The MACC failed: A Betrayal of the Native Ethos
By Bunga Pakma
In the bad old days of headhunting in Sarawak, if an enemy had been captured—a native or even a white man—and brought back to the victors’ longhouse, and the tuai rumah had recognised that person, the tuai rumah—at that time always an orang raja berani-–would have stepped in and conducted that prisoner to his bilek, fed him, and told him that he had nothing to fear: he was under his, the tuai rumah’s, sacred protection. If agitated nasty bujang warriors gathered at the door of the headman’s bilek, the headman would say, with his hand on the hilt of his parang ilang, “If you want to take this man’s head, you do it over my dead body.”
I hope that Our Founder, Mr. Sim, will allow me to add a short pendant to my last.
We all have had the experience of rough usage in conversation, of being taken aback (this is a metaphor referring to sailing ships) by an sudden gale of words that blow upon us without our expecting it. And then, as we leave, we understand what we ought to have said.
The term for this in French is espirit d’escalier, literally, “staircase wit.” You know what you wanted to say when you’re already on the way down. This mode of thought could be expressed in Iban as pengerunding di pala’ tangga.
No piece of writing is ever truly complete. We all participate in an endless conversation. I contemplated what I wrote last, and would like to add these few words.
The late Mr. Teoh was, effectively, captured and arrested by the MACC. He was totally in its power and its prisoner. As far as I know, the MACC summoned him without the authorisation of a warrant issued by a judge. He probably agreed to follow along because of extra-legal considerations. Perhaps he had a mortgage, and could not risk putting himself, his wife and child-to-be on the street. He obeyed the orders because he reckoned them the lesser of two evils.
Once the MACC received his person in its premises, Mr Teoh was totally at their mercy. The converse is that MACC was under all notions of humanity bound to protect him, whatever may come. Primá facie, they failed in that. If they detained him, and he was exhibiting signs of agitation depression, or suicidal urges, the MACC was in duty bound to call an ambulance. Was there no one around to show him the way to the toilet and to the water-cooler? Did no one bring him food or a cup of tea?
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