Do you remember playing Police and Thief as kids?
Last Wednesday night, a much more brutal version of this gameplayed out in Jinjang, as it has so many times before in Petaling Jaya, Brickfields, at Bersih rallies and so on.
Many Malaysians are no strangers to candlelight vigils outside police stations. I remember the candlelight vigils in Petaling Jaya during the 2008 ISA arrests, which themselves led to both more arrests and more candlelight vigils that same night, outside the PJ police station.
There, like in Jinjang, or Brickfields when Wong Chin Huat was detained or during Bersih 3.0, police gave orders to disperse, crowds disperse, and police unleash their fury on the dispersing crowd anyway.
The pattern is the same: unarmed, peaceful citizens, being run down by rabid police officers who act as if they had been attacked and who can't seem to tell the difference between a candle and a parang.
It's very depressing to face these police charges. I remember thinking one of those nights in Petaling Jaya long ago - one day, we will stop running. One day, we will draw the line.
Unfortunately, May 5, 2013 was not that day, and so the police chase on, and the rakyat suffer on.
Bullying vs real strength
What a start to the respective reigns of Home Minister Zahid Hamidi and IGP Khalid Abu Bakar.
Barely a week or two after being sworn in, and already there is a crackdown on these "enemies of the state" - Adam Adli, Tian Chua, Haris Ibrahim, Tamrin Ghafar, and who knows who else next.
Voltaire did not actually write or say "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" (that was a summary of his views by Evelyn Beatrice Hall), but the axiom seems to apply here.
Pakatan Rakyat's top leaders have wisely distanced themselves from any talk of bringing down the government by force. I don't subscribe to such a notion either.
Nevertheless, I think it's clear that this heavy-handed police reaction betrays a sense of insecurity more than anything else.
Both Zahid (left) and Khalid appear to enjoy cultivating some ridiculous tough guy image.
The truth of it though is that people with real strength never need to try and flaunt it so blatantly.
After all, which demonstrates true strength? Coming down hard on every single person who says what he or she believes? Or offering more attractive alternatives in the free marketplace of ideas?
Dumb and dumber?
Of course, Zahid's idea of discourse is: If you don't like it here, you can bloody well leave.
In a cabinet full of disappointments, his and Hishammuddin Hussein's are among the worst.
These are the two people most responsible for the tragic fiasco in Lahad Datu that resulted in the death of so many service personnel. Is Najib's idea of improvement and transformation keeping the nett composition of that team exactly the same?
An obvious likelihood is that Zahid is looking to shore up his own image ahead of the Umno elections.
How disgusting that one should use the full weight of the state's enforcement agencies against normal citizens just so he can look tough to his fellow sycophants.
It seems I cannot avoid writing about one Tan Sri Khalid or another. The current IGP is remembered well among observers for his arrogant denials and blind defense of the police in cases like Aminulrasyid Amzah and A Kugan, the former in which he shot his mouth off about parangs that proved (once again) to be non-existent.
Where the last IGP was grown a bit more in a gentleman's mould, with some reputation for being able to be reasonable, the current one is clearly more hawk than dove.
He has said a number of words about refocusing on crime prevention, but those for now remain words (only this last week, a friend and fellow Malaysiakinicontributor lost her laptop and other valuables the same way I did a few years back, via smash theft).
It seems unlikely the already stretched police force can concentrate effectively on both crime prevention and intimidating activists at the same time.
Injustice ferments discontent
The brutal death of N Dharmendran in police custody proved another low point right at the beginning of IGP Khalid's term.
The former's death was determined by pathologists to be the result of blunt force trauma, and his body bore marks of being beaten, stapled (of all things), and whipped by a rotan.
Who knows how many people suffer but survive this kind of treatment at the hands of the police?
Clearly a BN win has signaled to the police that they can continue on with business as usual.
The only positive development for now is that the police have classified this case as murder. Only time will tell whether this will eventually result in some real justice, or whether it is merely another mummer's farce that will end in no meaningful action.
Among the recent arrestees were men who refused to accept the results of the last general elections.
If the prime minister continues to fail on delivering on his reforms, persists in making us suffer these injustices, and insists on making peaceful revolutions impossible, we cannot be surprised if five more take the place of every person thrown into jail.
