MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Weaning a 'dangerous' man

AFTER 45 YEARS IN journalism, I have been told to join the people who run this country. I should be concentrating on other issues, like the poor. I said the poor in this country is poorer because of the policies now carried out. Another in the group said an average person in authority would not feel comfortable unless he has RM50 million in assets. Now, I know why a former civil servant is working hard at 77. He has only RM10 million in assets. He tells me he is a failure. This is not the first time I have been asked to give up my principles. Thirty years ago I might have, although I doubt it. I am 66, with my life behind me, I treat the offer with the contempt it deserves. I have known all the UMNO presidents and prime ministers, some of them personally, but they have not asked me to join them. I know the present prime minister, Pak Lah, well enough for him and his wife, now alas the late, to drop in at my flat while I was recuperating from my open heart surgery, though I have not met him a while. I hear from friends he is angry with me for what I write about his policies. But that is how the other prime ministers thought of me. I have been expelled - from Singapore - for my views, taken to court - one has not finished although it began in 1994 - and threatened with arrest. I do not intend to migrate, although there was pressure on me to go to the United States after my Nieman fellowship at Harvard University. I had a lifetime visa to the United States, but it is not valid after 11 September 2001. I do not think I would ever visit the United States again. The only place I will migrate to if I am asked to leave is to Kerala, in India.

I am regarded as a 'dangerous' person for more than 30 years. A former home minister whom I visit now and then told me of this appellation, and that he had recommended it. I had the habit, he said, of putting in print what should not be. I used to visit him, and occasionally travelled with him, after he had declared me a 'dangerous' person. The country has laws that are aimed at protecting the rulers. They threaten us frequently with the Internal Security Act, and we should not talk against the government 'for even the walls have ears." This has the effect of a cowed citizenry. But I am more likely to be knocked down by a motor car, crossing a busy road with my walking stick and infirm, than be detained under the ISA. The ISA was passed originally to contain the communists. It was later used to harass the non-Malay opposition members, but now it is used against Islamic fundamentalists, usually PAS members. But its purpose is to keep UMNO in power. I do not mean that I would not be detained under the ISA. I could be. I had grown a beard for more than 20 years, keeping it unkempt until recently, preparing for the day I would be taken in. There are factors why I would not be, but I could be. If those detained under the ISA are anti-Malaysia, why are there so many MPs who had spent time under the ISA?

If I am a 'dangerous' person, why do people in authority see me? Most of these people see me in secret, often late at night, - for being seen with me is dangerous to their safety - and they give me information that may or may not see the light of day. I am not as active after my strokes, but I do move around if I can persuade my sons or a friend to take me around. That was how I was at Dato' Seri Sanusi Junid's, and Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's, houses for their Hari Raya gathering. The two men, who have known each other for more than 30 years, are in different camps now and cannot bear the sight of each other, but they know that what one tells me the other would not know. I do not follow the current fad of reporting what a man says. I always ask him whether I can quote him for particular views, before leaving. I did that yesterday (27 November 2005) with Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, but I did not use the quote. I am interested in what is happening, not who said what. The sources are happy to talk to me knowing that I would not quote them except with permission. Often I will not. I rarely have an interview with my sources for publication, usually a discussion.

Often the people I meet as sources end up as friends. This is dangerous. I am accused by some of these friends for criticising them. Many are thin skinned, and cannot understand that I do not criticise them for their personal foibles, but in their official capacity. Again I must quote Dato' Seri Sanusi and Dato' Seri Anwar. I have criticised them for their actions in office, but they still see me as a long lost friend. I supported Dato' Seri Anwar after he was dismissed from office and expelled from UMNO. I am more neutral now, but my friendship with him has not wavered. I do not see him often, now that he is most of the time overseas, but he has told me when I could soon in Malaysia. After my strokes, one ambassador sents me his car when he wants to talk to me, and another sends me home when I call on him. I do not drive yet. I get to see mentris besar and the powers-that-be, even those who dislike me, when I travel around the country. I am careful of travelling with members of parliament and UMNO division heads, for once I was told that because I was at the meeting, the visiting dignitary could not be asked the questions they want to. Since I had not been to the area before, I asked if one of them would be a guide while I toured the area. On the way home, I was asked why I had left the meeting!

Maybe this is not how a journalist should work. That what I write is not worth reading because it does not represent the 'truth'. But I am read, even by journalists, for a different view I provide. I am often told I am a 'conspiracy theorist'. This is often hurled at any who does not accept the perceived truth. I challenged the perceived truth in Vietnam; I was lucky there because I was the only Indian reporter, though a Malaysian, and India was a neutralist nation and chairman of the International Control Commission. That challenging has not left me. And my writing mirrors it. If the authorities find that irritating, they should not try to shut me up; they should change their policies. Few in Malaysia are critical in English, but Malay papers and journalists are. I write but a fraction of what contains in the Malay or Chinese papers. The officials and politicians read the Malay papers now with more care, and act to prevent the pot from boiling. The English papers are not critical so we are told because the Caucasian foreigner will not come otherwise. The Tamil papers represent factions in the MIC, and can be ignored. It is the Chinese papers that has landed the Malaysian government in a mess today. They printed photographs of a naked Chinese woman doing the ear squat, which Pak Lah has said gives Malaysia a bad name overseas! There is no mention of the locals badly treated by the police, or police brutality which is common. Ask Dato' Seri Anwar! But why does a naked woman do the ear squat for a minor offence?

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