Friday Jottings: Deflecting the troubles away
Friday, May 3rd, 2024 IN dealing with criticisms directed at the Government in handling contentious issues including the possibility of Najib Razak being placed under house arrest, a communicator for the Madani administration Fahmi Fadzil, has adopted the “deflection” strategy.
First of such instance was when former Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin made some comments alluding that relations between the Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional were strained due to the Najib issue.
Fahmi hit back at Muhyiddin saying that the Perikatan Nasional chairman had no moral standing to make comments regarding the country’s currents affairs including political issues because of his failure to cooperate with the authorities in urging his son-in-law, Muhammad Adlan Berhan, to return and face criminal breach of trust.
Such strategy was not only employed on Muhyiddin. A few days later, Fahmi used it to deflect Muar MP Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman’s criticism of the Government’s keenness to act against its critics.
Describing the Muar MP hypocritical, Fahmi raised the spectre of the 1987 Ops Lalang and told Syed Saddiq, who was not yet born then, to ask his idol back then, and that if a comparison is to be made between then and now, the difference would be like heaven and earth.
Ops Lalang, an Internal Security Act swoop in 1987 saw the arrests of more than 100 politicians and activists. It was during Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s first round as PM.
No doubt Syed Saddiq may not have been born then, but he could have also reminded Fahmi that he was a bigger hypocrite as his current idol Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had “idolised” Dr Mahathir since before the Ops Lalang, through it and for 11 more years until he was sacked in 1998.
Since Fahmi is keen to defend the present administration’s action, he should probably take a look at some old newspaper cuttings which reported how Anwar had defended the security measures taken by the Government then as well as praising Dr Mahathir for his firmness in dealing with groups and individuals threatening national security.
Anwar was then Umno vice-president and Education Minister.
In fact, much of the racial tension was attributed to Anwar, who, according to DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang in his blog posting in 2007, had admitted he was wrong in 1987 for dispatching staff unversed in Mandarin to become principals and senior assistants of Chinese Primary schools which resulted in the subsequent Ops Lalang.
Of course, when Lim wrote the blog posting, he was defending Anwar’s changed position then and was all for justice and fair play for mother-tongue education.
But the fact remains that for Lim, Anwar who is Fahmi’s present day idol, is pretty much responsible for causing the racial tension then as much as the subsequent mass arrests.
And since Fahmi had decided to raise the Ops Lalang spectre, blaming Dr Mahathir and painting it as repressive, it is probably worth a visit and to look at the other side of the coin.
Firstly, the late Tun Mohd Hanif Omar was on record stating that the decision to conduct the Ops Lalang swoop was the decision of the security forces.
He had informed Dr Mahathir who was the PM and Home Minister then, that the operation was necessary if a blood bath was to be prevented.
Hanif, who was the Inspector General of Police, had taken full responsibility for Ops Lalang insisting that the arrets were necessary to defuse tension.
His narrative was supported by the late Tan Sri J.J. Raj, whose last held position was as a Commissioner of Police, as written in his book “The Struggle for Malaysian Independence”.
Of Hanif meeting Dr Mahathir on Ops Lalang, Raj wrote that the IGP “impressed upon the PM that the responsibility for law and order lay in the hands of the police.
“The PM’s role would be deemed necessary if those arrested were to be detained for longer periods,” Raj wrote.
He further wrote that “through brilliant preventive action, the Royal Malaysia Police had averted what could have been, a major racial blood bath, far more severe than the May 13, 1969 riots.”
By and large, to the Malaysian society, both Hanif and Raj are model police officers whose integrity, commitment and dedication to the force and Malaysia’s security stands as a benchmark for those in the force and are indeed big shoes for them to fill.
Taken in that context, who is Fahmi, compared to these sterling Malaysians to demonise Ops Lalang and use it for his political expediency.
And while Fahmi is concerned with Syed Saddiq’s former idol Dr Mahathir, he should be concerned with the management of the nation by his idol Anwar.
When Dr Mahathir became PM for the second time, from 2018 to 2020, and several individuals were arrested of being supporters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
He had asked the Home Minister then to reconsider denying bail for the suspects and to charge them in court if there were enough grounds. Otherwise, he wanted them to be freed on bail.
Juxtapose that to the recent arrests of social media activists who were charged under the Sedition Act 1948 by the administration under Anwar of which Fahmi is part of it.
Lest Fahmi forgets, abolishing the Sedition Act was one of the promises the self-styled reformists group he belongs to.
Instead of repealing it, the current administration had utilised it and whatever reason given does not dilute the level of hypocrisy the Madani Government is indulging in.
Further to that, if Fahmi and his ilk are still in denial, the latest 34 spots drop in the 2024’s World Press Freedom rankings should remind them of where they are at if local criticisms and reminders are dismissed and deflected.
And it is under his watch. Obviously, using the past to defend the present is only leading the nation further down the slippery path.
Especially when the past is nostalgic, while the present, hauntingly melancholic.
Shamsul Akmar is an editor at The Malaysian Reserve.