Last Wednesday night, a much more brutal version of this gameplayed out in Jinjang, as it has so many times before in Petaling Jaya, Brickfields, at Bersih rallies and so on.
Many Malaysians are no strangers to candlelight vigils outside police stations. I remember the candlelight vigils in Petaling Jaya during the 2008 ISA arrests, which themselves led to both more arrests and more candlelight vigils that same night, outside the PJ police station.
There, like in Jinjang, or Brickfields when Wong Chin Huat was detained or during Bersih 3.0, police gave orders to disperse, crowds disperse, and police unleash their fury on the dispersing crowd anyway.The pattern is the same: unarmed, peaceful citizens, being run down by rabid police officers who act as if they had been attacked and who can't seem to tell the difference between a candle and a parang.
It's very depressing to face these police charges. I remember thinking one of those nights in Petaling Jaya long ago - one day, we will stop running. One day, we will draw the line.
Unfortunately, May 5, 2013 was not that day, and so the police chase on, and the rakyat suffer on.
Bullying vs real strength
What a start to the respective reigns of Home Minister Zahid Hamidi and IGP Khalid Abu Bakar.
Barely a week or two after being sworn in, and already there is a crackdown on these "enemies of the state" - Adam Adli, Tian Chua, Haris Ibrahim, Tamrin Ghafar, and who knows who else next.
Voltaire did not actually write or say "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" (that was a summary of his views by Evelyn Beatrice Hall), but the axiom seems to apply here.
Pakatan Rakyat's top leaders have wisely distanced themselves from any talk of bringing down the government by force. I don't subscribe to such a notion either.
Nevertheless, I think it's clear that this heavy-handed police reaction betrays a sense of insecurity more than anything else.Both Zahid (left) and Khalid appear to enjoy cultivating some ridiculous tough guy image.
The truth of it though is that people with real strength never need to try and flaunt it so blatantly.
After all, which demonstrates true strength? Coming down hard on every single person who says what he or she believes? Or offering more attractive alternatives in the free marketplace of ideas?
Dumb and dumber?
Of course, Zahid's idea of discourse is: If you don't like it here, you can bloody well leave.
In a cabinet full of disappointments, his and Hishammuddin Hussein's are among the worst.
These are the two people most responsible for the tragic fiasco in Lahad Datu that resulted in the death of so many service personnel. Is Najib's idea of improvement and transformation keeping the nett composition of that team exactly the same?An obvious likelihood is that Zahid is looking to shore up his own image ahead of the Umno elections.
How disgusting that one should use the full weight of the state's enforcement agencies against normal citizens just so he can look tough to his fellow sycophants.
It seems I cannot avoid writing about one Tan Sri Khalid or another. The current IGP is remembered well among observers for his arrogant denials and blind defense of the police in cases like Aminulrasyid Amzah and A Kugan, the former in which he shot his mouth off about parangs that proved (once again) to be non-existent.Where the last IGP was grown a bit more in a gentleman's mould, with some reputation for being able to be reasonable, the current one is clearly more hawk than dove.
He has said a number of words about refocusing on crime prevention, but those for now remain words (only this last week, a friend and fellow Malaysiakinicontributor lost her laptop and other valuables the same way I did a few years back, via smash theft).
It seems unlikely the already stretched police force can concentrate effectively on both crime prevention and intimidating activists at the same time.
Injustice ferments discontent
The brutal death of N Dharmendran in police custody proved another low point right at the beginning of IGP Khalid's term.
The former's death was determined by pathologists to be the result of blunt force trauma, and his body bore marks of being beaten, stapled (of all things), and whipped by a rotan.
Who knows how many people suffer but survive this kind of treatment at the hands of the police?
Clearly a BN win has signaled to the police that they can continue on with business as usual.
The only positive development for now is that the police have classified this case as murder. Only time will tell whether this will eventually result in some real justice, or whether it is merely another mummer's farce that will end in no meaningful action.
Among the recent arrestees were men who refused to accept the results of the last general elections.
If the prime minister continues to fail on delivering on his reforms, persists in making us suffer these injustices, and insists on making peaceful revolutions impossible, we cannot be surprised if five more take the place of every person thrown into jail.
NATHANIEL TAN tweets @NatAsasi and believes in #TsunamiCintaMalaysia.
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