“Such actions are more the behaviour of gangs, not a prudent administration that respects the people and the laws of the country.”
- PSM chairperson Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj
It says a lot about Madani that controversial businessperson Nicky Liow and his coterie not only get their acquittals and discharge not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA), but he gets his picture taken with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
Meanwhile, a farmer and PSM leaders get charged with obstructing public servants in the discharge of their duties.
Here is the thing about activists like PSM and its chairperson, Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj. They want to engage with the bureaucracy and corporate interests. They want to negotiate with the state-owned interests or corporate groups.
Why? Because this is the only way they can. Because they do not have the leverage or the clout that compromised mainstream political parties have.
All of this is not new. PSM has been doing this for some time now. Referring to the words of the retired PSM chief Nasir Hashim - “I was the chairperson of the Support Committee of Urban Pioneers. At that time we had more than 50 villagers in our committee. They were mostly Malays, except for one estate.
“We did not allow the authorities and developers to label them as squatters, for squatters have no rights in court. So we called them urban pioneers because for three generations they developed the land with a promise of permanent housing.
“We created havoc, and since then, they have been given compensation and alternate housing.”
PSM deputy chairperson S Arutchelvan wondered what PKR deputy president Nurul Izzah Anwar, who is the prime minister’s daughter and was once shocked by the state’s harassment of these folks, will do now.
We voted for this
Does it really matter? I mean, here we have PSM essentially fighting for not only the rights of the disenfranchised but also for the issue of food security for this country, while the prime minister gets his picture taken with a member of the plutocrat class.
Liow, who was granted a DNAA on his 26 money laundering charges involving RM36 million, getting his picture taken with Anwar is strange, of course.
I mean, if the prime minister were ignorant of who this person was, it would be even more queer.
Also, as far as optics go, a politician would normally attempt to gain some coverage by taking pictures with folks who were on the receiving end of injustice by the system. But here in Madani, everything is backwards.
Rational Malaysians have to wonder why Liow would wander into a Madani shindig after all the state has alleged about his activities and is embraced by the political class.
This is the kind of chutzpah that is only cultivated in Malaysia. This is about a system that a majority of Malaysians vote for and then complain and engage in culture wars over, which buries the class conflicts embedded in the system.
While mainstream political coalitions are busy finding easily identifiable “enemies”, PSM identifies systemic deficiencies and misguided policies that essentially encourage the working-class to vote against their long-term interests.
The sight of Jeyakumar, PSM committee member R Karthiges, its Perak Youth member P Kesavan, and a farmer identified as Ho Pon Tien being carted away by police in Tambun during an eviction of farmers and then released is a reminder of Harapan’s failure.
The progressive forces in this country, which were supposed to bring hope to a certain section of the public, have completely failed the people who voted for them.
Liow et all getting their acquittals and DNAA shines a spotlight on the nexus between class, political power, and alleged criminality.
Indifference
It says a lot about the shamelessness of political operatives in who they choose to be seen with, not to mention gives a fig leaf of respectability to those who would ordinarily be shunned by the right-thinking citizens.
What happened in Tambun, the prime minister’s own parliamentary constituency - the scuffles, the bloodied face, and the arrests - are, in reality, the culmination of bureaucratic and political indifference and not some sort of performance theatre.
It is disheartening to read about huge crowds collecting money and food for people who are suffering injustice in another part of the world while looking at the photos of hardworking people who are toiling the land for our benefit but are marginalised by the supposedly reform-minded forces in this country.
These families have a history of doing the hard, often thankless jobs of working on farms and, let us be honest, far from the democratic and societal norms that privilege a certain class of urban people.
What PSM was doing was not only shining a spotlight on the system’s inequalities but also highlighting an integral part of Malaysian life, far from the bourgeois politics of the urban enclaves.
The prime minister knows exactly how to play the class card. Attempting to raise populist sentiment, he once called out the fat cat Malay plutocrat class, who claimed to have the best interests of the Malay polity at heart but in reality merely exploited them.
Anwar also said the quiet part out loud when he said, “I want to tell the leaders with the titles of ‘Tun’ and ‘Tan Sri’ who are rich - if you really want to save Malays, give them half of your billions in profits tomorrow.”
It is talk like this which frightens the more intelligent members of the religious extremist coalition going up against this coalition government.
If you look at Malay operatives from PSM, their class struggle rhetoric often highlights the socialistic underpinnings of their religion. That is why the state strictly controls religious narratives.
Ultimately, the existence of PSM and its failure to gain traction with the voting polity is an indictment not of the system but of a segment of the voting polity agitating for reform but content with the current paradigm. - Mkini
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.
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