“You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home - all the more powerful because forbidden - terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.”

- Winston S Churchill, ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears’

COMMENT Apparently, by calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, former de facto law minister Zaid Ibrahim has become one of the first of Churchill’s “thought mice” to be ensnared by the Umno state.

Hurting the feelings of the Umno Big Cheese is unacceptable even though Umno vice-president Hishammuddin Hussein grandly proclaimed , “If you don't have the ability to absorb whatever has been thrown at you, how are you going to lead the country?” at a speech launching Umno Youth's Akademi Kepimpinan Kapten Hussein.

If Zaid is charged, why not the grand master, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who has said much worse?

The answer of course is simple. There are varying degrees of fear. While Zaid can be made an example of, the fear that the former Asian strongman generates in the regular members of Umno - and no doubt, supplanted by the cautioning of the wily former prime minister’s sleeper agents within the corridors of Umno power - prevents any kind of overt Umno state action.

In my writings for Malaysiakini , I have been critical of most of the opinions of former New Straits Times group editor-in-chief Kadir Jasin. However, his blog post on a fearful Najib is perhaps one of his most intelligent pieces and one of the more insightful commentaries on the Umno schism that is destroying the country.

He clearly points out that the power struggle within Umno is dominated not by political titans but rather feeble men, created by a system of patronage.

He correctly points out that the sole reason why Umno deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin is out in the cold is because “Muhyiddin mempunyai soalan-soalan sah (legitimate questions) mengenai hal-hal yang disembunyikan daripada ahli parti atau yang dibohongi kepada mereka.”

And he is right about what they fear - “Mereka takut soalan-soalan Muhyiddin dan ketua-ketua cawangan yang berani akan membuka mata perwakilan sehingga menyebabkan mereka mengubah pendirian.”

Kadir ends his adroit piece with a piece of advice for the deputy president - abandon the mainstream Umno media and embrace the alternatives that the Internet provides. It is a good strong partisan piece that shrewdly examines Umno power and personage.

At the heart of it, is the fear of a sitting prime minister who narrowly and by electoral legerdemain won a contentious general election. This fear manifests in numerous ways. Najib’s refusal to face his peers in Parliament and hiding behind disputed legal arcana. His dismissal of party loyalists and security apparatus personnel deemed treacherous. His cloying homages to nation building while submitting to international treaties, negotiated on unequal terms.

War against the constitution

However, the apogee of this fear is the creation of the National Security Council (NSC) that a confidant of mine refers to as the National Scoundrel Conclave. Something of this magnitude displayed for the whole world to see the cowardice that grips this prime minister.

Malaysia has always been a country toying with the idea of police state. We have had and currently have numerous laws in our books, that curtail the fundamental freedoms that other take for granted. Race and religion have been used to subjugate the Malay majority and humiliate the non-Malay minority. Class concerns have been conflated as racial ones and numerous laws have been promulgated to aid in the suppression of independent thought.

Three years ago in a comment piece titled ‘ Umno's war drums herald bleak future ’, I had this to say during the height of another Umno gathering - “The long Umno watch has been an era of 'Gleichschaltung'.

For those unfamiliar with the term, it is Nazi terminology meaning 'coordination' or "the restructuring of German society and government into streamlined, centralised hierarchies of power, with the intention of gaining total control and coordination of all aspects of society".

Or indeed the rather ominous issuing of military ranks to Rela, which I described in the same article - “The formation of para-security groups such as Rela (People's Volunteers Corps), which Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak once described as Umno's ‘last line of defence’.”

The National Security Council is the logical conclusion of this. Before this, the instruments of control, the security apparatus, the judiciary and the various religious departments and assortments of bureaucratic agencies manned by zealots with delusions of grandeur, which trampled on the rights of the average Malaysian, were at least held to some vague degree of accountability.

It was this vague, dare I say it, hopeful glimmer of official accountability that kept the endless police reports, court cases and activism alive in the hope that aggrieved Malaysians had some official avenue to express their dissatisfaction and hopefully get some form of resolution.

What the NSC does is crush this belief under a jackboot. It is a piece of legislation that tells Malaysians that the government of the day henceforth cares little for them but more importantly cares little for their rights. It is literally an act of war against the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Malaysian constitution and an act of war against a population already living under oppressive laws.

Let me be very clear. The NSC operates under total secrecy, is answerable to no official body and is immune to any kind of inquiry or sanction. It is a council based on preserving the power not of a political party but rather one person. This is not a statement of hyperbole or a polemic against Big Government.

The prime minister literally operates with immunity and impunity and decides whom the enemies of the Umno state or rather who his enemies are. This is an Act (as well as an act) with far-reaching consequences.

This is the consequence of Najib remaining in power. How a leader who has demonstrated that he tolerates no dissent from adherents from within his own party, be expected to rationally use such powers that no leaders of functional democracies should ever have?

Indeed, I wonder if those Umno rebels voted for this abomination. If you did vote for it let me remind you that your belief in the Umno system will do you no good when the Umno system comes for you.

For the rest of us, all we can hope to do is be Churchillian thought mice that terrify this potentate.

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