The Sex Video Farce and the Deus Ex Machina
It amazes me how our police could ever apprehend international terrorists when they cannot find out who the man in the sex video is and there is supposed to be a whole 15-minute sequence of him in the act.
By Dr Kua Kia Soong, Director of SUARAM
Watching toads jump from one political party to another has become a sport Malaysians are quite used to. But when it comes to “public intellectuals”, their shift from staunch critic to apologist of the Barisan Nasional Government still evokes incredulous amusement among honest intellectuals.
Dr Chandra Muzaffar’s fallout with PKR, instead of taking him further left as intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky have done, seems to have taken him further right. Nowadays, he is wheeled out as the “deus ex machina” in any Barisan Nasional-staged farce. [Deus ex machina was literally a god brought on stage in classical drama by a mechanical contrivance to resolve difficulties in the plot]
So, true to the BN script involving the sex video, Dr. Chandra also wants a Royal Commission of Inquiry:
“Chandra said it was the wrongdoer and not those who exposed the wrongdoing that should be targeted.” (NST 10.4.11)
He said the three datuks were not the wrongdoers and proceeded – as in the BN script with the accompanying media screenplay – to challenge Anwar Ibrahim to clear himself:
Chandra, who is now a social activist and an academician, also gave his support for the establishment of a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) to determine the identity of the man in the video despite objections from Anwar’s family and supporters. He said they should have no compunctions about the establishment of the royal panel if they were convinced that Anwar had done no wrong. However, he warned the opposition leader of serious repercussions if it was proven otherwise, “as others in similar circumstances have done”.
Now if I was to follow the example of the three datuks and showed a sex video involving someone who looks like Dr Chandra, would he even deign to entertain my challenge that he proves that the man in the video is not him?
I don’t think Dr Chandra would nor should he! For, do we really need a RCI for a case that could be easily solved with elementary police work? I don’t think Sherlock Holmes would even deign to take up such a case. We expect RCIs to enquire into matters of greater public importance.
Now, the difference in the three datuks’ sex-video case is, Anwar Ibrahim has made a police report. That being the case, it is up to the police to take action to see whether there is any truth that these three impeccably moral datuks are “whisleblowers” who are trying to save us from an immoral politician or they are vexatious villains who are trying to fix and defame the leader of the Opoosition.
The police have thus to find out who the man in the sex video is; and if the man is not Anwar Ibrahim, they have to charge the three moral datuks for blowing the job at trying to be whistleblowers, under the appropriate purveying pornography laws. The mainstream media will also have to carry the can for the elaborate scheme to defame a politician. Do they ever feel shame?
It amazes me how our police could ever apprehend international terrorists when they cannot find out who the man in the sex video is and there is supposed to be a whole 15-minute sequence of him in the act.
It further amazes me how the police have detained more than 10,000 people under the ISA since 1960 and out of these, we have not heard of any international terrorists amongst them. On the other hand, Mat Top the alleged Malaysian terrorist who was killed by the Indonesian police and linked to the Bali bombings had never been detained under the ISA! What does this tell us about the ISA? And what does this tell us about the Malaysian police?
It is time for the police to redeem themselves and spare us this tiresome sex-video farce and the equally tiresome pronouncements of the BN’s deus ex-machina.
