Ethnic divide, not extremism is the problem

WHATEVER your intention may have been, the effect of your Voices of Moderation Campaign, energised by the open letter of the 25 “eminent moderate Malays”, has been to cast the Malay-Muslim community in a bad light as condoning extremism and intolerance.

In a three-page interview conducted by Sunday Star journalist Hariati Azizan, Datuk Noor Farida Ariffin, one of the 25 “eminent moderate Malays”, stated that young Malaysians were welcoming their open letter “because they didn’t know if there were any moderate Malays left in the country.” She further stated that “what we wanted to show was that there are moderate rational-thinking Muslims in this country.”