COMMENT | Umany sedition: It's not about the one man
COMMENT | Has anyone seen a python capture its prey? It catches the prey in its jaws then coils itself around the prey's body and exerts enormous pressure. This stops the blood supply to the prey's brain and disrupts its neural function. Once the prey is dead, the python slowly swallows.
Think of the government as the python. Its victims are certain members of the rakyat, like students, politicians, actors, social activists, NGOs, journalists and foreign and local newspapers which have been investigated and charged with sedition.
The pressure exerted on the prey is the use of the Sedition Act coupled with the bullying by state-sponsored agents (read: cybertroopers) and several deranged lone-wolf nationalists.
The prey may be the only victim for the python, but in the Malaysian context, it is not just one victim, because his family, friends, work colleagues and employer, may also be subject to the same pressure. These other victims are probably urged to persuade the main victim to conform and retract his statement. Or else...
Many victims would probably hold out, but because they fear for their families’ safety, reluctantly accede.
The University of Malaya Association of New Youth (Umany) students are young adults, but the government treats them like...
COMMENT | Has anyone seen a python capture its prey? It catches the prey in its jaws then coils itself around the prey's body and exerts enormous pressure. This stops the blood supply to the prey's brain and disrupts its neural function. Once the prey is dead, the python slowly swallows.
Think of the government as the python. Its victims are certain members of the rakyat, like students, politicians, actors, social activists, NGOs, journalists and foreign and local newspapers which have been investigated and charged with sedition.
The pressure exerted on the prey is the use of the Sedition Act coupled with the bullying by state-sponsored agents (read: cybertroopers) and several deranged lone-wolf nationalists.
The prey may be the only victim for the python, but in the Malaysian context, it is not just one victim, because his family, friends, work colleagues and employer, may also be subject to the same pressure. These other victims are probably urged to persuade the main victim to conform and retract his statement. Or else...
Many victims would probably hold out, but because they fear for their families’ safety, reluctantly accede.
The University of Malaya Association of New Youth (Umany) students are young adults, but the government treats them like children.
The students have confirmed that the statement they issued was for academic discussion and their intention was not to be seditious or malicious. Why are the students being hounded for exercising their rights, their brains and their intellectual prowess?
The actor, Patrick Teoh, the politician, DAP's Ronnie Liu, and the Al-Jazeera journalists made valid observations or reported on issues which affect them and the country, but most of all, they are intimidated purely for speaking out loud what most of us are thinking.
The Umany students could one day become the nation's leaders. Haven't we already lost vast hordes of able, courageous and smart students to our neighbour in the south? Why breed more parrots when we can train eagles?
Where is the moral support from students who studied overseas, in the West? They saw democracy in action but on their return, subscribe to the code of silence and quietly conform to our repressive laws. It's as if they had never left Malaysia.
Why are most Malaysian academics silent and meek? They should be angry that the authorities are bullying the Umany students. Why did they not show their outrage at Universiti Malaya for wanting to "investigate" the students?
One retired academic said that the current crop of academics is practising self-preservation. They are silent because most are attached to public universities.
The Red brush
Read the criticisms levelled at the Umany students and others who have been accused of sedition. Some cybertroopers and nationalists accuse them of being communists because the charge will remind most older Malaysians, especially the Malays, of the violence during the Emergency.
The numerous police reports were made to stir up public sentiment. Their aim was to make other Malaysians see them as enemies of Malaysia.
Umno-Baru/PN and their cybertroopers work the public to a fever pitch and the Malays think that the nation is over-run with Reds, whilst the non-Malays fear that they will be tarred with the same Red brush, so in the end everyone keeps quiet. This is the ultimate goal of the authorities, to keep us stupid and silent.
Instead of Malaysians demanding an honest debate about sensitive issues, we are distracted by an idea that was planted in Malaysian minds, that the nation is being betrayed by these so-called Umany dissenters.
Is this it? Sixty-three years after Merdeka, Malaysia has become a version of Joseph Stalin's Russia or Mao Zedong's China. During Stalin's purge of Russia, citizens were encouraged to become informers, and during Mao's Cultural Revolution, children would denounce their own parents.
Ironically, despite the taunts of the ultra-nationalists in Umno-Baru/PAS/PN, they are no better than the communists.
The Wawasan 2020 that former PM, Dr Mahathir Mohamad dreamed of has become an Orwellian nightmare. He helped to promote the cultural wave of Ketuanan Melayu during his first tenure as PM. None of his former cabinet can claim innocence of their roles in fomenting division in our society.
Yesterday, the chief of police said that anyone who takes videos or distribute videos of police officers on duty could be investigated under Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 and Section 500 of the Penal Code for slandering.
If the police have not done anything wrong, why fear a video recording? If the tables are turned, a recording can also be used to prove that the police have done their job properly, especially where people may claim police brutality.
Is Malaysia on the cusp of becoming a police state? Some people claim that we are already one. Charging the students with sedition is not about one man - the king.
The real reason for charging the students is to show the rest of Malaysia, that they are at the mercy of the authorities. Sedition is the tool used to control our behaviour and to manipulate how we act.
By killing off dissent, the largely Malay government hope to sustain their own supremacy. They do not realise that this may backfire because Malaysians will lose faith in the government altogether.
MARIAM MOKHTAR is a defender of the truth, the admiral-general of the Green Bean Army and president of the Perak Liberation Organisation (PLO). Blog, Twitter.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
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