actually a fairly useful guide to the movers and shakers of the Malaysian economy. Topping the list is ten-times-over billionaire Robert Kuok, who certainly earned his wealth the hard way, as the son of a Chinese immigrant whose career began as a mere worker under the Japanese occupation of Malaya in World War Two. Take a moment to go read it all.

We mentioned here the efforts of former PM Mahathir to race-bait his way back to popularity, by invoking the convenient specter of Singaporeans and Malaysian Chinese, and their purported plans to seize control of Malaysian life and territory. (Suffice it to say that the principal beneficiaries of the Iskandar Malaysia project that Mahathir denounced will be Mahathir’s own fellow Malays.) Sadly, this is not a new theme for Mahathir, who rose to power in no small part on his ideology of Malay supremacy; nor in Malaysian society, which spent much of its first post-colonial decade wracked by racial troubles that resulted, among other things, in Chinese-majority Singapore’s expulsion from Malaysia. The difference between the two is that Malaysian society has largely moved on — though there is, quite obviously, more road to be traveled here — while Mahathir has not.

Were this just a case of Mahathir being Mahathir, things would probably blow over in time. Unfortunately, events have their own logic, and it appears now that a new irritant to Malaysian-Singaporean relations — and consequently, Malay-Chinese relations — may arise: sometime in the coming 24 hours, the International Court of Justice in the Hague will decide whether a small, uninhabitable island in the Singapore Straits — Pedra Branca or Pulau Batu Puteh, depending on which country’s claim you favor — belongs to Malaysia or Singapore. Unlike many such disputes (Isla Perejil, anyone?), this one is not inherently meaningless — there’s a maritime boundary at stake athwart the world’s busiest shipping lane, and so both nations are paying close attention.

There’s not much to be said on this one. The merits of the case are sufficiently opaque to preclude third parties from having an opinion, and still less interest. But it’s worth noting, as it would be a pity indeed to have this minor territorial dispute stoke the embers that Mahathir Mohamad is so desperately fanning.

Most of the discussion about Mahathir leaving UMNO, and whether it’s a good thing or bad, will center about the effects on the ruling coalition’s electoral prospects. Its trajectory under Prime Minister Badawi has been somewhat mixed — even as it embraced the right policies in most spheres, it also suffered what, in the Malaysian context, was a significant electoral setback earlier this year.

Still, it does not follow from this that Mahathir Mohamad represents a needed faction for UMNO’s continued paramountcy. In fact, the former Prime Minister has made quite a case in recent days that he is a net drag on his erstwhile party’s prospects — and not just because he’s the subject of a corruption investigation that almost certainly spurred today’s exit from UMNO. Mahathir recently descended into race-baiting over a development project in Johor called Iskandar Malaysia, that he avows will cause “Malays [to] be driven to live at the edge of the forest and even in the forest itself.” The putative replacement for the Malays? Singaporeans, said Mahathir, which is code for Chinese. How unwise is this? The moral rectitude of race-baiting and xenophobia aside (suffice it to say that Singapore has no designs to settle and claim Johor), ethnic Chinese are approximately one-quarter of Malaysia’s population — and they control roughly 40% of its wealth. Furthermore, given that the older generation in Malaysia still remembers the Sino-Malay race riots of the late 1960s, whipping up that old fervor is not merely irresponsible, but cruel.

But then, we shouldn’t forget that those riots led to the expulsion of race-baiting troublemakers from UMNO — including one Mahathir Mohamad, who wrote his racial opus while in the wilderness, before returning to lead his country. In that light, we can see his raising the specter of Chinese domination as a return to a very old and very malign theme. Fortunately, it’s one that UMNO under PM Badawi’s leadership has well outgrown.