COMMENT | We tend to take for granted the fact that a state and government exist primarily to remove violence from our everyday life.

The most fundamental function of a state is to monopolise the legitimate use of force.

It is thus deeply troubling and disturbing to have members of our government and political parties actively approve of violent tendencies - namely the throwing of slippers, chairs and flares at the Nothing to Hide 2 forum recently.

Let’s examine their responses closely, as well as discuss how the Memali incident should and should not factor, into what is unfolding in the present.

PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang said: “Thank you to those who sought an explanation for the Memali incident. Those who failed to answer the question should not get upset... The youths alone should not be faulted (for the fracas), the cause of it should also be blamed”

Minister Nazri Aziz said: “"He asked for it... He wants to be a street fighter, you want to behave like a gangster, that's what you get. You don't want to behave like a statesman, that's what you get."

Malaysiakini reports on our very own Prime Minister, Najib Abdul Razak:

“"Don't say one thing now and another tomorrow. Who made the U-turn?" he asked, laughing... "That is why so many chairs flew that day. Thank God, no chairs flew today," he joked.”

A joking matter?

How nice that Najib gets to enjoy himself amidst jokes and laughter, while people are actually getting physically hurt.

I’m usually all for injecting humour into political observations, but there comes a point when such a flippant attitude reveals something genuinely dangerous to society.

Nazri and Hadi exemplify the worst of the “s/he was asking for it” mentality, among the worst variants of which is the whole “she was asking to be raped because she was dressed like a whore”.

I don’t know how many more times we need to repeat that when a crime occurs, the criminal is at fault, not the victim.

I’m not here to argue that Mahathir Mohamad has never broken the law in his life, but I’m pretty certain he wasn’t breaking any laws in the moments or hours before thugs started throwing physical objects at him with the intention to harm him.

The latter is, without a doubt, a crime...