MGG Pillai Commentary View

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The National Front does what it says it will not do

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