Paradise lost for Tunku Aziz?
Tay Tian Yan, Sin Chew
As widely expected, Tunku Abdul Aziz’s senatorship was not extended by the DAP. As if that is not enough, he also finds himself coming under scornful assaults and branded a traitor. The disciplinary committee demanded an explanation from him, and some in the party wanted him removed.
Tunku Abdul Aziz joined the DAP three years ago in the midst of widespread cheers, making him the highest positioned and most reputed Malay member the DAP had had since its inception.
He was offered the party’s vice-presidency, and thanks to his popularity, the party experienced unprecedented metamorphosis to become a truly multiracial entity.
The cold treatment accorded to him has stemmed solely from his dissident views on the Berish 3.0 rally.
I have no intention of getting myself embroiled in the rally controversy any more. All that has come to my mind is a story I have read some time ago.
John Milton was a 17th-century English writer, second probably only to William Shakespeare in literary supremacy. His time-honoured epic “Paradise Lost” underscored the fall of humanity in the pursuit of freedom, quoting the chapter in Genesis where Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden.
In “Paradise Lost” there are the Heaven, the Hades; the Angels, the Satan; the Darkness, the Light; the Exaltation, the Decadence.
Wasn’t the April 28 rally a vivid reflection of “Paradise Lost”?
Milton had his own real-life experiences.
He met, fell for and later married 15-year-old Mary Powell at the age of 32.
After their marriage, he discovered they could not actually get along well. His young wife went back to her mother’s house, not returning for the following three years.
He wanted to put an end to the dysfunctional marriage, but was barred from doing so by the Church then.
Out of desperation he penned the famous Divorce Tracts, declaring true matrimony to be a marriage of body and mind, but if the body and mind have become dissociated, people should no longer be bonded by the covenant of marriage as this would contravene human nature and the will of freedom.
As such, he said, everyone should be entitled to the freedom of divorce.
His doctrine could possibly be accepted by people today, but not three centuries ago.
He was suppressed and locked up for his heretical thinking.
Milton was least subdued, instead his ordeal energised him to think profoundly about the true meaning of freedom. In the “Areopagitica” he later published, he proposed the theory of self-rectification of truth, arguing that only with the freedom of speech would truth become more explicit with arguments. The so-called “truth” that has been erected through oppression would never be able to pass the test of time and become the real truth.
At the same time, Milton also advocated the freedom of thought, declaring that no one — be it a regime, political party or individual — has the privilege of scrutinising a person’s freedom of speech or thought on condition it does not pose any harm to other people.
Milton’s freedom of speech has since become the harbinger of democratic politics.
Like anyone else in this world, Tunku Abdul Aziz is entitled to the freedom of speech, and the DAP’s action against him only attests to the democratic qualities and bearings this party holds.
