Mirror on the Wall knows

Another day. Another argument. It’s all entrenched on hatred toward each other. The Malays firmly believe that the now-defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) as terrorist organization and up in arms demanding authority to go on witch hunt and prosecute those they believe are/were supporters and sympathizers of the group. The non-Malays, especially the Tamils look at it (the witch hunt) as racially motivated.

LTTE was initially a separatist armed group, fighting for their own independent state from Sri Lanka. They were terrorists to the majority Sinhalese Sri Lanka, but heroes to the minority Tamils in Sri Lanka. LTTE was designated as a terrorist organization once they switched their modus operandi from only combating the Sri Lankan government to high profile assasinations including Indian Prime Minister in 1991 and Sri Lankan Prime Minister in 1993.

LTTE was not quite different to the IRA in Northern Ireland and ETA in the Basque area of Northern Spain. All internationally recognized as terrorists organizations. They had been disbanded or totally abandoned their struggles for independence with guns and bombs. Even though designated as terrorists to international community, they were liberation heroes to their people that supported for their struggle for independent statehoods.

LTTE, IRA, ETA were very similar to the Malay Muslim separatists in the south of Thailand, Moro in the Southern Philippines, Kurds in the Middle East, Kashmir Liberation movement in India. They all are fighting for their own independent statehoods.

Again, they are terrorists to central governments or international community, but liberation heroes for those who support them.

The question is, whose definition of terrorists or heroes are we going to subscribe to?

If supporters & sympathizers of these separatist groups are considered terrorists, then arrest them all, charge them as terrorists, not LTTE’s supporters & sympathizers only.

Muslims tend to support fellow Muslims in Palestine, Kashmir, Rakhine, Xinjiang, South Thailand and Mindanao. They condemn their oppressors while at the same time close one eye, if not both to Muslims’ atrocities toward others, say Boko Haram that kidnapped 200 young girls in Nigeria and forced them to convert to Islam and marry them. Or the ethnic cleansing of the Yazidis in Iraq by ISIS.

The same applies for the non-Muslims. It’s just natural for most Tamils in Malaysia to sympathize with Tamils in Sri Lanka, especially after LTTE had been crushed by Sri Lankan army in 2009 and the hardship faced by the minority Tamils afterwards.

And it’s also natural if many Hindus close one eye or both to the Hindu government of India’s action on Kashmir. Also, it’s not unnatural for many Malaysian Chinese’ refusal to condemn or acknowledge the identity-erasure of the Uighur Muslims in China by the Chinese government. How many Malays condemn the colonization of Palestine by Israel? Almost all. How many Malays protest, let alone strongly condemn the murder of 160,000 Yemenis by Saudi Arabia & UAE? And the attack on Kurds by Turkish military in North Syria? Almost none.

So let’s all be mature. It’s human nature, or most likely by nurture to support and sympathize with those of our kinds, that we have in common with, be it in the forms of ethnicity, religion, language or culture. To FEEL for them does not mean that we are terrorists or supporting terrorism because again, one person’s terrorist is the other person’s hero. Only that we have to look hard in the mirror and ask ourselves. Am I a racist? Am I a religious extremist? Am I a hater? Fascist? Terrorist? The person in the mirror has the answer.

And oh, for the record, Al-Qaeda & ISIS are not the same as the above “terrorist” groups. They are not fighting for their own independent statehoods. They are international terrorist organizations that want to topple internationally recognized sovereign goverments by force, with guns and bombs. They are terorrists through and through. They kill non-combatants, innocent people all over the world. I’m sure LTTE supporters and sympathizer are not going to shoot or kill anybody randomly in Malaysia, let alone topple our government. Hence, they cannot be charged and accused as national threat.

On the other hand, those who support or symphatize with Al-Qaeda, ISIS and the likes of them are the ones that the police should go for. They are a threat to national security. They can shoot or bomb anybody anywhere indiscrimately. We might not know who they are but the mirror on the wall knows.