Irene Fernandez is a personal friend of our family. We grew up in the same neighbourhood in the early 60s. Therefore, my feelings about her passing are mixed at best. Of course, since we are Christians, death is something we can look forward to, because of our personal and relational faith we have with Jesus Christ. He is the Judge at the Second Coming.
We believe he destroyed the dividing wall of hostility between Man and God by his death and resurrection. What a reminder about why we must take this season of Lent more seriously, as we reflect on both; his realities in history of time to define Good Friday and Easter. Good Friday was the good work of Jesus on the cross to redefine our eternity, and Easter is our similar hope through his resurrection; because he still lives.
Nonetheless without getting into the theology of ‘what quality of personal and relational faith defines our eternal life in Heaven’, I will believe that I will see the late Dr Irene Fernandez in Heaven. I will look forward to that day.
Even so, allow me to reflect on this question; did Irene deserve better from all of us? What do I mean?
Irene was a great lady who lived out her dignity and destiny of her calling through her life. She lived and died for her beliefs. That is now her legacy for those of us who know her and have been influenced by her ‘good works’. She was more than her value of saltiness and the light she shone into the systemic level of bribery and corruption at all levels of society. I will miss Irene. Farewell my good friend until we meet again on yonder shore.
The abuse of Irene’s dignity
Almost in identical style and execution but learning from their mistakes of the past, especially with the Lim Guan Eng incident, the Attorney-General’s Chambers selectively prosecuted and persecuted Irene for telling the truth about bribery and corruption related to especially naming Bangledeshi workers and documenting of their case stories. She was charged in court with “lying about truths”, sentenced to jail, and finally released by the appeal court. What misjustice!
Muslim theology also states that all humans have a God-ordained dignity which must therefore be honoured and respected by all in positions of authority. These authorities do not deny God or ignoring the person they call ‘Allah.’Now, we even see Muslim judges practice ‘rule by law and not really rule of law,’ because they do not understand Muslim theology well. They think God has ordained them to behave like God and decide some other’s destiny and deny their dignity.
My doctoral thesis was on this subject of dignity in the workplace. Dignity so defined is a God-quality of honour and respect for human beings, as the highest of all created beings, including angels. All other humans must grant such mutual respect and regard for the other; without fear or favour. But, systems always fail to do this well, especially because the ‘powerful’ always assume they are already on God’s side and no one can question their ‘abuse of authority.’ How untrue!
Even Muslim theology has a similar concept of trusteeship or stewardship. Therefore, all authorities, by name, must be both accountable and responsible to Almighty God on Judgment Day, for things done or left undone.
Therefore, I feel guilty, because I worked for this ‘authoritarian government’ which caused great and severe abuse to Irene Fernandez by wrongly ‘prosecuting, but which resulted in severe persecution’, with even her passport and travel rights being denied. Then finally, she was released by the Court of Appeal.
Did not Irene deserve better from all of us, especially when this so-called legitimate government abused her dignity and denied a proper destiny. For that the global community gave her the ‘Right to Livelihood Award’; often called the alternative Nobel Prize.
Irene’s lifeline
Born in 1946, we became neighbours sometime in 1961, when our family moved to the first-ever housing development in Jalan Kolam Ayer in Sungai Petani. We had some glorious times of friendship and family fellowship as they were also Malayali Christians, like us. Then I left to go to school in the RMC in 1965.
I reconnected with Irene when her case hit the newspapers. I was then writing a column in the NST . I wrote and supported Irene’s findings and they published my views, without edit. Then when we started Oriental Hearts and Mind Study Institute’s (OHMSI) National Congress on Integrity in 2005, Irene was one of the keynote speakers, apart from Bishop Paul Tan and Clifford Herbert, former secretarygeneral of the Finance Ministry.
We were a multi-ethnic and multi-faith community as we sought to define the word ‘integrity.’
One of the best definitions on this concept of ‘integrity’ which was publicised by the mainstream newspaper was by the chief secretary to the government, Sidek Hassan ( right ). He popularised the definition that “integrity is what you do when no one else is watching”.
Of course, whether Sidek or us, we know that “when no one else is watching” is not such; as God is always watching. Therefore what Sidek means by that ‘definition’ is integrity makes requisite for us to do what is right, good, and true when no one else human is watching. But, we are reminded by scriptures that God is always watching and keep a record of the same; which becomes our basis for judgment at Jesus’s Second Coming.
Did not Irene do what is good, true, and right by defending the dignity of Bangladeshi workers? Why then did we prosecute and persecute her? Who are really the guilty ones? Do you really think God was not watching when we do the same? Did not Irene Fernandez deserve better, as she lived her life of dignity, integrity, and destiny?
Is not wrongful prosecution equal to persecution?
Can the citizens of Malaysia not take the attorney-general (AG) to court over wrongful prosecution of so many public cases? Every time a senior public servant is charged with corruption and then finally discharged by the higher courts for the lack of conclusive evidence, I feel the same way about each and every one of them; their dignity and destiny which God intended for them is denied by my mortals.
We are not gods; in fact let me quote the father who said, “the police are not god”. They cannot cause death and not be held responsible and fully accountable. Let me modify the same argument; the AG is not god and the cabinet must hold him responsible for the Irene case and make good their ‘uninformed incompetence in prosecuting and persecuting her’.
Irene deserved very much more from all of us. The reason evil governance begins because good and ordinary people choose to close on eye and think they cannot make a difference. Irene showed us otherwise she could. Let us follow her legacy and not follow the crooks. May God bless our soul and spirit.
