“Fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt.”

- Roberston Davies

Shahidullah Shahid, former Taliban spokesperson turned Islamic State (IS) supporter, now thankfully dead, said this about the attempted murder of Malala Yousafzai - “Malala Yousafzai targeted and criticised Islam. She was against Islam and we tried to kill her, and if we get a chance again we will definitely try to kill her, and we will feel proud killing her.”

Malala, on the other hand, observed - “I spoke of the irony of the Taliban wanting female teachers and doctors for women yet not letting girls go to school to qualify for these jobs.” Why am I talking about religious narco traffickers?

Because if we are not careful, one day we may have our very own Shahidullah Shahid and Malala Yousafzai. Some would argue that we already have the former. Anyone with a passing familiarity of Islamic rhetoric in this country would discover that both establishment and opposition Islamic political rhetoric is laced with extremism and bigotry, and of late has reached the kind of hysterical extremism that we read about from other countries.

I would argue that Malaysian Islamic extremists are in the Taliban stage, where much like those religious students who were funded by Pakistani intelligence and waged war against the so-called Western world and modernity, the same sentiment is wafting from the swamp of religious education and state-funded indoctrination here.

As I wrote in a piece about the failings of the state security apparatus in combatting Islamic extremism - “Security personnel tell me that efforts with monitoring mosques and other religious meeting places are hampered by the fact that on-the-ground assets have to filter so-called ‘anti-Umno’ rhetoric that is part of the democratic process and the real threats of anti-government rhetoric by committed Islamic terrorists.”

Why is former international trade and industry minister Rafidah Aziz comparing Malaysia to the Taliban?

The answer is simple. Malaysia is slowly but surely going down a road that would make us one of those countries that civilised folks use as a cautionary tale. Of course strolling along our urban havens seeing our multiracial polity enjoying the fruits of capitalism, you would not think that anything is wrong.

However, something is very wrong. Partisans are used to and support their preferred medium of yellow journalism hence dire warnings about impending doom are subsumed beneath the next news cycle of political misconduct and race baiting. When people talk of the Arabisation process, the phrase has become so played out that we do not realise how much trouble we are in...