Arguing yourself into a corner

We have to decide whether we want to follow the Constitution or not. We cannot scream that the Constitution must be obeyed when it suits us and then scream that we must ignore the Constitution when it does not suit us. This is what Barisan Nasional always does. Now it seems this is what the opposition also does. So how can we whack the government and accuse it of all sorts of things when we are equally guilty of that same crime?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Below is a comment that ‘Pro-arte’ posted in the news item Malaysia’s prime minister must be Malay Muslim, says historian.

I am one of those who have argued that the Federal Constitution of Malaysia is silent on the race and religion of the Prime Minister. Article 43(2)(a) of the Constitution just says that His Majesty the Agong is to appoint a Prime Minister from amongst a Member of the House (meaning an elected Member of Parliament) who commands the confidence of the majority of the Members of the House.

Article number 43(2)(a): the Yang di-Pertuan Agong shall first appoint as Perdana Menteri (Prime Minister) to preside over the Cabinet a member of the House of Representative who in his judgment is likely to command the confidence of the majority of the members of that House.

If you were to look closely at what the Constitution says, it does not say that the Prime Minister must be the President or Leader of the party that won the most number of seats in Parliament. It merely says: is likely to command the confidence of the majority.

Note the word ‘likely’. And also note the phrase ‘who in his judgment’. This means the Agong must make an educated guess, so to speak.

Hence, this means the Agong has to use his judgement in figuring out who most likely will command the support (the word the Constitution uses is ‘confidence’) of the majority of the Members of Parliament. And this does not need to be the Chairman of Barisan Nasional or the President of Umno or the Opposition Leader in Parliament or the Leader of the party that won the most number of seats in Parliament.

Nevertheless, the Agong would always assume that the Leader of the party that won the most number of seats in Parliament would command the majority confidence. This is how the Agong would assess the situation. However, if for any reason the Agong feels otherwise, the Agong can then legally appoint someone else the Prime Minister.

That is what happens in theory, of course. But theory cannot always be put into practice. For example, in theory, the Anti-Corruption Commission can arrest the Prime Minister for corruption and the Attorney General can prosecute the Prime Minister and the Judge can find the Prime Minister guilty of corruption. But we all know that in practice this will never happen.

Also, there is nothing in the Constitution that says the Prime Minister must be a man. A woman can legally become the Prime Minister of Malaysia. And why not since 53% of the voters are women? But in theory this can never happen, not for a long time to come at least.

Anyway, you know my stand, and my stand is that the Constitution is silent on the race, religion and gender of the Prime Minister. Hence, anyone, as long as he or she is an elected Member of Parliament who in the opinion of the Agong can command the confidence of the majority of the 222 MPs, can legally become the Prime Minister.

Let me play the devil’s advocate here. I love doing this and see you people jump and foam at the mouth when I take the opposite argument to you.

For 55 years since Merdeka, Malaysia has always worked on convention or tradition. And this convention or tradition is that the Prime Minister must be a Malay-Muslim from the party with the most number of seats in Parliament. And he (not she) must be the leader of that party.

Can we break away from convention or tradition? I suppose not when those born from Muslim parents are automatically Muslims and for them to leave Islam is considered a crime. This is not in the Constitution so why is it like this? That is because of convention or tradition. Hence we need to break that ‘tradition’ first before we can even consider breaking other traditions.

You might say that traditions are stupid and are no longer relevant in this modern day and age. I am not so sure of that. Can you tell a Chinese that the tradition of giving out red ang pows for Chinese New Year and white ang pows for funerals is stupid and is no longer relevant in this modern day and age? The Chinese, even those with a western education, will foam at the mouth and disagree with you.

What is so great about the colour of an envelope compared to a more important issue like who should be the Prime Minister of Malaysia? Is not the Prime Minister more important than the colour of an envelope? If the Chinese would never break from what can be considered a trivial tradition how can you expect us to resolve what can be considered a more crucial tradition -- the race, religion and gender of the Prime Minister?

So that is the first issue here. Do we want to be pig-headed about traditions, like many of us are (such as having to wear a songkok in an audience with the Sultan, which some DAP people are opposed to), or are we prepared to ‘modernise’?

Tradition is such a sensitive issue. Some regard traditions as a religious obligation (the Malays-Muslims are guilty of this as well due to their confused understanding of Islam) and they would defend their traditions profusely. And all races are guilty of this. This is a ‘Malaysian’ thing, not confined to any one race.

Okay, my next point, about what ‘Pro-arte’ said regarding ‘the constitution is the supreme law of the land’ and ‘when a country does not adhere to the rule of law, then this would take us down the slippery slope to anarchy’.

Now, this is why I have entitled my article Arguing yourself into a corner. Once we start arguing using those arguments, we are going to open ourselves to attack. Those are the same arguments that the government uses to oppose many things that the opposition does, the Bersih rallies being one of them.

According to the Constitution, Parliament can pass laws and once they get voted into law Malaysians are bound by these laws. Hence the government, by law, can forbid Malaysians from assembling on the streets and if we violate these laws then the police are empowered to take action and if we resist the police then they are empowered to act against us, even with the use of force.

