It only took a few pairs of socks marked with the name of Allah sold in convenience stores owned by Malaysians of Chinese origin for Malaysia to catch fire. Virtually, certainly, but in proportions revealing the tensions which agitate this multi-ethnic country, where the Chinese minority is regularly attacked by the most xenophobic and Islamist fringe of the Malay majority (64% of the 33 million Malaysians). However, this is gaining momentum: in 2023 it notably succeeded in banning in Malaysia – a country where homosexuality is illegal – the sale of Swatch watches from the Pride collection, decorated with the rainbow flag, the symbol of defense of LGBT rights.
The boss of KK Super Mart, the chain of convenience stores on whose shelves appeared in March white socks where we can see, on the bottom of the ankle, “Allah” in black capital letters, was indicted on March 26, with his wife, co-manager of the company, for having “hurt religious feelings” Muslims. Three directors of the wholesaler who supplied KK Super Mart with the socks, the company Xin Jian Chang, were also indicted.
All Chinese from Malaysia, the suspects, who face a year in prison, initially apologized and all said they regretted this “unintentional error” : KK Super Mart claims that only 14 pairs had this inscription. The wholesaler accuses the Chinese manufacturer, a company in Yiwu, a gigantic market for inexpensive products intended for export in southern China. Scattered in a batch of several thousand pairs, the “Allah socks” went unnoticed during inspection of the merchandise.
When the first photos of the socks circulated on the Internet on March 13, in the middle of Ramadan, they quickly became viral, broadcast over and over by Internet users outraged by this association between their God and such an object. “unclean and unclean” only socks. Calls to boycott the supermarket, or even more, have come from everywhere. A 35-year-old Internet user, also Chinese from Malaysia, wanted to joke by explaining that wearing “socks Allah” should on the contrary be seen as providing the wearer with protection of the “head to toe”. It took him badly: harassed on social networks, he was apprehended by the police and sentenced to six months in prison on March 22 for “insults”.
Volatile political climate
That Malaysian Chinese found themselves at the heart of the storm brings back a bad memory: the racial riots of 1969, during which several hundred Malaysian Chinese died. Since then, Malaysia has implemented positive discrimination laws in favor of the Malay majority, officially to compensate for the inequalities born of colonization, during which Chinese traders were unduly enriched. The Malays National Unity Organization (UMNO), the party which ruled the country unchallenged for a long time, was its great champion. The slayer of this system of “Malay first”in the name of the corruption he engenders, was then a pro-democracy dissident named Anwar Ibrahim, also Malay and Muslim.
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