The hands behind Malaysia’s false spring
Written by Dr Lim Teck Ghee , Director of cpiasia.net:
Friday, 25 November 2011 14:15
Commentary
To most of the country’s independent political observers, it is very clear now. With the unveiling of the new proposed law restricting our right to peaceful assembly and protest, the Malaysian public has been taken for a ride on the promise of political liberalization and reform made by the Prime Minister on the eve of Malaysia Day this year.
What is the explanation for the apparent turnaround in Najib Razak’s initial plan unveiled on 15 September this year to abandon earlier draconian and repressive legislation and to improve our civil liberties?
Is it that there was really no enlightened plan but in fact a calculated and cynical move aimed at strangling the right to peaceful assembly – a potential game changer in the country’s political dynamics – whilst holding out crumbs of comfort that the government is being sincere about political liberalization on less important fronts?
If so, the Prime Minister must be congratulated on producing academy award performances not on just one occasion but for an entire two-month period in which he consistently extolled the merit of the Barisan Nasional moves to advance civil liberties and good governance in the country when plotting the exact opposite.
Even as late as today the Prime Minister continues to praise the new bill on Peaceful Assembly as a “revolutionary” law and a “giant leap” towards improving individual freedom. He must be the only person in the country to believe that the country will experience a quantum improvement in our basic freedom of assembly with the passing of the new law.
If he is deaf to the overwhelming opposition to the proposed new law coming from all quarters, this coming year’s international assessments on the country’s civil liberties record will be salutary in reminding the Prime Minister that the country’s ranking on civil liberties and his own reputation for honesty have taken an enormous beating from this cynical attempt to kill off political dissent under the guise of improving the law pertaining to the right to assembly.
Were there other forces at work that may have compelled the Prime Minister to engage in this astonishing political turnaround?
If the Prime Minister is not the main actor of this political deception, is it the work of right wing Umno leaders such as Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his son Mukhriz, the Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, Ibrahim Ali as well as Najib’s ambitious cousin, the Home Affairs Minister who have pushed him to this unprecedented flip- flopping on political liberalization?
Whichever hands finally prevailed on this obnoxious bill now being debated in Parliament, their mission is clear: to prevent the same exercise of the freedom of peaceful assembly and dissent that are toppling similar authoritarian regimes elsewhere in the world in the hope that they can buy for themselves a longer lease of authoritarian rule and unchecked power in Malaysia.
DESIDERATA:
Worldwide we learn a few lessons from the Spring time that galvanised a regime change -- or in some countries, still in the process of regime change -- in the African continent -- Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and in their train, several other neighbouring countries like Syria and Yemen ripe for spring-cleaning.Even in the normally stable developed countries like the United States, Greece and Germany, there's some gathering of stormy clouds crying out for reforms, leading to the Occupy Wall Street campaign and similar infant movements in other countries. It's really early days yet to talk about Springtime in emerging Asian democracies like Singapore and Malaysia.
You get a few hundred demostrators gathering for a peaceful assembly in front of the landmarks like KLCC as a symbol fronting for the Stock Exchange ala Wall Street, it doesn't translate into the dying days of winter cold.
Until the days when Malaysians still can eke out a daily living working their hearts out on more than one job for the main breadwinner, NegaraKu is safe from any Springtime dawning soon. Not in the forseeable future like the next five years.
Until the Government bankrupts the country by doubling their voracious appetite for the country's wealth created by the Black gold, until the UMNO Wanita chief past and present, and also the UMNO Youth past and present, creates more clones and cronies, the Rakyat will remain passive, just watchng the daylight robbery going one with disbelief.
Okay, just mention one example: If there is a Malaysian spring, Minister Sharizat Jalil and her husband now chief of Animal Farm Malaysia helping hiself and family to the nation's coffer like it's a birthright, would have been besieged at their residence -- bungalow, condos -- and they would have been driven out of their animal farm consisting of humble cowsheds ala Port Klang's late Zakaria-style palatial "small" house that in big part caused the Selangor state government to change hands from BN-UMNO to PR-PKR to GE12.
Malaysians must be smart and vote ABU cometh GE13 because we really don't deserve any spingtime to do spring-cleaning of the UMNO mess. Yes, just vote Anyone But UMNO, mates. Terima Kasih for being so obedient. Thank you. Xie xie. God bless Malaysia, land of plenty and we really don't need a spring, we continue to ENJOY summer awe-year-long. Amen.
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