Harapan’s dangerous bait and switch

“Their complicity and silence now – is frankly shameful.”- N Surendran

Make no mistake about this. The new legislation to protect the sanctity of the monarchy espoused by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Liew Vui Keong is a craven attempt to please the monarchy in a way that Pakatan Harapan partisans often accuse certain Malay leaders of doing.

The public has never threatened the sanctity of the royal institution – whatever that means – but rather Malay political operatives over the years have slowly stripped the monarchy of its influence and powers, which they deemed detrimental to their self-interests. This had the unintended consequences of empowering democratic institutions, which was a good thing for the rakyat.

Liew’s rather asinine justification for the new legislation is typical of the horse manure coming out from Harapan political operatives these days. He claims that the new legislation is needed to ensure that the monarchy is protected from unfounded slander – as opposed to slander grounded in fact – and attacks by irresponsible people.

Who are these irresponsible people? Netizens who are using their freedom of speech that was trumpeted by Harapan as a departure from BN? Activists, like Fadiah Nadwa Fikri who is using her freedom of speech to ask legitimate questions about the royalty?

The only reason why Harapan is even considering these laws is that they want to please the monarchy and have no trouble shoving it to the average rakyat – Malays and non-Malays – who elevated them to power. They do this because they want to establish their race and religion bona fides; a non-Malay minister shovelling this horse manure demonstrates the servile nature of non-Malays in Harapan.

All of which is done to service Malay power structures and strengthen Malay institutions that are important for the Umno/Malay base, which Harapan desperately thinks it needs.

Liew actually has the temerity to claim that the punishments for certain offences against the monarchy are too lenient. Really? I want Harapan partisans to think about this carefully. Liew is saying that the restricted class of people where freedom of speech does not apply, has too lenient punishments and what Harapan wants to do, is make the punishments more severe.

Controlling the racial narrative

What does he want? Whipping, chopping of hands, or maybe to show how serious Harapan is, the death penalty? Moreover, what does the grand Harapan poohbah say when discussing these new laws that supposedly protect the sanctity of the monarchy? 

Liew babbles on about looking into definitions. Listen, how is defining what constitutes an insult to the royalty help the police or the royal institution? People will just subvert or skirt those definitions and continue – if they are brave – exercising their democratic rights, which this government claimed it was interested in defending.

This is about protecting a certain idea, which is used to control the racial narrative in this country. Race and religion are the other two ideas. Everyone knows this. By enacting legislation to further protect one idea and cavalierly talking about increasing the severity of the punishment, what Harapan is actually doing is further codifying ideas that are sacred cows to the racists and bigots of this country.

The most interesting aspect of Latheefa Koya’s rejoinder to the police was this line – “The authorities must be able to prioritise their resources to tackle genuine criminal matters, and not get involved in petty politically-motivated issues that should not be their concern."

Indeed, any issues pertaining to the royalty in this country are politically motivated. When someone like Fadiah raises issues about the royalty, she is investigated under the Sedition Act 1948, but when someone like the prime minister reminds us that the royalty is not above the law, this is somehow not deemed seditious.

Both were correct, but the person who suffers is the one who is supposed to have constitutionally protected rights but is thrown to the wolves, because the political narratives in this country depend on the average rakyat not slaying sacred cows, and Malay political operatives making deals with institutions deemed sacred.

It is pointless that the youth groups in the DAP are speaking out against this law and these injustices. Where are all the big guns of Harapan? Anwar Ibrahim, our prime minister-in-waiting, does not want to spook the Malays. I guess leaders such as Lim Kit Siang, Hannah Yeoh, Tony Pua , Teresa Kok, Lim Guan Eng, and M Kulasegaran do not have a problem with this.

I get it. They do not want to be the non-Malay leaders who speak about the injustice of this new law, or the fact that people are arrested for making comments on social media, because this would stir the honest nests of the Malay far right.

Strange, isn’t it? People like to call the MCA eunuchs, but now when it comes time to display scrotal fortitude, all these people who were shouting on the streets, online and on every platform they were on about how cruel and “low class” the Najib Abdul Razak regime was, seem to have lost their voices.

Some partisans who opposed these laws before May have the audacity to email me now saying that I should not speak up on this issue. The state security apparatus knows how to do its job? Really? Now people have faith in the security apparatus? Now, suddenly the state security apparatus knows how to do its job?

What the state security apparatus should do is to crack down on people who wish to do harm with violence to the democratic institutions of this country. But what it always does – and now with the blessing of Harapan – is to crack down on the average rakyat who use their freedom of speech to question what is wrong with the democratic and royal institutions of this country.

So not only is Harapan backtracking on its promise to repeal certain oppressive laws, it now seems that it wants to add to them.

Welcome to the Neo Malaysia.

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S THAYAPARAN is commander (rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. A retired barrister of law, he is one of the founding members of Persatuan Patriot Kebangsaan. - Mkini