COMMENT I agree with Deputy Home Minister Nur Jazlan Muhammad - if there is no Bersih movement fighting for electoral and institutional reforms, there will be no Umno-linked red-shirt hooligans trying to derail them.

As he had opined, if Bersih were to stop, the red-shirts will too.

But to use the same logic - if the government were to stop its excesses and abuses, Bersih will too.

After all, the only reason Bersih was formed from the combined efforts of civil society, was because of the electoral liberties and institutional corruption fomented by the BN in its tenure as the government of the day.

And thus, if the minister would want Bersih to stop, he should look to clean house in his own domicile first perhaps before asking Bersih to swab its deck.

For the very corruption that is like a cancer at the heart of Malaysia stems from the party where he is a member, the government he is a part of, and the cabinet he knowingly sits on.

If he truly wants Bersih to go, he does not need to support his compatriots' tendency to threaten the public with red-shirt violence to cow legitimate democratic dissent.

Indeed, looking at the way Umno ministers are using the red-shirts as an excuse to ask people not to voice their concerns about the sorry state of our federation, one cannot help but compare Umno’s hooligan-adjunct to the Brownshirts.

The Brownshirts, also known as the SA - short for Sturmabteilung, German for Storm Detachment - were the paramilitary arm of the Nazi party and was used to silence all opposition to the nationalist race-based party, kind of like Umno in a way, though Aryan instead of Malay.

And in the case of Nur Jazlan, instead of using the red-shirts to scare people to keep silent about abuse of power and bad governance, he should act perhaps to clean up his own party, his own government and put everything ship-shape and in order. Or not.

Whatever it is, he is better served not to make such less-than-eloquent claim, which seem to belie his once more intelligent mien. It is, disingenuous to say the least, but that seems to be the quality of our cabinet ministers of late.

HAZLAN ZAKARIA is a member of the Malaysiakini team.