The National Front says what it does not do

The National Front says what it does not do
17 Jan 2006

PAK LAH SAYS HE will decide if the Commission of Inquiry on the nude
ear squat is made public. He should have decided that before he
appointed it. The Commission of Inquiry was told, unbelievably, that
the woman in question was not a Chinese national, as the mainstream
newspapers had reported, but a Malay woman. In the meanwhile, the
home minister, Dato' Azmi Khalid, had apologised to the Chinese
government. He says he did not, but the Chinese papers, which carried
a report of his press conference in Beijing, said he did. As usual,
he has not explained to Malaysians why he did, but told the Malaysian
press he did not apologise. No one believes him of course, but two
editors from the China Press have been asked to resign for printing
the news for which Dato' Azmi had apologised.

It is a mess. It always is when the government's view is challenged.
But a Malay girl is produced to say she is the woman in question, and
the world is told to accept that as fact. The nude ear squat is
illegal under police rules, the commission of inquiry has said it is,
but that is forgotten. The police take the view that is a culprit is
found, in this case two editors, that it was not a Chinese national,
and they should pay for saying otherwise. But the police in recent
years only tell the truth to commissions of inquiry. It denied the
former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, had been beat
to a pulp, when he was, by the Inspector-General of Police, no less,
who went to jail for so doing. The police has been harassing Chinese
tourists for years, but have denied doing it.

Chinese tourists, especially women, said they were, on the return
home, and this caused Chinese tourists to Malaysia to drop, causing
lower takings to hotels built for them, and to the casino at Genting
Highlands. Their economic clout can be see in the casino losing
millions of ringgit for the two days they boycotted early this year.
It is in the nature of civil servants that they do not do wrong. And
so it is the ordinary Malaysians who suffer. And so it happened.
Those in government who could say anything on the matter preferred
not to, unless a consensus is first reached. When it was, others were
guilty, not them. They are helped by the politicians, which include
the prime minister, who either support the government servants or the
official wrongdoing, or do their best to keep that hidden. They
believe they do the Malaysians a favour by doing so, and they should
not be asked to explain their decision. They do not, of course, blame
themselves for what happened.

After all, the National Front were elected in 90 per cent of the
parliament seats, and that gave it the right to do as they liked. It
has won more than two-thirds of the seats in parliament since 1964,
and that has given them, they think, the right to refuse to explain.
So they pass laws they cannot implement, work on amendments to laws
that is not yet, for its own reasons, implemented. It allows non-
Musims to be converted in secret, refuse all requests for proof and
buries them in Muslim cemetries, but the non-Muslim wife is given
what is due to him, against the law. A headmaster orders a Sikh boy
to shave 'because no male pupil is allowed hair on his face". The
government has allowed races in this country to follow their custom,
and this is one of them. The headmaster is therefore wrong. But the
headmaster and the boy is told to sort it out! The confusion came
under the National Front government, which has ruled this country
since two years before independence in 1957.

People have sort memories, so this is forgotten in time. Or so it was
thought by the leadership until now. The National Front insists what
affected the people on independence is what affects the children and
grandchildren of those who welcomed it. It sets the political agenda
so the other political parties, including in the opposition, orient
themselves in its shadow. The National Front is afraid of those that
don't. That is why it is afraid of PAS and Parti Keadilan Rakyat,
which have policies the National Front wishes it had. The proof of
the pudding is in the eating. The PKR enlisted 1,000 members who
marched across from the MCA. PAS had forced the National Front away
from its version of Islam. This results in Malaysia being more
restrictive that what it says PAS is.

In the Federal Territory, the Islamic affairs department has set up a
volunteer force to spy in lover's lanes, and call the police if they
find 'wrongdoing'. But this gives a wrong message to the non-Muslims
in this country. If they had intended to become Muslims, they will
think twice if prurient interest is what the Islamic authorities are
interested in. The Rukun Tettanga scheme of policing the
neighbourhood, which I was forced to join in the 1970s, is dead; all
it has to show it is alive is a brand new building, which is empty
most of the time. But the scheme is dead because the officials lost
interest in it. So would the Islamic scheme aimed at the prurient
interest of Muslims and the lack of space for Muslims to court.

The National Front is blamed for this. It wants to turn the country
into an Islamic state. It allows extremist Islamic action to put the
non-Muslim on notice. It usually comes out with a multiracial
statement to offset, in the public eye, their most extreme Islamic
behaviour. This extremist behaviour is supported by the non-Muslim
parties in the National Front. Malaysia is an Islamic state because
the MCA, MIC, Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, the non-Muslim parties in East
Malaysia like the Partai Bersatu Sabah and Sarawak National Party. It
preaches multiracial tolerance as a superficial front to carry out
its Muslim agenda. The National Front is in trouble if it carries out
a racialist policy while preaching multiracialism. It may not show
itslelf now, but it would in time. Pak Lah's difficulty is he cannot
agree for fear of the opposition in UMNO, the lead party in the
National Front.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com