Golf to politics: Teeing off with Haris
Haris Ibrahim talks about the rise of people power, how Ayah Pin ended his law career and his retirement plans.
Having no idea what a blog was, Haris turned to Google, and found to his bewilderment, hundreds of links to teenage diaries. He immediately dismissed the idea. His crash course in blogging came in January 2007 when he was asked to defend journalist, Ahiruddin Attan, and Jelutong MP, Jeff Ooi.
Stephanie Sta Maria, Free Malaysia Today
If this interview was done more than a decade ago, Haris Ibrahim reminisced, it would have taken place at the luxurious coffee house in the Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club.
But the once fanatical golfer, who played 54 holes on a single day, saw his love for the game diminish because of a gardener.
Like every golfer, Haris had yearned for that elusive hole in one but the garderner’s plight on a sweltering afternoon had left a gaping hole in his heart.
FMT recently caught up with the former lawyer at a humble tea stall, and when the owner emptied a bucket of dirty water behind him, Haris lifted his glass of teh-tarik as if in silent salutation of the irony between his plush past and modest present.
And the 52-year-old president of the fledgling political outfit, Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM), recalled the life-altering lesson which he had learnt from the gardener.
“I was driving past the golf course and I saw a gardener fashioning a crude cardboard shelter for herself in the shrubs… I threw my clubs away that day,” he said.
An unnecessarily dramatic act? Not when it is held up in the light of Haris’ life. Then it becomes almost mundane.
Haris is driven by a fierce intolerance of injustice. It is a trait that has continued to steer his life path which began in the courtroom.
For a while he basked in the reputation of being a legal gun for hire. Then the millennium arrived and brought with it the case of Ariffin Mohamad or Ayah Pin of Sky Kingdom fame.
Little did Haris know that the self-styled prohpet would herald an end to his legal career.
“On Nov 19, 2000 I headed up to Kelantan to see if I could offer help to the four apostates,” he recalled. “There was mayhem in the Syariah Court when they renounced Islam and I witnessed the worst case of injustice that day.”
“Four unrepresented individuals were treated with great hostility and imprisoned because the court refused to recognise their constitutional right under Article 11. After the sentencing, I went to their village and promised to help,” he said.
Miscarriage of justice
In his idealistic eyes, the situation was simple – a miscarriage of justice had occurred but this would be set right once the law took its course. That was to be his first of many bitter jolts.
After the umpteenth jolt, Haris finally concluded that the judiciary was no longer serving the people. And in one fell swoop his childhood dream disintegrated.
“I grew up listening to uncles who were lawyers,” he said. “They fired my imagination and inspired me to practise law. But the institutions that are intended to serve the people are now bowing to political masters.”
Haris joined forces with human rights lawyer, Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, to launch “Article 11 The Coalition” in January 2006. They were shut down after a mere six months. A friend suggested blogging instead.
Having no idea what a blog was, Haris turned to Google, and found to his bewilderment, hundreds of links to teenage diaries. He immediately dismissed the idea. His crash course in blogging came in January 2007 when he was asked to defend journalist, Ahiruddin Attan, and Jelutong MP, Jeff Ooi.
“They were being sued over their blogs and I couldn’t comprehend how that was possible,” he laughed. “Then I visited their blogs and was blown away by the content.”
“I launched my blog, The People’s Parliament, in April that year and one thing after another led me to where I am today. But if you had told me 15 years ago that I’d be here, I would have said you were mad.”
And where he is today is right in the heart of political activism.
Last October, he took another firm step forward to become the president of MCLM (Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement). The movement is chaired by another blogger, Raja Petra Kamaruddin.
MCLM’s mission is straightforward. It aims to field 30 candidates for the next general election under a non-BN party or as an independent. The 30 are an eclectic splash of familiar and unknown faces bound together by a singular promise to serve the people.
