Police: Is force its only strategy?

Can the police do their work without the use of force deploying authority and power; which often results in the abuse of the rule of law?

Would that not be the superior way of doing things?

Personal experience

On Wednesday morning a week ago I was on my way to the Royal Lake Club (RLC) to meet and greet the Imam and Pastor and have breakfast before we left for the Parliament to meet with MP friends in the Lobby.

I had the strangest experience with a \”mata-mata\” on duty. I write this because he was the exact opposite of the Imam and Pastor.

As I was running late for the appointment and having received a text from K Haridas that they were already there at the club early, I did not want to be late. Among us OPs, we often ask latecomers to do push-ups to pay a fine!

Therefore, I took the road less travelled, having lived in the old Clifford Road bachelor\’s quarters behind the Tugu, in order to avoid the jams on Jalan Parliament, I have always used backroads.

What absolutely shocked me was that when I reached the RLC crossroads junction on Jalan Parliament, there was a traffic cop on duty who insisted that I turn left and go on to the Bank Negara roundabout.

Knowing my law, I asked him if the closure was gazetted? He got really angry with me and began shouting that I was rude and did not appreciate his \”miserable job of helping thousands of car-owners at the risk of his life!\”

I did not budge or say anything other than I had to pick up foreign guests at the RLC and then go to Parliament for meetings. I apologised that I insisted on going through the traffic light. He was very angry and upset; accusing me of not appreciating him doing his job!

Was he doing me a favour by letting me go through or was he arbitrarily disobeying the laws regarding traffic lights with his own creative ‘local rules?\’ Are such ‘new local rules\’ valid and legal?

To me, they can be if based on some system of evidence and logic which can become an acceptable justification, and if implemented with a sense of fair play and justice.

But, is not the real problem a wrong fundamental mental attitude of using authority and power when the \”mata-mata\” carry out their jobs without appealing to reason and logic?

Emotion and anger is often an inability to use reason to express the rationale for ‘new rules;\’ usually!

 Emotional anger

If I apply my hypothesis of the police lacking self-control and their introduction of arbitrary rules in the recent case of what appears to be an arbitrary killing of the three young boys, did not the police exhibit the same kind of emotional anger and \”lack of self control?\”

Did not the Police Commission Report establish many facts about the same evidential culture among the police?

I say the lack of self-control because the parents of the boys are now asking if the boys had pleaded for mercy because evidence suggests that the killing was not necessary and uncalled for? There was no threat to the lives of the authority!

Even more interesting are the latest statistics reported in the Parliament about the number and ethnic profiles of all killings at the hand of the police over a number of years.

In the last three years there appears to be a pattern; from my purely random statistical assumption, there appears to be a disproportionate number of Malaysian Indians who have been killed by the police.

In fact the growth of killings among Indians has been more than double, year on year for the last three reported years!

2007: Malay (3); Chinese (4); Indian (4)

2008: Malay (7); Chinese (9); Indian (11)

2009: Malay (15); Chinese (9); Indian (23)

Can the Minister of Home Affairs or the IGP please explain this pattern to all Malaysians of so-called 1Malaysia? Is this not, alternatively, maybe a case of ethnic (maybe subconscious) selective profiling by the police?

Should not ALL public servants use reason rather than force?

I once wrote when commenting on the Hindraf issue that \”force always begets more force!\” When Hindraf described themselves as a force, it was inevitable that force would also become their anti-thesis; without a synthesis in their win-lose paradigm!

My alternative proposition therefore to all groups; including the so-called ‘third force\’ is that in the 21st Century force will not always win the argument.

Force applied will always be only a slight aberration for a while. And, yes one has to always make a cogent and logical argument to now be heard.

Therefore, I find it untenable that the police did not grant the Selangor state government supporters and leaders the permit for a peaceful march on a Sunday to the palace from the National Mosque.

As a result, their non-rational non-reasons for rejecting the permit resulted in their being able to show-off their \”force capabilities.\”

My question to the IGP therefore: is it because you could not reason with the Selangor state Leaders and their followers about the water issue?

Under orders

Are they such unreasonable people, or is this merely an emotional but non-rational reaction because police must show force, or worse still, because you are under orders of the federal minister ?

But are you not the \”Polis DiRaja,\” meaning loyalty to the King instead?

Do the police and all public servants understand that serving under the King, means to serve the public interest, and not blindly taking sides on issues of national and public interest?

The fact is that on the Selangor water issue; there appears to be ‘piratisation of profits\’ and socialisation of losses?

The Selangor government aside, what is wrong with the concerns of the ordinary Selangorian being expressed to the Agong?

For example, do the people need the approval of the police if many Malaysians want to spontaneously show their loyalty to the King by marching to the palace waving Malaysian flags on the King\’s birthday?

In fact, if police use force many more times, the facts of which are now verified by the Suhakam commissioner, maybe the people of Malaysia should in fact plan to wear yellow T-Shirts which says ‘Daulat Tuanku\’ and march \”randomly in fours\” towards the palace from all directions in the country on April 4th at 4.00pm in 2011?

We, the people, can then call it our non-violent response to force and 4x4on4!

The Imam and the Pastor argued, whenever communication breaks down, negotiation and mediation needs to be applied. Did our police therefore use these other peaceful options?

If so, what, when and how were these done? Surely the Selangor government applied for the permit. Did the police call for meeting to hear and understand their reasons and rationale? If not, why not?

Otherwise, is force then your only message and strategy?

May God bless Malaysia!