FreeRepublic , LLC
PO BOX 9771
FRESNO, CA 93794
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD
SUPPORT FREE REPUBLIC
FreeRepublic , LLC
PO BOX 9771
FRESNO, CA 93794
Posted on 01/14/2003 4:49:18 PM PST by knighthawk
KUALA LUMPUR - The radicalisation of former Malaysian army officer Yazid Sufaat, suspected of abetting two Sept 11 hijackers and of being a Jemaah Islamiah bomb-maker, shows that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's ambitious effort to use Islam as a vehicle for economic progress and social change has backfired, The Asian Wall Street Journal said in a report yesterday.
It said that Yazid - the son of a poor rubber tapper and the winner of a government scholarship to study biochemistry in the US - was an 'ideal candidate for transformation into the progressive Muslim professional', a type of citizen that Dr Mahathir had hoped to nurture by melding 'market economics with Islamic precepts'.
But Yazid, 38, became influenced by foreign, hard-line Muslim clerics who took refuge in Malaysia in the 90s.
He became a member of the JI's inner circle and later hosted two Saudi Arabians who hijacked the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, as well as another terrorist suspected of complicity in the Sept 11 attacks.
'The radicalisation of Yazid reveals the dark side of Dr Mahathir's ambitious effort to harness Islam as a vehicle for the promotion of rapid economic and social change,' the business daily said in a front-page article.
'In practice, policies intended to encourage the country's ethnic-Malay Muslims to compete in a global market and shun religious extremism backfired, with some Malays alienated by the all-out pursuit of material gain, intolerance of political dissent and the government's promotion of too moderate a strain of Islam.'
Malaysia's 'official championing' of Islam also made the country 'an attractive refuge' for militants persecuted by Indonesia, the paper said.
'Some Malaysians - put off by Dr Mahathir's increasingly autocratic rule and the intermingling of business and politics that accompanied the economic boom of the 90s - were ready to listen to these militants.'
Local Muslim scholar Farish Noor told the paper: 'Yazid is really a symptom of a society in crisis.
'People are opting out of the development ideology and are turning to religion because they have no space in the political debate.'
Dr Mahathir's creation of an 'unusual hybrid of theocracy, foreign investment and free-market thought' was meant to make his development policies 'palatable to the culturally conservative Malays', the newspaper said.
And for a while, the experiment seemed to work as 'a generation of Malays moved from rubber plantations to factories and boardrooms'.
At the same time, 'symbols of Islam's increasing pre-eminence also spread rapidly' with the setting up of an Islamic banking system and an international university, the promotion of religion via state media and the proliferation of Islamic schools.
Meanwhile, Malaysia's pro-Islamic foreign policy - like support for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation - made it a haven for militants from the Philippines and Indonesia.
Some of the Indonesian exiles - including JI leaders Abu Bakar Bashir and Riduan Isamuddin - later became Yazid's mentors.
Welcome to FR!
What did they expect? If you use S^*ty tools and/or materials, you produce Cr@p.
Malaysian ex-PM Mahathir says Muslims ‘have right to kill French’
AFP ^ | 10 29 2020 | Staff
Posted on 10/29/2020, 1:24:14 PM by yesthatjallen
Malaysia’s former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said Thursday that Muslims had a right “to kill millions of French people”, shortly after a knife-wielding man launched a deadly attack in Nice.
Three people were killed at a church in the southern French city, with the attacker slitting the throat of at least one of them, in what authorities were treating as the latest jihadist attack to rock the country.
Shortly afterwards, Mahathir — who was prime minister of Muslim-majority Malaysia until his government collapsed in February — launched an extraordinary outburst on Twitter.
Referring to the beheading of a French teacher who showed pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, Mahathir said he did not approve of that attack but that freedom of expression does not include “insulting other people”.
“Irrespective of the religion professed, angry people kill,” said the outspoken 95-year-old, who has in the past drawn controversy for remarks attacking Jews and the LGBT community.
“The French in the course of their history has killed millions of people. Many were Muslims. Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past.”
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at france24.com
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.