Anti-Semitism in Contemporary Malaysia

Malay Nationalism, Philosemitism and Pro-Israel Expressions

Mary J. Ainslie

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9789811360121
• eBook ISBN:
  9789811360138
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Política asiática

Offering an empirical study into anti-Semitism and anti-Israel attitudes in Malaysia, this book examines the complicated nature and function of such beliefs within the contemporary context, mapping these discourses onto different ethnic and economic divisions. Based largely upon qualitative interviews with thirty Malaysian participants who detail their own experiences with and perceptions of this phenomenon, the project reveals how political actors and organizations in Malaysia achieve political success and maintain political power through investing in the Palestinian cause, simultaneously demonizing Israel and Jews to an astounding degree. However, the book also reveals how, in contrast to this state-led agenda, challenging anti-Semitism and pushing for dialogue with Israel has become a means by which progressive citizens can critique authorities and reassert their desire for a liberal and heterogenic Malaysia. The book therefore argues that both interest in and even support for Judaism and Israel may be more prominent than the official Malaysian position may suggest, with citizens holding far more complex opinions and views upon this subject matter.

© The Author(s) 2019

Mary J. AinslieAnti-Semitism in Contemporary Malaysiahttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6013-8_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Judaism and Anti-Semitism in Southeast Asia and Malaysia

Mary J. Ainslie¹

(1)

University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo, China

Mary J. Ainslie

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

On the morning of August 2, 2014, in response to the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, around 10,000 people filled Malaysia’s Merdeka (independence) Square in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. The vocal crowd waved Palestinian flags, some wore insignia representing Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya/Islamic Resistance Movement) and many held banners accusing Israel of, among other things, genocide. Days later, in an example of citizens conducting their own ‘proxy battle’ against Israel (Marcus 2015, 20), a video was posted on YouTube depicting a laughing group of young Malay men driving their car up to a McDonald’s restaurant drive-through and shouting obscenities about Israel at the young female Muslim vendor, all the while recording their actions on a mobile phone. Around the same time, a 17-year-old Malaysian student contacted the police for protection after he had received death threats for ‘liking’ the Facebook page ‘I Love Israel’. The student’s teacher had posted a screenshot online with the caption ‘My student likes Israel? I am ashamed’, yet while the student initially contacted the police for help, he was soon called in for questioning regarding his own actions, then investigated and charged under Section 4 (1) (a) of the Sedition Act, a charge carrying a possible jail sentence.¹

Malaysia possesses no diplomatic ties with Israel, and despite a small number of tightly controlled Christian pilgrimages every year (which are often suspended by the government) forbids its citizens from entering Israel. Israelis are likewise not allowed to enter Malaysia, though many with dual nationality have done so on different passports. Israeli athletes are regularly denied visas for international competitions held in Malaysia, causing international sporting organizations to question Malaysia’s fitness to hold such international events. Indeed, animosity towards Israel is so high that one writer in a news article expressed the need for a boycott of Israel in violent and absolutist terms: ‘Our war with the Zionists is a “total war”; it includes factors like economy, politics, social [sic], culture, and education’ (Wahab 2014).

Such animosity is not only reserved for Israel as a state but also quickly morphs into open anti-Semitism against Jewish people. As a nation in which the most electorally successful Prime Minister famously claimed that Jews ‘rule the world by proxy’ and ‘create problems’, and whose political party gave out Malay translation copies of Henry Ford’s ‘The International Jew’ at their annual assembly in 2003 (Haaretz 2003), Malaysia is frequently labelled as one of the most anti-Semitic nations in the world and the most anti-Semitic nation in East and Southeast Asia. Described variously by headlines as ‘a hotbed of anti-Semitism’ (Fulford 2016) and ‘Asia’s anti-Semitic capital’ (Ivry 2015), such accounts were seemingly confirmed by The Anti-Defamation League’s ‘ADL GLOBAL 100 study’ (a project measuring and recording anti-Semitic attitudes from surveys in over 100 countries) which estimated that 61% of the adult population in Malaysia harboured some form of anti-Semitic attitudes in 2013, a figure that eclipsed the nation’s much more substantial Muslim neighbour Indonesia (48%) and even countries more commonly associated with these beliefs, such as Iran (56%) (ADL Global 100 2015). During the Gaza 2014 conflict, this tide of anti-Israeli discourse continued to grow in Malaysia, and instances that can be described as anti-Semitic increased with recorded incidents of intimidation and even violence against any individual or organization perceived to be connected to Israel and/or Jews.

