Aliran was among 40 endorsers of a joint civil society statement expressing dismay at and asking for an apology from the Institute of Strategic & International Studies Malaysia for hosting a talk by Dr Ali Rashid Al Nuaim from the UAE on 9 July.
Your 20 July post criticising the position of the 40 NGOs was clichéd, unconvincing, and fundamentally misguided.
You dismissively and disrespectfully speak of “The Malaysian Muslim Schizophrenia”.
What does a generalisation like that even mean?
Aliran was one of several multi-ethnic, non-Muslim-based organisations among the 40 that signed the joint statement. The issue had nothing to do with being Muslim or non-Muslim. It was also certainly not out of schizophrenia.
Aliran endorsed the statement because, regardless of religion, it concerns a fundamental and egregious injustice against the Palestinian people at the heart of the Israeli state.
It is telling that your post makes no mention of the historic injustice that led to Israel’s declaration of statehood through the forced dispossession of indigenous Palestinians.
- Sign up for Aliran's free daily email updates or weekly newsletters or both
- Make a one-off donation to Persatuan Aliran Kesedaran Negara (ALIRAN), Maybank a/c 507246118995 or CIMB a/c 8004240948
- Make a regular pledge or periodic auto-donation to Aliran
- Become an Aliran member
This is the essential context that any honest discussion must confront.
On one side is an ongoing oppressor: a belligerent state, armed and enabled by powerful allies, sustained by constant violence and impunity. On the other are the indigenous Palestinians, fighting for liberation, survival and the defence of their homeland.
One is a settler-colonial force committing genocide, displacement and replacement of the indigenous people; the other is a dispossessed people resisting erasure.
These historical and ongoing realities are not background details. They are central to any fair understanding of the matter.
Yet your post omits these basic realities and instead employs easy platitudes, quips and insults: the Hamas attacks were “barbaric”; “Israel is there to exist”; Malaysian Muslims cannot stomach an actual Arab that disagrees with them; “screaming mob”; “a nation incapable of mature intellectual discourse”.
You go on a fair bit about Malaysian Muslims, disparagingly. You seem to set them apart in Malaysia’s support for the Palestinian struggle.
This framing ignores groups like Aliran, as well as many non-Muslim Malaysians, who stand in solidarity with Palestine on shared and common grounds of justice, humanity and international law.
Do not ignore the many non-Muslims who support Palestine for whom – as with our Muslim compatriots – none of your lazy platitudes applies.
For all that it claims, the Zionist state of Israel is a sham. Palestine was never a land without a people. Ancient religious claims cannot be a basis for modern exclusive statehood.
Since its creation, Israel has repeatedly violated agreements and international law. It claims to be the national embodiment of the Jewish people. But its conduct stands in stark contradiction to the ethical traditions of Judaism.
Israel inflicts violence and devastation while presenting itself as the victim and blaming the very people it oppresses. When Palestinians, after generations of dispossession and oppression, resist, they are branded extremists and terrorists who have “hijacked Islam”.
That argument is deeply misguided. People subjected to extreme oppression have a right to resist. If they draw on Islam for strength, inspiration and guidance in their fight for survival, they are entitled to do so without ridicule.
Therefore, when a premier institution like Isis Malaysia gives a platform to someone like Dr Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi, the chairman of the UAE Federal National Council’s Defence, Interior, and Foreign Affairs Committee, to speak about combating terrorism from an Emirati perspective, something is definitely off kilter.
Dr Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi is a known apologist for the Zionist regime. He is also a champion of the grand-sounding Abraham Accords, which dress up normalisation with Israel as diplomacy while sidelining Palestinian rights and legitimising an unjust status quo.
The forum was not about liberation struggles for freedom, self-determination and justice – issues that should have been central.
Instead, it was a forum on “combating extremism” led by someone who supports a Zionist Israel that denies all the above to its victims.
So, yes, an apology is in order.
The views expressed in Aliran's media statements and the NGO statements we have endorsed reflect Aliran's official stand. Views and opinions expressed in other pieces published here do not necessarily reflect Aliran's official position.
- Tegakkan maruah serta kualiti kehidupan rakyat
- Galakkan pembangunan saksama, lestari serta tangani krisis alam sekitar
- Raikan kerencaman dan keterangkuman
- Selamatkan demokrasi dan angkatkan keluhuran undang-undang
- Lawan rasuah dan kronisme
