From the river to the sea

BODIES of water have punctuated my travels of late.

Following one of my pre-Covid trips in 2019, I crossed the Pacific Ocean for engagements with universities and think tanks in Vancouver and Toronto.

South-East Asia is very much on the mind of Canadian diplomats and politicians, particularly with that country’s ongoing issues with both China and India.

In both cases, the language of defending one’s sovereignty and protecting one’s citizens have been forcefully employed, alongside accusations of inappropriate government interference into the affairs of another country.

It is probably more because of domestic policy issues, but I observed that people were much more critical of their Prime Minister this time around.

One avowed liberal said they would vote for the Conservatives just to get rid of Justin Trudeau, much to the shock of compatriots who felt that Canadian conservatism was being infested by the brash populism of the US, and that it was too big a risk to take to empower that movement.

On both of these heated topics, I listened politely, as a foreign visitor should, especially in a country where everyone is famously apologetic.

However, as I was speaking at the University of British Columbia and University of Toronto explicitly on democratisation and governance in Malaysia, there were plenty of questions for me about “what on Earth has happened in Malaysia since 2018?” (I did not predict in my 2019 lecture circuit that we would have four Prime Ministers in as many years.)

I answered that while political instability is a threat – what more with deliberate racial agitation combined with economic factors – civil society has been growing in strength and reforms have been passed, not only to address the sources of instability (such as the anti-hopping law) but also to improve checks and balances in Malaysia (such as the establishment and now permanence of Parliamentary Select Committees).

Longer term efforts in civic education, especially surrounding our Federal Constitution, of course need to be pursued: a point well understood by Canadians, whether by the Pacific Ocean for whom First Nations recognition intermingles with issues of Chinese and Indian immigration, or near the diverse Great Lakes region (where the term “new Canadians” has a welcoming connotation) and further east where Quebec dominates questions of Canadian identity.

Following the salmon jumping upstream the Don River, I visited the Aga Khan Museum, dedicated exclusively to Islamic arts.

We have an excellent museum of similar concept in Kuala Lumpur, but I was impressed by the auditorium where the music of the Islamic world was to be showcased.

I saw throngs of diverse schoolchildren marvelling at the art, textiles, vases and weapons, and recalled my time as a school kid visiting different places of worship, and how my own childhood prejudices gave way to understanding and appreciation of our different civilisations.

It is good, I thought, that these young people will have a deeper understanding of Muslim civilisations than what the media (and Tiktok) might present them with.

“From sea to shining sea” is a famous American idiom often used in songs and poetry to denote the idea – often romanticised without reference to the conquest and subjugation of indigenous peoples – of a United States of America spanning from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean.

As I made my way back west to San Francisco for a conference, demonstrations were erupting across the world following renewed violence in the Middle East.

“From the river to the sea,” chanted demonstrators, supporting the idea of a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, “Palestine will be free!”, so evocative of that ideal, and indeed of the aspirations of most countries to have land and freedom.

I did not get much sympathy from many Americans for this view, with both main political parties steadfast in their support for Israel, a state whose foundation relied upon violence and dispossession of others’ land.

During one exchange, a US politician segued by denouncing the treatment of the Uighurs, and how, in that case, many Muslim nations are turning a blind eye for geopolitical reasons.

Indeed, geopolitics and the need to please domestic audiences will always be reasons for choosing sides in a conflict.

One can only hope there is decency enough even among the most cynical of politicians that ceasefires and humanitarian assistance will continue, while cooler heads apply the lessons of history to try and create a lasting peace.

Tunku Zain Al-’Abidin is founding president of Ideas. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.