All I can say in response to the rash of sedition charges being brought against opponents by Najib Abdul Razak and his BN-regime accomplices in response to charges by former PM Mahathir Mohamad that they are too ‘soft’ on outspoken critics is more, more!

Not that I really expect such fresh outrages to arouse all or even most of the so-called ‘silent majority’ of Malaysians from their almost six decades of slumber, let alone alarm them into speech or any other kind of action.

It could possibly ring alarm bells for a few, but I assume the rest will sleep on regardless, as ever, like so many human drones, or what the great enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant called “domesticated animals”.

Which, of course, is precisely how the BN regime perceives them. As so many docile cattle to be milked, sheep to be shorn or rather fleeced and lambs to be led to slaughter, all silently sleep-walking to their fates for fear of being made scapegoats by their masters.

Such scare tactics have been used against the few for their wondrously soporific effects on the many for decades, most notably by that prodigy of political malpractice, Dr Mahathir, in his selective prescription of imprisonment under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for opponents, and the sodomy procedure he notoriously performed on Anwar Ibrahim.

But the doctor and his successors have also formulated a whole pharmacopoeia of other options for keeping the majority silently snoozing if not outright dead to the world.

Like the Official Secrets Act, for example, which is applied to everything possible including the nation’s finances and how they’re (mis)spent, so the people can do nothing but dream of the nightmare they’re sleeping through.

And just in case the sleepers get restless, there are countless pills in the police force, judiciary and other civil services, not to mention the mainstream media, paid by the regime with public money to keep the masses comatose.

Then there are such narcotics as the New Economic Policy (NEP), which enables regime supporters and cronies to prosper as nothing but sleeping-partners in public projects and private enterprise, and a millions-strong fund of viciously-victimised and indeed virtually enslaved labour to both feather-bed an industry of parasitic ‘agents’, corrupt police and immigration officials, and to save a great many Malaysians from having to perform hard manual work or even to get out of bed to go to work at all.

The ‘protector’ of Islam

As many as possible are called out to pray, of course, the better to have their prejudices preyed on by the regime, which is comfortably in bed with the so-called ‘religious’ authorities in its project to pretend to be the ‘protector’ of Islam.

A hypocrisy by this criminal cartel posing as a political coalition that is far more offensive and in fact insulting to Islam and genuine Muslims, Malay and otherwise, as any allegedly ‘seditious’ remarks by those of other races or religions could possibly be.

The BN regime’s record of corruption, fraud, embezzlement, misappropriation and outright theft of countless billions of ringgit in public funds, land and natural resources, and numberless other crimes up to and including murder, is about as blatantly un-Islamic as can be.

As are organisations like Perkasa and Isma that are supported and paid (as always, of course, with public money) to foment hatred for minority races, religions and social groups like gays and lesbians.

Yet, despite countless wake-up calls in the form of massive, uninvestigated and unprosecuted financial and corruption scandals, hundreds of suspicious deaths in police and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission custody, including the high-profile killings of Altantuya Shaariibuu and Teoh Beng Hock, and the suspicious ‘disappearance’ of MAS Flight MH370, still the silent majority lie like so many sleeping dogs.

Lulled at every turn by doggedly lying Prime Minister Najib, who, as everybody knows, achieved his position despite clearly being a person of interest, if not an actual suspect, in the Altantuya murder and the associated Scorpene submarines scandal.

Najib’s litany of lying lullabies is almost snore-inducingly endless, ranging from his ultra-hypocritical slogan ‘1Malaysia. People first. Performance now’ through a snooze-fest of speeches promising such fairytale fantasies as ‘the world’s best democracy’, ‘zero tolerance of corruption’, ‘vibrant, free and informed news media’, and, especially poignant in the light of his current persecution of those critical of him and his regime, repeal of the pernicious Sedition Act.

Admittedly this latter was in the heat of his campaigning for the May 2013 general election, in which he lost the popular vote but still caught enough Malaysians napping to ‘win’ his way back into power through electoral gerrymandering, voter roll-stacking, massive pork-barreling and plain, good old-fashioned bribery.

Having striven mightily to put the electorate to sleep, as you’ll no doubt recall, by signing a so-called ‘Electoral Integrity Pledge’ so patently false as to promise ‘Truth, integrity, ethical conduct and accountability’, including not accepting or giving bribes or being involved in corrupt practices in way; upholding and giving priority to the interests of the rakyat as a whole; good governance and transparency; and compliance with all the applicable laws and regulations of Malaysia.

Revealing one truth

As complete a pack of lies as this was, at least all but the most pathologically narcoleptic among us must be awake to the fact that it revealed one truth - that Najib very well knows what good government should be.

And therefore he’s as aware as you and I are that the election that he subsequently staged, and the regime that he has run since, have both been in such flagrant breach of these ideals, and so contrary to both the spirit and the letter of the Malaysian constitution and the laws of the land, as to themselves effectively amount to sedition.

In other words, Najib’s so-called government is as illegitimate as most of its activities are illegal if not outright criminal. And thus the more innocent parties that this rotten regime charges with sedition, the more it risks arousing some more if never all of Malaysia’s pathetically silent majority from their state of near-terminal sedation.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia', ‘Even Madder about Malaysia', ‘Missing Malaysia', ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.