Some opposition leaders say that this is a bad law and Malaysians should therefore defy these laws. The government’s response is that if we defy laws and take the law into our own hands then we will see anarchy. In fact, this is the same argument that Anwar Ibrahim used when he held the press conference that Monday after the Bersih 3.0 rally. Anwar explained that the people wanted to occupy Dataran Merdeka so in spite of a court order not allowing it Malaysians have a right to occupy Dataran Merdeka and ignore the court order.

Is this not what ‘Pro-arte’ argued: ‘when a country does not adhere to the rule of law, then this would take us down the slippery slope to anarchy’? Hence do we want to use that argument when the government can use that same argument against us?

In the case of who should be the Prime Minister, ‘Pro-arte’ argues ‘the constitution is the supreme law of the land’ and ‘when a country does not adhere to the rule of law, then this would take us down the slippery slope to anarchy’. In the case of the Bersih rallies, the reverse argument is used: the law is bad so we must defy the law.

We have to decide whether we want to follow the Constitution or not. We cannot scream that the Constitution must be obeyed when it suits us and then scream that we must ignore the Constitution when it does not suit us. This is what Barisan Nasional always does. Now it seems this is what the opposition also does. So how can we whack the government and accuse it of all sorts of things when we are equally guilty of that same crime?

So you see: if we propagate that we must respect the Constitution then we have to comply with the Constitution even when bad laws are ‘legally’ passed. But if we propagate that the Constitution is bad and some laws passed by Parliament that are legally allowed by the Constitution are also bad and need to be opposed then we cannot start quoting the Constitution.

We have a tendency to contradict what we say. We argue one way in one situation and then argue the other way in another situation. We need to take a stand and be consistent in that stand. For example, when we say we do not tolerate corruption we must then not tolerate it never mind who may be guilty of it. We cannot oppose it when it involves the government and tolerate it when it involves the opposition and then say that government corruption is huge while opposition corruption is small.

In that same spirit, can we tolerate small election fraud and only oppose big election fraud? What would the tolerance level be then? Only if the fraud involves more than 10% of the votes? Or would we oppose it even if there were one fraudulent vote? There is no small or big fraud. Fraud is fraud and corruption is corruption.

So you see, debating an issue is not that easy after all. Sometimes your arguments can work against you. You need to be careful and remember what you have argued. You also need to consider what will happen if you need to take an opposite stand on another issue and whether what you argue today can still be used in another situation tomorrow.

Okay, now let’s debate!

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This so-called Professor's comments are bereft of any logic to the extent that it really is embarrassing.

The constitution is the supreme law of the land and it does not bar any citizen from being PM. So why is it a 'must' that the PM is a Malay-Muslim? Where did the good Professor get this from?

The corollary from this notion is that any senior position in this country should go to a Malay-Muslim. Thus would Khoo accept that he does not really qualify to be the Emeritus 'Royal Professor' and that he is there by default? His position rightfully belongs to a Malay-Muslim?

When a country does not adhere to the rule of law, then this would take us down the slippery slope to anarchy. There are many aspects of anarchy, Khoo exemplifies the intellectual anarchy which has taken place in our educational system for the express purpose of  serving the interest and legitimising the ruling Malay-Muslim Oligarchy.

Malays are culturally, religiously and physically distinct from to the oldest 'Orang Asal' group in the Peninsula. When Malays want to insult each other they call each other 'Sakai, Jakun,' etc. - it is a term of abuse of an indigenous people whose ancestors have continuously inhabited the Peninsula for over 50,000 years. The Malays as we know them are relatively new immigrants, they began to arrive on these shores about 4,000 years ago. Therefore the Orang Asal can legitimately make a claim to rename 'Malaya' or 'Tanah Melayu' to  'Asalaya' or 'Tanah Orang Asal'.

The fact is 'Tanah Melayu' no longer exists. It has gone through various name changes from 'Malaya' to now ‘Malaysia’.  Before that, the Greeks 2,000 years ago, referred to the Peninsula as 'Chersonesus Aurea' and the Romans in turn called it 'Chersonesos'.

Why does Professor Khoo always give us UMNO history lessons? Does he not have the intellectual capacity to be the slightest bit objective? Here we see an academic always being wheeled out at appropriate times to ' legitimise' UMNO's misrule and supremacist views from a so called historical perspective. He calls Malay-Muslims 'natives' of this country but aren't ALL Malaysians born in the land natives?

Pakatan has appointed Anwar Ibrahim as its leader and he happens to be Malay and Muslim so why all this pointless talk about  'insisting' on a Malay-Muslim leader?  Surely Khoo should know this is part of UMNO's racist agenda which is meant to pit Malays against non-Malays in the hope of shoring up Malay support for UMNO which is haemorrhaging.

The subtext is that Malays must be wary of the non-Malays, and the Chinese in particular who want to 'rob' the Malays of their rights and power. Only UMNO can be trusted to 'protect' the Malays. This 'siege mentality' and instilling a 'them and us' mentally is invidious but passe and fortunately most Malays, particularly the younger generation, are not buying this anymore.

Khoo is a Chinese who is married to a Tamil but yet he is willing to undermine the rights of non-Malays and non-Muslims in a most unintellectual and ridiculous manner. Talking about anarchy earlier on, another aspect of this is moral corruption and prostitution and Professor Khoo exemplifies this.