Such intensity initially seems odd given Malaysia’s almost complete lack of any contemporary Jewish presence, as well as its geographical position so far away from Israel and other nations with large Jewish populations. Likewise, given the many human rights issues within the country and the wider Southeast Asian region, it would be expected that these more proximate local concerns would take prominence and garner most attention. Yet it is the Palestine/Israel situation that captures the public and their leaders’ imagination and passions over any other more immediate issues. Given these concerning levels of anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiments, researchers call for an urgent need to identify and review the ‘ideological functions’ that feed such discourses in order to begin the task of combating such a worrying and dangerous racist discourse (Swami 2012, 8). This study aims to answer such a call, providing the first detailed book-length qualitative and empirically based project designed to investigate and characterize anti-Semitism and attitudes towards Israel as a phenomenon in this country.

1.1 Jews and Anti-Semitism in Southeast Asia

In the late nineteenth century, the bulk of the Southeast Asian Jewish population was located in Singapore, where Jewish entrepreneurs were active in the broad trading routes of the region (Hadler 2004, 293; Nathan 1986). In Indonesia, a small but well-assimilated Jewish community was important to local culture and trade, while Thailand, Philippines and Myanmar also contained established Jewish populations. However, these tiny communities are not well represented in mainstream historical narratives, leading scholars to conceptualize Southeast Asian Jews as a rather abstract ‘theoretical construct’ rather than a concrete historical reality (Reid 1997, 63; Leifer 1989, 62–65).

Despite the small (and often overlooked) historical Jewish presence in the region, anti-Semitism—defined as hostility, prejudice and/or discrimination towards Jews as individuals or a group—also played a part in the regional politics and race relations of twentieth century Southeast Asia, albeit a small and unfocussed one. In the virtually Jew-less context of Southeast Asia, what is often called ‘classical anti-Semitism’ (Wistrich 2013, 1) and ‘real anti-Semitism’ (Hadler 2004) was ‘entirely European in origin’ (ibid.) and largely connected to the European colonial period and the (pro-Nazi) Japanese occupation of World War II. For instance, the absence of the very established Indonesian-Jewish community in historical sources can be attributed to European anti-Semitic colonial policies that were designed to block Jewish involvement in commerce. The Japanese Occupation of Indonesia then also saw a translation of anti-Semitic literature by prominent intellectuals, coming not long after increased pro-Nazi activities by the German and Dutch communities in the East Indies during the 1930s (Hadler 2004, 305).

In contrast to Western Europe after World War II however, fascist and race-based politics continued in Southeast Asia throughout the latter part of the twentieth century. Europe continues a ‘post-Holocaust taboo against anti-Semitism’ which, while it may be suffering a concerning erosion in the contemporary era, acts as a convenient barrier against fascist and race-based politics as well as anti-Semitism, even if such systems are often not well understood (Marcus 2015, 9). Yet within Southeast Asia such a barrier is not so apparent and, connected to the racialized nature of local politics, Southeast Asian anti-Semitism continues into the contemporary age. The later Palestinian struggles of the 1980s then fed into and fuelled Islamic-derived anti-Semitic discourses throughout Southeast Asian Islamic countries and communities. In Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei these beliefs were then invigorated by anti-Zionist discourses from the Middle East (Hadler 2004), and researchers recognize how the wider media in these countries shows a strong pro-Palestinian bias, with overtly negative (and at times barbaric) language used to describe Israel and Israeli Jews (Ozohu-Suleiman and Ishak 2014). These beliefs entered the region through ‘the bogeymen of Islamists’ to the extent that Reid understands that ‘the racist diatribes of Europe’s anti-Semitic extremist century (roughly 1845–1945) live again in Malaysia and Indonesia’ (Reid 2010, 378).

Ugly as such beliefs are, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: Judaism and Anti-Semitism in Southeast Asia and Malaysia
• 2. Anti-Semitism As Morally Correct: Characterizing the Dominant Construction of Israel, Palestine and Jews in Malaysia
• 3. Understanding the Function of Anti-Semitism and the Israel/Palestine Situation in Malaysia
• 4. Questioning Anti-Semitism in Malaysia
• 5. Curiosity, Interest and Philosemitism
• 6. Conclusion
• Back Matter