MGG Pillai Commentary View

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The cat on the hot tin roof

THE CONTRADICTORY STATEMENTS FROM the Police suggest the ear squat is authorised by the IGP Standing Orders, and is therefore allowed. So what is the fuss? The police give out its information little by little, but they have said, in effect, it has done nothing wrong. The MMS videoclip is therefore not an issue at all. After all, the police have said in effect that a woman caught for leaving her passport at home could also be a drug carrier. If that is the law, then all the Malaysian government has to do is tell the Chinese government that its citizens come here at their risk, that its women will be stripped and made to do the ear squat for minor offenses, and if the Chinese government does not agree, its tourists should go elsewhere. After all, the laws must be respected. The IGP Standing Orders (IGPSO) is brought out to say that the police did the right thing. So, why is the Malaysian government behaving like a cat on a hot tin roof? And allowing the newspapers and media it controls to write to put the police in a bad light. But the police is lying. Unless it says that an ordinary Malaysian woman can be told to strip and do the ear squat for minor offenses. The Pak Lah government is in two minds: it wants to protect the police, and it wants the Chinese tourists to come.

The MMS clip showed that the police is doing the right thing, that what happenedd in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is normal in Malaysia, that the police here do routinely what the American military does to it prisoners in Iraq. The American military has justified stripping suspects it arrested, and the Malaysian police has justified its standing orders to humiliate anyone in its hands. The members of parliament are surprised and shocked when shown the MMS videoclip in Parliament house two days ago. They are angry, because the MMS videoclip makes them responsible, and responsibility is not what they were elected for. They say what they do not mean, and stay away from the one issue that caused it. But they cannot this time. No body talks of the Malay dominance - ketuanan Melayu - that caused it. It allows the government and civil servant to ignore the procedures if they carry out this hidden political role. It is this role that allows the police officer to do as he liked. He knows full well that he would be protected. The cabinet can only advise a policeman not to sue a non-Malay student for a complaint against him to the relevant authority. The policeman can do as he likes, and his superior, unless he is a non-Malay, is not punished. When that is the norm, then telling a woman to strip and do the ear squat will not be punished. No amount of soothing talk to the contrary will change that.

While the Home Affairs Minister, Dato' Seri Azmi Khalid, is ordered by the Malaysian cabinet to explain all this, no doubt, to the Chinese authorities, the Malaysian papers, which is owned by the National Front, is full of news items that suggest that tourists will be manhandled by lthe Malaysian police. Helpful is the suggestion that the woman in the MMS clip is not one of the three women from China who have reported that the police manhandled them. Somebody is lying. It cannot be the women or the MMS clip. The deputy OCPD has said the Malay police officer in a tudung instructing the naked woman what to do in a ear squat is with PJ police. The OCPD said she is not. Elaborate explanations are given to explain that the MMS is a fake. But nobody believes it. So the police must tell elabourate lies to prove it is right, and the perception wrong. There could well be hidden hand to allows these stories come out to embarass the Pak Lah government. But the police by following the IGPSO strictly had ensured that China tourist traffic is down 65 per cent down for the first nine months this year, compared to the same period last year. It will be further down when the year end figures are taken. Dato' Seri Azmi Khalid goes to Beijing to persuade the Chinese tourists to resume coming here. But he will have to explain what he cannot: why the Malaysian media is full of articles about the police stripping women and made to do the ear squat routinely.

When its newspapers report it, it must be true. So the police harass people out of the public eye. The Malaysian, especially the non- Malay, are quick to accept the worst. They do not believe the police is innocent. They are quick to accept the worst. He has personal experience of, or knows someone who had experienced, police highhandness. It has become the culture here of harassing the non- Malay. So what happened to the Chinese tourist is believed. The police justification is that many of the tourists, 50,000 at last count, mingle with the crowd. This is a fair complaint. But does this justify the manhandling of all tourists? Especially, when the police says they should not tarred for the wrong doing of a few. How can the police target all tourists from China because some of them commit offences under Malaysian law? What has the police done to stop that? Or is the police telling us that forcing innocent women tourists to do strip naked and do ear squats will solve the larger problem of tourists merging with the Malaysian crowd? It should explain why and how, so that the tourists from Asian and African countries know they will be targetted for the activities of a few of them.

How is it that 1.6 summonses have not been issued? It is taken for granted that once a Malaysian is told he has committed a traffic offence, he is deemed guilty. He has to pay the maximum fine. Otherwise he cannot renew his driving, car licence or his insurance. If he decides to fight it out in court, he must accept that he is not allowed to have his car in the meantime. A friend have renewed all this, after the police computer is checked, until this year, he was told of an offence in 1998, for which he must pay RM300 before he can have his car on the road. He paid. But a summons must be signed by the person against whom the summons is issued. It is for him to decide whether he goes to court, Not now. Anyone can put an alleged traffic offence in the police computers, in a moment of pique, and that is taken as proof that an offence is committed. This is one example. There are others in other ministries. So when the Chinese government attacks the Malaysian government for police harassing its tourists, Malaysians in the private sector clap their hands in glee. The Chinese newspapers have gone to town with the MMS videoclip, often giving it front page coverage, for the very narrow reason that the naked woman is Chinese. The government has justified what happened, and has become unstuck. The publici is happy about it. The National Front cannot ask its non-Malay partners to explain what is unexplainable. Besides, the non-Malay partners are unhappy at what has happened. They will not talk about it, because they want to be in the government, and they will sell their communities for that. Up to a point. The Malay ministers have to explain it to the public.

The Chinese government is on the warpath. But more important is the byelection in Pengkalen Pasir. What it says in public, and what its newspapers report on the police harassing the Chinese tourist becomes a political issue there as well. The average Malay does not want to be tarred with all this. The National Front hopes that he would not vote PAS as a result. The National Front, which in effect means UMNO, has forgotten about Islam Hadhari in Pengkalen Pasir, and hopes the voters will forget the MMS videoclip. But it has become an election issue in Kelantan. It goes against the Islam ummah (community), in which the non-Malay can live in peace but in a subsidiary role. But Islam does not allow them to be maltreated. The longer this issue is highlighted, the more difficult would be Malaysia's stance against the Chinese government, and UMNO's position in the byelection in Kelantan.

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