Eastern Malaysia opposes Islamic expansionism and ‘dangerous slide toward religious extremism’
JUN 29, 2023 12:00 PM BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS10 COMMENTSLast November, Malaysia’s fifteenth general election was described as “arguably the most historic in the country’s history. For the first time, no coalition managed to secure a parliamentary majority, resulting in a hung federal parliament.” But most significant was that the Malaysian Islamic Party (the Parti Islam Se-Malaysia – PAS) enjoyed a sweeping win. The win reflected the growth of influence of the ulema in that country, which was on a path to secularism starting in the 1950’s.
While most Westerners are asleep on the issue of historic and present Islamic expansionism, it is alive and well in many countries. In Malaysia, the Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) was also founded in the Fifties, and never lost sight of its goal to Islamize Malaysia. According to the publication European Eye on Radicalization:
By 2017, Malaysia’s population was shifting to side with the ulema. Reuters reported that tens of thousands of Malaysians rallied in the capital of Kuala Lumpur “to support the adoption of a strict Islamic penal code, a proposal religious minorities fear could infringe their rights.”
With the rise of Islamization comes persecution of minorities, an inevitable result of Islamic supremacism. Then-Prime Minister Najib Razak threw his weight behind the bill, even as critics warned “that it could pave the way for full implementation of hudud, which prescribes punishments such as amputations and stoning, and disrupt the fabric of Malaysia’s multi-cultural and multi-religious society.”
Fast forward to elections in November 2022: the new Malaysian prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, was seen as a hope, and reported by the Conversation to be considered by many “to be one of the only real Muslim democrats fighting to keep Malaysia multiracial and multicultural,” and that “many Western governments breathed a sigh of relief on seeing Anwar triumph.” But the accolades were premature. Ibrahim stated only months ago that secularism will never be recognized in his country. He included secularism as an ill, along with communism:
In Malaysia today, “Islam has been taught as a religion of exclusion to the point where those who don’t share the same beliefs are labeled as infidels,” but the Eastern Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak are “uneasy” to the point of readiness to oppose Malaysia’s Islamization:
Sabah and Sarawak are the largest states in Malaysia. In 2020, Sabah had a population of 3.4 million; Sarawak’s population was 2.56 million. The fight for secularism in these significant states has been years in the making, see HERE and HERE. Given that Malaysia has a population of 33.6 million, and the determination of the ulema, it increasingly looks like historic Islamic expansionism will win another territory, yet again. In the meantime, Westerners remain willfully blind.
