What’s more repugnant than trying to politicize a tragedy to score cheap political points? Politicizing a disaster to score cheap political points by spreading intolerance against a persecuted minority group.
Today, embattled Malaysian opposition leader Zahid Hamidi said that the cause of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Central Sulawesi on September 28 was God’s anger with Indonesia’s LGBTQ+ community.
The comments came while he was speaking to his fellow parliamentarians during Question Time. The disgraced UMNO leader, currently facing 45 corruption-related criminal charges, said the twin disaster that struck Central Sulawesi was divine punishment and warned that Malaysians could face something similar if they don’t forsake their sinful ways.
“If we look at the situation in Malaysia, we are concerned over the incident of the earthquake and tsunami in Palu, Indonesia, recently, where it is believed more than 1,000 of them were involved in [LGBTQ+] activities,” he said.
“But the whole area was destroyed as part of God’s punishment.
“I would like to ask, as part of Malaysian Islamic Development Department’s (Jakim) task, (for them) to implement the Mukhayyam outreach program to help the LGBTQ+ community, and other steps taken by government agencies and other states, and to state the effectiveness of such program so we can avoid similar punishment from God, including those who clearly reject the LGBTQ+.”
The Mukhayyam program mentioned by Zahid has been described by LGBT activists as a “brainwashing” program that attempts to get transgender individuals to change their identities.
Zahid is far from the first to describe the twin disaster in Sulawesi as the result of God’s wrath. Hardline Islamic preachers in Indonesia have spread conspiracy theories that they were the result of idolatry and extremist groups have threatened several traditional Javanese cultural ceremonies, saying their animistic origins could anger God and lead to more disasters.
But it is truly appalling to see a politician from another country try to connect the earthquake and tsunami that hit Sulawesi — killing over 2,000 people and displacing nearly 90,000 — with Indonesia’s treatment of its LGBTQ+ community.
Although homosexuality is not criminalized throughout Indonesia as it is in Malaysia (not yet at least), the LGBTQ+ community has been increasingly persecuted here in recent years due to politicized moral panics, with vigilante raids, police arrests, and state-sponsored discrimination causing many LGBTQ+ individuals here to be terrified for their safety. To further stigmatize them by asserting that they are the cause of natural disasters is an insult to all logic and humanity.
But Zahid didn’t exactly have much credibility in those departments before. Last week he was officially handed 45 criminal charges relating to the former DPM’s abuse of power, including criminal breach of trust and money laundering in connection to a charity run by members of his family.
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