[Apabila ceramah tidak dibenarkan itu petanda kerajaan BN sudah tidak menghormati lagi sistem demokrasi. Mahathir bukan lagi Perdana Menteri yang menjaga Malaysia dalam artikata yang sebenarnya kerana dia memberi hak (atau peluang) kepada sebelah pihak sahaja. Dia menjaga nasib BN - bukannya nasib seluruh rakyat Malaysia. Dia tidak mempunyai prinsip dan tidak menghormati hak lawan - sebaliknya mahu berperang dengan lawan yang diikat mulut dan tangan. Itu bukan sikap seorang anak jantan. Tetapi sejarah menunjukkan penonton nanti akan naik ke gelanggang walaupun pembangkang sudah ditutup mulut dan tangan. Bila itu berlaku sudah tidak berguna lagi semua peluru dan senapang kerana nyawa yang melayang itulah 'peluru maut' yang akan menghumbankan kerajaan. Sebab itulah Islam menganggap mereka yang syahid tetap 'hidup' sepanjang zaman..... - Editor]

Principles, Policies, Politics

By Harun Rashid

Aug 12, 2001

Individuals embrace principles for a variety of reasons. Often basic principles are seated in a deep love of truth and justice, not just for themselves and family, but for everyone. Perhaps there is a wish to meet high standards of conduct set by religious conviction. Sometimes, however, a person's principles are based on purely personal concerns, such as perpetuity in political office.

Political parties are composed of people who believe in common principles espoused by the party platform. Democratic political parties are based on idealistic principles which promote the greatest happiness and freedom for the citizens. On other occasions it is seen that the principles are but prelude to policy that concentrates freedom and happiness for the political office holders.

A democracy, in theory, allows the citizens, by the use of a vote freely cast, to make choices as to the principles they prefer. That political party which announces the more popular principles is given the opportunity to preserve those principles, establishing governmental policies designed to place the avowed principles into practice.

One popular democratic principle says that a citizen is innocent until proven guilty. Another is the idea that citizens may gather peacefully for whatever purpose to socialise, hear popular speakers, or just to exchange ideas and news of the day. In a democracy these principles are set forth in the national Constitution, which guarantees these principles as a basic right of the people. The political parties of the nation, as a tacit social contract, are expected to respect the supremacy of the Constitution as the highest law in the land. On election to office they give an oath to this effect. Sometimes they are insincere.

When a national constitution has enshrined a set of principles, each party in temporary power is expected to protect the basic rights of the citizens, and not to abrade them in any manner. To do so denies the citizens the fruits of their treasured democracy. When the politicians in power, for whatever reason they may offer, fail to uphold the principles on which the nation is founded, they have betrayed the trust of the people.

History offers many examples of such betrayals. In Germany the National Socialist Party, or Nazi, under the leadership of an Austrian who assumed the name Hitler, the rights of the people were taken away in the name of racial superiority and ethnic purity. The production of babies with blonde hair and blue eyes became a national priority. The leader had dark eyes and dark hair. This incongruity was politely ignored at the time. All news was filtered for effect. He appeared daily before the people, haranguing and rousing them to support his dreams, blinding them to his abominable set of concealed principles, which when translated into policy, led the country into WWII, resulting in the death of over 50 million people throughout the world. He committed suicide among the ruins.

In Russia, the Communist party of Lenin came to power in the midst of revolution against a feudalistic aristocratic monarchy. After Lenin's death the party and its egalitarian principles deteriorated into a cruel tyranny under the leadership of Stalin. Stalin transformed the Communist Party of Russia into a narrow elitist dictatorship through control of the judiciary and police. He killed or imprisoned his opponents by the thousands in a series of staged trials, using the judicial system of the state for purposes of legal assassination and long term incarceration. He controlled all means of communication, censoring any bad news or opposition.

The communist system produced a class of privileged gangsters who grew up trained to protect their privileged party position through misuse of political power. The idealistic principles were constantly reinterpreted to conceal the increasing loss of citizen's rights. Generations of youths learned that perfidy and threatening intimidation were acceptable behaviour as a path for success. In Russia three generations of callow opportunists now constitute a menace to the re-establishment of democratic norms. The Communist Party no longer rules, but the unprincipled moral behaviour remains, its low moral standard a hindrance. Under communism there was no Mafia in Russia. The government was the Mafia.

