JUNE 3 — As the global community battles the Covid-19 crisis that has taken numerous lives and continues to infect a countless number of people, the world is faced with another crisis: the rise of ethno-religious discrimination against minority groups due to a culture of identitarian politics that marks out race and religion as points of prejudice and bigotry.
The death of George Floyd has sparked mass protests throughout America. The protests in retaliation for Floyd’s death have taken a violent turn with incidents of protesters using Molotov cocktails, arson and some resorting to damaging public property. Many have described the scenes as being akin to a warzone. More than 20 US cities are under curfew as unrest continues.
This is not the first instance of police brutality against minority groups in the US. According to Washington Post’s database on police shootings, 1,252 black people have been shot and killed by the police in the US and this does not account for those who died in police custody or by other methods. The US has also seen a rise in the number of white supremacist attacks and shootings against minority groups. The rise of white supremacism has been exacerbated by the promulgation of President Trump’s far-right, anti-immigration ideas and policies. One of the most recent and serious cases would be 2019 El Paso shooting that was carried out by Patrick Crusius, a white supremacist, who killed 23 people at a Walmart store in Texas targeting the Hispanic community. It was described as a case of domestic terrorism.
Race and religious based identitarian politics has also spread its influence to Asia, an example being India. Having Hindu supremacy or Hindutva as its central core ideology, the BJP-led government under Narendra Modi has come up with a number of policies that have marginalized minority communities, particularly the Muslims. These include the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the introduction of the National Register in Assam and the revocation of Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status. The Hindu extremist group, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) (BJP is actually the political wing of the RSS), have been responsible for large-scale violence against Muslims and Hindus who do not comply to their demands and ideology. Muslim minority communities have also faced rising discrimination and violence as they have been accused of purposefully spreading the Covid-19 virus as a form of ‘Corona Jihad’.
The whole idea of identity-based politics is one that is bound to sow great levels of discord particularly among multi-ethnic communities. The pre-occupation of politicians with the idea of race, particularly those that espouse far-right ideologies is due in part to their ignorance of historical facts. The concept of ‘race’ in itself is a pseudo-scientific construct which was part of the divide-and-rule policy that was invented by colonial powers for purposes of fulfilling their own political and economic interests. Communities were arbitrarily labelled with these colonial constructs and purposefully segregated by colonial powers to ease command and control. This together with the rise of political religion, be it political Islam, Christianity, Buddhism or Hinduism, exacerbated fissures in the social fabric and introduced a culture of using ethnicity and religion as tools of political leverage and a means to gain mass support.
Malaysia too has seen increasingly divisive political rhetoric along the lines of race and religion. The Perikatan Nasional government came into power on the basis of the idea of Malay supremacy and a narrative that the Malays were coming under threat by the Chinese dominated, DAP. PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang himself had mentioned that the idea of the PN coalition was to consolidate Malay political power and Islam and lamented the fact that the PH government was controlled by non-Muslims. The increasing politicization of issues along ethno-religious lines and the continued use of race and religion as tools of political leverage is bound to have dangerous consequences in Malaysia.
The increasing fluidity and flow of information has given rise to the potential of hybrid societal conflicts that involve external and domestic influences in countries like Malaysia whose social fabric increasingly sits precariously on thin ice. Developments in foreign countries have the potential to incite violence and extremism within the country and local grievances have the potential to attract foreign parties. An example would be the arrest of an Islamic State cell in 2019 comprising foreign militants who were planning attacks on non-Muslim places of worship in the country to avenge the death of fireman Muhammad Adib who was killed in a riot involving a Hindu temple. We must not forget that Malaysia too faced a number of racial uprisings albeit low-scale ones from the May 13 1969 incident to the Hindraf rally in 2007 and some recent Umno based Malay centric rallies. These could easily spill over to violent ones if ethno-religious grievances are not addressed.
To conclude, it is time that people realise that the concept of race is mere human invention and a brutal legacy of colonialism. No one should be subject to violence or persecution on the basis of one’s skin colour or religious affiliation. It is highly unlikely that the world’s politicians would knowingly or unknowingly stop using race and religion for their personal interests in the near future and so the onus is on us, the public, who should be aware not to fall into the ideological traps that are set up by divisive political rhetoric and narratives and remain united in solidarity as one, universal race: the human race.
*Rueben Ananthan Santhana Dass is a graduate student in Defence and Strategic Studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
**This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
