IN times of difficulty, when the people are divided over an insecure government, the best way to unite them behind the government is to create a common enemy – usually the most minority and powerless of groups, like LGBT, or in the current case, Rohingya refugees.

If you remember, just three years ago, the so-called “perpaduan ummah” (Muslim unity) between Umno and PAS was a call to save our Rohingya Muslim brothers. We all knew at that time it was a political ploy to unite Malays against DAP and the larger Pakatan Harapan. This time, the wind of politics has changed.

Time and again, the most vulnerable group has been used as a pawn for the political power struggle of the ruling elite. This sudden xenophobic attack targeted at the Rohingya is no different.

It started from fake news on the Malaysian Ethnic Rohingya Association president demanding full citizenship. This can be traced to a Facebook account by the name of “Tun Jebat” that has since been taken down. It was reported by TTKM chief editor Muhamad Harris Nasril in a Facebook post as he investigated the claim that the Rohingya were demanding full citizenship.

The “Tun Jebat” account is believed to have been replaced by “Jebat”, which continues to spew fake news on the Rohingya. This is followed by xenophobic descriptions of refugees as “illegal immigrants”, allegedly by “Immigration Department updates” on Facebook.

These provocative posts that went viral were enough to stoke xenophobic rage among frightened Malaysians in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. Understandably, Malaysians fear our limited resources being further stretched if we have to help foreigners coming by boat.

Fears of infection by a “foreign virus” serve as the perfect analogy; dirty, dark-skinned foreigners invading our country, and taking our food, our jobs and our healthcare away from us.

Refugees make up less than 0.6% of our population. And, they have been here for decades, doing the work that no Malaysian would, and without any aid from the government. Occasionally, news on refugees – that they take away our jobs and healthcare – is blown out of proportion. Nothing is further from the truth. According to Ideas, if refugees are allowed to work legally, they will bring RM3 billion to our economy.

If Malaysians are so easily swept by the wave of xenophobia to victimise an ethnic group that has been recognised as victims of genocide, let’s take a moment to reflect on our pure good luck of being born in a country with all the privileges of citizenship, privileges that we did absolutely nothing to earn.

We could have as easily been born in a war-torn country like Syria, or as a stateless person like the Rohingya, fleeing certain death in their homeland and stranded in a boat in the middle of nowhere. Most of us are migrants to this country, and we stand on the backs of those who had fought for our rights to migrate to and stay in this nation.

How should we use this privileged position? To protect the rights of others who come after us, or deny them the same security our forefathers had sought when they migrated here?

A little empathy would be good in this time of crisis. It will not lessen you. But your xenophobia will. – April 28, 2020.

* Jules Rahman Ong reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.