Malaysia’s ISIS Dilemma

The Straits Times

27 April 2015

Joseph Chinyong Liow

THE recent emergence of an ISIS recruitment video featuring young Malay-speaking (and possibly also Indonesian) boys attending religious classes and engaging in weapons training in ISIS-held territory has caused a furore in Malaysia.

Estimates of the number of Malaysian fighters in ISIS – the Islamic State in Iraq and Syriamilitant group – vary from 60 to almost 150. The high end of these figures approximates the number of Indonesian fighters believed to be in Syria and Iraq. Yet the population of Malaysia is barely one 10th that of Indonesia. In other words, Malaysians seem to be joining ISIS at a higher rate than Indonesians are.

This state of affairs is all the more perplexing, given how often Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak waxes lyrical on the international stage about moderation and how Malaysia is the epitome of multi-ethnic and inter-religious harmony, as he continues to press a nebulous “Global Movement of Moderates” agenda.

… The writer is the inaugural holder of the Lee Kuan Yew Chair in South-east Asia Studies and senior fellow at the Brookings Centre for East Asia Policy Studies. This article first appeared on The Brookings Institution website.

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Last updated on 27/04/2015