Understanding the Sedition Act cannon

By admin-s On Sep 12, 2014

If Malay interests are not being threatened, then what is the use or relevance of having a party built on the ethos of protecting Malay interests?

Nathaniel Tan, The Ant Daily

“Know yourself, know your enemy, a hundred battles, a hundred victories.”

This slew of arrests for sedition is making many of us angry, and rightfully so. As we prepare to fight oppression, it is important to understand and contextualise this oppression as accurately as possible.

In my view, the most important approximate factor that caused this latest dragnet is nothing more and nothing less than the Umno General Assembly, to be held from November 25-29 this year.

It is useful to analyse the attitudes of some towards using the law to prosecute those who speak out against the government.

Illogical though it may seem to many of us, laws like the Internal Security Act (ISA) have historically been touted (especially to Umno’s constituencies of concern) first and foremost as a weapon of Malay power to be used against enemies of Malay hegemony.

The prevailing attitude within Umno regarding such laws remains very similar to that of an army’s pride in its artillery. They treat it as a general would treat his cannons, knowing that the true strength of his army lies in the destructive capability of those cannons.

Umno has been bred, probably more during the Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad era than any other, to propagate the idea that should those cannons be taken away from them, then they will be left with no weapons whatsoever to defend Malay interests.

Most readers of this article are likely to correctly believe that that is a load of rubbish. That does not make the belief held by many Umno members any less real to them.

We recall that Malaysians do not choose their Prime Minister directly. They chose Umno, which in turn chose Datuk Seri Najib Razak. Within our electoral system, becoming Prime Minister is thus equally about winning Umno elections as it is about winning national elections (were it otherwise, perhaps Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim would have faced considerably less trouble).

This is why those who control the government invariably use that power to appease Umno members. If an individual is not popular amongst Umno members, then that individual cannot hope to remain in control of the government for long.