Sinophobia as a political weapon
Morality racketeering’ is Australian academic Dr Ian Wilson’s shorthand for Indonesian white-clad mobsters who dress in religious righteousness to terrorise their animus-du-jour. Last century it was vice. More recently it’s been blasphemers. Now it’s the government of President Joko Widodo. Continue reading
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An MA student in India wonders why she hadn’t been taught about the “women sages who baffled kings and philosophers alike with their nuanced discourse” — Deepshikha Sharma (University of Delhi) on Gargi, Maitreyi, and Sulabha (via Michael Glawson)
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Sinophobia as a political weapon
Morality racketeering’ is Australian academic Dr Ian Wilson’s shorthand for Indonesian white-clad mobsters who dress in religious righteousness to terrorise their animus-du-jour. Last century it was vice. More recently it’s been blasphemers. Now it’s the government of President Joko Widodo.
An Australian supporter of the ultra-nationalist group Front Pembela Islam (FPI – Islamic Defenders’ Front) explained to TV news this month why he and a few friends were backing the FPI leader Rizieq Shihab, 55, a man who’s no Santa Claus.
They said Widodo had neutered opposition through political alliances. This left the FPI and its incendiary preacher as the only voice offering alternative policies.
Unfortunately, that voice is hate-filled. If there are plans worthy of being called policies, they’re rooted in sinophobia. The signs are subtle, more dog whistles than shouts according to another Australian scholar, Dr Quinton Temby based at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Keywords in the FPI’s rhetoric include naga, the symbol of a dragon, cacing (worm) and zalim (aka zulm) Arabic for cruelty, exploitation and oppression. All are linked to China and Communism.
Readers who remember Vietnam War propaganda would recognise the images – a loathsome red creepy-crawly, jaws agape, slithering towards the motherland.
Shihab likes to strike demagogue poses and call himself the Imam Besar (Grand Cleric) descended from the Prophet Muhammad through his ancestors who brought Islam to Indonesia.
Critics have publicly called him a thug, but his claims suggest the man’s also a charlatan. The Prophet, who died in 632 is supposed to have had 13 wives but only two children. Islam arrived in Java in the 14th century, popularly through the Walisongo, or nine saints of Islam.
