Rocky, the Rohingya and the rise of hate: What links them?

Ilaiya Barathi Panneerselvam

“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.” – Hannah Arendt

What if three seemingly disconnected incidents are in fact linked by one troubling political trend?

The brutal killing of Rocky, a family pet dog. The growing xenophobia towards Rohingya refugees. And the rising tension around ethnic and religious minorities – most recently the kuil haram (traditional informal or undocumented temples temple) controversy.

On the surface, these look like unrelated stories. Yet examined together, they show recurring patterns of dehumanisation, exclusion, hierarchy and violence that deserve closer scrutiny.

This is a serious claim, and it should not be made lightly. It should not be dismissed as an exaggerated or inflammatory view. Nor is the aim here to paint Malaysia’s diverse society with one broad brush.

Instead, this article treats several incidents around the country as warning signs of a nation drifting towards fascism.

This article looks at those three incidents as connected, not isolated. They do not happen in a vacuum. They are responses to social, economic, political and historical conditions – conditions that political forces on the right have learned to exploit.

The elephant in the room is fascism – an ideology being spread among the public, gradually and deliberately.

Fascism is not simply another word for authoritarianism, racism or violence. Historically, fascist movements have combined several traits. These include ultranationalism, social hierarchy and exclusion. They also invent internal and external enemies and use coercion to defend an imagined social order.

At its core, fascist ideology sorts society into a hierarchy of belonging. It divides people into those seen as legitimate, deserving and superior, and those cast as alien, threatening, inferior or disposable.

This mindset seeks total control over the ‘others’. It uses whatever means the dominant group has, including violence, exclusion and degradation. The goal is to divide the population into a ‘superior us’ and an ‘inferior, dangerous them’. It is this logic that deserves attention in Malaysia.

In Malaysia, this sense of supremacy shows up as a surge of hatred. That hatred takes three connected forms: hostility towards ethnic and religious minorities, hostility towards refugees, particularly the Rohingya, and hostility towards vulnerable animals, especially dogs.

Politics of supremacy

Tension between ethnic and religious communities in Malaysia is an inherited colonial problem.

After independence, political leaders – particularly the ruling parties – often put their own interests ahead of the national interest, governing through divisive politics. That mistrust has fuelled several ethnic riots in the past.

Today, communal tension needs only a small spark to flare up again. The kuil haram controversy shows how a legal or administrative question can quickly take on an ethnic and religious dimension.

What began as a question about unregistered places of worship soon grew. It was followed by heated online exchanges, and an attempted protest by  Gerakan Anti Rumah Anutan Haram – a movement against ‘illegal’ or unauthorised places of worship.

Religion is always a combustible subject, because emotion tends to overpower reason. The damage may be hard to undo. The prime minister’s public apology came only after pressure, and critics dismissed it as too little, too late, and packaged for election purposes.

The same logic applies to the treatment of Rohingya refugees. Hostility towards the Rohingya has become more visible on social media, and, more worryingly, in cases of intimidation and forced eviction.

These incidents come from ordinary citizens and, at times, the state. They reveal deep xenophobia among a significant section of Malaysians. They also expose a gap between what the country says about compassion and how it acts.

In 2024, the shooting of Kopi, a much-loved stray dog, by local authorities sparked national outrage. Calls for better management of stray animals clearly went unheeded.

Rocky, another dog, cared for by his family, met a similarly violent death during a council operation months later. Rocky’s killing may appear unrelated. It is not the same as violence against minorities or refugees, and it should not be treated as equivalent.

But it raises a related question: how does society treat those it sees as weak, unwanted or disposable?

The image has stayed with many: a crying carer, a dying dog, the men involved, and officials who appeared to do little to stop it. It captured how collective force can be turned against something unable to defend itself.

I am not ready to say that mercy, compassion and humanity died along with Kopi and Rocky.

Safety as an excuse

Across these incidents, ‘safety’, ‘protection’ and morality keep appearing as justifications. Violence, exclusion and ostracism get dressed up as protection, security and common sense.

Protecting society from potential harm is not, in itself, an excuse for excessive force, dehumanisation and violence. What might happen should not dictate how an entire community is treated.

These concerns are often genuine. But fascism creeps in when unequal treatment becomes normal, wrapped inside a language of safety and protection.

Malaysia needs to draw a clear line between legitimate concerns and illegitimate collective responses. Public safety, criminal accountability, immigration rules and the regulation of places of worship are all legitimate concerns. Turning them into collective hatred is not.

A mature, thoughtful society resists a particular urge. It will not automatically link a crime or a controversy to a particular ethnic, religious, national or social group.

Yet that is often the instinctive reaction in Malaysia – usually reaching for the nearest stereotype.

Rather than examining cause and effect, many are quick to declare a war of words on an entire community for the actions of a few.

Society is left grappling with hostility fuelled by careless, often racially charged remarks.

A changing political landscape

This article does not examine the electoral victories of the BN-PN alliance – Barisan Nasional and Perikatan Nasional – through the lens of ethnic unity. But it cannot be read apart from the context of this new political reality.

The public reception of this coalition between two ethnic Malay-Muslim-dominated parties is neither a fluke nor an outlier. It follows the winning formula seen in the Johor state election.

Some critics within Pakatan Harapan argue that recent campaigns gave more room to increasingly extreme forms of identity politics than before. That view is contested.

But the strong performance of parties and candidates using far-right rhetoric deserves attention. Their ability to win real political support shows they cannot simply be dismissed as a fringe phenomenon.

Fascistic politics rarely announces itself as fascism. It tends to arrive instead through reasonable-sounding demands for order, discipline, morality, safety and protection.

Malaysia is not a fascist state. Not every act of racism, xenophobia, cruelty or authoritarianism deserves that label – doing so would weaken the word’s meaning.

The more useful question is whether fascistic tendencies are becoming more visible in Malaysian society and political life. Right now, there are enough warning signs to warrant concern.

Ilaiya Barathi Panneerselvam is an independent researcher, activist and PhD candidate.

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