My friends are my enemies

And the ongoing PKR party election also gives us the impression that fellow PKR members and leaders need to be destroyed at all costs and that comrades-in-arms are the enemy and not those wearing the uniform of the opposing forces.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

This morning I am going to write a very short piece and not my usual cheong heiarticle. After all, international publications restrict pieces to about 800-850 words and anything longer than that is rejected.

So let’s see if I can say what I want to say in less than 800 words. And then I have to hit the road to attend the inaugural meeting of the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM) followed by an anti-ISA demonstration at Piccadilly, probably the busiest intersection in London, to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Internal Security Act (ISA).

What I want to write about today concerns friends and enemies. History has shown us that humankind is more brutal to its friends than its enemies.

More than 1,000 years ago, during the time the Roman Empire was split into two (the Western Roman Empire was in Rome and the Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople) Christians regarded Catholics as not Christians but Paulicians. And these Paulicians were regarded as heretics and were put to death, as were the Coptic Christians who eventually fled to Muslim-controlled territories.

Now, they were all Christians, mind you, but they were Christians who did not share the same theological beliefs or were of different sects. But this is not what I want to talk about. What I really want to mention is that the Christians of Constantinople had diplomatic relations and trade dealings with the Muhammadens (now called Muslims) of the Abbasid Empire of Baghdad.

Can you see the irony of this whole thing? The non-Christians were friends of the Christians but fellow Christians were their enemies and were put to death.

1,000 years later, when the Wahhab clan swept across the Arabian Peninsular after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, they killed all fellow Muslims not of the same Wahhab movement or sect.

The Jews and Christians were spared though. But entire Muslim communities that included old men, women and children were massacred -- including their goats, sheep, camels, horses, chickens and whatnot. Nothing that breathed was allowed to live.

Can you see the irony of this as well when Muslims massacre Muslims but Jews and Christians are not touched?

Now we are seeing the Batu Sapi by-election in Sabah and we begin to wonder whether PKR and SAPP (fellow anti-Barisan Nasional parties) regard each other as the enemy or whether they see Barisan Nasional as the real enemy.

Then we see DAP, in particular DAP Selangor, and we begin to wonder whether fellow DAP members or fellow DAP Selangor members are the enemy or whether Umno and its Barisan Nasional stooges are the real enemy.

And the ongoing PKR party election also gives us the impression that fellow PKR members and leaders need to be destroyed at all costs and that comrades-in-arms are the enemy and not those wearing the uniform of the opposing forces.

That is all I want to say today and I managed to say it in 500 words. That proves I can be short and sharp if I really wish to.