Numerous other examples from history demonstrate the fragility of democracy. It is readily destroyed when ambitious and greedy men put themselves forward by wile and deceit. Vigilance of the citizens must protect human rights. Once lost, only a determined struggle can restore the guarantees of the Constitution.

Recent US press reports quote the US ambassador-designate to Malaysia as making an offhand remark to Senator Kerry during her confirmation hearings. "After all, Senator, Malaysia is a democracy." The US has had a representative in Malaysia for decades, onsite to keep the US State Department briefed on local affairs. Her unchallenged remark suggests a serious failure of the US to truly appreciate the depths to which the Constitution of Malaysia has sunk. Malaysia is not a democracy.

All the principles of democracy have been lost. Not one of the parties making up the BN coalition will openly state, as a matter of principle, that a citizen is innocent until proven guilty. None will object when the police power is misused to stage show trials. None object when ministers justify police cruelty by offering specious allegations of ridiculous association. The BN coalition has lost all democratic principles, and that is why their policies are in such contravention of citizen's rights.

There is no freedom of the press. The press is owned and controlled by the BN parties and no dissent is allowed, especially as it may touch on rigged elections. The media has lost such public respect that few newspapers or TV stations can operate at a profit. The public, seeking truth, has moved to high technology for its news and communication. Computers and the internet are favored. Recognising this trend, the official policy is to interfere wherever possible, sending viruses to opposition writers and opposition discussion groups.

Many in the secret police are employed to act as propaganda agents, fomenting dissent and disseminating fabrications. They send numerous large emails to overfill mailboxes. They load discussion lists with messages having a destructive virus attached. They are a menace, and the computers of the entire government are now infected with serious viruses. No civil servant dares to open an attachment, even from a colleague. Many government servers are permanently down. The anti-IT policy stands as a testament to unprincipled management.

A favored means of the opposition to present news and talks by popular personalities is through CD's distributed rapidly throughout the country. Now the party in power, under the pretext of 'fighting piracy,' is propagating a policy of prohibiting sale of CD's by the many street vendors. The principle of a free press is again violated, as the policy betrays. Not one of the BN coalition parties has pointed out that the policy violates the principle.

In a democracy there are always principles which guide the day-to-day policy. In the absence of such principles, policies have no guide but to promote political power in perpetuity. In Malaysia the political parties in power have no principles, and this lack is exposed in every policy that is made. It becomes the more obvious and embarrassing when each and every opposition party puts forward a popular set of principles. The BN can only respond by temporarily bending their policies to match, or appear so. The facility with which this is done, such as in the switch to a policy of merit to meet university entrance requirements, is confirmation that Malaysia is led by a coalition without principles. Such a sharp change of tack catches the ministers off balance, and they juggle clumsily to regain footing.

When challenged to state their principles, as many writers have done, the BN coalition ministers respond with silence. They have no principles they care to state. Yet they dare to claim popular support. They put candidates forward for public inspection, but these candidates are without personal principle. Their policies are subject to amendment on a whim from above. Party functionaries cannot claim to represent either the people or themselves, only the narrow and selfish interests of the prime minister, whose personalised policies are held in a death grip. Each BN candidate takes an oath of office to protect the Constitution. He is then issued an official rubber stamp with which to activate the party policies in Parliament. The principles enshrined in the Constitution are lost in the rough on the golf course.

Though things today may have a somber hue, there is determination that present conditions are not permanent. The airborne chairs of MCA are but spray of the first wave. The young come as by a tidal wave, sweeping clean all before them. The scarecrows of the fields have lost their force. It is the new millenium. They speak their unprincipled policy but to the birds.

Though the baju and songkok be silken and new, the head is old, the face full of concern. When the police arrive in the middle of the night to make their arrest, none come to applaud. It is something of the old world, devoid of principle, lacking interest. Voltaire said history is but the sound of the hobnailed boot going up the stair, and the velvet slipper coming down the stair. Updated, it is the jogging shoe ascending, the wing-tip brogue descending.