I am personally tired and disgusted with MSMs (mains stream media) and their editors\’ who blindly agree and interpret what the party in power thinks is right or wrong, including matters concerning the moral dimensions of life.
We need a newer and more rational methodology to separate religious issues from non-religious issues.
We also need a more neutral perspective inculcated within the public agencies but which does not see the speck in the other party\’s eyes and not see the log in their own boss\’s eyes.
When a DAP member says \”one group is an Islamic extremist one,\” or if Umno functionaries claim another party is anti-Islamic, can someone advice me which criminal law provisions are they using to threaten, frighten and intimidate?
Is there any such legal provision?
As far as I know, the so-called sedition provisions are almost always for acts against the nation-state and the rulers in authority, or something related to some constitutional provisions.
Rather, when one seeks amendments for non-negotiable issues and seeks to do it without engaging in a legitimate due process, either politically or legally, maybe then it violates some unwritten rules of the so-called social contract.
So, for example, how can YB Teresa Kok purportedly asking for the lowering of the volume at a mosque in a non-Muslim neighbourhood, which is now proven she never did, constitute being anti-Islam?
Or, as Raja Petra argued recently, how can Jeff Ooi calling the Jemaah Islah Malaysia an extreme group constitute being anti-Islam?
For that matter what is all this being anti-Islam about anyway?
To me, one is anti-anything religious, only when one articulates and proposes opposite arguments against a particular faith system and incites followers to do something about it by fair or foul means.
Return to neutral public service
There must therefore always be some criminal law intent for the state to take an action.
The state or its agencies cannot simply act because one Umno branch leader makes a police report or because of hurting the feelings of another Muslim, whether he is a ruler, or a labourer.
Emotional irrationality is reaching very worrying levels within the public agencies.
Can we please return to the days of political neutrality of the public services?
Can the federal agents and agencies of the government please be aware that they serve not under the BN-ruled government but rather under the Yang di-Pertuan Agong?
The police deputy chief promised immediately after the 2008 general election that they will be neutral; but where is that neutrality? No one can see it for now.
Can I remind the public servants, with the chief secretary included, that when they sign-off, ‘Saya Yang Menurut Perintah\’, it is in the service to the king and not just the government of the day.
The political governments of the day are meant to come and go in any normal democracy. The king however is an institution which represents the public interest of the nation.
But, in developing countries, where the institutions of democracy are less developed, there is a tendency of the government of the day to overstay their welcome or define their interests as in the interest of the public.
That has been the case in Malaysia. Fifty-two years of dominance of a divide and rule based on ethnic feudalism.
We are now the sad victims of such a worldview. I even served within this worldview of feudal political dominance for about 32 years.
But, on March 8, 2008, the people of Malaysia decided we wanted change and therefore delivered change.
Simple and stupid we are not
We delivered on the \”Ketuanan Rakyat Malaysia\” cry for justice. But, it is not quite three years and all leaders seem to have forgotten the promises they made to the people of Malaysia.
Please do not assume that people are simple and stupid. They all know what is happening. More importantly, they know what is not happening.
Recently, I had a primary one classmate visit me, after about 30 years of being out of touch. He and wife now run a sundry shop in Taiping, Perak.
A simple and ordinary Malaysian who has worked more than 10 years in Singapore and seven years in Johor Baru, he said this to me: \”I am only waiting for the next general election and I will campaign against the government to make sure people vote against the BN.\”
It was the view of an ordinary 60-year-old-Malaysian.
I believe he can influence about 20 people in his neighbourhood. I believe every Malaysian citizen who is more than 50 years old, and lives in the urban setting and speaks English, is \”extremely tired of the federal government and all the rhetoric of Najib with little or no visible deliverables\”.
We still have more than one Malaysia, not a 1Malaysia.
The most extreme example is selective persecution and prosecution of not seeing the woods from the trees.
My prayer for the coming by-elections is that all people of Permatang Pasir will send a clear and unequivocal signal to Najib to tell him that Umno must truly change.
What then is really being anti-Islam about? I think this falls within the realm of morality and ethics and not within the realm of sedition which is a criminal offence.
Criminal offences are against the state, not against other individuals or even groups.
The real anti-Islamic phenomenon to me is when a party nominates a candidate whose character is genuinely suspect.
That is greater disservice to Islam than most things criminal. Are we serious about make such a person into a law-maker when he is a law-breaker!
May God bless Malaysia as we meander through rough waters.
