The Malaysian Link To Terror In Syria
Chandra Muzaffar
Since April 2014, the Malaysian media has carried numerous stories of Malaysians who are directly or indirectly linked to terrorist groups operating in Syria, and to a lesser extent, Iraq. We are told that they see themselves as “jihadis” who are fighting for an Islamic cause. There are unconfirmed reports that some of them have been killed in the on-going conflict in Syria.
Police intelligence appears to have mined a lot of information about the activities of these individuals and groups. Their local training hideouts have been revealed and their regional and international links exposed. This has enabled the police to make several arrests.
Eliminating Muslim terrorist networks of this sort will not be a walk in the park. The police, and indeed, the majority of the Malaysian populace share the same faith as the individuals associated with these terrorist operations. A lot of Malaysian Muslims may also harbor some of the misconceptions and prejudices which impelled some of these jihadis to take the road to Damascus.
What would have motivated them to tread this perilous path? What would have persuaded thousands of Muslims from some 80 countries — according to a certain estimate — to join the armed rebels against the Bashar Al- Assad government in Syria? Why are they so determined to topple Bashar?
It must be remembered that this is not the first time in recent decades that Muslims from various parts of the world have come together to do battle on behalf of a common cause. The global Muslim campaign against the occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in the nineteen eighties was in a sense even more extensive and sustained. Muslims from Malaysia were also involved in that campaign which they saw rightly as the foreign occupation of a Muslim land. Repelling occupation is a Quranic imperative. But Syria today is not occupied the way Afghanistan was in the eighties. If there is any occupation in Syria, it is Israeli occupation of the strategic Golan Heights since 1967 which should concern Muslims and others who cherish justice and sovereignty. And yet the jihadis from Malaysia and the rebels who are their comrades-inarms do not seem to be bothered about the liberation of the Golan Heights. On the contrary, it is an open secret that Israel has colluded with some of the rebels — by providing training and supplying intelligence —in the fight against Bashar since the middle of 2011. Israel itself has conducted a series of military strikes within Syria in the course of the last two years with the aim of sapping the strength of the Syrian army.
Mission
If the rebels are not fighting alien occupation, what is their mission? It is obvious that the Malaysian jihadis, like their counterparts from other countries, see themselves as defending the Sunnis of Syria against alleged oppression by the Shia ruling elite. There is a parallel perception of Shia suppression of Sunnis in Iraq. Both these perceptions are part of a wider view fostered by various influential groups in West Asia (including Israel) and in some parts of the West that an arc of Shia power is rising from Iran through Bahrain to Iraq and Lebanon and this is a threat to the Sunni majority in the region. Adding to this phobia of the Shias — Shiaphobia — especially in the case of Syria is the rebels’ opposition to secularism and the secular state. It is a state which in their reckoning has to be replaced by a Caliphate — a Global Sunni Caliphate — which has now become the rallyingcry of some of the rebels, specifically the terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS).
This narrative of Sunnis being suppressed; of Shia power; of the illegitimacy of the secular state; of a Sunni Caliphate, has reached a crescendo in the last few years in the midst of the Syrian conflict. Leading religious personalities in West Asia especially from the Gulf monarchies have been vitriolic in their denunciation of the Shias. In mosques and through the media, they have succeeded in fuelling hatred of this minority sect within and beyond the region while creating a sense of siege among the majority Sunni population. Consequently, the Sunni- Shia divide has become more pronounced than ever before. Because some of these Islamic personalities are highly revered in Malaysia, their utterances command a substantial constituency. They have legitimized the already prevailing antipathy towards the Shias among the
local ulama (religious scholars).As a result, the anti-Shia campaign led by the ulama has gained much prominence among the populace. Some of the ulama are part of the religious establishment; others are free-lance operators. Academics and media practitioners have also reinforced the vile bigotry emanating from some of the ulama. So have politicians from both the government and the opposition.NGO activists have been equally vocal in conjuring an ominous Shia threat in a Sunni-Muslim majority nation where the sect is an insignificant minority.
Given how pervasive and intensive the targeting of this sect has been in recent months, propelled by the massive propaganda flowing from parts of the Arab world, it is not surprising that some impressionable youth in the country have been lured by the slogan of Sunnis facing the danger of extermination in Syria and now Iraq. There are perhaps two additional factors that explain this fatal attraction. For centuries, Sunni Muslims in Malaysia, as in some other parts of the Muslim world, have been somewhat uneasy about Shias— which is why any negative imaging of the sect is so readily absorbed. The videos on You Tube showing the alleged atrocities committed by the Syrian government in the course of the last three years have also had a huge impact upon Muslims here, as elsewhere. Indeed, cyber media as a whole has been a major tool in mobilizing Sunnis globally to defend themselves.
