Is Malaysia going back into the Dark Ages?

Ahmad Mustapha Hassan, The Ant Daily

While most countries are moving forward and try to achieve a well informed, liberal and fully developed nation status, Malaysia can only be said to be regressing. It is receding into the Dark Ages.

Fear of losing power is something most feared by politicians and political parties. This is especially so with Umno Baru/BN that has been governing (or misgoverning) Malaysia for over 50 years since independence. To them any means used to stay in office is fair game. Thus their actions focus only in retaining power.

It dismisses the feedback loop that reports the unhappiness felt by the people. It has made itself blind to what is happening in the country by convincing itself that everything is working well.

It simply refuses to acknowledge that things are not working well at all and that democracy in the country is being tampered with. Colonial era Acts which the British masters had used to stifle dissent in the country were retained and reused to silence the rumblings in the country.

The Internal Security Act was abolished as had been promised as that was a British era enactment to curtail the rising tide of nationalism. However another colonial era legislation, the Sedition Act, has been liberally used to create the same effect.

Thus begins Malaysia’s journey into the Dark Ages.

Even a funny parody Internet page on Facebook had been declared as being seditious and the person so alleged as being behind this parody comes under the purview of this pernicious enactment.

A university law lecturer who had given his professional opinion on matters concerning the constitution had also been subjected to this act. An academician is one who delves into a subject in its totality so that his students will understand the topic very thoroughly and help nurture critical minds and they are encouraged to ask questions in order to find the truth on any matter before them. That is how any reputable university will teach its students. They are not in primary school.

Sedition as explained in the dictionary is “an illegal action inciting resistance to lawful authority and tending to cause the disruption or overthrow of the government”. A professional opinion by a noted law professor is simply not an action bounded by the above meaning of sedition. But he was charged thus.

A government that refuses to listen to criticisms by the people is an autocratic government and no longer a government that practices democracy. The feedback loop is very important to any democratically elected government. It is from this loop that the government can readjust its programmes and policies to suit the needs of the people. Without that, all government agenda might be off- tangent to the needs of the people. In other words the loop will place governments close to the people and not being divorced from those whom they are governing.

But once the government had instilled the fear syndrome on the people through acts that were used by the colonial regime to stifle dissent then it only means that the government has refused to understand the challenges that it is facing and also it is pushing the country backwards. This would also mean that the people will be deprived of rounded information and knowledge concerning developments around them. They will be ignorant of happenings around them as there is no channel whereby objective and truthful information can be obtained.

But today is the age of the internet. It is therefore difficult for any government to curtail information from the people. The people will not allow themselves to be pushed back like in the old days. Colonial era laws may work during the imperialist period but that period had gone and the people are no longer blind to what is happening in the country.

Repressive enactments that restrict the population from hearing and knowing different views from that of the government have no more place in this modern world. It is the right of the people to question the government as it was they who put this government in power.

The action of the government in only targeting the opposition and those who criticize what the government is doing or not doing only shows the intolerance practised by the authorities.

Using repressive measures to maintain power will no longer work as the people are much wiser and know what their rights are.

UMNO Baru/BN, stop aping your colonial masters!

Abolish the Act as had been promised.

Ahmad Mustapha Hassan is a former press secretary to second Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein and the writer of the book, “The Unmaking of Malaysia”.