Page 50 - Conflict, Terrorism, and the Media In Asia

Struggle for moderate Islam in Malaysia 39
Conclusion: media impacts

This analysis indicates that the Malaysian people are subject to numerous cross
cutting information flows from militants and governments through the main-
stream and new media. The impact on community action and the growth of mili-
tancy within Malaysia is difficult to assess, but it is important to bear in mind that
Malaysia is not a fertile recruiting ground for militant groups because the majority
of Malaysian Muslims follow a moderate view of Islam.
There are a number of issues within Malaysia which could potentially
contribute to the growth of militancy within Malaysia. This includes government
corruption, its control of the media and the judiciary, its unwillingness to let PAS
implement sharia law in Kelantan, its use of the ISA, and its alleged abuses of
human rights, which are all reported in the mainstream media. Yet these issues are
not fostering a growth in militancy.
Instead, it is the reporting of the international causes which JI and al Qaeda
champion, which probably has the most potential to promote increased sympathy
for militant groups. One of the reasons for the durability of JI is its ability to
tap into a general feeling that Southeast Asian Muslims are victims of a larger,
anti-Islamic conspiracy led by the US and supported by the UK and Australia
(BBC News Online 2004c). This perception can only be fuelled by the nature of
much of the reporting of the ‘war on terror’ in the mainstream Malaysian media.
Widespread acceptance of such views creates a favourable climate within which
militant messages can be propagated.
The impact of the new media is equally uncertain. There is little evidence that
access to militant websites (in conjunction with messages in mainstream media)
translates into domestic militancy. The mainstream media makes little reference
to the role of the new media in promoting militancy. Instead, it focuses on the role
of educational establishments, both inside and outside Malaysia, in spreading
militant ideologies. The government’s clamp down on militant websites in 2004
was driven by the US reaction to Malaysian ISPs hosting militant websites showing
a video of a US citizen being beheaded and not for domestic Malaysian reasons.
This reflects a lack of official concern about the role of the internet.
The potential threat from the new media could be argued to lie in the risk of it
‘infecting’ people with sympathy for militant causes and ideologies which mili-
tant recruiters can then exploit. Yet there is a strong case to argue that it is the
widespread reporting of statements by bin Laden and Abu Bakar Ba’asyir within
the mainstream media, which poses more of a risk in terms of infecting people
with militant ideas. It is those messages that people encounter in their day to day
lives, and they are easily identified with mainstream media reporting of events in
Iraq, Chechnya and the occupied Palestinian territories. This suggests that the role
of the internet is more as an adjunct to reporting in the mainstream media. The
new media enables militants to communicate directly with public opinion, but if
they find a receptive audience it is because of the groundwork that has already
been done by the mainstream media.
There are number of possible indicators that could be argued to indicate increased
levels of sympathy for militant ideologies, including public demonstrations, support