Are laws a violation of our civil liberties?
These are just some examples and the list can be very long indeed. Laws must be based on you must not harm others. Other than that, you can do what you want. If you want to smoke ganja then so be it. Why is that a crime? You get sent to jail if you smoke ganja but nothing happens if you drink a whole bottle of brandy and collapse on the floor. Yet ganja is far safer than an overdose of brandy.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
My lawyer and good friend, Gobind Singh Deo, has just signed in on his first day of work as the Minister of Communications and Multimedia. It was ten years ago when Gobind walked into court to inform the judge he was representing me as my lawyer to face the charge of sedition. I did not ask Gobind to act as my lawyer, he just walked in and volunteered his services and did not charge me one sen.
Once we sat down in a pub near his office to talk about PAS and why his late father, Karpal Singh, was so opposed to PAS, Hudud and so on. Gobind did not become his father’s apologist or attack PAS for its ‘Islamic stand’. And I know Gobind did not do this just because he knows I am a staunch PAS supporter. All Gobind did was smile and said, “My father is ‘old school’. Let him say what he wants. We just listen and allow him his space to give his views.”
And have you noticed one thing? Over the last three years I have been attacking Pakatan Harapan and DAP and Gobind did not once attack me back. He allowed me my right to disagree in the spirit of we agree to disagree. I hope, as a new cabinet minister, Gobind will do what he said today, which is he will review and/or repeal some laws that violate our civil liberties.
Gobind defended me in court when I was charged under the Church of England’s Sedition Act
I once wrote some years back that Malaysia is an over-regulated country, in that we have too many laws. And many of these laws were inherited from the time Malaya was a British colony. And some of these laws go back centuries to the time when The Church laid down the laws.
If there was one good thing that Napoleon Bonaparte did for France it was to remove the powers of the church and introduce secularism or the separation of the church and state. Even education used to be under the control of the church and Napoleon changed this by setting up public schools, not just for the elite like before, but for everyone and anyone who wanted to get an education.
That eventually not only changed France but it changed the whole of Europe. Nationalism emerged and Monarchies and Empires collapsed. This, of course, led to wars as new territories and boundaries were created — the result of nationalism, and the result of language and cultures determining these new territories and boundaries.
Napoleon got rid of the church and the entire Europe transformed
This division is still going on until today like what is happening in the Crimea, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, etc. — new territories and boundaries are being created.
Some have said I am an anarchist. That may be true but do not mistake anarchist as also being a supporter of the violent overthrow of the government. The Cambridge dictionary defines an anarchist as ‘someone who wishes to destroy the existing government and laws’. Other definitions are nihilist, insurgent, agitator, subversive, guerrilla, terrorist, etc.
But then there is another definition of anarchist: people who want to live under their own authority. Wikipedia explains anarchism as ‘a political philosophy that advocates self-governed societies based on voluntary institutions’.
Ayah Pin the Anarchist
I suppose Ayah Pin’s commune would best describe such a set up. (READ MORE on Ayah Pin or Ariffin Mohammed HERE).
Anyway, the subject today is: are laws a violation of our civil liberties and is Malaysia an over-regulated country? Being an ‘anarchist’, I would say yes. And I hope Gobind will not only look at the laws under the purview of his ministry but all laws in general.
Gobind defended me in my sedition trial so he knows what I mean. How in the first place did Malaysia even have a Sedition Act? Well, I have written about this before.
When King Henry VIII of England broke away from Rome and set up the Church of England, there was a lot of opposition from the Papists. The common belief is that Henry did this because he wanted to divorce his wife and the Vatican forbade him from doing so. Actually, that is just one reason and not the main reason.
Henry VIII broke away from Rome and created the Church of England, and introduced the Sedition Act to silence all dissent
England was constantly at war and the nation was practically bankrupt. The Crown needed to raise money so one way was to increase taxes. The Nobles had to pay more taxes than before but the Church was exempted from paying any tax. The Church was rich because it owned 20% of all the land in England and it was sending huge sums of money to Rome, making the Vatican even richer.
So, King Henry broke away from Rome, made himself the head of the Church of England, and rampas or confiscated all the church property. Overnight, King Henry became the richest monarch in Europe. And as a bonus, King Henry managed to marry his second wife as well.
But the many Papists who were still loyal to Rome opposed this. They also refused to accept that King Henry was God’s representative on earth. So the Crown introduced the Sedition Act that made questioning or opposing the Monarch a crime. Questioning the King tantamount to questioning God. And for that you can be put to death or the very minimum have both your ears cut off.
Sodomy or same-sex relationships are also against Christianity. So the buggery laws made that a crime punishable by death. Even up to the 1950s sodomy or same-sex relationships were crimes. And that is why Malaysia has the Sedition Act and sodomy or same-sex relationships are crimes — because the Church of England says so.
Same sex relationships is a crime because the ‘Holy Books’ say so
Civil liberties mean we decide what is right and wrong. As long as we do not harm anyone else, the state has no business telling us what we can and cannot do. Why must we be ‘legally’ married? In the UK merely living together makes you ‘legally’ married. And you can be man and man or woman and woman ‘legally’ married.
Why must Muslims be arrested if they eat during Ramadan or drink beer or have sex with someone they are not married to? Why must Muslims be sent to jail if they have sex without a piece of paper that allows them to have sex? Are these not ‘church’ laws?
These are just some examples and the list can be very long indeed. Laws must be based on you must not harm others. Other than that, you can do what you want. If you want to smoke ganja then so be it. Why is that a crime? You get sent to jail if you smoke ganja but nothing happens if you drink a whole bottle of brandy and collapse on the floor. Yet ganja is far safer than an overdose of brandy.
