Whatever the demented intentions of the murderous movement variously known as Isis, Isil, Daesh or Islamic State, global fear and loathing of this group of crazed criminals is proving a heaven-sent opportunity for many other terrorists and ‘errorists’ around the world to try and appear less evil by comparison.

The governments of Russia and China, for example, two of the world’s most lawless, corrupt and repressive regimes, have seized on the chance to pretend to be combating IS in Syria as a pretext for their actual purpose, support of the murderous al-Assad regime in its war on the majority of its people.

In the allegedly enlightened Western democracies, IS-fueled alarmism is being shamelessly exploited by such political opportunists as the dire Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, in desperate attempts to garner the support of right-wing bigots, neo-Nazis, fundamentalist Christians and other assorted outright crazies.

Meanwhile in the terminally muddled Middle East, there is no telling what is actually happening. Presumably all the usual suspects, from the disgraceful Saudi Arabia on down, are variously both overtly opposing and at the same time covertly funding IS, seeing as they must be a useful pawn in the eternal struggle for power, oil, and the supremacy of Sunni over Shiite Islam.

In Indonesia, however, the country with the largest population of Muslim citizens and now the latest scene of an IS atrocity, the picture appears much clearer. With lamentable minor exceptions like Aceh and several other such small fundamentalist enclaves, Indonesia seems as genuinely moderate in its practice of Islam, and thus as sincerely and concertedly anti-IS, as Malaysia claims to be.

Two-faced Najib and gang?

I say “claims to be” advisedly here, of course, because little if anything that members of its ruling regime say or its mainstream media report about Malaysia is true, or even makes any sense.

On the one hand the pathologically mendacious Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, struts the international stage as the self-described leader of a “moderate” Muslim-majority nation, while on the other hand, at home, he and his minions massively fund a whole slew of extreme if not outright fundamentalist Islamic organisations like Perkasa and the Islamic Development Department of Malaysia (Jakim), and systematically foment fear and suspicion of other religions.

And Najib and his gang are similarly two-faced about IS. Just months ago, Najib notoriously exhorted members and supporters of Umno-BN to “emulate the bravery” of the Islamic State, and “fight to the death” to keep the regime in power.

Yet one of the many unconvincing explanations that various regime spokespersons have given for the mysterious appearance of RM2.6 billion in Najib’s personal bank account was that it was a “reward” from an anonymous Middle Eastern “donor” for his alleged opposition to IS.

More recently, and again in clear contrast with his urging for his minions to emulate the bravery of and fight to the death like IS, he claimed in a Facebook post to be “shocked and appalled to hear that two Malaysians were reported to have been involved in suicide bombings in Iraq and Syria, resulting in the loss of more than 30 innocent lives.”

He went on to claim that “such actions and ideology have no place in Malaysia or Islam,” and that his government is “absolutely committed to fighting terrorism in all its forms and guises, both at home and overseas”.

But in a statement a day or so later, Najib’s cousin, Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, far from echoing such piously politic remarks, seemed to hark back to Najib’s original “emulate the bravery of IS” urging with the oddly apparently admiring comment that the Malaysian suicide bombers were “not only not afraid of dying, but aimed to do something others will not even think of”.

This is by no means the first time that Hishammuddin has revealed an embarrassing soft spot for terrorists. Back in 2009, you will recall he lamented that the Indonesians had shot and killed Malaysian Jemaah Islamiah terrorist Noordin Mohd Top rather than sending him home for “rehabilitation”.

Strange sympathy for terrorists

And years later, during the incursion by a group of militants from the Philippines into Sabah, Hishammuddin declared the intruders harmless on the grounds that they were Muslim, thus giving them the opportunity to ambush, shoot and kill eight Malaysian police.

What peculiar psychological quirk produces Hishammuddin’s strange and self-destructive sympathy for terrorists, I haven’t the faintest idea. But Najib’s dual motivations for his typically two-faced attitude to terrorism is crystal clear.

To sustain his pretence of respectability to the rest of the world he has to condemn it. And to keep himself and his accomplices in office he has to practice it as freely as he can get away with.

With the aid of not just the police, trumped-up charges like those against former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, and the Sedition Act as previously, but with the ultimate in terror for his opponents and immunity from prosecution for himself, the National Security Council (NSC) Bill.

By seeming to ‘justify’ the passage of such an outrageous piece of legislation, IS might seem like a boon to BN. But I for one am hoping that, like the ongoing 1MDB fiasco, in the longer run the NSC will prove a bane to this gang of thieves and domestic terrorists, and help bring it sooner to its inevitable end.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia', ‘Even Madder about Malaysia', ‘Missing Malaysia', ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.