Verbal Fisticuffs on Jewish Question: An Exercise in Futility
March 18, 2010
Fisticuffs on the ‘Jewish question’
Comment:
The verbal fisticuffs yesterday in Parliament between Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim and UMNO Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin over what is essentially called the ‘Jewish question’ only served to underline the futility of the entire exchange.
Predictably, it quickly dribbled away into a morass of mutual recriminations and ‘holier-than-thou’-isms, straits self-regarding denizens of Marshall McLuhan’s global village are loath to enter because you don’t know where it would lead.
On a hiding to nothing, mostly.
Some questions, considered inherently vexed, are best left to wither on the vine, for as long as they continue to be laden with the emotion that clouds judgment.
The ‘Jewish question’ was not nearly a problem in Malaysian politics – otherwise Tunku Abdul Rahman would not have had that Sephardic Jew, David Marshall, as partner in the Baling peace talks in 1955 – until 1983.
That was when a planned visit of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to Kuala Lumpur had to be called off because of the Mahathir administration’s objections to an item in their repertory entitled ‘Jewish Rhapsody’.
Music lovers were denied the pleasure of listening to one of the best ensembles in the world, then under the baton of conductor Zubin Mehta, because of Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Foreign Minister Rais Yatim’s desire to project their Islamic rectitude by objecting to the Philharmonic’s rendition of a famous composer’s take on ‘Jewish Rhapsody’.
If Jewish music was a problem for some in Malaysia in the 1980s, their sports teams appeared headed for a more emollient reception by the early 2000s.
A cricket team from Israel competed in the International Cricket Council Trophy competition in Malaysia in 2001, which was hosted by the Malaysian Cricket Association. That was when the nation, endowed with vastly improved sporting facilities built for staging the Commonwealth Games in 1998, was keen to display its facilities and organisational prowess for the world to see.
This time the Mahathir administration was resolute in withstanding the predictable demonstrations by PAS, led by their Youth chief Mahfuz Omar, unleashed on Israel’s fixtures.
Modernist pretensions
But if you felt that was the start of a fresh blossom in Malaysians’ attitude to the ‘Jewish question’, you would be disappointed, for near the end of 2003 when we hosted an Organization of Islamic Conference session in Kuala Lumpur, Mahathir chose the occasion to uncork an anti-Semitic tirade.
The trouble with charlatans, even one with modernist pretensions like Mahathir, is that you never know when they going to swivel and surprise you by doing the political equivalent of the scything tackle in soccer.
Suffice the ‘Jewish question’ from time immemorial has been a singularly febrile one. Political leaders mark the modernity of their outlook by their capacity to treat with it rationally.
Otherwise they sustain the belief that it is a psychological delusion that men are guided and motivated by rational considerations.
Throughout history those out to build a newer world have rejected that belief in favour of less pessimistic takes on the human condition. Generally, people of this ilk have tended to avoid demagoguery on the ‘Jewish question’.
There is this constant mixing up of Judaism, and the
modern state of Israel.
As a matter of interest, we know that some of the ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel such as the Hasidic Jews oppose Zionism; that Theodor Herzl’s original Zionist project was political and not religious; that 20% of Israel’s citizens are Arabs; that many
immigrants from the former Soviet Union are not at all religious.
Recently, according to BBC News, there was shock and dismay in
Israel when neo-Nazi activities were exposed amongst young “Jewish” immigrants from Russia.
Phua Kai Lit - March 19, 2010 at 9:21 am