Ismail Sabri’s freedom of speech faux pas

Just because you won the election does not make you a clever politician, as Ismail Sabri may have just discovered. A clever politician is one who knows what to say, when to say it, and who to say it to. Sometimes in closed-door meetings you may say one thing but in public you will need to say the opposite.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has discovered the hard way that there is a limit to what you can say after all, especially if you are in the government. Maybe the Minister was fooled by all that talk by the opposition and the human rights and civil liberties activists that Malaysians should be allowed absolute freedom of expression, even if you insult Prophet Muhammad like Charlie Hebdo.

Actually, it all depends on what you say, who you are saying it to, and who is doing the saying. There is no one-size-fits-all rule here. Then we also have to take into consideration the local laws and cultural norms of that particular society.

Also important is whether your ‘target’ is the majority or the minority. The minority can whack the majority but it is not politically correct for the majority to whack the minority.

For example, an Asian can say that Britain’s economy is in trouble because the British (meaning the whites) are lazy and prefer to be on welfare and free healthcare instead of working and paying their own way. Many do, in fact, say this.

But the whites cannot go and say that Britain’s economy is in trouble because too many Asians migrate to Britain and enjoy all the benefits such as welfare and free healthcare even though they have not been paying any tax like the whites have. This can be considered a racist statement, at best, or hate speech, at worst.

We can call a Frenchman a Frog, a German a Hun, a British a Limey, an American a Yank, an Australian an Aussie, but not a Pakistani a Paki because Pakistanis are not the majority in England. Even worse would be if you were to call a Chinese a Chink although Chinese can call whites ‘devils’ — ang moh kui.

Ismail Sabri is Malay and a Minister from the ruling party. Hence he needs to be very careful about what he says. He is also a Muslim. So he cannot go and say that he opposes the idea of replacing secularism with an Islamic State and to implement the Islamic Sharia laws of Hudud.

Even if he does oppose the Islamic State and Hudud he must not openly say it but ‘silently’ oppose it by not saying he supports it. Hence it would not be silence is consent but silence is not consent.

DAP is neither Malay, Muslim or a member of the ruling coalition. Hence, on the platform of democracy and civil liberties, DAP leaders can openly oppose the Islamic State and Hudud and say that such a system is cruel and archaic.

And PAS, which is a friend of DAP and an enemy of Umno, will have to say that they agree to disagree with DAP for not supporting the Islamic State and Hudud but condemn Umno as fasiq, munafiq, tahud, etc., for not supporting the Islamic State and Hudud.

I know this sounds very complicating and to some may even sound hypocritical. But then this is politics and in politics you must be very clever in how you articulate your views and present your arguments. Umno must not openly oppose the Islamic State and Hudud or else they will be considered bad Muslims but DAP can openly oppose the Islamic State and Hudud because they are not Muslims.

In time you will get to understand how Malaysian politics should be played — so be patient.

For Malays to say that the Chinese and Indians are pendatang can be perceived as a racist statement. However, if the Chinese and Indians say that the Malays are also pendatang because they originally came from Yunan in China, that will be considered a historical fact and there is nothing racial about that statement. And any Malay professor who argues differently can be labelled as a kangkung professor — nothing racial about that.

Just because you won the election does not make you a clever politician, as Ismail Sabri may have just discovered. A clever politician is one who knows what to say, when to say it, and who to say it to. Sometimes in closed-door meetings you may say one thing but in public you will need to say the opposite.

For example, in a closed-door meeting with Malays only you may say that we need to defend Malay rights (even though there is no such thing in the Federal Constitution of Malaysia). Just make sure no one is secretly recording what you say on his or her mobile phone, which later goes viral on the Internet.

Publicly, though, you must not say this, unless you are Perkasa or Isma. Publicly you must say that all Malaysians are equal and the New Economic Policy (NEP) has already outlived its purpose and should be abolished in favour of meritocracy.

It is not easy being a politician, unlike those of us who are Bloggers and who can say what the hell we like even if you do not like what we say. Politicians need to tailor their statements to suit the crowd they are talking to. They need to be versatile and to be able to swing from one stand to the opposite stand, even in the same day.

It is even more difficult when the crowd you are talking to is a mixed crowd and you need to please everyone at the same time. For example, when you have Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, etc., in the crowd and you want to talk about, say, the Islamic State and Hudud, you cannot support it or oppose it, as you will make one side happy and the other side unhappy. So what do you do?

You then say you have two stands. You say that as a Muslim you certainly will not oppose the Islamic State and Hudud. However, that is only your personal view, as a Muslim.

As a Pakatan Rakyat leader you feel that the matter needs further discussion and the people need to first be educated and convinced about the matter and at this stage you abstain until such a time in the future when everyone can unanimously agree one way or another as to whether the present secular system needs to be retained or it needs to be changed.

However, whatever happens must take into consideration the Federal Constitution of Malaysia and only if the Constitution is amended by majority vote can the change be considered constitutionally legal and if this happens then you will go along with the wishes of the majority whatever that wish may be.

Now, that is the mark of a clever politician, which Ismail Sabri should seriously take note of.