Opinion | At Malaysia’s KL Summit, the Muslim world’s most pressing concerns got no mention

Rohingya crisis, rise of Islamic State, conflict in Kashmir, Chinese treatment of Uygurs and years of bloodshed in Syria and Yemen were largely avoided

If summit’s aim was to find alternative to Saudi-dominated OIC, it succeeded only in confirming the difficulties Muslim world has dealing with its issues

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Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad speaks at the KL Summit 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 5:01pm, 24 Dec 2019Updated: 5:08pm, 24 Dec 2019

Last week’s Kuala Lumpur Summit may have been interpreted as an attempt by non-Arab Muslim countries to offer a viable alternative to the Saudi-dominated Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), even though Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad insisted otherwise.

Either way, it was not to be. Although the leaders of Iran, Turkey and Qatar attended, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan were no-shows. Khan was pressured by the Saudis to withdraw from the three-day meeting at the last minute and Widodo’s vice-president Ma’ruf Amin excused himself from the summit due to “exhaustion”.

The summit, to be known as the Perdana Dialogue from next year, was touted as a grand effort to shift narratives for the ummah, to move towards unification of the Muslim world and better address issues of conflict, extremism and oppression. Such concerns remain obstacles to restoring Islam to its “Golden Age”, which ended in the 14th century, when Islamic civilisations flourished, leading the world in commerce, science and culture.

So what happened in Kuala Lumpur? Statements were expected to be made regarding the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, the rise of Islamic State, conflict in Kashmir, Chinese treatment of Uygurs in Xinjiang province and years of bloodshed in Syria and Yemen. However, such statements never materialised. Instead, as if by some unspoken agreement, such issues seemed to be avoided.

It was not until two days into the summit the plight of the Rohingya was addressed, when an activist raised the issue during a panel discussion. He was cut off by the moderator, a member of the summit’s steering committee, who insisted the panel on “Advance High-Tech”, discussing innovation and cybersecurity, was not the proper forum for such a discussion.