The agenda has been served

Muhammad Shafee may have won his court case. And I did not doubt that he would. But I won the battle of not allowing the matter to die. So we both won, Muhammad Shafee as well as I.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Shafee vs RPK: Three articles defamatory, says court

(The Star) -- In an immediate response, Muhammad Shafee said that he was very happy with the court ruling.

"The court finds it completely unnecessary to have a full trial because from their defence, they have shown no defence," he said.

Muhammad Shafee said he would definitely go for the assessment of the damages due to disposal of the defamation suit based on point of law.

Muhammad Shafee made an application on Jan 26 under Order 14A of the Rules of the High Court 1980 for the disposal of the suit based on a point of law without going for a full trial, claiming that there were defamatory words in the three articles posted on the Malaysia Today website.

He had filed the suit against Raja Petra, 58, in August 2008 for posting on Aug 6, 7 and 11 of that year the three articles titled "Shafee Abdullah: Sodomologist Extraordinaire“, "Money, Power and Sex: What Motivates Man" and "The Real Dalang Behind The Anwar Sodomy Allegation" on the website, which he claimed had defamed him.

On Aug 13, 2008, Muhammad Shafee obtained an ex-parte injunction from the High Court ordering Raja Petra to remove from the website the three articles as well as all the comments related to them.

In a statement of defence filed on Nov 25, 2008, Raja Petra denied that the three articles were false, malicious or defamatory of the lawyer.

READ MORE HERE

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I could have removed the three articles (which you can read in the links above) and published an apology, as what Muhammad Shafee Abdullah wanted. Then I could have avoided having to go to court. While this would have saved me a lot of problems, it would, however, have not served the bigger agenda.

And what is this bigger agenda? The bigger agenda is to keep the issue alive and not let it die or go away so easily. And this would have happened if I had ‘retreated’ and had taken the easy way out by removing the three articles and by issuing my apology.

However, by being stubborn, I forced Muhammad Shafee’s hand and he had no choice but to take this matter to court, as he had threatened -- thus keeping the issue alive. If he had not taken the matter to court then he would ‘lose face’ and people would say he was ‘chicken’. To show that he means business he had to proceed with his threat and therefore allowing me to keep the matter going all this while.

It is now three years since these articles were first published and the issue is still very much alive because of Muhammad Shafee. And people being the normal inquisitive animals that they are would want to now read those articles to find out what the brouhaha is all about (which you can do by clicking the three links above inThe Star news report). If not, why would you want to read three articles published back in 2008 that are already outdated?

Muhammad Shafee may have won his court case. And I did not doubt that he would. But I won the battle of not allowing the matter to die. So we both won, Muhammad Shafee as well as I.

The question is: what did he gain?

He won a ‘paper judgement’ against me. What is that worth? Probably very little other than the pleasure and satisfaction of knowing that he won.

And what did I gain?

I managed to keep a three-year old matter alive that would normally have been old news the day after the articles were published.

Now many of you will want to know what this issue is all about. A lawyer linked to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has obtained judgement against me. And this will make you curious. And since the judgement is based on the three articles mentioned in The Star, you will most likely want to now read them -- if you have not yet read them, or read them again, if you had already read them three years ago but can’t quite remember what was said.

And since these three articles are linked to the Anwar Ibrahim Sodomy 2 trial, and since the trial is still proceeding and will soon climax when the Investigation Officer takes the stand to testify, all of a sudden three outdated articles published three years ago become very current and help explain how they fixed up Anwar Ibrahim in the Sodomy 2 charge.

So who actually won here?

That is why you must sometimes lose a few battles just to win the war. It is no use winning so many battles but ultimately you lose the war. And you need to stay focused and not get distracted from the bigger agenda. The end game is what matters. And the game plan must fit the end game. And you must not allow the game plan to suffer just because you want to win some battles and then find, in the end, that you lose the war.

Has Napoleon and Hitler not taught us anything? They both focused on winning battles at the expense of the war. And that was the cause of their defeat.

Anyhow, we must give Muhammad Shafee credit where credit is due. Instead of making police reports and using the police to do his job of getting me, he took the matter to court and treated this as a civil matter. At least he plays fair. Whether the court can be manipulated and trials rigged is of course another matter.

And on my part, because Muhammad Shafee did not try to abuse his power of using the police to get me, I shall concede defeat and not appeal the court’s decision -- although it is within my right to do so.

I, too, can fight a gentleman’s duel if the other side does the same.

Till we meet again in another arena to do battle, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, take care and keep well. And congratulations on your win.