Liberty

Happiness. That is what it is all about. And that is why we tolerate governments although governments are a nuisance and normally tend to interfere in our lives and tell us what we can and cannot do. However, to seek happiness, we accept this ‘necessary evil’.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Karpal Singh’s sedition conviction reaffirms return of authoritarianism

Eric Paulsen, Executive Director, Lawyers for Liberty

Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) is extremely concerned and shocked with the Kuala Lumpur High Court’s conviction of Karpal Singh for sedition where he now faces imprisonment up to 3 years and disqualification as member of Parliament.

Making political or critical comments is not a crime and especially so in this particular case as Karpal was merely giving his legal opinion on the 2009 constitutional crisis in Perak and under no circumstances can it be described as seditious.

While it is true freedom of speech is not absolute and there are accepted limitations e.g. incitement to violence and hate speech – the threshold for freedom of speech however must be high.

Karpal’s sedition conviction, following the dismissal of Uthayakumar’s appeal clearly shows the return of authoritarianism and political persecution after a brief lull where PM Najib Razak made a series of democratic reforms which turned out to be merely rebranding exercise and ultimately false.

Karpal’s conviction has once again reaffirmed PM Najib Razak’s false reformist credentials since not only has he broken the promise he had made on 11 July 2012 (when he announced that the Sedition Act would be abolished) but his administration has increased manifold the misuse of sedition charges against opposition leaders and dissidents like Tian Chua, Tamrin Ghafar, Haris Ibrahim, Safwan Anang, Adam Adli, Hishamuddin Rais and Suhaimi Shafie.

Sedition is an antiquated and undemocratic offence and most modern states have repealed or put it into disuse. It certainly has no place in a modern and democratic Malaysia that we aspire to be.

Further, these investigations and prosecutions are an extreme waste of valuable public funds and police and the Attorney-General’s Chambers resources would have been better used to address real crimes, rather than being squandered on what are clearly politically motivated offences.

LFL therefore calls on the police and Attorney-General’s Chambers to conduct themselves in a professional, fair and independent manner and not to selectively and in bad faith target opposition leaders and dissidents when government leaders and others connected to them like Ibrahim Ali, Zulkilfi Noordin, Ridhuan Tee, Mohd Noor Abdullah and others have made more serious and offensive speeches but led to no repercussion or action.

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“Give me liberty, or give me death!” is a quotation attributed to Patrick Henry from a speech he made during the Virginia Convention in Richmond in 1775. He is credited with convincing the Virginia House of Burgesses to pass a resolution delivering the Virginia troops to the Revolutionary War. Among the delegates to the convention were future U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

Yes, liberty, a very complex subject to discuss, although everyone may feel he or she understands precisely what that word means.

This is what John Stuart Mill said about liberty in his thesis, On Liberty (135):

“The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.”

Such a simple statement, but one that contains so many meanings!

First would be the part about ‘civilised community’. Does that mean if a certain community is not ‘civilised’ then it is okay to deny them liberty? That is one of the points which students of political philosophy and political science debate without coming to any consensus.

Some philosophers even go as far as to say that illiterate citizens should not be allowed the liberty of voting, as they would not be mature enough to know who to vote for. Or educated people should be allowed plural voting (that means more than one vote) since they will know better the right thing to do.

This means the one-man-one-vote system should be replaced with the system where the more educated you are the more votes you will be given or the system where votes should be denied totally for those who are uneducated.

Is that just? Some philosophers think it is. And that is why women were not allowed to vote until just about 100 years ago because women were not allowed an education in the old days so they were considered not clever enough to vote wisely.

The next point is the part about ‘to prevent harm to others’. How do we define harm and how far should we take this argument? I will go into this in detail later.

Finally is the part, ‘His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant’. This we will also discuss in more detail later.

Jonathan Wolff asks the question, “Once democracy is in place, what work is there left for the political philosopher? An optimistic view is that, as soon as we have a democratic decision-making procedure, the fundamental work of political philosophy is over. All decisions can now be left to the fair process of the electoral machine.”

Wolff then adds, “Sadly, even if democracy is the best system we can think of, it is not a cure-all. And Mill suggests it has its own dangers: the threat of the tyranny of the majority. It is naïve to think that the existence of democracy rules out injustice. The fact that ‘the people’ make the laws does not rule out the possibility that the majority will pass laws which oppress, or are otherwise unfair to, the minority.”

