| Grik was a cry of the marginalised |
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http://business-times.asia1.com.sg/6/news/nmsia02.html
15 Jul 2000
Grik was a cry of the marginalised
EARLY in the morning on July 2, a group of men masquerading as army
personnel entered a military camp in Grik in northern Perak and made off
with a haul of weapons. Within hours, the men were tracked down,
identified and surrounded. In the ensuing drama, a number of them were
injured and two security personnel brutally tortured and then murdered.
As Malaysia -- a country with zero tolerance towards firearms -- comes
to terms with the extraordinary train of events, there are three points
that I would like to make: one, that extremists cults are found
throughout the world; two, that it is nearly impossible to police such
groups; and three, that these cults will grow in number.
First, it's important to bear in mind that weird millenarian-type cults
are not exclusive to the Malay/Muslim community. The Malays are no more
predisposed to such behaviour than any other people. One only has to
look at the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult for proof that such groups
emerge in both undeveloped and developed societies.
Similarly, Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber (who, in 1995, was
responsible for the worst terrorist attack on American soil) was not a
cult member per se. However, he was driven by an anti-government
ideology similar to the extremist, armed militias of the American west.
His obsessiveness matched that of Asahara Shokou, the Aum's spiritual
leader, whose followers released poisonous sarin gas in the Tokyo subway
in 1995.
For those in search of an answer that suggests an inherent weakness in
the Malay/Muslim psyche, I have to disagree; the susceptibility is
neither culturally, racially or religiously specific.
Second, in the aftermath of both those tragedies, Japanese and American
media called for greater surveillance of such extremist groups and cults
only to discover the impossibility of policing those on the fringes of
society.
However, it soon became apparent that zero-tolerance policing was at
variance with time-honoured, societal values.
For example, the modern liberal democracy is based on the Enlightenment
ideal of man as being essentially "good" and, being "good", he should be
left to his own devices; banish ignorance, poverty, feudalism and an
unnecessarily intrusive government and he'll live peaceably enough. As a
result, there is very little -- especially in the Information Technology
Age -- that governments in the developed world can do unless they wish
to maintain what would essentially be a police state, something that
public opinion would not countenance.
By way of comparison, the Asian paradigm (of which Mohamad Mahathir and
Lee Kuan Yew are the chief advocates) has long presented a combination
of Confucian and communitarian values. In essence, it holds the view
that we all possess the capacity for evil -- that it exists in all of us
and that only faith in a higher being, morality and fear of retribution
are the bulwark against chaos.
Unsurprisingly, after the surrender of the Al Ma'unah, we witnessed a
number of calls for a step-up in policing. Such a reaction is entirely
predictable. However, in reality, I suspect it will prove as difficult
to implement for much of the same reasons as in the US or Japan.
Pre-emptive action runs counter to all precepts of a liberal democracy.
Moreover, if mere suspicion were sufficient grounds for incarceration, I
suspect the country's jails would be far fuller than they are now.
Third, the incident highlights the very real personal and internal
conflicts that have emerged over the past three decades of spectacular
economic growth. In both Malaysia and Singapore, economic development is
thought of as a universal good. I have long disagreed with this central
tenet of the Asian paradigm. It is myopic and a scandalously dismissive
view of the human condition. Man is more than a mere factor of
production.
Of course, efficiency, market forces and profitability can contribute to
happiness. But they will not provide a spiritual "shelter" in times of
need, and all of us crave more in life than the three Cs: credit card,
car and condo.
Given the speed of the change in Malaysia as agrarian communities have
leap-frogged over industrialisation into the Information Era, I am
surprised that Al Ma'unah has been one of only three groups in the past
twenty years to have challenged the government's primacy in a violent
manner.
Singaporeans sitting comfortably in their island enclave should be wary
of self-congratulation; the anomie -- or emptiness -- of modern life is
as debilitating in Ang Mo Kio as it is in Port Klang. As economic
development and progress have become the mantras of the "Malaysian Way",
many find the materialism hollow and inadequate spiritually.
Established religions have become a source of refuge for the
disenchanted and the needy; the growing Islamisation of the Malay
community confirms this trend. And, as with all religions, there will
continue to be countless different interpretations of what constitutes
the true faith. Some will prove to be exclusionary and militant, seeing
all non-Muslims as a potential threat while others will be more
spiritually inclined and harmless.
Whilst there is no doubt that the majority of the population has
benefited from the increase in GDP, there is a growing sense of relative
(not absolute) deprivation, and this fuels a sense of inadequacy, anger
and alienation in those who don't feel they have participated in the
"banquet".
A combination of these factors -- and a keen sense of marginalisation --
propels people to search for answers to life's central question: "What
are we doing here?" And if the answers are not forthcoming in the
mainstream of society, it will only be a matter of time before they will
be searching elsewhere, finding alternative solutions and leaders.
Unfortunately, the marginalised -- in an attempt to strengthen their
sense of belonging -- will always seek to find scapegoats. Religious
differences are the most obvious and easily exploitable. However, before
one jumps to the conclusion that Islam is always militant, one should
bear in mind that even in countries with a remarkable record of racial
and religious tolerance such as Australia, extremism remains an unspoken
force. Witness Pauline Hanson's unexpected ascendancy in the late 1990s.
Moreover, an increase in economic opportunities allows people greater
freedom of action to pursue their cravings, whether they be sexual,
social or spiritual. Cars, handphones and the Internet -- the backbone
of the modern economy -- will enable the marginalised to group, creating
a sense of community that would have been impossible in the pre-IT Age.
There is no way that all such groups can be supervised. An authoritarian
system would institute a network of neighbourhood spies and disregard
personal privacy. However, even in Malaysia, such a level of
intrusiveness would not be countenanced.
Education, exposure, engagement and empowerment of all levels of society
is the only solution to prevent a recurrence of the Grik incident.
Mishandling at this stage will only perpetuate a cycle of malignancy.
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