Thugs at Dataran: Umno's black agenda at work

This early dawn’s thuggish attack on the students camping out at Dataran Merdeka deserves more than mere condemnation. We need to call for a national reflection-cum-investigation because these attacks and many other similar incidents that we have been witnessing these past two years appear to resonate with the very ‘blood and bones’ battle cry promises of the PM.

In any other civilized nation that practices and upholds what it preaches about democracy and civil liberties would immediately see the affected leader or leaders resign in shame. But this is not the case with Malaysia.

Not mere thugs but a black agenda at work

Our leaders either remain mum or rebut with an avalanche of reprimands and orders to use force on its citizens.

The perpetuation of intimidating and inflicting injurious attacks on anyone and all who question the BN-led government’s policies and modus operandi or anyone and all who challenge the BN leaders cannot continue.

The right to peaceful and passive public expression of disagreements is a universally sanctioned and sanctified principle that must be defended, nurtured and permitted for humanity’s sake.

We need a national resolve to address these attacks on citizens. It is no more a case of mere ‘thugs at work’. It is a serious siege on democracy.

It is not any more mere ‘isolated incidents’. It is an affirmation of a serious agenda at work that goes against humanity.

We bombed a foreign national with controlled weapon, i.e. C4 explosives; we helplessly watch Mat Rempits to siege and attack citizens on the road; we sleep with fears of house break-ins; we walk the streets clutching our personal belongings for fear of snatch thieves roaming the streets and shopping malls.

But allowing the perpetuation of attacks on and intimidation of civil society is worse then insurgency attacks on a nation’s citizens. It is far more acrimonious an act because it is using citizens to attack its own fellow citizens.

Institutions, police unable to protect society

When the institutions of a government are unable to provide the guarantee to protect civil society from assailing democracy-robbers, we have a national crisis imminently threatening us.

When institutions of government execute their responsibilities by taking political sides, we have tyranny at work.

In any other civilized and liberal society that upholds humanity’s right to expression through peaceful means, the police execute the law and not be vanguards of political party principles. In such forward moving nations, citizens take pride in participating collectively for the betterment of justice and honor for their nation.

But it appears now that in Malaysia the one and only supreme priority is party politics. The one and only agenda is to ensure that BN and UMNO the lead-factor, remain the sole machinery that is qualified and entitled to form the government forever.

Any other leanings that may directly or indirectly affect that sole agenda of the BN party is deemed as anti-national; anti-Malay; and anti-Monarchy and even of late, anti-Islam.

How can Umno's party politics come first - ahead of the people even

The Tun Doctor’s recent call to citizens to use "common sense "in voting (indirectly implying that citizens must only vote BN) for progress and development is already a give-away of the "crushed bones and dead bodies" war cry of BN that is at work.

The country needs to wake up. This attack on the students by ‘thugs’ at Dataran Merdeka is not an isolated incident; it is not a students’ matter; it cannot be argued as ‘deserves them right; who asked them to sleep out’ .

All citizens who are truly committed to democratic nationhood that upholds our Constitutional Monarchy to the letter, must step forward and demand immediate correction to our nation’s dilemma.

Leaders of religious faiths, representative heads of civil rights and civil society must make their collaborative stamp made known loud and clear; professional bodies cannot divorce the ethical dimensions of their practice from the on-going sitz-im-laben; they need to see the umbilical connection between their practice standards of professional ethics with that of the state of increasing democratic denials in society.

Let us not betray our own nation

We cannot stand by and watch democracy beaten by regimes; we cannot be traitors of this nation; we cannot be dishonorable subjects of His Majesty. We all have a role to play in bringing the nation back on its feet – a nation that must remain anchored on democracy and embraced by a Constitutional Monarchy.

The prime minister owes all Malaysians an explanation on this recent, most despicable attack on our students at Dataran Merdeka. and it better be done in parliament because our democracy and this nation's independence from foreign control has been attacked. It is an attck on all citizens whose right to stand up for their nation and King has been denied.

Malaysia Chronicle