Anwar’s strongman Merdeka speech

 

“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” - Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome

In his Merdeka speech Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said, “We will use all of our power and strength. If insufficient, we will amend (laws), add on legal provisions, take action so that the country remains safe and can rise as a powerful nation in the region and the world”, which is vintage strongman rhetoric.

What should concern the rakyat is the agenda the Madani government has for this country when it comes to the freedoms that Anwar likes to lecture other countries about but believes that Malaysians can do without.

Maybe this has something to do with the Eastern values Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil talked about - “There is a lot that needs to be examined because not all of them match the Eastern values or manners we practise in Malaysia but we will carefully implement the improvements (press freedom) that we want to see and practise in Malaysia.”

Whenever Malaysian political operatives talk about Eastern values, what this really means is that the rights of the citizens are going to be curtailed on religious or cultural grounds. None of them has ever said or will ever say that because of Eastern values, we will expand the rights the rakyat have.

Case in point, when the prime minister said, in his zeal for safeguarding the safety and stability of this country he would amend existing laws or add legal provisions. This is deeply troubling but since I am a polemist, I would say monstrous.

Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil

Look, there are enough (many would argue) pernicious laws that Pakatan Harapan said it would reform but have chosen to keep. So in other words, what this Madani regime wants to do is amend these pernicious laws even further or add legal provisions to make freedom of speech and expression even more limited.

Existing laws are enough

I have no idea why anyone would defend policing through licensing or legislation of social media platforms when the history of the press in this country is one of self-censorship and clampdowns.

Do social media companies need to operate in some sort of regulatory framework? Yes, but in this country, regulatory frameworks are not used to ameliorate the detrimental excesses of free speech as they do elsewhere. Instead, it’s rather to curtail speech that the state deems offensive. This is it in a nutshell.

Think about this for a minute. Every other day we read about how posts on Facebook, Instagram or whatever have resulted in the arrests and criminal proceedings of someone who insulted the religion of the state, the royalty, or whatever it is that spooks the majority. They were arrested and charged using existing laws.

Now whether this goes against free speech or the principles as espoused by Harapan is not the point, only that when it comes to acts that jeopardise the (argued) safety and stability of this country, we have more than enough laws to handle these problems.

There was a lot of schadenfreude when former prime minister Muhiddin Yassin was charged with insulting the royal institution. Bersatu political operatives bemoan that freedom of speech and expression are going down the drain.

These people are hypocrites, not to mention architects and enablers of such laws when in power, so nothing they say about this issue really matters.

Perikatan Nasional chairperson Muhyiddin Yassin

However, I do think that Muhyddin should not have been charged, because I do not think someone like Fadiah Nadwa Fikri should have been investigated for sedition for what she said about the royal institution.

In case some folks missed it, Fadiah was investigated in 2018 for writing an article about the royal institution sparked by the image of Anwar kissing the hand of the current Agong Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar.

As reported in the press - Fadiah’s article questioned Anwar’s move to perpetuate a “feudal culture” at a time when monarchies in many other parts of the world had been rendered supposedly obsolete.

Lest we spook the Malays

What these laws are used for is not only to stifle discussion but also to detract from the real issues facing this country. I’ll give you another example. You know that recent AI-generated “Welcome to Afganu” image which had some political operatives’ knickers in a twist? What is the real issue here?

The real issue is that a state in Malaysia has banned women from competing in sports events because it went against the syariah-compliant dress code. The real question is what does the prime minister, who talked about the freedoms and rights of men and women in India, think about this?

This is the issue and not what the PAS Youth wing claims - “Day by day, those who make fun of Islam are getting worse because they feel they have strong connections that allow them to hide behind fake accounts.”

Remember the time PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang said the people were confused about the Taliban and that the regime has now changed and is wiser, though still steadfast in its struggle to uphold Islam?

And what of legitimate criticisms of the Islamic faith by various NGOs like Sister in Islam, who are always on the receiving end of police reports for tarnishing or insulting Islam; what about these types of “insults”? Does quoting from religious texts which put religion in a bad light qualify as an insult to the religion?

Look, we have a mainstream political dogma that warns against spooking the Malays. We have a political opposition that warns that the Malays are divided and susceptible to manipulation by non-Malay political factions which are detrimental to the well-being of the Malay community.

Less free speech means that these ideologies will flourish further because we have a mainstream political ideology that proclaims some are more equal than others.

Keep this in mind, what this Madani regime is doing by curbing free speech and expression in the name of safety and stability is merely enabling the far religious right in this country.

This is not the kind of Merdeka people deserve. Or maybe we do. - Mkini

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.