MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Pak Lah in a spot

THE PRIME MINISTER HAS excused New Straits Times but not the Sarawak Tribune and the Guong Ming Daily News. NST's front page apology on the front page showed the paper was contrite, said the Prime Minister. No body is penalised, as has happened in the two newpapers although they did apologize. All the television stations have carried cartoons deemed offending the Prophet, but how can they be punished? The information minister, Mr Zainuddin Maidin, who is himself a former newspaper editor, who has been running a feud with the former editor-in-chief of the NST group, Mr Khalimullah Hassan, is caught with a dilemma over the television stations under his control. TV3 is run by acolytes of Pak Lah's son-in-law. NTV7 is not in the charmed circle, so will escape if the other television stations are not punished. But they carried the cartoons too. On that will depend on the National Front government's credibility.

The government has chosen to punish papers that most of the country do not see, and excused those that do. But the offense, in the government's eyes, is serious. Otherwise, why would the NST be asked to explain? If the authorities saw red over the cartoons in the three papers, then they should also on the television stations. The Special Branch is present at every opposition rally, and their tape recording has formed the basis of actions against the speaker. They are told the truth is in the recording, and are often sent to Kamunting under the Internal Security Act or charged in court. Viewers taped the caricatures and passed them on. The NST has got a few of them. As its mea culpa, it asks why the television stations are not penalised.

But is the government clean? Let us take two government linked companies which flout regularly the Prophet's injuction against alcohol: MAS and Pernas, which owns hotels like the Istana and the Mutiara (which is now the Crowne Plaza) which serve liquor. As does MAS,. Its former chairman's penchant for Dom Perignion is well known. But nothing has happened to it or him. If the government wants to rid the country of anti-Islamic influences, then it should go the whole hog. It should penalise the companies linked to it for disoberying the Islamic injunctions. It cannot argue that in the modern world, breaking it is required. Schoolchildren must wear 'approved tudung' or be penalised. It fines people for breaking the fast during the month of Ramadan, but half-heartedly. It only penalises what it can see, not what is in the letter of the Quran. It turns non-Muslims into Muslims secretly so that even his family does not know.

Is this what Islam Hadhari is about: go after those who fall foul of what one can see, forget about what Islam stands for and convert people in secret? Pak Lah must answer these discrepancies. He must also explain why the NST is excused but not the Sarawak Tribune and the Guong Ming Daily news. The NST is seen by more Malaysians than either paper. The two newspapers represent communities that feel left out in Malaysia. If anything, the action against these two newspapers have strengthened that feeling. The communities will no doubt compare the punishment meted out to the two papersd and the NST, and see not an attempt to prevent religious conflagration but division of religion, race and between East and West Malaysia. Pak Lah is in a spot. His civil servants have done the damage for which he is held responsible. He has made it worse by excusing NST and not taking action against the television stations.

The National Front, led by UMNO, has taken Islam as its political platform, mainly to beat PAS at its own game. It has dispensed with multiracialism in this move. It is its version of Islam that matters. The MCA, MIC, its allies in Sarawak and Sabah have accepted it, usually because their leaders want to stay in power. But it kept quiet about Islam Hadhari when it met PAS in byelections in Kelantan last year. It is schizophrenic about Islam, and that would be disastrous in a country which has accepted UMNO as its political party. Since most Malay have more than 90 per in Malaysia are Kelantan, Trengganu, Kedah and Perlis, this is a disastrous development. The only two political parties here are UMNO and PAS; the others don't couint because they are united in hate. Any attempt by them to win elections to form state governments is unsuccessful. What happened to the DAP in Penang is not the National Front's effectiveness but in the voter's feeling that it should be in the opposition.

The National Front would be in the opposition if it continues its policy of harassing those it does not like but excusing those it does. It did not matter in the past. The people were happy to go along with whatever the government does. Not any more. The children and, more likely, the grandchildren of the independent generation, are already flexing their muscles and looking for an excuse to vote in others. They cannot trust the government in their every day lives, for the government uses instruments to help the people or be arbiters, to go after them. The National Front and UMNO magic that led the people to vote them in since before independence in 1957. But the people who are left out, the majority, is increasing day by day. This would take about two decades. And the National Front might then find the election result when it would have what the opposition now has. It happened in a Mauritias election, it can happen in Malaysia. Unless the National Front mends its ways. This is why Pak Lah must be harsh on the NST and the television stations.

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