Comments

  1. R. N. England says:

    Human rights are always asserted, never defined or reflected on with any serious intellectual effort. They are far too shaky a foundation for a culture with any hope of long-term survival.

  2. Peter Cohen says:

    In time, Zahid Hamidi will arrest Najib in order to consolidate power as the next PM. Who do you propose arrest Zahid ?

  3. I suspect that if I had been so silly as to claim that Chinese Malaysians had been “systematically murdered by the Malaysian state” I wouldn’t be able to provide “concrete evidence” or any other kind.

    Fortunately though, I didn’t claim that and so hardly think I should be expected to provide evidence.

    On the other hand, anyone who wants to pretend that Chinese Malaysians have not been killed because of their ethnicity in Malaysia and would prefer instead to cast all varieties of political conflict in Thailand as somehow based in ethnicities is probably not seriously interested in “evidence” of any kind.

    It would appear that the “political” from your perspective is nothing more than ethnic conflict writ large. I wonder if that is somehow down to a uniquely Malaysian viewpoint.

    Things may be chaotic in Thailand, but at least politics tend to be about power and serious questioning of “who rules” rather than where your grannie was born.

  4. Zec says:

    Hi Arianna, thanks for sharing such story – appreciated it!

    Zec

  5. Marcus says:

    We demand the arrest of Najib Razak, and so should you.
    https://www.change.org/p/justice-for-malaysia

  6. Soe Win Han says:

    Not “WTO.” I meant World Food Programme.

  7. Soe Win Han says:

    “Human rights” is an Abrahamic religion and should be treated as such. As with any Abrahamic religion, HR followers preach, proselytize, and try to gain converts, at huge expense of other moral systems. So instead of (or along with) colonial missionaries using any means necessary to gain converts, we have HR warriors trying to gain converts with complete disregard to anything contrary to their good-vs-evil narratives. Dare you raise your voice, HR warriors would immediately silence you by using one of their labels crafted specifically to quell any opposition; these labels include racism, “Islamophobia”, xenophobia, etc.

    The elephant in the room of the Rankine issue is the continuous and vast expansion of Islam, including its most extremist forms like Wahhabism, there in Rakhine. The so-called “reconciliation” will never be possible so long as there is no guarantee for Buddhists that their culture will survive, a scenario that is increasingly unlikely. From 1982 to 2014, Islam expands by 30%, from 29% of Rakhine population to 40%, and that excludes so-called 250,000 refugees in Bangladesh, 200,000 in Thailand, and a further 200,000 in Malaysia, thanks in part to generous free food programs by WTO, NGOs and to Arab money.

    For HR warriors, neither these facts or recent deaths of nine policemen matters. They will hide under the banners of “a right to life,” “a right to food” or “a right to whatever I see fit” to ignore continuous expansion of Islam. Whoever dares to point it out will be immediately labelled as an “islamophobe,” the meaning of which is that you have a disorder requiring a psychiatric attention. But other than liberal use of “rights” labels, HR warriors also have remarkable capacity to cope with their cognitive dissonance. When the same “human rights issues” occurred in their countries, or orchestrated by their leaders in foreign countries, they will showcase their dazzling capabilities to reconcile and justify, a capacity that often rewarded with carefully engineered prizes including the Nobel.

    So far from being resolved, the issue will persist—just like any other issue the West has involved— precisely because of HR warriors and HR-preaching countries.

  8. Aung Moe says:

    Thousands-strong Rohingya mob led by RSO (Rohingya Solidarity Organization) just raided and overrun three BGP (Border Guard Police) stations in Maungdaw District the Muslim-majority district in Buddhist Myanmar in the early morning of October-9.

    The militarized and well-coordinated attacks basically shows the obvious fact that the Rohingyas are not the victims in one-sided oppression claimed by Muslims and Muslim-sympathizers all over the world including the author of this post.

    They are the spearhead of massive Muslim expansion coming out of Bangladesh and if Buddhist Burmese let them move freely into mainland-Myanmar there will be no Buddhist left in Myanmar in foreseeable future.

    Bangladesh was able to eliminate her native Buddhist population from nearly 15% of total population to just 0.8% within last two decades. And the 190 million Muslims in population-exploding and rapidly-sinking Bangladesh has nowhere else to go except Myanmar which is five times bigger than Bangladesh with only 60 million Burmese Buddhists.

  9. Abdul says:

    If you like to insult people, dont say they are too sensitive. If you are saying they are weak, they will fight you back sooner or later. If you like to do what they dont like, forever you will have issue with them. End up, you will further polarise the Malaysian society. Later dont jump and blame on the muslims. Blame it your self for dividing the society in where you are one of them.

