“Harapan, being politically and ideologically similar to BN, does the same thing any authoritarian regime would do: discipline, punishment, and control.”

– Maryam Lee, 'Making sense of GE14 from a dissenter's POV'

COMMENT | When Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad reminds Suhakam that our value system is not the same as the West, this is complete horse manure. Are there differences in what we as Asians value than that of the West? Sure, there is. You could make the argument that what we value as a community, regardless of race and religion, differs from the West. So, there’s that.

But when it comes to the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) issue, what separates us from the “West” is that we are bare naked hypocrites. Indeed, all you weaselly politicians are big stinking hypocrites. And anyone who supports you in this thinking is a big stinking hypocrite, too.

When the Wikileaks cables scandal erupted many years ago, tongues were waging of the gay politicians within the then Umno establishment. Does anyone really know of the gay politicians in the now Harapan establishment? What about the grassroots level operators who are gay? What about the propagandists from Harapan – DAP, PKR, Bersatu, even Amanah – who are gay?

All these gay people helped create your new Malaysia and you have the audacity to lecture Suhakam about not following Western values? But forget about that. Even in the old Malaysia, there were gay people who were part of the gravy train and who had no problem weaponising sexuality to destroy people, especially if they were part of the opposition or who sympathised with the opposition's values.

In fact, whenever the state wants to demonise an opponent, they usually claim that the opponent is attempting to propagate Western values when it comes to issues which at the core are about freedom of speech or expression, sexuality being part of the latter.

You know what really bothers me about this whole issue? It like this. First, the establishment attacks people who have very little say in society. They attack them along racial or cultural values lines because they know they have the support of other “religious” people. They know they can get away with it because people do not really care.

Then they move on. They always do. Take these attacks against lawyer/activist Fadiah Nadwa Fikri. You really think that the attacks against the LGBTQ community and Fadiah are not part of a larger narrative of social/political control? The difference between the two is the reception of the public. In Fadiah's case, what she dissenting against finds some currency in the way how some people think of state power when it comes to history and the royal institution. So, the establishment is careful in the way how they handle the Fadiah (photo) issue.

But when it comes to the LGBTQ community, they know that people generally do not care for obvious religious or cultural reasons. They also know that their hypocrisy will not be unmasked on a political level because while political parties rely on gay people, they know that nobody wants to rock the boat in case the balance of power is threatened. So, all that is left are gay activists, and nobody cares much for them or their cause.

Meanwhile, people are licking their lips at the situation the former Umno grand poohbah Najib Razak finds himself in, and the prime minister gets to remind a human rights organisation to marginalise certain people based on their gender or sexuality. The state security apparatus gets to mess around with an activist who is challenging the official narratives, pedophiles have a field day because child marriage laws allow them some leeway in their perversion because religious people are more involved in the sex lives of consenting adults than the grooming – see what I did there? – of children.

Messy issues

Come on, how many lawsuits and state-motivated legal harassment against opposition-now-establishment politicians have been dropped? How many legal suits against media practitioners who were supposedly pro-opposition have been dropped? You think this is a coincidence? If the state wants to disentangle itself from what it did before, it can. The reason why Fadiah is attacked is the same reason why the LGBTQ community is attacked. Because this is what the state condones.

In Fadiah’s case, you really think that whoever these goons are that lodged a report against her, does not have the backing of the state? What I mean is, it is convenient for the state that a police report was lodged and the state security apparatus investigates because then they do not have to deal with the messy issues that Fadiah brings up. But what really bothers me is the hypocrisy. The former prime minister rewrites his own history all the time, so why shouldn’t the average citizen, do the same.

Similarly demonising the LGBTQ community is easy because then the state does not have to answer questions of how the religion of the state has played a part in how various communities are at each other’s throats and how the religion of the state has hampered the growth of a community which we are told are in constant need of state intervention.

Remember the syariah-compliant guidelines for the private sector? Here’s what I thought of it -"This is how it starts – innocently enough. Hidden behind a message of fairness is actually the tools for compliance. Guidelines eventually become dogma, and because they think people will not notice – most often they do not – they encroach into our public and private spheres uncontested."

People always forget that things start small. Brazenly telling a human rights organisation to marginalise a certain segment of Malaysian society or the state security apparatus investigating an activist in violation of promises to respect freedom of speech and expression is the larger narrative of state control.

That’s how the state manages to divide us. First, they attack easy targets, then they normalise fascism by rejecting counter-narratives.

This piece ends which a question Fadiah asks - “Does that mean the change on May 9 is just an illusion?"

 

S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy.

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