I have written about this subject over the last couple of weeks. But it is very difficult to make those who think that democracy is God’s gift to humankind understand what message I am trying to deliver. Maybe now, with the Karpal Singh matter, you can better understand what I mean.

Democracy does not translate to justice. Democracy does not guarantee you justice. Democracy and justice do not come as a package like you think it does. That, basically, is the bottom line.

Democracy is not about equality. Hence, since there is no equality in democracy, you will never find justice as well in democracy. So those Malaysian ‘minorities’ who are screaming about meritocracy, equal treatment, fair play, justice, and so on, better wake up to this reality. Democracy is about what the majority wants and this does not always mean meritocracy, equal treatment, fair play and justice for the minorities as well.

Hence, any politician who tells you that if you give him or her power you will see meritocracy, equal treatment, fair play and justice is a liar extraordinaire. That is the biggest fallacy of all time. What will prevail in the end will merely be the tyranny of the majority over the minority (whatever ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ may mean in this context).

“The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others,” said Mill. Note ‘against his will’. This means power can be exercised over you even if you do not accept it and regard this as unfair, unjust, undemocratic, and whatnot. This is not about you. This is about preventing harm to others. And that brings us to the subject of harm and what represents harm.

The definition of ‘harm’ (also called the ‘harm principle’) will change depending on the situation. Hence it is a moving target, which will be very hard to pin down. Whose interests do you consider when you talk about harm? And would it be a reasonable definition to apply?

And here is where the philosophers have argued for 2,500 years and still cannot agree on the matter.

For example, what harm is it for Lim Guan Eng to buy a Mercedes? Okay, if you look at it merely from the point of view of money then maybe you can argue that there is no harm done. But is this the only way of looking at harm? What about harm to BMW? Since Guan Eng bought a Mercedes, BMW has suffered a sale of one car. So, to BMW, harm has been done.

This is how philosophers argue the point of harm or defend the harm principle. When you talk about harm you will always look at what your idea of harm is. But your idea of harm may not be someone else’s idea of harm as well. You may think that to argue that by buying a Mercedes Guan Eng has harmed BMW is a silly argument. But it is silly only to you, not to BMW.

So, let’s say Guan Eng loses his liberty of buying a Mercedes. Is this unjust? If you were to ask BMW they would not say it is unjust. They will think it is very just. So do not scream injustice merely by looking at your very narrow perspective of what the word means.

Finally let us talk about ‘His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant’.

This means, if a person, say, is suffering from terminal cancer, should he or she be denied the liberty of taking his/her own life? The law says taking your own life is a crime. But should laws be passed that makes a certain action that only affects you and no one else a crime?

It is a crime to kill someone else because you are doing harm to others. But when you take your own life you are not doing harm to others. Hence should euthanasia be legalised? And if not, why, since no harm is done to others?

Okay, let’s say euthanasia is now legal but you are in a coma so you are not able to take your own life. However, you have told your family that in the event you are ever in a coma with no hope of recovery then you would want your life to end. Can your family help you end your life as you wish? And if not, why, since this is your wish?

So you see, the word liberty is a very broad word and does not just mean your right to speak, assemble, write, publish, and whatnot. It is a discussion that goes deeper than just those few liberties. And liberty to some may be injustice to others. It depends on who is doing the interpreting.

What about peace of mind? What about mental tranquillity? More importantly, what about happiness?

In an earlier article I asked the question as to why humankind needs governments and if we do then for what purpose? And the answer philosophers give us is that we need governments because we need the happiness and security/protection that only governments can grant us and which will be absent in a natural state or state of anarchy.

Happiness. That is what it is all about. And that is why we tolerate governments although governments are a nuisance and normally tend to interfere in our lives and tell us what we can and cannot do. However, to seek happiness, we accept this ‘necessary evil’.

But will all of us be happy? Will happiness be guaranteed to 100% of the population?

That is just it. The government cannot guarantee happiness to 100% of the population. Governments can guarantee happiness to only the majority while the minority will have to suffer unhappiness. This is the democratic way. This is true democracy at work.

Hence if the majority are not happy with Christians using the Allah word then the government will have to pass laws to make the majority happy even if the minority becomes unhappy.

Welcome to overrated democracy.