Chin Peng, sympathy, injustice and sanctity of contract
More importantly, by allowing the former militant leader to return and hence, fulfilling the obligation imposed on the Malaysian government, it removes injustice from the equation. Without injustice as a factor, there is little reason for those close to the political centre to sympathise with Chin Peng and thus, killing the seed for greater support — however small the increase is — for communism and the general political left in Malaysia.
By Hafiz Noor Shams, the Malaysian Insider
The day I had a lunch appointment with a friend at the central business district in Sydney was one of those pleasant summer days.
With blue sky and time aplenty, I walked the distance, which was about a mile or two from my home. As I approached the restaurant, my cell phone beeped. It was a message from the friend. She requested for an hour worth of postponement.
With me already among streams of people crisscrossing the city centre minding their own business, I switched direction and headed toward Hyde Park to visit a prominent war memorial.
Inside, on the wall carved the word Malaysia, along with other places where Australian forces had fought long ago. My mind immediately raced toward a period when communist insurgency was running high in Malaysia. Years have gone and sympathy for communism should be dead by now but it is has not.
The dishonourable path the Malaysian government takes with respect to former communist militants may unnecessarily fuel the fire of communism and the general political left in the country.
Communism is a disagreeable idea that restricts liberty.
Its goals are arguably dreamingly nobly utopian. Its means are not however; its opposition to private property right is enough to demonstrate how communism is anti-liberty. Furthermore, good intentions and goals are never enough. History has shown how communism failed in all four corners of the world.
Wherever it still exists, it is a façade supported by capitalism, it exists side by side a ruined economy, its promises unfulfilled, or it only exists within the framework of democracy that communists in the real world — not mere theoreticians who failed to account for reality — long ago considered as an anathema. Communism simply fails to confront real world problems.
In great contrast, capitalism in one form or another continues to be the best system to ensure prosperity despite all criticism that have been lobbed at it and despite painful crashes that we see every now and then. It has been performing better at delivering prosperity than any form of communist solutions that any communist can realistically hoped for, so far.
A stronger statement is possible: it has been performing better at delivering prosperity than any other system, so far. In the face of this observation, those who still cling to the promises of communism are being hopelessly romantic, bathed in stubborn denial and doomed for ideological failure.
The truth is self-evident yet, former communist militants — more so its former head Chin Peng who is unrepentant of past transgressions and his failed ideology — continue to receive sympathy from far too many individuals in the country.
For all the pain communism had caused all around the world and especially in Malaysia, only those on the political margin should be expressing sympathy to either communism or former communist militants, and not those near the centre. Yet, many close to the political centre do so.
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