  10. Neptunian says:

    Typical “Taliban” talk.
    In malaysia
    1 muslims are always ‘sensitive” and easily hurt an insulted.
    2 muslims are very weak in their faith, every little thing will cause them to change religion.
    3. muslims ar totally helpless and must be protected from all and sundry. This seem to include Allah – who must also be protected
    4. Everything resembling a Cross must be banned, otherwise muslims seeing it will lose their faith and convert – example “roof dividers on link houses” landscapes, aerial photos of rivers – must be photoshopped to do away “cross like image” blah blah blah

    Suggestion to weak will, weak knee and weal faith muslims – get a grip, go see a therapist.

  11. Abdul says:

    First accept the facts of our differences. Second dont interfere in eaxh other culture and religion. Nonmuslims dont interfere in how muslims should pray and practise their religion as well as the Islamic laws. Muslims as well dont interfere in other religion on how they should practise their religions. The rest are just small issues in our life, be it for muslims and nonmuslims. Even in one small family, there are many small issues that are normal in our life. How come in Malaysia today DAP is against muslims who wish to practise Islamic laws only among the muslims. Meanwhile PAS never object to how nonmuslims should practise their religion. Please be rational and fair to all for a better Malaysia.

  12. Rajan says:

    This is an insult to the judiciary (civil or sharia) , which indirectly says are biased in the judgments. What assurance is there, that these mediators will not follow the path of the present so called “learned judges.” The actual problem is that we have inapt judges both in the civil and sharia, placed by political preference, rather then judicial excellence.

  13. Abu Budgie says:

    I put my finger in the budgie’s hole
    And the budgie said God bless my soul
    Look away look away
    Look away Malaysia

  14. Rft says:

    Which state in Malaysia would be good candidates as a test case for the proposed solutions ?

  15. Rft says:

    This is an excellent article. It contains very interesting insights and proposes very worthwhile solutions to the identified problems. I would expect the government would consider the solutions only if and whenthere is some sort of crisis that would make the proposed solutions attractive.

    Well written and is an excellent read.

  16. Ohn says:

    Ko Soe Win Han,

    Again a breath of fresh air. It is though a bit useless to argue with people who are programmed to or programmers themselves to laud bright and shining things as “Progress” and all the irreversible destruction, the most important of which is not even barren and poisoned soil and toxic waters (the sort these iPAD toting idiots drink after “purification”, but devastation of social fabric.

    That mindless consumerism of forced Fordist production simply because it is “more efficient” is literally destroying the tree branch we all are sitting on.

    These people would worship anything shiny so long as it is, even if it is made with strips of their own mothers heart.

    The German society of Bismarck’s to now has been based on socialist principles and at the same me of the day that is how they cannot be beaten after collective attempt to destroy them twice by jealous others and each time had to resort to Jewish treachery.

    For Burma it is so funny to reward the Cronies the equivalent of whom are called Ologarchs in Russia and were thoroughly and RIGHTLY managed by Putin who lifeted the country from abyss to an influential international player today and same name groups- Oligarchs- in Philippines who are now in the cross hair of Duterte who will do the same to his country like Putin.

    Now for f’ing up the country and literally destroying the social fabric and poisoning the now bald bareeeen land, these Burmese Oligarchs who watch soccers with Aung San Sun Kyi fresh out of her posh “confinement”, are to be turbo-charged to make Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley stay afloat a few more years because even with all the shannanigans they are brewing current The Most Corrupt Order of Financial andPolitical Debauchery is nearing the end with collars of US dollar gasping on negative interest rates.

    Here is a link you may find interesting.

    http://www.dictatorwatch.org/articles/monkeypaw.pdf

  17. Fei Tai Hua says:

    “because they’ve been murdered for their ethnicity in the lifetimes of many …”

    Care to provide some concrete evidence of Chinese Malaysians having been systematically murdered by the Malaysian state? Like how the Malays in southern Thailand were murdered by the Bangkok-based ruling elite, or how the native American tribes were virtually eliminated through forced removals, killings, and callous disregard?

  18. Noor says:

    Najib faces an interesting conundrum – to push through the much-needed amendment to the marriage and divorce act and signal to the non-Muslims in Malaysia that his government is serious about rectifying jurisdictional conflicts OR bow down to pressure from the religious bodies and appease the Malay Muslim conservatives. Even if the amendment is made, the real test would be whether Shariah enactments on unilateral conversions follows suit.

  19. Aliza says:

    I am half Indonesian and half Israeli, this has been an issue for whole my life. Due to only having an Israeli passport, I am not able to visit my father’s family in Indonesia. I hope one day politics in Indonesia will change and I’m able to see the country of my other part.

  20. Franklin says:

    Bravo Cohen.