JEW-BASHING, BARD-QUOTING: ALL IN A DAY'S WORK
By RICHARD HALLORAN
FOR THE STRAITS TIMES

The writer is a freelance writer based in Hawaii

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A SUBTLE but yet unspoken question: How much damage has been done to the cause of Muslims who seek to portray Islam as a religion of peace by the former prime minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, with his intemperate comments about Jews?

In welcoming Muslim leaders to an Islamic summit conference in Malaysia last month, Tun Dr Mahathir contended that the world's 1.3 billion Muslims were dominated by the world's 13 million Jews.

He then asserted that '1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews'.

He contended: 'Today, the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.'

Muslim leaders from 57 nations there greeted Tun Dr Mahathir's declaration with applause, as did others later around the world, and he continued in the same vein in speeches and press conferences until stepping down on Oct 31 after 22 years in office.

Elsewhere, a furore erupted.

United States President George W. Bush personally rebuked Tun Dr Mahathir when they met in Bangkok at a gathering of Asian and Pacific leaders.

The US Congress passed a resolution repudiating his remarks as 'despicable', and the Senate threatened to cut off US$1.2 million (S$2.1 million) in aid to Malaysia.

Prime Minister John Howard of Australia, who had long feuded with Tun Dr Mahathir, said his remarks were 'offensive' and 'repugnant'.

European leaders joined in the chorus of outrage.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar sought to damp down the criticism, claiming: 'Islam has never advocated being anti-anybody, including the Jews.'

He added, however: 'The only problem with the Jews is the state of Israel.'

The strongest condemnation came from Tun Dr Mahathir's former deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, who has been in prison for five years under charges widely believed to have been trumped up by Tun Dr Mahathir.

'It is nothing but pure and utter sensationalism,' Anwar said through his lawyer, 'primarily to deflect attention from his misdeeds and stench from the rot in his own backyard'.

Ever since Islamic terrorists mounted the aerial assault on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on Sept 11, 2001, many Muslims have sought to distance themselves from Islamic extremists.

The Economist magazine, in a survey of Islam on the second anniversary of 9/11, found that, since then, 'Muslim clerics and intellectuals have joined ordinary Muslims throughout the world in denouncing the atrocity Al-Qaeda perpetrated in their name'.

For ordinary Muslims, the survey said, Islam was 'a way of organising life in accordance with God's will'.

Today in America, for instance, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), has started a campaign focusing on the holy month of Ramadan, which runs until Nov 24, that is intended to 'show the positive sides of Muslim life'.

An e-mail message to CAIR asking whether Tun Dr Mahathir had hurt their cause, however, produced a non-committal answer: 'We prefer to focus on our efforts and not worry too much about other people's comments and whether or not they counter what we try to say.'

In many ways, Tun Dr Mahathir has been his own worst enemy. His address to the Muslim leaders was a searing indictment of their rule while his inflammatory rhetoric about the Jews took only a few lines. That, however, attracted all the attention and thus wiped out most of his message.

In particular, he pointed to the rivalries within Islam: 'We continue to ignore the Islamic injunction to unite and to be brothers to each other, we the governments of the Islamic countries and the ummah.' Ummah means the worldwide Islamic community.

Like many Muslim leaders, Tun Dr Mahathir sought to blame others for the poverty, illiteracy and strife within Muslim nations. Then, he lashed out at his audience for doing nothing, which he claimed had turned Muslim extremists to terror.

'Our only reaction,' he said, 'is to become more and more angry. Angry people cannot think properly. And so we find some of our people reacting irrationally. They launch their own attacks, killing just about anybody, including fellow Muslims, to vent their anger.

'There is a feeling of hopelessness among the Muslim countries and their people,' he lamented.

'They feel they can do nothing right. They believe that things can only get worse. The Muslims will be forever oppressed and dominated by the Europeans and the Jews.'

Tun Dr Mahathir continued right up to the end, with a parting shot: 'As Shakespeare said: 'The evil men do lives after them and the good is oft interred with their bones.' '

After spending his political life condemning Europeans, Americans and Jews, did Tun Dr Mahathir sense the irony of quoting the West's most famous author for his epitaph?