Crash course in law for Hisham: If a yellow-tee is illegal, isn't Umno

Hishammuddin Onn is a lawyer with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth in 1984. He also attended London School of Economicsand received a Master of Laws (LL.M) in Commercial and Corporate Law in 1988.

He was a practicing lawyer before making the leap into politics and rising up the ranks of UMNO. It probably helps when your cousin is the Prime Minister of Malaysia, your father the Third Prime Minister of Malaysia and your grandfather was a founder of UMNO.

Yet, despite being a 'blue-blood' of Malaysian politics, Hishamuddin should have stayed a lawyer rather than become a career politician.

In 2005, Hishammuddin waved the keris (small sword) at the UMNO Annual General Meeting. Commentators perceived this action as meant to defend Hak Keistimewaan Melayu, or Malay Rights as imputed to Article 153 of the Constitution of Malaysia and in the social contract. Although applauded by the Malay delegates, the picture of Hishammuddin with the keris was widely ridiculed by other Malaysians, who frankly saw it as an act of aggreesion.

Hishammuddin found himself mired in controversy again in 2009 when he came to the defence of a group of demonstrators who were protesting the relocation of a Hindu temple into their housing area. The protesters, in a group of about 50, marched a few hundred metres carrying the decapitated head of a cow. The demonstration met with nationwide condemnation from government as well as opposition politicians, non-governmental organisations, and the public.

But Hishammuddin defended the actions of the protesters, saying that they cannot be blamed. And now, after having waved the keris and defended the actions of the cow-head protesters, who by the way marched illegally with a decapitated cow-head in tow, Hisham has chosen to label all things Bersih as illegal and a threat to national security.

The yellow tee

The level of paranoia that has gripped the government of Malaysia is no longer something to laugh about. What seemed funny and hilarious at first has now taken a darker tone. Any thing associated with the July 9 Bersih rally has been automatically deemed illegal, without the BN having to justify nor explain why it is illegal except that is is illegal by association.

The Home Minister’s reason that the Bersih tee is illegal because it is associated with an illegal assembly speaks volumes about his state of mind.

“The Bersih T-shirt is related to an illegal assembly, then whatever they are wearing is illegal,” Hishamuddin told reporters.

That was all he said. The Home Minister gave no other reason why it was illegal to wear yellow except that it is by 'association' with something else that is 'illegal'. A flimsy explanation by all accounts, without any indication as to what laws were broken. Will we now see massive arrests of citizens who just so happen to wear a yellow tee whilst walking the streets of Kuala Lumpur? This seems to be the case.

So, come 9th of July, based on the Home Minister's reasoning, we will see massive arrests by the police and all those grouped together will surely be wearing yellow tees!

If a yellow-tee is illegal, so too is UMNO

This absurd decision by the Home Ministry has placed Malaysia amongst the ranks of Aparthied South Africa, or Nazi Germany or the military junta years of Brazil - nations that once leveled a decision of “guilty by association” on their own citizens purely because they were the wrong skin color, wrong ethnicity or deemed to have the 'wrong' way of thinking.

History is filled with stories about communities being labelled “guilty” and treated harshly by the organs of a totalitarian government. For example, there are the millions who were exterminated in World War 2 by the Nazis, a whole country was repressed under the minority white-ruled South Africa and democracy forsaken for an authoritarian rule in Brazil.

Yet, history seems a lesson unknown to our Malaysian politicians or those sitting in the Cabinet.

We owe our own history to an illegal assembly and march by Onn Jaafar, which in itself is special because Onn went through with it despite disapproval by the British, who didn't quite like the idea of forming the Malayan Union.

Indeed, UMNO itself was born in 1946 out of non-violent anti-Malayan Union protests, many of which were helmed by Onn. And in the British eyes, these were certainly illegal assemblies.

Thus, if we apply the rule of “guilty by association”, UMNO itself is illegal because it is associated with an illegal assembly. And sad to say, UMNO has lived up to its reputation as a movement born out of a protest.

Because, by applying Hishamuddin’s “guilty by association” reasoning, we can actually associated UMNO with the most number of constitutional problems in this nation. UMNO can arguably be deemed to be guilty of breaking far more laws than any yellow-tee-wearing citizens can.

So, why hit so hard on yellow-tee marchers for Bersih? When UMNO itself has been protesting and sponsoring illegal assemblies of their own, to push for their own agenda all throughout Malaysian and the party's own history?

It will not surprise us if eventually the color yellow is banned because it too is associated with an illegal assembly. Such is Hishamuddin’s reasoning and his skewed interpretation of the laws of the country is really embarrassing to note because he is a trained lawyer, with a Masters from LSE, no less.

So, Hishamuddin Hussein - shame on you! For when you proclaimed your self-invented “guilty by association” law, you broke Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which reads:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

- Malaysia Chronicle