Bones to pick with Rahim Noor
I am truly shocked when former Inspector-General of Police Rahim Noor said that human rights movement is like Communism.
It raises a lot of doubt about his credibility as a former top cop, judging by what he had to say about the human rights movement, and this sadly once again reflects badly on the person and office of former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed who appointed him to the post as IGP.
When I read Rahim’s statement in the press, I thought to myself, “There could have been other top cops who were more qualified than Rahim. Why were they sidelined? Why did Mahathir choose to put someone who lacks the brain to ask intelligent questions to become the top cop in the country?”
Let us analyse what he had to say. Rahim was quoted saying at a recent meeting in Kuala Lumpur: “Now, it’s the human rights wave… Before that, it was the wave of Marxism, Socialism…”
The reason why many people like me, who have heard and read about the brutality of Communism in USSR and China during the Cold War, will not hesitate to chide this former IGP is that it makes absolutely no sense in the way he had equated human rights wave to Communism.
As the proverbial saying goes, “Like frog underneath a coconut shell”, perhaps, it is only true in the Malaysian history of which he is familiar with, that we experienced the threat of Communism from China previously, and now, in the views of Rahim, the so-called human rights movement – just because Malaysians are generally fed up these days with what they see in the local politics, and are questioning the government more than what they used to be. In the Information Age, one cannot help but read and respond, unless those days when the mainstream media was the only channel of information.
Honestly, who would not speak up when one is fed up with the gutter politics such as the Datuk T’s sex scandal and, more recently, the Papa Gamo’s allegations involving the son of Lim Guan Eng, being played up by ugly Malaysian politicians and their brood of vipers?
If merely stating an opinion, like what Mat Sabu of PAS and Aziz Bari of UIA have done, can be misconstrued as “human rights wave” and they being prosecuted or given a show-cause letter, what has become of our country? Another country under a dictatorship similar to that of Muammar Gaddafi? I hope not!
If indeed, Malaysia, like Libya, would have to be liberated! If it takes Bersih 3.0, Hindraf or even the next general election to liberate this country from such dictatorship, I guess the time has come when people who share my sentiments will not hesitate to give it the last push. Enough is enough!
Human Rights Charter
Human rights movement has always been there. When Abraham Lincoln fought against slavery in the 19th century, he was fighting for human rights. When Martin Luther King fought for the rights of the black Americans in the 20th century, he was basically saying that black or white, everyone is equal in the eyes of God the Almighty.
Because of human rights movement, the blacks today enjoy better privileges and equal opportunities in America. Because of the recognition given to everyone’s right to education, our first three prime ministers were given the opportunity to be educated by the British colonial masters. Even the country’s fourth prime minister was educated in an institution set up in Singapore by the colonial masters. It is all the result of having the Human Rights Charter in place, or else most Malaysians would still be living on tree tops!
In his speech, Rahim also alluded that the Communists were the Chinese, and there were Malay leftists who were misled by the “wolves in sheep’s clothing”.
I wish to reiterate that when Rahim was probably running naked around in his kampung, one of my grand uncles was there to fight the Communists. In fact, he was murdered by the Communists, leaving behind two orphaned children, only to be looked after by a widowed auntie of theirs. To add salt to the wound, while Rahim is remembered for his assault of former deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, a fact established by the Royal Commission of Inquiry, one of the two children of this brave young Chinese man who fought the Communists became the CEO of a major independent power producer in the country and continues to contribute towards the nation’s growth in the energy sector.
Around the same time, another grand uncle of mine who could have lived a good life in Malaya decided to return to China to fight against the communists. He was a military truck driver. When Mao Zedong took over China, my uncle had to stay back in China because he was no longer allowed to return to Malaya until the early 90s when he visited Malaysia for the first time. He has remained there until today.
I am sure that there are many of us, fellow Malaysians from all races, who can say that our grandparents had resisted the Communists – and even to the point of shedding their blood – to prevent Malaysia from falling into the hands of the Communists, but Malaysians should not forget that the Chinese community also fought the Japanese, when a number of Malays were collaborating and allowing the Japanese army to invade the then Malaya.
During the Japanese Occupation, the Malay rulers had no powers as rulers of their own homeland. During World War II, the Japanese army, like the Nazis, did not recognise human rights. In fact, anyone who dared to question them was immediately shot to death in public places or had their heads rolled.
It was against such backdrop that the Human Rights Charter was drafted and later adopted by the United Nations. Since Malaysia is a member nation of the UN General Assembly and recognises human rights, is Rahim saying that Malaysia is also a country with Communist inklings?
Firing stray bullets
Malaya, during the British rule, had resisted against the Communists. Therefore, I do not see any logic in what was said by Rahim. If the British had fought against the Communists, therefore, they must be good. Why then did Rahim rile against the British and the United States for being the “spiritual home” to the religion he calls “human rights wave”?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (see http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/), which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on Dec 10, 1948, pre-dates even the Communist era of Mao Zedong, who only became the chairman of the People’s Republic of
China a year later on Oct 20, 1949.
The charter was drafted by Dr Charles Malik (Lebanon), Alexandre Bogomolov (USSR), Dr Peng-chun Chang (China), René Cassin (France), Eleanor Roosevelt (US), Charles Dukes (United Kingdom), William Hodgson (Australia), Hernan Santa Cruz (Chile) and John P Humphrey (Canada). It is not as though the United States and the United Kingdom dominated this entire thing called the Human Rights Charter.
If anything, we are told, the Human Rights Charter was only drafted as the result of the experience of the Second World War, where innocent civilians suffered in the hands of Nazi war criminals in the same manner in which Anwar suffered a blue black eye in the hands of men like Rahim.
By making such bizarre statements, Rahim has joined the fray of politicians who continue to fire strayed bullets instead of engaging with their opponents on intellectual discussions to prove they are more capable of running the country.
By saying that we are now seeing the human rights wave just because Malaysians are generally more vocal these days, it is as good as saying that former prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, had communist inkling because in 1974, he visited China and shook hands with Chairman Mao Zedong when both UK and the Americans were still having Cold War with Communist China.
Looking back, suffice it to say therefore that, if the current wave is the human rights wave, the previous administration under Mahathir was the Communist and Socialist wave, simply because under the dictatorial rule of Mahathir, none of his dissidents could openly challenge him without being thrown into prison.
Rahim, for goodness’ sake, if you had faded into obscurity, no one would have remembered your brutality in the manhandling of Anwar.
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